Sex and the...really? Did that have to happen?

I've always been a big fan of Sex and the City. I own every season on DVD and have watched each disc ad nauseum. Loved the characters, loved the locations, loved the clothes, loved the bad puns, loved the bad dates, loved the producers, directors, writers and actors—be they regulars or guests. But here's the thing. Six seasons was enough. In fact, they were pushing it a little with numero seis. Around then, the girls were starting to get a little long in the tooth to be humping Manhattan.

While the last season was tied up a little too picture perfectly, it was a satisfying end to the reign of four fillies in the big city. When I heard talk of a movie shortly after the show wrapped, I thought, "Uh-oh. Please, don't. Leave well enough alone." And they did. For awhile.

I recently read a quote from Kim Cattrall where she explained why she famously resisted the movie talk four years ago. At the time, she thought people would hear about a big-screen version and ask, "Them again? Already?" Which pretty much sums up my feelings about this film present day. Minus the "already."

The fawning press hype has not helped. Towering billboards. A dedicated Entertainment Weekly issue. A lavishly produced Vogue spread with size 0 SJP worshipped as fashion icon of all friggin' time and enrobed in all manner of fantastic couture whipped concoctions. Blah, blah, blah, blah.

I guess it's just a sign that people need something fluffy and fabulous to latch onto right around now. Something to remind them of a less topsy-turvy world when it was OK to drink pink things to excess and throw down hundreds of dead presidents for a spiked heel with a skinny strap.

I don't blame the hoi polloi for that. But I also don't want to queue up to worship at the Manolo'd forty-something feet (and evidently fifty-something for Cattrall—gotta give the lady props) of Sam, Miranda, Carrie and Charlotte at the cinema. It just feels wrong.

And watching the video clip from the film (above)—the only scene I've seen except for a clip in the commercial where coloring with crayons served as an awkward euphemism for sex—I have to say: Ouch. Yuck. Ew. (And not just because I skeeve out when people talk with their mouths full of food.)

It feels forced. A painful caricature. A Carrie-cature! You know Ms. Bradshaw (or should I call her Mrs. Big?) would be proud of that one.

Girls, forgive me, but I want to remember you as you were.