It is interesting to note that the best part of “New Year’s Eve,” the Garry Marshall holiday clusterfuck of stardom, is the outtakes during the end credits. In them we see everyone from Halle Barry, to Jon Bon Jovi, to Seth Myers giggling through dialogue, tripping, and joking around with their cast mates. It’s thoroughly charming.

The actual movie could have taken a lesson.

Is anyone actually surprised that this movie is terrible? Even the trailer is so tone-deaf, so embarrassingly shallow, completely soaked in cynical Hollywood money, it would have been a miracle if the movie itself had been halfway decent. Surely even America, with its love of shiny white men and blonde Botox monsters, will see through this charade! Even we are not so dumb that we can be hoodwinked by a bunch of producers who took a lame, gin-sodden sketch of an idea, injected 45 stars at various stages of their career into the frame like steroids with private islands, and called it a movie! For the scales have fallen from our eyes! It’s our Arab Spring! Occupy everything! Viva la revolution!

But no. Many, many people will see this tribute to the dubious cultural touchstone of New Year’s Eve in New York City- just like many, many people will spend all day in the cold in Times Square on December 31st, waiting in line for the port-a-john and drinking surreptitiously from flasks before watching a giant ball of LED lights drop 100 feet.

I hate to sound so bitter. But this movie really got under my skin, so much so that I don’t even want to go over the various intersecting plot lines and vignettes that fills the two-hour run time. Suffice it to say there are a lot of scenes that look like they were “Love Actually” subplots cut during the editing process, then swept up from the cutting room floor by Marshall and writer Katherine Fugate and reconstituted into some sort of narrative. The characters seem to be pulled from randomly from a hat, so Zac Efron is somehow the younger brother of Sarah Jessica Parker, Bon Jovi managed to bag Katherine Heigl despite being 16 years older than her, and Robert De Niro appears to be dying of the disease that only tragic Victorian heroines get after staying out all night in the rain. There’s also no time to actually get to know any of these people (the only character I can actually name is Bon Jovi, who has the weird and hilarious rock moniker of “Jensen”). But no time for characterization is actually a good thing, since it means that none of them have to display anything resembling a personality trait.

Michelle Pfeiffer comes close to actually acting, playing a downtrodden music industry paean who quits her job and asks Efron to help her complete her New Year’s resolutions from the prior year. Through the muck of the terrible dialogue there is a pulse of chemistry between Pfeiffer and Efron. Somehow I feel this would have been a much more interesting movie if it was just about them in a hotter “Harold and Maude” scenario.

The movie isn’t funny, it isn’t particularly sweet, and, like its predecessor “Valentine’s Day”, it spends most of its time trying to convince us that New Year’s Eve is a super-duper important holiday that has all sorts of meaning and significance! Like love and…family…and…whatever, everyone shut up and dance to “Firework!”

Halfway through listing all of the reasons I hated “New Year’s Eve”, it occurred to me that this is hardly the only piece of Hollywood garbage lobbed at the American public this year. Hell, it’s not the only one lobbed this week. So why do I hate it more than anything else I’ve seen this year? Why do I hate it more than “Transformers 3,” or “Gnomeo and Juliet”, and in such a visceral, gut wrenching, violent way? Perhaps because “New Year’s Eve” doesn’t even try to trick you into thinking it’s a film with any merit. It doesn’t have any sense of narrative, or artistry or fun. It doesn’t try to entertain you, or give you something to think about. It doesn’t even really have any characters.

Because the truth is “New Year’s Eve” isn’t a film at all. It’s an ATM.

Spoiler alert

I don’t know where to begin. Perhaps with the sense of repulsion, betrayal, and disappointment I felt after I struggled to remain awake for the midnight opening of “Sex and the City 2.” Or maybe the flagrant disregard and insensitivity to Arab and Muslim culture. No, I’ve got it, the utter lack of plot. This 146-minute festival of overdone fashions, forced comedy that fell flat on its face, and frivolous dialogue left a bad taste in my mouth. Even my five inch silver peep-toe Stuart Weitzman pumps, entirely encrusted in crushed Swarovski crystals, were disappointed.

I went into this movie with high hopes of glamor, the declaration of unfaltering friendship, and life-like struggles of characters we’ve seen evolve from silly, uncertain girls into mature women in real relationships leading fulfilling and meaningful lives. Alas, what ensued after the previews was an incessant barrage of unnecessary whining, faux problems that were never fully presented and never wholly resolved, and an array of awkward and ridiculous dialogue that fell like a ton of bricks out of the characters’ mouths. Why producer Michael Patrick King and the gang felt the need to make another movie after the first one converged their stories into a beautifully-composed package tied with a neat and crisply perfect bow is beyond me and any comprehension I possess.

Within the first 10 minutes we are treated to the Connecticut wedding of once-enemies Anthony Marantino (Mario Cantone) and Stanford Blatch (Willie Garson). This old Hollywood movie musical-inspired scene is something out of the extravagant guidebook to weddings. Top hats, tuxedos, musical numbers, and none other than Liza Minelli, the holy grail of gay culture. Minelli, playing herself, was the wedding officiant and performed a cabaret-style (no pun intended) number to Beyonc©’s “Single Ladies” with two lookalike backup dancers. It was actually one of the more entertaining points in the movie. When best man Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) is chatting the night away with Anthony, he loudly explains that they are getting married because he will be allowed to cheat in his marriage. When Carrie brings it up to Stanford he confirms, citing that every relationship is different. Interestingly enough, it’s as if the movie condones cheating, with “make your own rules in your own relationship” being a theme in the first movie. I’m all for individuality and forgoing labeling and trying to be happy whatever way that may be, but I’m sorry, if you are planning on cheating before the hors d’ouvres are even passed out at your own wedding, why the hell are you getting married? The whole point of marriage is stability, consistency, and fidelity; unless I’m missing something here, is it just to file taxes together and have someone to share your petty thoughts out loud with?

On the wedding night, Samantha (Kim Cattrall) sleeps with Anthony’s gorgeous brother Nicky, Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and her husband Harry are kept wide awake to the shrill screams of their daughter Rose while they share the bed with her and adopted daughter Lily, while Carrie and Big try to drown out the noise they must endure while sandwiched in between the aforementioned guestrooms with a romantic old black-and-white movie. Honestly, if you need birth control you should watch a clip with Rose in it, she really is an obnoxious toddler.

Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is the only character I can stomach throughout the entire movie. She quits her job after becoming completely fed up with the way her male superior treats her disrespectfully on a constant basis, even giving her “the hand” during a meeting involving several partners and other coworkers. It is one of the only female empowerment moments in the entire film. Her relationship with Steve seems to be completely open, honest, and happy while she does the one thing she never allowed herself to before: put her family first. It seems it was 100 percent the right choice for her.

Carrie is disgruntled with her relationship with Big. After two years of marriage she feels they have lost their “sparkle.” She wants night after night of red-carpet movie premieres and openings at impossible-to-get-into NYC restaurants and all Big wants is to cuddle while watching television after he cooks them a lovely dinner in one of their TWO apartments. After 10 years of wanting nothing but utter commitment from Big she has it, and is unsatisfied. I understand that being in your 40s and 50s makes you an active part of society and there is no reason to stay in every night, but it has been my experience that once you get married things do change, even if just slightly, as you spend more time doing everyday activities with your significant other. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that since you made a commitment to fully be with another person (I will note I am unmarried).

It just seems that Carrie doesn’t want to let go of her single life and cannot embrace getting older. Samantha is truly in denial about her age as she takes a cocktail of pills, hormones, and creams to fool her body into believing it is younger by staving off menopause. Just seems unhealthy to me.

When we catch up with Charlotte, she is overwhelmed and stressed with the burden of having to care for and pay attention to her two daughters. I should mention she is a housewife with a full-time nanny and is married to a wealthy lawyer. They live in an extravagant and epic NYC apartment. Oh, the woes of privilege. It really is embarrassing to watch her character have an utter breakdown when Lily gets red frosting hand prints on her vintage white Valentino skirt. It’s a skirt, who cooks in designer clothes, lady?

I feel I have to stop a minute to mention I am the biggest fan of “Sex and the City.” I have the DVD special box set of all six seasons in all its pink suede glory. I saw the first movie twice in 13 hours at the theater, and was emotionally affected both times. I am not one of those women who can take it or leave it, I am emotionally invested in these characters and feel a strong connection to the plot, dialogue, and plight of these women. Correction: felt.

Back to the matter at hand.

At Samantha’s ex-boyfriend, Smith Jerrod’s (Jason Lewis) movie premiere, Samantha meets the Middle Eastern businessmen who want to treat her to a trip to Abu Dhabi in the hopes she can perform a PR miracle, as she did with Smith’s career, for one of their hotels. She gladly accepts, so long as she can take the gals, which she indeed does. This sets us up thinking they are going to spend a week exploring a new culture and people and have wildly fantastic adventures. What we get is an almost impossibly luxurious hotel experience which may as well have been a mirage. At this point I’m hoping the fact I’m at the movie in the middle of the night is a mirage as well.

A personal butler for each of the girls, as well as their own sedan, is that really necessary? I understand the point of extravagance isn’t about need but rather about flaunting superfluousness, which hey, there is nothing wrong with, but when I take a vacation with my girlfriends I want to be in the same car with them and not have four foreign men waiting on us hand and foot (well, that part might be acceptable). The hotel is gorgeous and the girls indulge in poolside meals and ride camels through the desert and eat with a bedouin tribe in the middle of the sand dunes. It’s all well and fine but it seems that only Miranda has done an ounce of research into the country they are visiting and gives due diligence to the fact that women wear more conservative attire in the Middle East.

Needless to say, many faux-pas ensue, and lo and behold, who does Carrie run into in the middle of an old world Arabian souk (marketplace) but none other than her ex-fianc© Aidan Shaw (John Corbett), while she abandons a shoe shop, her spices and her passport (I was the only one in the theater to actually notice this when it happened). He is as handsome and charming as ever as they catch up and make tentative plans to have dinner while they are both in town, halfway across the world from where their romance started. When Charlotte warns Carrie of the possible dangers of going to dinner, it seems that Carrie wouldn’t go to this dinner if she felt anything would happen, she fought so much for Big and to just squander it away because she is bored is unfathomable … or is it?

Needless to say, they have dinner, and she wears a gorgeous dress with a slit up to her waist (I kid you not). It’s literally time for these characters to start acting their age; this is just inappropriate whether in Abu Dhabi, NYC, wherever. And then as they walk and talk about his three sons and their respective happy marriages, they kiss. Oy. Total hand to the forehead in confusion. She feels guilty, as she should, and sprints off into the night and back to the hotel where she immediately consults the girls. She ends up calling Big the next day and telling him on the phone that she kissed Aidan and it meant nothing. He curtly gets off the phone, seemingly apathetic.

Charlotte and Miranda have been having cocktails and letting loose on how difficult it is to be a mother and wife and deal with everyday burdens. Again, I really just cannot empathize with Charlotte; maybe someday when I have kids. Miranda offers up a toast to women who handle their families and lives everyday without full time help as the two of them have. “I just don’t know how they do it.” Growing up with a mother who worked full-time my entire life, attended every dance show, track meet, play production I was in, and cooked a homemade meal every day of the week I know that not only can it be done, it can be done with gusto. However, it seems privilege and wealth make you a little less strong when handling “commoner” problems. I was really frustrated.

I’d have to say I did think it was hilarious that Samantha got arrested for “kissing” a dishy Dane in the dunes. As Miranda forewarned, men and women do not embrace in public in the Middle East and the hospitality of Sheikh Khalid abruptly ends after this fiasco. We find out the hotel is $22,000 a night that the girls must pay for from that night onward, so they pack in a hurry and head to the airport. Gone are the glimmering cars and handsome chauffeurs; they are replaced with decrepit taxis, transportation that the rest of the world has to take. How utterly pedestrian and beneath these glamorous women. Only one small problem: the idiot Carrie has lost her passport. They return to the souk where the kindly and adorable older shoe shop keeper won’t accept payment for holding onto her passport (he is so cute and sweet, it warms my heart for the elderly).

As they finally try to weave their way through the streets of Old Abu Dhabi to try to make the new flight and still be on first-class, because god forbid they are in coach, Charlotte gets lured by someone selling watches into an upstairs area filled with what we must presume is fake bags and Rolexes. Again, they were forewarned about this, but Charlotte is like a child that has spotted something shiny, since all she can think about while they try to make their escape back to New York is getting souvenirs for Harry and her daughters. Needless to say they could’ve been in a much worse situation as the men let them leave without buying anything. However, once they hit the streets everything starts falling apart as Samantha’s purse flies through the air spilling condoms. Not to mention she is clad in shorts and a tank top because they confiscated her pills and creams upon arrival at the airport and she is getting hot flashes (clearly your body is ready for “the change,” accept it.) There are dozens of male onlookers who become infuriated with this flagrant sexual exhibition and begin to cajole and follow the girls. Samantha flips out and is giving the finger left right and center and saying she has sex (in a not so polite way), and is absolutely in a rage.

I have to say this scene was unrealistic because as sad as this truth is, had this actually happened, she would have been beaten and murdered. I’m sorry, but you do not enter a country and blatantly and loudly scream your opposition to its culture. You wouldn’t walk into a Catholic church and yell about the reasons pro-choice is important. It’s just a matter of respect for your surroundings and people. Of course there are millions of different opinions in the world and everyone is entitled to his own, but you have to have self-awareness in the situations you put yourself in.

Burka-clad women rescue them as they motion with their eyes to follow them into a quiet room right off the street. After all, this is a movie and we’re already at the two hour mark. The women remove their burkas, showing off their couture clothes from Christian Dior to Louis Vuitton, and happen to be reading the same book in their book club that Samantha was back home in New York. So we’re not all so different the girls realize, we just live our lives in a slightly different way.

Finally back home, Big doesn’t come home for nearly a day and when he returns he has a punishment for Carrie. She has to wear a gorgeous black diamond ring so she can “remember” she’s married. Is this real life? You get a piece of jewelry for cheating? It seems outlandish that he is not a little more upset; albeit, the kiss really didn’t mean anything, as she has no desire to speak to or see Aidan at all after their encounter.

Charlotte is happy to be back home but takes a “vacation” from her life every once in a while retreating to Carrie’s apartment for respite. I didn’t realize married life and motherhood was something you needed a vacation from after you just took an actual vacation 6,000 miles away. Miranda gets a job at a wonderful firm where she loves her coworkers and they are having a meeting on some gorgeous roof deck and laughing and smiling. Samantha has her way with the Dane on the Fourth of July on the hood of his Jeep. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that against the law here in the United States as well?

The fashions, always one of the main components, if not a character in and of itself, was extreme, and while at times beautiful and elegant, at some low points it was hard to distinguish the line between fashion forward and costume wear.

All seems right with the world as the unrealism continues with the girls’ perfect little endings. It seems to me this movie should never have been made and Sex and the City’s reputation would never have been blemished because of it. If there is a third movie I won’t be able to do anything but look on in horror as the car crash bursts into flames. While I was completely displeased with the second movie, I’m still a fan of what Sex and the City was up until this point. For now I’ll just have to retreat to my DVD set and the first movie in the hopes of maintaining those good feelings.

For something that was ever so fabulous for a decade, the lack of substance is just too much in the movie. My sparkly Stuart Weitzman shoes are retiring until my trip to Vegas.

"Did You Hear About the Morgans?" is a romantic comedy that is rarely funny and never romantic. Assembled from a bunch of spare parts that better movies have been perusing and using for years, the whole thing feels like a rather pointless exercise where writer/director Marc Lawrence was told to get his two actors from point A to point B in the most unoriginal and unappealing way possible.

Peter and Meryl Morgan (Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker), two high-powered New Yorkers, are a separated couple that witnesses a murder one night after having dinner (Peter is begging Meryl for forgiveness for cheating on her). The FBI, wanting to keep the two alive to testify, put Peter and Meryl in protective custody. This ends the criminal plot of the story — we never discover why the murder occurred or who the murderer might be, and the Morgans are never questioned. The crime is just an random device used to thrust the unhappy characters together.

The Morgans are whisked away to Ray, Wyoming (the most clich©d small town ever), where they are placed under the charge of two local law dogs, Clay and Emma Wheeler (Sam Elliott and Mary Steenburgen). Clay and Emma are (you guessed it!) a happily married couple that just may teach the Morgans a thing or two about how to keep those home fires burning.

What follows is basically everything you would expect. The Morgans, feeling like fish-out-of-water, have to learn how to get by without cell phones, the Internet, Starbucks and city noise to lull them to sleep at night (though I am not sure how city noise reaches the penthouse). Along the way, they encounter a grizzly bear, experience good ole fashioned country hospitality and find love again.

Hollywood has proven time and again that creaky plot devices and clich©d writing can be salvaged if stars have chemistry. Unfortunately Grant and Parker have zero. There is simply no spark.

Grant in particular feels completely stranded here. His typical turn, characterized by a kind of eccentric detachment (the bumbling, floppy Englishman), is one that can easily feel like lazy, paycheck-driven acting if not countered by an actress that he can bounce off of. Sadly Sarah Jessica Parker just doesn’t work. She comes off as too neurotic and nagging. I found myself rooting for a quickie divorce, or for the killer to find them. Whichever would get me out of the theater quicker.

Go ahead and skip "Did You Hear About the Morgans?" But if you just cant help yourself, and find yourself buying a ticket anyway, here are some questions that I was left with that could use answering. Please get back to me:

Why do all small town citizens in movies have southern accents even when the small town is 4,000 miles from the nearest southern state? Sam Elliot sounds like he is from Texas and everyone else is doing a Virginia twang.

Why do characters always have to go to a small town to reconnect and figure out what is important? Is self-reflection illegal in major cities?

Why do bad romantic comedies always have supporting characters that are more interesting and fun than the leads? In "Did you Hear About the Morgans?’ it is Meryl’s ball-busting assistant, Jackie (a nice off-type role for "Mad Men’s" Elisabeth Moss). I would totally watch a whole movie about her.

Does bear repellant actually exist?

And of course…did you hear about the Morgans?

Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick became the proud parents of twins this morning, reports abcnews.com.

Marion Loretta Elwell Broderick (5lb, 11oz) and Tabitha Hodge Broderick (6 pounds) were born to Michelle Ross, the surrogate mother for the couple, this afternoon in Ohio.

A representative for the couple said the middle names Elwell and Hodge are both family names from Parker’s side, which, in my opinion, is not a good enough excuse.

Parker and Broderick also have ‚ a 6 year old son named James Wilke (another family name, I presume?).

“The babies are doing beautifully, and the entire family is over the moon,” said the representative.

Photo: abcnews.com

The fashion is bigger and the blue-satin Manolo’s more fabulous than ever, but the story is where “Sex and the City: The Movie” really shines.
 
Forget highly-anticipated. After four Sex-deprived years, fans and interested parties alike have been holding their collective breaths awaiting the return of Charlotte, Miranda, Samantha, and ever-the-ingenue and fashion plate, Carrie.
 
It has been hard to escape the media-bonanza in recent weeks surrounding the opening of the film continuation of the acclaimed HBO series, but was it worth the four-year wait? Was there even a story to watch and follow?

The answer is a loud orgasmic scream of YES, and you can bet your $525 unworn-Manolo’s that there’s a story to be told.
 
Darren Star directs again, and the original cast is intact. The chemistry between the characters could spark a fire using the dampest logs making audiences feel like they have just come home to their family.

Reprising her role as Carrie Bradshaw, Sarah Jessica Parker beams light and energy, and is flawless. Chris Noth’s “Big” is the character you can’t help but love and feel for, despite his many faltering moments on the TV show. The “girls” — Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and the hyper and sex-obsessed-at-any-age Samantha (Kim Cattrall)– come together seamlessly, as if the series ended yesterday.

Jennifer Hudson shines as Louise, the new single gal from St. Louis. She is endearing and another Charlotte-esque eternal optimist. She helps Carrie in more ways than imaginable as her personal assistant and lends her talented and soulful voice to the soundtrack.
 
Thanks to spoilers and the detailed and eye-opening Vogue article, many people think they know the storyline: Carrie and Big, (whose name — John James Preston — we finally learned at the end of the series), get engaged, get a fabulous apartment and finally, finally, get married. But if the “Sex” series has taught us anything it is that love is never uncomplicated.
 
Hopefully, without giving anything away, the movie picks up in present day — four years after the beloved and boundary-breaking, sex-filled series sadly ended. Carrie has published three books and is still very much in love with the no longer elusive Big. Samantha has uprooted to Hollywood to manage boyfriend/movie star project Smith Jerrod’s career and has changed immensely which is difficult to discern in her character at the outset of the film. Samantha is “lost” grasping to remember her true self.
 
Charlotte, “the eternal optimist” has it all: the man of her dreams in the lovable and doting Harry and a beautiful daughter in the adorable and adopted Lily.
 
The most suprising plot twist, however, belongs to the Miranda-Steve duo, which throws a curve ball at the audience that the most skilled prophecy-maker could not have foreseen.
 
The movie tears at the heart. It literally had the audience laughing and sobbing, sometimes within the same minute span. The depth and pain and passion that comes with the happy burden of love spills from the screen, reconnecting the audience with beloved characters who have retained their quirks, loyalty and strength.
 
The stories are believable and all of the characters seem to be real, as if you could go to New York City and see Carrie and Big strolling hand-in-hand down 5th Avenue to buy some shoes. They are all so sharply written, so dynamic, so passionate and after all this time so finely tuned, it is as if they must and should be real.
 
Hardcore “Sex” fans and movie-goers who haven’t even watched a single episode of the series will all appreciate the film for its pure entertainment value. It is hysterically funny with enough new jokes and puns to fill the NYC public library. “Sex” is brimming with raw emotion that makes you think — makes you question what you really want and if you are strong enough to let yourself go after it. 
 
The movie touches on all subjects that made the series what it is: loving, cheating, unwavering friendship and of course, mind-blowing sex. 
 
Sex-starved fans won’t be soon after the movie opens. And for this reason, it is unwise for younger audiences to watch. The sex is just as big a raunchy presence as it was in the series, as audiences wouldn’t have it any other way.
 
Good friend and fellow reviewer Bobby Hankinson of the Houston Chronicle urged to “run, don’t walk, run” to see “Sex.” And now I truly, truly implore all of you to do the same. Because if someone asked “is this movie worth seeing” the answer would undoubtly be “asbo(insert expletive here)lutely”!