Holli Rausch

So we get a call from Bryce and Lindsey last weekend.  They want a compromise.  They want Miles and I to watch the first three episodes of Grey’s Anatomy and they’ll watch the first season of LOST.  Considering LOST is so awesome, we figured we could sacrifice three hours for two new fans.  Even though the compromise seemed like a last minute thought, as LOST was already queued up in their DVD player.  This compromise was made under the conditions that Miles and I post our thoughts, good or bad, about what we watched.  And Bryce had to Twitter while they watched (in an effort to get him to Tweet more often) and Lindsey had to post about it at least once.

It almost seems like a less funny Scrubs.  There are even parallel personalities of characters.  A female doctor often getting hit on and not taken seriously by patients because of her looks and femininity.  A female of a minority race (who I know later falls in love with) A black surgeon.  A doctor who picks on the interns and is seeking to be chief of their specialty.  A male doctor who is shy, and self-conscious and often mistaken to be or joked about being gay.  A doctor who is a womanizer and makes everything dirty. So in that case, it was a little annoying that I’ve already seen characters like them.  I had to get past it.

The show itself was pretty decent.  I think I would have liked it more if I hadn’t seen enough medical-type shows already.  So what would have won me over, wouldn’t have been the situations with patients, it would have been their relationships with each other and their lives outside the hospital.  I have heard enough from others and seen enough on the morning shows the following days and through roommates to know that later on there are a lot more things going on, like with George and Izzy and another character we haven’t met yet, and Burke and Christina and Meredith and Shepherd (not as cool as LOST’s Shepherd).  So it’s hard to judge interactions between characters in the first three episodes, because there’s not enough development there.

If ABC had all the episodes online (like they do for LOST), then it’s likely we’d continue watching from time to time.  Probably not several in one night, like we’ve been known to do, however.  But since they don’t, and we had to buy these three episodes to keep up our end of the deal, then it’s probably not too likely we’ll continue.  Because we’re not hooked and don’t see ourselves getting “hooked” like we are to our few shows we are faithful to.  But I’ll stop calling it Gay’s Anatomy (even though it’s so much more fun and that wasn’t part of the deal).

As a little extra joy, I watched Can’t Buy Me Love today on ABC Family or something – starring none other than a very young Patrick Dempsey.  Ha.

Ha.

I got into Sex and the City when they started playing reruns on TBS my freshman year of college. Kind of a guilty pleasure show. Somewhere in between then and now, I’ve forgotten that it used to be on HBO. Many words were changed and scenes cut for the TBS version of the show. And what they show on HBO, they also can and will show in movies. So it was a lot racier than I had expected (very naively, considering the name of the show). Putting that surprise aside, the movie was closely in line with the show.

The writing was clever and the plot wasn’t too girly, and almost never romantic – a staple of the series. In the title credits, they quickly catch the audience up on the main characters. Very quickly. Probably because almost anyone who goes to see the movie would already know the characters’ back story. But they included it for the poor husbands who get dragged to it. Luckily, my poor husband has “seen” the show and knew enough to not be lost. But not enough to follow along with the little things fans know but the movie doesn’t bring up. I’d bet most of my readers are in that category or one of less-knowledgeable viewers.

The plot was surprising – the trailer kind of tricks you into thinking one thing, but there’s a whole lot more going on. Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), as always, narrates the show because she’s a writer and is typically writing about what the audience is viewing. Not many other shows or movies could pull this off, but they do a great job. I’ve really come to respect Sarah Jessica Parker’s acting – she chooses her roles well and pulls them off with style. Her continued characterization of Carrie Bradshaw was no exception. And her relationship with Big (Chris Noth) was not quite as messed up as usual, which was nice to see. Parker has a great scene towards the beginning of the movie where she’s attacking Big with the flowers in her hand, and that was perfectly orchestrated. A great scene for both characters.

My favorite character, Charlotte (Kristin Davis) was as cute and innocent as ever, along with her husband Harry (Evan Handler – Dave or Ricky, anyone?). The relationship between Samantha (Kim Cattrall) and Smith (Jason Lewis) at the beginning of the movie surprised me, but the outcome of it all did not. It was very Samantha and Cattrall did a great job with her character and humor, as always. At first, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) seemed out of character, but I think it’s because she was happy, and she was nearly never happy on the show. Her normal behavior came back in place as her husband Steve (David Eigenberg) messes things up. His screw up seemed very out of character for him, but his fess-up and remorse definitely was Steve. And the more I think of it, people make mistakes out of character often.

No visual effects to comment on, which was a little relieving, actually. And as most of my readers don’t know/care anything about the above paragraph, I’ll keep this review shortish to spare you. A great reunion show. All in all, a great movie. For fans of the show. But expect it to be HBO-ish. If you know it’s happening, it’s not as scary.

This gets a 4 out of 5 stars.

We’ll probably be renting next week, as no movies are coming out that we’re excited to see in the next few days. Any suggestions?

This month, the themes are Summer, Sunshine and Father’s Day. Feel free to download any to your computer to use as your background! Find them at this page.