This is a six-page magazine spread done using Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign.

1. More ‘Sex,’
and the City
is Happy
About it
By MELENA RYZIK
One recent afternoon Bettiann
Fishman climbed a ladder in front
of the New York Public Library on
Fifth Avenue and brought a bullhorn
to her mouth. “Hey, everybody,” she
down?
said, addressing crowds gathered on
a tourist
the library steps, on the sidewalk
from Italy
and in the street. “We’re going to roll
pleaded. Just for a
now, so please don’t shoot.
moment a picture for my
Around her, dozens of crew friends. A publicist obliged. Nearby
members prepared for what should
an assistant managed a cart laden
have been a straightforward scene in
“Sex and the City,” the movie. But with identical bouquets of white and
the 60-second moment — in which red roses and purple orchids. And
the stars arrive in a limo and walk teetering on enormously high heels
up the steps — took hours to shoot, while looking way too glam for daytime
partly because of the constantly were Samantha (Kim Cattrall, in a
surging onlookers armed with video red gown with plunging décolletage),
cameras, cellphones and attitude. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon, in a slim
(Just one exchange: “Don’t touch royal-blue sheath), Charlotte (Kristin
me!” “How ’bout I knock your brains Davis, architectural black) and
finally Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker
out?”)
in a poufy, off-white confection by
Desperate fans snapped photos of Vivienne Westwood). The girls were
the empty directors chairs. Can I sit ohmigod! going to a wedding.
All Photos Courtesy of HBO

2. When “Sex and the City,” the movie, began shooting editor visiting from Vienna, Va., read about the to put toxic bachelors and randy Manhattan nights
in New York this fall, the sight of its stars was both production online and came to watch. “It’s just cool behind them.
commonplace and traffic-stopping, breathlessly to be here, knowing this is going to be in the movie,”
“That sort of wanton lust, it’s just not at the
chronicled by bloggers and gossip writers. (Gawker. she said. “Unless this is one of those things they do
surface of their skin anymore,” Ms. Parker said.
com cattily called it “The Most Important Movie to throw us off.”
“What’s important to me is that Carrie isn’t
Ever Filmed in New York.”) Every outdoor setting
A warning to anyone who has not obsessively frivolous and silly, that there is sophistication to
inspired wicked speculation about story lines and
followed coverage of the film, scheduled for a May her. She’s making a serious attempt at making
behind-the-scenes relationships. Even the cast and
30 release: There may be spoilers ahead. Or not. grown-up decisions about love and about life
crew were surprised by the level of attention.
Despite the nearly constant presence of choices.” (For the record, in the film Carrie is
“It’s like seeing the movie on ‘Access cameras and the obvious visual cues (Ms. on her third book, Samantha has moved to Los
“I
Hollywood’ before it’s out,” Michael Parker’s wedding dress; Ms. Davis in Angeles, Charlotte dotes on her new family, and
don’t
Patrick King, the screenwriter and a pregnancy belly), the filmmakers Miranda still lives in, and hates, Brooklyn.)
director, said. have taken pains to mask the plot
want it to just The characters’ aging will also determine
from ravenous fans.
From the basement of the the way they interact with the city because
be cocktails or
Bryant Park Hotel, where she “They really aren’t hearing the “32-year-olds go out and get drunk and sleep with
dessert. I want
was hiding from the crowds after dialogue,” Mr. King said. “They’re inappropriate men in bars downtown,” Mr. King
the library shoot, Ms. Parker not knowing how the characters said. “And 42-year-old girls maybe don’t. Today
it to be a full
said, “I basically just look down interact. There’s emotional stuff they’re out in front of the library getting married.
between every take because it’s too in the movie that no one has ever That would’ve never happened in the 32-year-old
meal.”
hard if you look up and you see the seen.” New York.”
perimeter is madness.”
But the audience reaction was a Later he added: “In the series we chased the
just be cocktails or dessert. I want it to be a full
Though the television series ended its six- central preoccupation during the seven minutiae of being single a lot, the turn of a rejection
meal.”
year run on HBO in 2004, many viewers follow it on months it took him to write the script, especially since phrase — you’re a ‘plus one,’ but no one came. The
DVD or in syndication here and abroad. For them the characters are aging beyond their gal-about-town When last we left our heroines — Miranda, the movie has those details, but they’re not as obsessive.
“Sex and the City” is a continuing affair, one that ways. At one point Mr. King, an executive producer of no-nonsense lawyer and mother turned reluctant When you’re four single girls sitting around a coffee
still envelops New York with the promise of liberation the series, retreated to a small hotel in the California shop, you have the luxury of time, and when you’re a
Brooklynite; Samantha, the sexually adventurous
through trapeze lessons, bottomless cosmopolitans desert to help him focus. little bit more grown up, it’s a luxury just to talk.”
public relations queen and cancer survivor; Charlotte,
and will-they-or-won’t-they sex.
the sweet-natured wife; and Carrie, the relationship
“I want the audience to leave the movie feeling But what to talk about? Once the show had to
Melissa Rosenberg, 25, a Washington Post copy feted and exhausted,” he said. “I don’t want it to columnist and Manolo fetishist — they seemed ready educate the world about its glitzy cocktails-and-
uiz: How
3. What does Samantha 5. Carrie’s new editor at 7. What gift does Carrie 9. According to Carrie,
heCity Q ex?
what does one minus a
give Brady to lull him to leave for Aidan at his new
ex and t
Vogue is named...
S plus one add up to?
sleep? bar?
a: Yvette
w your S
a: 0
do you kno
a: Her vibrator a: Mulberry bush
b: Enid b: 1
well
b: A kiss b: Champagne
c: Marie c: 2
c: A sip of her cosmo c: Cigar
10. What does it say
6. Who does Carrie dedi-
on the bus billboard
4. What is Carrie’s
2. Where does Carrie go 8. When Carrie tries
1. According to Carrie what cate her book to? about Carrie?
on her book tour? email screen on a wedding dress,
does it take to make a re- a: Big a: Carrie Bradshaw
a: San Francisco name? she...
lationship last until “death knows good sex
b: Charlotte
b: Los Angeles a: Sexpert a: Faints
do us part? b: Carrie Bradshaw gives
c: San Diego c: Miranda
b: Nycgirl b: Has a panic attack
a: Zsa zsa zsu good sex
b: Oooompa- pah c: Cries
c: Shoegal
c: Carrie Bradshaw is sexy
c: Zippidee do daa

3. nary:
charge-card culture. Now everyone else has caught the costume designer Patricia Field made famous a glossy shadow — has made the film harder to
Sexio
do, Ms. Parker and Mr. King said. Only
up — and perhaps moved on. few years ago will be post-post-over.
a few series have successfully made the
he
T
“I sometimes get blamed for the meatpacking “To get spring-summer for ’08, it was transition from TV screen to movie screen
district, yes,” Mr. King said. “And I’m this strategizing and finessing and with the same cast. “I feel like Mr. Spock,”
terms you ..
sorry. But it can be nice on certain negotiating,” Ms. Parker said. “We Ms. Nixon said.
The top 5 until now.
“We
nights. And it can be awful on would get clothes for, like, four
would As a lauded theater actress, did she even
other nights. Like New York, you hours, and then there would
idn’t know
get clothes for, miss playing Miranda? “I did miss her,” she
know?” be someone from Yves Saint
d
said. “I missed the whole thing. I missed the
Laurent standing there
that
like, four hours, and
Still, coming up with next
expression
fictional people. I missed the real people. I
and stripping me of them
n dj.): a ly by
year’s “it” spots wasn’t easy. missed the crew and the day-to-day of shooting
and taking them back.”
glutely (away deliverable on
then there would be ckin
“We talked to some people the series.”
1. Absocfurtainty in a
in publishing and magazines Ms. Parker is a hands-
someone from Yves Saint on producer (“I like denotes eig n an
and fashion, single people The movie is a different story. Despite the best
n.): whgeuy and
B
Mr. ing (
who don’t have drinking
Laurent standing there for people,” responsible that I feel efforts, and cursing, of Ms. Fishman — a first
dent Cboem use he 's a nice
problems whose recollection assistant director now known as Bullhorn Betti
she said),
pen
2. Codekes orgasms ca
and stripping me of
you can rely on,” said — the photographers at the library, both amateur
but she also is actressy
woman faell
Ms. Parker, who has been a
sensa-
and professional, kept shooting. “Did you hear the
enough that she doesn’t
the stange already
them and taking ns w
producer since the show’s first paparazzi yelling at me because they didn’t like
watch dailies, though she
ct n.):
mea
uck (absrta someone you've
season. Big and crowded is out; where I was standing for their shot?” Ms. Davis said.
did make sure there were
F
3. Deja-you're fucking
them back”
intimate is in. They shot in classic “I moved, and then I was, like, what am I doing?”
softening filters on the camera
tion that
places like the Carlyle Hotel and lenses.
ple, and
dka, pinap
In the end the film’s success will depend on much
Raoul’s, the SoHo bistro. And they
ed
fuck us): vo
the same thing as the TV show’s: the women and the
(n.,fabulo
have seasons: While the series was set in A “Sex and the City” movie was in
i
4. Flirtine
city.
what Mr. King called “eternal spring,” the movie the works immediately after the series ended
an
n.): a wom
gn
takes place over a full year. but was scuttled when Ms. Cattrall wouldn’t agree to
champa proper
te Bridea(tment
“For me the whole movie is the streets,” Ms. Parker
appear.
sta
5. RearlrE to get an ap r
said. “Because that’s where all the promise and potential
Which brings us to the clothing. Ms. Parker began
is. That’s the romance. That’s the hope. That’s where
fittings in August, just before Fashion Week, for her es
The delay, coupled with the continuing “S.A.T.C.”
who ma i
single women walk out the door every day, and they
80 or so costume changes. But by the time the movie mania — it is nearly impossible to reference
just don’t know what is two steps away.”
comes out, this season’s version of the flower pins that contemporary urban womanhood without the show’s