Like seeing Christmas decorations at the mall during Halloween season, there are few things I hate more than premature hype.
As a film buff, I’m not above the hype; I love the previews as much as the next person, and I can always be seen perusing the internet for new projects and casting announcements. In fact, during the movie off-seasons, such as early fall (too late for summer blockbusters) and early spring (when the Oscars have already been handed out), I live off watching early teaser-trailers for movies that won’t be released for months. I even get excited over films so far from seeing the light of day, they don’t even have official titles yet (“Cloverfield,” anyone?).
However, there is a big difference between seeking out an exciting new trailer online and being bamboozled with plot twists for a new film while innocently looking through the pages of People for my weekly celebrity gossip fix.
The film I’m specifically griping about is “Sex and the City: The Movie.”
While it is purportedly a closed set, like most eagerly awaited and highly buzzed upcoming films, I wouldn’t exactly call the film set Fort Knox, considering all of the pictures and story details have already been leaked when the film itself wasn’t even announced until this past July.
Now, before you draw hasty conclusions on how I am one of those people that finds Charlotte too wide-eyed, Miranda too cynical or Samantha too slutty, know my love for this excellently-written, insightful and hilarious HBO comedy (especially considering many of the episodes were written by men). I am eagerly awaiting this film, considering it took a good four years to finally find its way from script to set. And with most of the writing staff, main producers and cast members coming back for a second helping, “Sex and the City: The Movie” seems to be a strong bet.
However, when I’m forced ““ by way of entertainment blogs, magazine photos, and even Facebook ““ to hear every intricate detail from a film that’s not coming to theaters for another eight whole months, something has got to be done.
I respect the fans that live for every new secret and set reveal, but in everyday publications such as People or Entertainment Weekly, there should be a spoiler warning or something to draw the line for those less hype-friendly such as myself.
I want to watch the film on a big screen with a couple of my gal pals in its entirety, not hearing and seeing bits and pieces day after day of a product very far from completion and viewer satisfaction.
Spoiler warning! (See, it’s not that hard.) I don’t want to know that Carrie marries Big, I don’t want to know that Charlotte finally gets pregnant and I especially don’t want to hear about any lame flashback sequences to the quartet’s fun-loving younger years in the dreaded 80’s. I saw some of those pictures online and they weren’t pretty.
In the words of Carrie Bradshaw herself, “It kind of makes me wonder … ,” are we, as a society, in our world of instant gratification via the wonderful World Wide Web, bound to always spoil the ending?
With obsessive fan Web sites dedicated to bringing users up-to-the-minute, you-heard-it-here-first tidbits, everyone ends up a loser rather than a winner in this saturated society. The biggest fans end up ruining the movie for themselves and others.
I used to be the epitome of curiosity killing the cat. I would scour the house until I found my birthday and Christmas presents weeks before, ruining the actual holiday for myself time and time again. When I was an avid Smallville fan in high school, I always knew the latest plot developments and cliff-hangers months before they aired. So I never got to really enjoy the episodic revelations because of my peeking, and I’ve tried to shape up ever since. But this spoiler-heavy culture we currently live in is not.
Considering the close tabs kept on Lindsay and Britney’s latest debaucheries, it seems America has its eyes glued to the entertainment world for good. And considering the amount of coverage and tight-lipped information some of these outlets are able to offer, there is apparently a thriving market out there to keep funding such operations. But for those of us trying to get the whole experience, who would rather truly enjoy a 90-minute film than receive temporary satisfaction from a few photographs, let’s keep the hype to a minimum.
And now that I think about it, is there anything we can do about those early Christmas decorations?
If you have any other new scoops about “Sex and the City: The Movie” do NOT e-mail Stanhope at kstanhope@media.ucla.edu.