San Francisco Chronicle - May 25, 2008
Carolyne Zinko, czinko@sfchronicle.com

The club was hosting a pre-premiere party themed to the "Sex and the City" film opening in theaters on Friday, and judging by the size of the crowd, it seemed people can't wait to find out what has happened in the fictional lives of the fiercely fashionable foursome - Carrie Bradshaw, Charlotte York, Miranda Hobbes and Samantha Jones.

Not only had many of the women present watched every episode of the seven-year hit series on HBO - a series that became a cultural phenomenon with its insights about sex and the single life and that made Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo household names - but they'd also taken the Facebook.com quiz to find out which character in the cast they most resembled. Guys were there because, being guys, they wanted to meet girls.

"I'm Charlotte," said Patty Garcia, a 23-year-old financial analyst from San Francisco, sipping cocktails with four friends. Two of them, Mercedes Leoncio and Antigone Skoulas, both 24-year-old students at University of the Pacific School of Dentistry, said the quiz showed they were Carrie.

"The show is like our life - enjoying the city and having a good time with our girlfriends," said Garcia. "I learned from the show to enjoy life and enjoy the moment and ..."

"... Take advantage of men, especially in bars," piped in another friend, Valerie Fong, 23. "Take all the drinks you can get!"

That may not be the message Carrie Bradshaw, the newspaper columnist and central character on the show, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, would have intended, but it was the sort of retort that might have been uttered by the sharp-tongued sex bomb Samantha Jones, a public relations woman played by Kim Cattrall.

It was all in good fun, which was the point of the evening. The "Sex and the City" premiere is providing a good excuse to party, as everyone from groups of gal pals to department stores to official film sponsors knows - they're all planning parties based on the film's theme.

Evite.com made it easy - as of this week, more than 7,900 events across the nation had been organized with the words "sex" and "city" in the titles, according to statistics provided by the Los Angeles company.

"With the movie coming out this week, I'm sure these numbers will continue to climb," said Lariayn Payne, vice president of marketing for Evite. "People tend to plan movie outings a little closer in to the date than other types of get-togethers, so we should see a big ramp up into the weekend. At this rate, I'm sure Evite 'Sex and the City' parties will break 10,000 nationally by the end of the week."

The fictional Samantha appealed to public relations women such as Laiko Bahrs, a PR and marketing account supervisor at Andrew Freeman & Co., which specializes in the restaurant and hospitality industry.

Bahrs belongs to a networking group called PR Divas, and 20 of its members are meeting at Bong Su restaurant, one of her clients, for a cocktail party and benefit for Dress for Success before heading to the theater to see the film Friday.

Bahrs, like the characters on the show, is single. She's not dating at the moment, but is always on the lookout. And she's not the only one.

"I have millions of single friends," the 44-year-old said. "It's amazing."

The show's continuing appeal, she said, lies in the way it portrays female friendships and the characters' relationship with New York City. Certain aspects, she noted, required suspending one's disbelief - most notably, the way Carrie Bradshaw dressed in designer clothes and $500-a-pair Manolo Blahnik shoes on a journalist's budget, and the uber-active sex life that Samantha led.

More realistic, she said, was Carrie's on-again, off-again relationship with Mr. Big, played by Chris Noth.

"Many of us have had these kinds of relationships go on longer than need be, where you felt the guy was 'the one,' " Bahrs said. "You quit each other a lot, you'd go back and forth over many years of trying to make it work. On the show, in the end, he grew up as well and realized that she was not the right one for him."

The real-life PR women, Bahrs said, enjoyed watching where the fictional foursome would wine and dine, and what they wore.

"It will be fun to see what's transpired with the characters in the last three years," Bahrs added. "Hopefully, they've learned a lot more, grown up a bit."

Five female authors who have each written books about the single life have organized an event at 7 p.m. June 9 for a studio-sanctioned screening at the Sundance Kabuki Cinema. The $20 ticket covers the cost of the film, popcorn and a shoe-related goody bag. The hosts are Wendy Merrill ("Falling Into Manholes"), Jerusha Stewart ("The Single Girl's Manifesta"), Jane Ganahl ("Naked on the Page"), Rachel Sarah ("Single Mom Seeking") and Sasha Cagen ("Quirkyalone") . Tickets are available at www.thelastsinglegirlintheworld.com, and partygoers must be 21 to attend, as alcohol is served at the theater.

"I love that the writing was smart, clever, funny and narrated in the first person, like you were inside Carrie's head," Merrill said. "The show made it OK to be single. I think that each character - Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte - captured an aspect of every woman, and the 'Who are you more like?' game was a fun game to play. I certainly related to the series and good girl/bad girl aspect of the character archetypes. Because in the end, I think there is a little bit of each of them in all of us. I also think it made Manolo Blahnik, Jimmy Choo and podiatrists rich!"

Indeed, many businesses are hoping to cash in on the zeitgeist of the film.

-- Ginger Rubio Salon at 600 Shotwell in the Mission District is giving a 20 percent discount on products and services for the month of June to anyone with a "Sex and the City" movie ticket stub.

-- Macy's on Union Square hosted an invitation-only shopping party this week and is working with New Line Cinema to put movie stills in its windows and showcase Impulse fashions on mannequins from Thursday through the first two weeks of the film's run.

-- Sugar Inc., which runs the PopSugar.com Web site, is running a contest in which the winner and three friends will be invited to join the "Sugar girls," the editors of the Web site, for a screening of the movie at the Landmark Embarcadero Theater and private reception at Gallery One in the Embarcadero Center.

-- Crunch fitness is hosting a "Sex and the City" marathon, playing all seasons of the show on a movie screen at its branch on Polk Street from 5:30 to 10 p.m. Thursday. The gym will be open to the public that day for free so that anyone can come work out and watch the show, or at least quaff the Function energy drinks that will be served in martini glasses all day.

Meanwhile, Skyy Spirits, based in San Francisco and the exclusive alcohol sponsor of the film, will host advance screenings in New York and Los Angeles this week, with its San Francisco screening to be held Wednesday. The event is a benefit with proceeds going to the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Stop AIDS Project. The already sold-out event, with tickets at $40 and $80 each (for a VIP reception before the screening), includes a question-and-answer session afterward with actor Willie Garson, who plays Carrie's sidekick, Stanford Blatch, in the film.

And of course, there are people who are just going out with a friend to see the film, like Daniel Detorie, maitre d' at Venticello restaurant on Nob Hill, who bought two tickets online two weeks ago and found that the evening show at the Kabuki was already sold out. He opted for the 11:30 a.m. showing and thinks it will be better, strategically speaking. He watched a recent episode of "Oprah" and learned that two endings had been filmed.

"I want to see it before any of my bitchy friends tell me the surprise ending," he said.

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