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Do The Critics Smear Or Kiss On NBC’s LIPSTICK JUNGLE??
SPOILER ALERT !!
I am – Hercules!!
An NBC dramedy about three powerful female New Yorkers – a magazine editor, a fashion designer and a movie exec – “Lipstick Jungle” is based on the book by Candace Bushnell (“Sex and the City”) and has already been cloned by “Sex and the City” producer Darren Star, who apparently absconded with the premise and created ABC’s “Cashmere Mafia” after being denied the rights to “Lipstick.” “Lipstick” stars Brooke Shields (“Suddenly Susan”), Kim Raver (“24”) and Lindsay Price (“Coupling”).
USA Today gives it one and a half stars (out of four) and says:
… marginally better than ABC's shameless rip-off, Cashmere Mafia, mostly because Jungle's women are a tiny bit harder to hate, if equally hard to believe. …
Entertainment Weekly gives it a “C-minus” and says:
… Lipstick, to give it some credit, has a better cast than the cold yet bubbleheaded Cashmere. I certainly buy Kim Raver (24's Audrey Raines) as the editor of a Vanity Fair-like magazine. … Lipstick Jungle is full of awful lines. You think, no way can they top Raver's ''When they smell fear in this town, it's over,'' but then Price anguishes, ''I'm way too close to my product, but I don't know how to be any other way!'' …
TV Guide says:
… If Jungle has an edge, it's because Kim Raver (24) at least brings some erotic oomph to her clichéd role: an unhappily married magazine editor who succumbs to the temptation of a young stud resembling Ben from Felicity. Her pals are out of bad sitcoms: Brooke Shields as a movie mogul who is accused of being a bad mom, and Lindsay Price as an insecure designer wooed by a billionaire. Just try to care about these people. I dare you.…
The Wall Street Journal says:
… the emphasis on careerism adds an element of wild incredulity to the series, since no highflyers in the real world could spend so little time at their desks as the ones here do. … All that aside, "Lipstick Jungle" has some good things going for it, including actresses in roles that call for slightly more maturity than we're accustomed to, and juicy enough meanies to give it a little suspense. …
The New York Times says:
… … Not all the dialogue is as hackneyed, and there are some amusing ripped-from-Variety subplots, but mostly “Lipstick Jungle” is plodding and heavy-handed.
The Los Angeles Times says:
… "Lipstick Jungle" is to "Sex and the City" what New Coke was to Coca-Cola -- a brand extension best forgotten. … wrongheadedly wants to have it both ways -- to celebrate and explore the lives and loves of women at the top through protagonists who don't have the drive or the depth to make it there.
The Washington Post says:
… It's nearly a certainty that someone will call "Lipstick Jungle," NBC's new drama series about sensual and successful women, a "guilty pleasure," but it's really more of a guilty horror. You feel you're not watching a show so much as flipping through a catalogue of gaudy and pricey luxuries -- glittery junk that nobody needs -- and being expected to drool on cue. … The three main characters are almost interchangeable, but they're all quite watchable, too, especially Raver as Nico. She has a Meredith Vieira kind of beauty and a sensitivity that even the trashy script (by two women and a man) can't subdue. …
The Chicago Tribune says:
… amazingly enough, even worse than ABC’s “Cashmere Mafia” …
The San Francisco Chronicle says:
… The question isn't what do women want - there's probably not enough space in the paper for that. But, honestly, do they really want two "Sex and the City" knockoff shows? …
The Portland Oregonian says:
… could it be even worse than "The Cashmere Mafia," the "Sex" remake that hit ABC scant weeks ago? Maybe so!
Or maybe I've just lost my patience with this particular formula. Not with sex or cities, mind you. But with TV producers (or their network bosses) who believe that character can be established and made indelible by glossy externals. A glam urban backdrop. A pair of pointy, swanky shoes. The accouterments of power. It never works. So just beneath "Lipstick Jungle's" swank veneer lies, well, nothing. Cliches and abstractions. Vague gestures in the direction of neo-feminism. All of which you've seen before, just never quite as lame as it is this time around.…
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer says:
… "Lipstick Jungle," based on Bushnell's best-seller, takes itself a tad more seriously and that's too bad. It's an annoyingly familiar conceit, with the presence of Brooke Shields serving as a curiosity in the place of actual plot intrigue.…
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says:
… Thoroughly average and unfailingly adequate, NBC's "Lipstick Jungle" is easier to like than ABC's cold, cynical "Cashmere Mafia," but that's like putting lipstick on a pig, albeit a pig dressed in couture. …
The Boston Herald give it a “B” and says:
… This series will be as polarizing as the original “Sex.” Some women will adore it; many men will flee the room, fearing estrogen poisoning. In that regard, “Lipstick Jungle” truly is a worthy successor to “Sex and the City.” …
The Boston Globe says:
… a dull knockoff of a true original … If the "Lipstick Jungle" trio convey anything significant to female viewers, it has more to do with how unenviable and tedious the fast lane has become. …
The Hollywood Reporter says:
… Less credible than a soap yet not quite to the point of self-parody … None of the characters come off as particularly appealing, but that has less to do with the actors than the lines they have to say and the things they have to do. Shields, in particular, plays it with all her heart. There are nice production values, too. But the show itself is so poorly conceived that you can only pity the viewer who gets lost in this "Jungle." …
Variety says:
… "Lipstick Jungle" is the superior product of this winter's "career-woman pals try having it all" dramedies, but that's not an especially esteemed sorority. … The strongest and one redeeming storyline involves Raver, continuing her network series lap from "Third Watch" to Fox's "24" to ABC's "The Nine" and back to the Peacock again. … Beyond that, alas, "Lipstick Jungle" exhibits many of the same familiar flourishes as its unwanted sibling, punctuated by moments where the women supportively unite in moments of crisis, commiserating over how difficult it is to manage their fabulous lives. Nothing wrong with that per se, except that "Sex" did it better already, and the dialogue about double standards women face has all the subtlety of a Cosmo cover.
10 p.m. Thursday. NBC.
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Or maybe I've just lost my patience with this particular formula. Not with sex or cities, mind you. But with TV producers (or their network bosses) who believe that character can be established and made indelible by glossy externals. A glam urban backdrop. A pair of pointy, swanky shoes. The accouterments of power. It never works. So just beneath "Lipstick Jungle's" swank veneer lies, well, nothing. Cliches and abstractions. Vague gestures in the direction of neo-feminism. All of which you've seen before, just never quite as lame as it is this time around.…
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I'm in awe.
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Do they?
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Lipstick on Your Collar(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107423), by Dennis Potter.
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The reason "Sex" worked because it was on cable. Network rules kill these kind of shows. All 3 of them need to get naked. GET NAKED, I TELL YOU!
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all women are shoe-obsessed, anxiety-riddled emotional wrecks who can't even come close to happiness in life without defining themselves by who they are having sex with...I guess maybe that is true for the .01% of the women in the world who are rich, white, snobby shopaholics in Manhattan. hardly the zenith of female empowerment on television that it was hailed as being.at least Bridget Jones was funny while it was setting women back 20 years...
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You guys are growing up! I'm proud of you. However, I do wish they were all lesbians. *sigh*
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it's finally debuting so they can stop showing the adverts on the bottom of the screen while i'm trying to watch deal or no deal...
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but a fashion designer and a magazine editor? (someone should tell her about this new thing called "the internets") Kim Raver was great on 3rd Watch as the 'young aimless chick', but as a 'powerful woman' type she sucks (and it's all she did since 3rd watch, all lawyers and shit).
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ME: "Hell, no. There's no way I'm going to watch this show." NBC: "But it's an event, we tell you! Look--we're having a freaking premiere with a red carpet and everything! And it's real, we tell, you, real! And those paparazzi at the premiere, you know--that endless stream of photographers snapping shots of everyone maniacally...they're real, we tell you, real!" ME: "I'm not so sure. I'm just not that interested" NBC: "But it's so important, we're putting a countdown timer in the corner of the screen all night to mark off the minutes until the premiere event!" ME: "Sold!"
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Ugh again.
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