KnotMissPriceless Why so much hype?

UnowPriceless hyped garbage

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

ActuallyGlimmer The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

moonspinner55 Fashionistas and hangers-on and journalists from around the world converge on Paris during Fashion Week. By 1994, producer-director Robert Altman had acquired such a sterling reputation among actors (based on his free reign policy of letting his performers find their own way with their characters within the scenario) that the biggest stars of the time were willing to sign on to the latest Altman project, no matter the material. This may help to explain what Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, Julia Roberts, Tim Robbins, Lauren Bacall, Anouk Aimée, Kim Basinger, Rupert Everett, Linda Hunt, Forest Whitaker, Teri Garr, Tracey Ullman, Danny Aiello, Stephen Rea, Sally Kellerman, Lili Taylor and others are doing here, besides chatting-chatting-chatting themselves into a vacuum. Altman, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Barbara Shulgasser, appears to have even more contempt for runway fashion than he showed for country music in "Nashville", but at least there he had a solid group of characters courtesy of Joan Tewkesbury's acerbic script. Altman apes Tewkesbury's fragmented style in the hopes of capturing another irreverent gem, but neither the cast nor the fashions (nor all the overlapping talk) are interesting here. It's nice to see that Loren is still slapping Mastroianni but, without anything else to play, their scenes together merely feed on our movie memories without replenishing them. NO STARS from ****

aemmering I'll give this one two points because, some parts of it are really visually interesting (as one would certainly expect in a film about fashion). Altman, whose work I've always mistrusted, shows his true colors here. His take on the superficiality of the fashion world is as superficial as fashion itself! I guess our auteur thinks shots of feet stepping in poo will subtly express a righteous disdain for the fashion world. Mr.Altman, taking cheap shots at obvious (and incredibly easy) targets is not clever. Your lack of subtlety (and understanding) of your subject amazes. Your trademark intertwining of several plot lines does not work here. Know this--its a simple topic, really, and deserves a simple approach. Even your self righteous disgust at the superficiality of the fashion world is misplaced. This marks you as an intellectual snob (I just always knew your were).Fashion is silly, but it's also fun, and it's more important to us than we care to admit. You show no empathy for any of your many characters,you just set them up like bowling pins and proceed to knock them down as noisily and messily as possible. Some of your most unpleasant traits persist here--this is clearly a director's statement, your gig, and the actors, famous as they are, are just chess pieces to be moved about according to whim--is this sort of power amusing to you? The story line is so poorly thought out, that it just doesn't exist. You are clearly annoyed with the idea of celebrity, but guess what--you're one too--don't we get any fun out of status--are we that proud? Why the hostility towards fashion people? I suppose they're not thinking the sorts of important thoughts that you deem necessary to justify one's existence.This is a great masturbatory mess of a movie, a so called social critique/fantasy that tells us nothing and goes nowhere. Even the last scene, the now-infamous nude modeling romp, doesn't cut the boredom or blot out the odious stench of pretension. I'm with the English--subtlety is the key to effective humor, including satire (I assume this piece was intended be a satire--of something!)

OnlyZuul I've seen it a couple of times. I understand Altman was maybe trying to create a disjointed, farcial almost surreal type atmosphere, but I found the lack of cohesiveness and clear cut thread annoying and it caused me to not care about the film or its characters. Being just a regular jane and not blessed with 15 or so credits in Film-making at NYU, the subtly of the art was lost on me. I desperately wanted just a little exposition to grab onto, and all the film's inside jokes and vague, obscure references to Italian films I found to be self indulgent. I'm not saying this film was bad - just bad for me. I think he could have pulled off the same feel and frenzied little European farce with a TOUCH more connective tissue in the plot. Not a lot, just a little for the audience to care about the story, the characters and whatnot. The thing I found in the film that I even cared more than a fig about was the Simone storyline.

tobybarlowny There's one thing in this film that I love in a very film nerdish sort of way and that is Danny Aiello's character, which is, in a strange way, a homage to an earlier character in Altman's California Split (a film well worth revisiting). And while some of the characters may seem over the top, my own experience in the fashion world would attest to them being pretty realistic. While it feels as fragmented as any Altman, there is a story here, and it's a pretty subtle one, but perfectly satisfactory in my opinion. I think the film, overall, is woefully under-rated. I feel like everyone got caught up in the idea of "ALTMAN" and then got confused by "THE STARS" and then didn't really bother to look at the movie, which has some lovely grace and is well worth the time. Then again, why listen to me, I liked Ishtar.