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There’s no way how to describe the plot other than it’s just a huge series of fashion design gatherings covered by a nosy reporter and surrounding some wrongful accusations, gay and straight, black and white, and just plain weird designers, cameos of every kind (Look, there’s Cher, wait, that’s Claudia Shiffer! No way, that’s Naomi Campbell) and two asshole journalists that end up fucking and falling for each other.

Don’t even try and make sense of the plot; hell I couldn’t. It seems that the intention of Altman and co-writer Barbara Schulgasser is to make a satire about the excesses of fashion design and what an overrated pile of shit it is. While I sympathize with the subject (for me fashion design is pointless), the film doesn’t do anything to substantiate its claims, and rather plunges through subplot after subplot and ramble after ramble for no apparent reason but try and make the story a bit more interesting to watch. But it doesn’t make it any better; it just overcomplicates the story to a point of nonsense and stupidity and the supposed eye-candy for the designs (which by the way are atrocious) shows that the filmmakers are really and I mean REALLY reaching.

The film tries to take comedic pot shots notably in the scenes with the two reporters (Julia Roberts and Tim Robbins) and a morbid photographer (Stephen Rea) only to fall flat and question even more what the fuck was the point of all that shit. Kim Basinger’s reporter is just totally without reason of existence only to ask the questions “what are you wearing, are you going to the fashion party, what about your husband, or your dog, do you like this do you like that, what the fuck am I doing here?” Lauren Bacall is totally wasted as well as several of the cameos, one of them being Lyle Lovett, playing some Texan. The heart of the film seems to be between Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroiani, but even that is left underdeveloped. The atmosphere of the film reeks of sexual innuendo but never goes anywhere and when the grand finale comes, that just certifies this film being a complete waste of money. Fuck if all the people here survived this turd almost intact, they should’ve been taken to the street and be horsewhipped for a while.

In the end, in plain words, this film is an overindulgent, pretentious, and totally stupid pile of shit that never does anything but run around in circles and not go anywhere near close to what it tries to aim. Altman should’ve know better than to indulge in this crap, which in the end insults the audience intelligence by making them believe they were going to watch a great film and get ripped off in the process since it ends up being as pointless as fashion design is. Maybe that’s the reason why Versace was shot dead; hell, after seeing this film, even I wouldn't mind shooting some people. 1-5

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originally posted: 09/11/04 08:36:46
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