NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Mjeteconer Just perfect...

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

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 ****

martina-optima-ch It's incredible that I didn't see this film until now (2015)! I am still under shock. Short: it's the best film I saw since Fellini's "Otto e mezzo". Now more to say. But I have to. The different stories are all worth a critique. But I can not do this now. I am in love with Mastroianni and when he talks to Sophia Loren in his warm Italien, I had to cry. The finale is also a great and moving scene. Other directors than Altman could have done this. But I can not imaging, who. I sad I was shocked. But also of the mastery of Altman. A farce and lots of stories together with no fil rouge at all (or it doesn't matter). Then comes the best lineup I can remember. So short: Funny, highest quality and moving more than once. What you want more?

evanston_dad A winning streak can't last forever. After making a critical comeback with "Vincent & Theo" and "The Player," and then making one of his best films in "Short Cuts," Robert Altman gave us this rather limp lampoon of the fashion industry."Pret a Porter" is not one of my favorite Altman films, but it's not a disaster. It's one of his big ensemble comedies that probably largely came together in the editing room, but it doesn't cohere the way "Nashville" or "Short Cuts" does. I get the mental image of Robert Altman throwing darts at a dart board and seeing what sticks, and with this film not much does. This is Altman's attempt at a French sex farce, and he gives his film an international flavor by casting big-time stars like Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni and Anouk Aimee, but he acts like simply casting them is enough and forgets to give them any material to work with.Perhaps the biggest problem with "Pret a Porter" is that Altman satirizes something that itself is already largely a satire: the world of high fashion. Fashion is a big industry, no doubt, but it makes a rather meager subject for satire, and Altman doesn't seem to have much of a point to make about the industry anyway. It's fun for a while to just watch goofy people walking around saying and doing goofy things, but without a stronger script to anchor the action, the fun in people watching wears thin after a while.The large cast features a ton of famous faces, some of them actors Altman had worked with before (Tim Robbins, Sally Kellerman, Lili Taylor, Richard E. Grant) and many new to Altman's world (Julia Roberts, Tracy Ullmann, Stephen Rea, Linda Hunt, Danny Aiello, Teri Garr). But really, the only one who made much impression on me was Kim Basinger, who gets the Geraldine Chaplin role from "Nashville," playing a fish-out-of-water reporter who seems to be everywhere at once and sidelines unsuspecting subjects with impromptu interviews. It's a riot to watch Basinger's reporter stumble her way through interviews about a subject she knows nothing about, all the while doing so with a twangy Texan accent, and Basinger damn near steals the show.Grade: C+

scottmwade-1 This film should be prescribed by doctors as a cure for insomniacs! It really doesn't go anywhere and is a total drag. It's hard to believe so many great actors were willing to participate in this waste of two hours. Tim Robbins made Shawshank Redeption in 1994 (One of the greatest films of all time) and then follows it up with this piece of junk??? Don't really know what he was thinking. Julia Roberts, Sophia Loren and a lot of other big name talents are in the film as well. Like I said earlier, if you are having trouble sleeping rent this DVD and it'll put you right to sleep! zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...... I gave it two starts instead of one only for the naked models at the end.