SARAH CLYNE SUNDBERG'S GUILTY PLEASURES:
PRÊT-À-PORTER (1994)
Let me draw your attention to a film that perhaps isn't so much embarrassing as severely underappreciated. In my mid-teens my mind was similar to cheap sausage; pretty much anything went in. This included a gem unique to the early '90s — Elle Topmodel. I could not get enough of the comings and doings of Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista and Kate Moss (those were supermodels, lest you did not know). Meanwhile I had my angry-girl Doc Martens and parka-wearing indie cred to protect. I kept my obsession with fashion and models under wraps. Happily, there appeared a film that was art house enough so that I could see it without shame: Prêt-à-Porter. This was Robert Altman's send-up of the Paris fashion week and the fashion industry at large. At the time, I thought it was all fiction (though thrilling) and laughed my ass off at the prissy TV anchor, the egomaniac fashion designers, and the three scary-looking fashion editors, shriveled in their severe brown bobs. And last but not least, the two journalists who holed up in their hotel room, reporting the shows off the TV while screwing and getting trashed off the booze in the mini bar. That was before I knew the world well enough to realize that some things don't need to be made up. The movie also reads like a best-of '60s Euro movies with Sophia Loren, Anouk Aimée and Marcello Mastroianni knocking about on screen. I find that unlike Elle Topmodel, Prêt-à-Porter has only improved with age.
BACKBEAT (1994)
Backbeat tells the the tale of The Beatles in the post-Liverpool, pre-Beatlemania years. It's one of those films that is barely middle-brow and not quite tacky enough to be kitsch. But I love this movie, goddammit. Even though I never really cared much for The Beatles. Stuart Sutcliffe, the "fifth Beatle" and main protagonist here, tags along with John, Paul, George and Ringo on their first minor break: A tour in Hamburg, Germany. There Stuart finds his true calling is not to be a good-looking stage prop to his friend, John. Rather, he has been put on this earth to pal around with black-clad German philosophy majors, get high at art school parties, and sleep with the beautiful pixie-haired German photographer who gave the band their first "look." Love triangles! Friendship put to the test! Fame! Sex! Untimely death! This movie has it all, packaged in attractive, early '60s costume. Stephen Dorff may have played Stuart, the ostensible main character. But Ian Hart steals the show as John Lennon in his pompadour-wearing rocker days, spouting easily digestible quotes, "I'm not angry, I'm fucking desperate!" and "What if you met the girl of your dreams, like Brigitte Bardot, but with better manners, and she fell in love with your best friend?"
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Contributor: Sarah Clyne Sundberg