The Screengrab

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.

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BURT REYNOLDS (1936 - )



It may be hard for you young whippersnappers to believe, but 30 years ago, Burt Reynolds was the biggest star in the world. He'd be the first to admit that his career management skills were never a match for his good ol' boy charisma and winking, bubblegum-popping likability – in fact, he's practically made a second career out of admitting it. His forgettable early career in television and B-movies (Navajo Joe, anyone?) isn't what convinced John Boorman to cast Reynolds in his breakthrough role in Deliverance; rather, it was his easy command of the Carson panel as a guest host of The Tonight Show that led to his star-making turn as Lewis Medlock. His Southern charm and Marlboro Man looks led to a series of redneck roles, from White Lightning to Smokey and the Bandit, which became the second-highest grossing movie of 1977, behind only Star Wars. Reynolds went to that well a few times too many, famously turning down Terms of Endearment to reteam with hick flickster Hal Needham for Stroker Ace. His career never came close to returning to the heights of Smokey, but he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in Boogie Nights. True to form, he fired his agent after seeing the rough cut, fearing his career was ruined…and then when the movie instead revived his career, he squandered the comeback opportunity by going right back to making crap again.

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