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	Head In The Clouds
	John Duigan Charlize Theron, Penélope Cruz, Stuart Townsend, Thomas Kretschmann, Steven Berkoff 2004		Hmm ... A World War II melodrama with a plucky, glamorous damsel trying to stay alive in the middle of a Nazi hotbed. Wasn't this already done to death with Melanie Griffith? It was called "Shining Through," with ditsy Melanie spying on the Third Reich and helping the Allies triumph over the Axis forces of darkness. It was ridiculous, but unintentionally hilarious. Well, here's a similar deal: Writer/director John Duigan's "Head in the Clouds." While it's not as laughable as "Shining Through," it's still hard to swallow. Its major upside is the always-watchable Charlize Theron in the principal role of free-spirited Gilda Bessé — a hedonistic libertine and experimental artist of the '30s, whose Parisian apartment houses her devoted, upright lover Guy (Brit pretty-boy Stuart Townsend) and fiery, sloe-eyed Spanish refugee Mia (the ever-lovely Penélope Cruz). Glamour-puss golden-girl Gilda met Guy at a university in England when she was doing the horizontal Charleston with one of his fellow students. Intoxicated with her, Guy looks her up in Paris after he's done with higher education — and he finds the lower levels. Gilda has other lovers and is mentoring Mia in the ways of the demimonde, but Guy is undaunted. For Gilda, it's an amoral romp every night until reality (that would be the rampaging Hun) intervenes, and the three companions' lives are irrevocably altered. Call it sudsy fun.


	Sunday, May 19, 2024





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