Call Me: The Rise and Fall of Heidi Fleiss (2004)

Absolutely Fantastic

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

highest class? you call those cheap,vulgar, dirty trash high class whores? I feel if the rich men don't have good taste on women then it's a good thing for the rest of the world..but i'm afraid this is just caused by the poor qualify of the film.... yes they degrade beautiful women ,not the ugly sluts like in the film.how accurate this film is I don't know, nor am i interested.. a damn not given by me..final judgment: like father like daughter..BTW,it's funny those fools even fool some foreign clients..prove they are occasionally smart-wise, and there is never an abysmal for stupidity

Wild child Heidi Fleiss goes from party girl to queen of Hollywood commercial sex - but the careless house-of-cards soon starts to wobble. Based on an over-reported true story.Money. Sex. Power. Like cherries on a one armed bandit when they line up you should give a decent pay-out. Here, however, they barely give out a profit.For a start sex on the mainstream screen is all about foreplay, tease and aftermath rather than the act. The power soap operas like Dallas and Dynasty used sex with far more effect than these producers because they knew the audience could fill in the blank between the bedroom door and next morning themselves. Here we are forced to watch a coupling only being performed for financial gain. There is no before and no after. Nothing has changed. We learn nothing. Does the fact that big money is being exchanged add anything or change anything? Is it any more dramatic (or different) from what goes on in a motel room on the wrong side of town? Jamie-Lynn Sigler was good (as the questioning daughter) in the Sopranos, but that was an undemanding role. Here she plays a complex women who is supposed to be smart and yet at the same time very dumb. Well dumb if not going to jail is one of your high priorities in life. She also mixed selling drugs with selling sex - one of the golden no-no's. She all but painted a cross on her forehead. Add her refusal to pay bribes/inform to the police and you have a perfect "how not to do it." Nick Bloomfield's documentary was far more interesting as it played her life as unscripted comedy and tragedy. A bizarre version of the American dream where being famous and being infamous are pretty much the same. I am all for the legalisation of prostitution, but if these are the people that are going to benefit then maybe things are not so bad as they are...

**Spoiler Warning! ** While the title pretty much spells out this movie, please be advised that specific plots points are discussed herein.`Call Me: The Rise and Fall of Heidi Fleiss' is a story that involves my two favorite things: sex and cash. Now, according to some, that may make me morally challenged, but c'mon, we've all gotta work. USA Cable Network's Heidi makes it seem like a good cash business in this retelling of the infamous Hollywood Madame's story.This incarnation of Heidi Fleiss is played by the fabulous what's her name from HBO's `The Sopranos.' What can you say about her performance? She almost looks like Heidi Fleiss, she memorized her lines real good and in theory that Sopranos gig gives her, and by default this movie, some street cred.`Call Me' is not some rerun episode of `Cops.' `Cops' can do a real good job at putting a downer on anyone's sex for cash fascination. Here though, Heidi's girls aren't a bunch of frightening crack whores from the depths of the local trailer parks offering `Johns' a half- and-half for twenty bucks. Twenty bucks? Wait a minute here! Heidi's girls, -er, I mean ladies, have all their teeth, thank you, and the yellowing of the skin from Hepatitis has not begun to show. In Heidi's world, sex for cash means $5,000 a night. And as Heidi says in the movie, `That's per girl. Plus a little spending money for shopping. And I'm gonna need money for their plane tickets too if you want them in Vegas tonight.' `Leave 'em happy.' Isn't that what B.T. Barnum or Samuel Goldwyn said? Or was it `Keep 'em wanting more?' Well whatever, you get the idea.This movie really put me in the fabulous world that is Heidi Fleiss. Just imagine the days sitting around the pool at Heidi's house sipping cocktails up in the Hollywood Hills, while `Girl's Just Wanna Have Fun' plays over and over again on the radio. Need to go to the doctor-wink, wink-no problem. Heidi's father Dr. Paul Fleiss (who is played here by Saul Rubinek who'll you will recognize from somewhere, but won't really care enough to put you finger on it) is a sweet pediatrician with a little office over in Silver Lake. He's like your own little dr. grandpa. He'll hook you up. Give him a freebie and tell him Heidi sent you.Speaking of drugs, I don't approve of all the coke (lower `c', not the brand name cola) that goes on in this movie. Maybe its because this is a made for cable movie and they wanted to push the envelope, but all this coke snorting has got to go. Geezus Heidi you're givin' me a headache! Sure it keeps you skinny so you could eat whatever you want.hey wait a minute. stay skinny.eat what ever I want.work all night.sleep all day. Hey, since when did I become such a Puritan?What really makes this story so heartwarming is that Heidi has the same problems that most of us can relate to. She's too young. She has WAY too much cash. She has all the business she wants. She's all coked out. She forgets to pay off the police. Did you pay the phone bill? Yeah. The mortgage? Umm..yes. Cash payment to the police? Oh, sweet mother of God.I forgot! It seems Heidi learned so much from here previous employer, Madame Alex, but in the end she forgot the most important lesson of them all. Pay off the cops! Throw the LAPD a bone now and then and no one gets hurt.In regards to Heidi's previous employer, Madame Alex, she is NOT the kind of Madame that you'd wanna turn tricks for. She is old and ugly. Yuck! She is fat and doesn't get out of bed. And that smell.holly merde! I understand why all the girls left her for fun loving, albeit coked out, Heidi Fleiss. To make matters worse, Madame Alex has some vague Germanic accent and calls Heidi a `little Jew *itch' when she gets made at her. Think of Nurse Diesel from `High Anxiety' and you've got Madame Alex.I give the first part of `Call Me: The Rise and Fall of Heidi Fleiss FOUR STARS. Tivo past the rest of the jail, court, loses everything and rehab part unless getting bummed out is your thing. I'm going back to Heidi's pool, where Juanita the house keeper is more than glad to freshen up whatever you're drinking. Here's my idea: Let's pretend she never got busted and turn it into a weekly series with special guest star ala `The Love Boat' and `Fantasy Island' Ms. Fleiss. Madame Heidi, you can `Call Me' anytime. I am already a BIG fan!

If you've never heard of Heidi Fleiss, the enterprising young woman who went from adolescent party girl to high profile prostitute and became Tinseltown's richest and most famous madame within the span of just a few years, this fast paced made for television drama will fill you in on all the sordid details. What it won't do is help you understand people like Fleiss or care in the least abut her or any of her associates. Norman Snider's script offers few insights into the madame's motivations, though to his credit, he wisely avoids the heavy handed moralizing I expected. Director Charles McDougall's constantly moving camera and slick, quick cuts make the movie look like a 90 minute music video. The combined result is a constantly interesting but rarely emotionally engaging tour through Fleiss's world of seduction and betrayal. The film often seems like little more than an excuse to show sexy babes modeling skimpy lingerie, lounging around the pool in their bikinis, or servicing clients in carefully edited softcore sex scenes. It's all entertaining fluff, but I found myself wishing for a bit more substance underneath all the superficial gloss.The film's biggest problem can be summed up best in just three words: Jamie-Lynn DiScala. This young actress seems competent enough playing the pampered daughter of a mob boss on THE SOPRANOS, but then I doubt that role would be much of a stretch for a lady who was apparently so obsessed with her own appearance she suffered from a type of bulimia for years. To the best of my knowledge, the Fleiss character is DiScala's first serious adult role and I'm sorry to say she doesn't exactly rise to the challenge. Her idea of portraying a confident, calculating woman is to parade through the film wearing the same vapid smirk on her face in practically every single scene. Her performance is so staggeringly unconvincing it drags down the whole production to the dramatic level of a sixth grade classroom play. In an interview in TV GUIDE, DiScala herself openly admits she wasn't able to relate to the Fleiss character. She goes on to say she discussed the film's sexual content with the director and told him `I don't know how I'm going to be able to do this.' She also divulges that during one of the sex scenes, she broke into tears and had to be replaced by a body double, even though no on-screen nudity was required. These confessions are very sweet and precious, but they do beg the obvious question: why would she accept the leading role in a film about a prostitute if she was so nervous about doing erotic scenes? Did she even bother reading the script before signing the contract?DiScala claims she trimmed down by 15 pounds for the part, an admittedly serious health risk for a former bulimic. But considering how awkward she looks throughout this movie, her torturous physical preparation for the role only reveals how utterly warped her priorities are as an actress. My advice to Ms. DiScala is skip the dieting in the future and instead concentrate on some acting method classes. Or better yet, stick to playing pouty adolescent princesses and leave the serious adult roles for real actresses.In a way, though, I suppose DiScala's presence in this film is ultimately appropriate. Both she and the movie as a whole look extremely sexy but fail to display one iota of depth.