Product Description

?The Sopranos?? Jamie-Lynn DiScala is a knockout as the woman at the center of Hollywood?s most provocative scandal ? in this uncensored version that bares it all! Heidi Fleiss turns sex into success with a call girl business that caters to Hollywood?s biggest celebrities, but the ?high life? can?t last forever.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #52192 in DVD
• Brand: DISCALA,JAMIE-LYNN
• Released on: 2005-05-17
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Dubbed in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 84 minutes

Amazon.com
The only-in-Hollywood saga of Heidi Fleiss gets a breathless TV-movie workout in Call Me: The Rise and Fall of Heidi Fleiss, a romp through the call-girl follies of America's most famous madam. The Heidi story had enough trashy aspects to sink a garbage scow, and most of them are aired out in this tale of a respectable girl who rose through the ranks to become a successful businesswoman--and the holder of the most explosive little black book in Tinseltown. Experienced TV director Charles MacDougall must have noticed the story's similarities to GoodFellas, because he loads the movie with oodles of Scorsese-like flash and dazzle, complete with hyperactive camera and punchy songs. At least this makes the TV-movies values more fun than usual to look at, and Robert Davi seems to be having a ball as Fleiss's conduit into the sleaze world, director Ivan Nagy. (How Oscar-winner Brenda Fricker got involved in this we'll pass over.) Playing Fleiss is Sopranos co-star Jamie-Lynn DiScala, who certainly conjures up the right note of spoiled vapidity. The unrated DVD has nudity (DiScala's body double, we're talking here), but the movie gets stingy on naming names--as though the identities of actors and filmmakers who turned up in the little black book hadn't leaked out already. --Robert Horton

Customer Reviews

The dark Hollywood underworld
I did not know too much about Heidi Fleiss before seeing this DVD. I only vaguely recall a mini-interview she did for PLAYBOY before heading off to prison. Although I've never given her much thought, I basically thought of her as a sort of entrepreneur in an albeit illegal business. In any case, I figured that she never hurt anyone and that her lifestyle was basically innocuous.

I was wrong. If this docu-drama is close to being accurate (and I doubt if they sensationalized the story TOO much) then Heidi Fleiss is a very nasty, arrogant, deceitful, shallow, stoned-out spoiled brat of a person. After seeing this film I found myself with zero sympathy for her. In fact, the biggest "tragedy" of her life is that she served only 20 months of her 7 year prison sentence.

Portraying the vindictive Fleiss is Jamie-Lynn DiScala, and she does a very credible job. Sometimes it's difficult for actors to take on un-likeable characters without over-acting. DiScala has a natural screen-presence and is a perfect fit.

The movie itself is decent. There are some steamy scenes here & there, although I thought there could have been more (and longer lasting!). There is something about seeing topless women walking around a pool (seemingly 50 yards from the camera) that makes me think "Gosh, what a waste!" Ditto for seeing DiScala's breasts for all of 5 seconds.

If you're interested in Fleiss this movie might be worth a look. If you're looking for a steamy flick there are better ones out there. All in all, if you are looking for movie biographies there are much more interesting and worthwhile PEOPLE out there who have had docu-dramas done on their lives as well. That's my take on things.

Not a Real Nude Scene
A quick reminder to the audience about this movie...It is a TV movie. 2nd thing, I realize a lot of people want to see this movie for one reason. They get to see Jamie-Lynn DiScala (although she's now divorced and using the last name Sigler) disrobe. Well, as for the first comment...It's a TV movie and if you're watching it, it's pretty obvious what it is. But, it's not horrible for a TV movie. In the land of bio-pics, it's no masterpiece but it has its moments of entertainment and it's pretty interesting. The 2nd thing, despite various reports you do not actually see DiScala take her clothes off. She's using a body double and the network did not even attempt to hide this little fact. In the scene where DiScala is meeting Brenda Fricker, she opens her shirt. The camera pulls back, as Fricker asks for DiScala to come closer. Look at DiScala's face...It's not hers, then there's a quick cut and marvelously, DiScala's face has reappeared. So, for the naked DiScala seekers. this is the wrong spot. But, anyway, this movie basically tells you what you probably already knew (Heidi Fleiss is on every 'E Network' special there is). Heidi Fleiss became a prostitute to big names in the entertainment business and eventually took over as Madame and began banking more money than she could handle. Eventually she was caught, jailed, and released. DiScala's performance is far from Meadow, whom she plays on "The Sopranos", and there's times where she even looks like Heidi Fleiss (except, for the record, DiScala is way hotter) but sometimes the dialogue is really bad so it looks like a bad soap opera. It's hard for me to grade this film because it's really bad, but it's kind of good. So, this movie may not warrant the "B" grade in the same way a movie like "Crash" would warrant an "A" grade...But, oh well.

GRADE: B-

Interesting, but probably not a movie I'd watch again
Before watching "Call Me - The Rise and Fall of Heidi Fleiss", the only thing I knew about Heidi or her life was what I had seen on the news several years ago.

Watching the movie knowing nothing about Fleiss until she was on the news, I thought that it was very interesting to see what didn't make the tabloids.

Fleiss comes off as poorly disciplined, free-spirited, and spoiled. All of these traits which carry into her "professional" life. I think that Jamie-Lynn DiScala did a really great job portraying the Hollywood Madame.

I would definitely say that due to the content and subject matter, this movie wouldn't be for everyone. And, if you're expecting this to be soft-core, it's not. It's more of a video biography.