Gia

Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be supermodels. The supernova career and tragic death of Gia Carangi is classic movie-of-the-week fodder. This HBO production, free of the constraints of the network censors, amps up the more sensational aspects (bisexuality, drug abuse) of this true story. Angelina Jolie gives a starmaking performance as Gia, the 1980s girl "of the moment," who was on the cover of Vogue at 17 and dead of AIDS at 26. In the campy Faye Dunaway role is, yes, Faye Dunaway, less mannered than usual, as model agent Wilhelmina. Jolie vividly captures Gia's seductive contradictions--"tough and vulnerable, old and young, decadent and innocent, male and female"--and while the script (co-written by Jay McInerney) allows Gia to dress like "a motorcycle tramp" and talk a blue streak, the formulaic genre conventions dull the edges. Recommended, with reservations. (K. Lee Benson)