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Comments (0) By Michael Musto Tuesday, Oct 29 2002

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The completely dialogue-free floperetta Amour has a nice design (except for the cheesy walking-through-walls effect) and spurts of charm, but it's loaded down with les moon/June lyrics and besides, the same theme—a nerd with a crush on a blank-slate lady becomes indomitable—is handled much more enchantingly in Punch-Drunk Love,which costs less.

I experienced a real love (of life) at the reopening of the Copacabana, a glitzy dance palace that was filled with shimmying culos and even a few of the original Copa girls, who've held up quite well. Hola, people! I'm Michael and I'm a Sagittarius!

photo: Carlos R. Baez

"Remember me from Limelight?": the entertainment (detail) at Barton G. the Restaurant.

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Down under by way of the Upper West Side, there was a Nick & Toni's Café after-party for the creepily effective The Ring. (Mamma like, mamma like. Then again, mamma liked Swept Away.) I told star Naomi Watts that the movie got my goat, if not my llama. "You're still scared?" she asked. Yes, I told her, "and I saw it a week ago!" "I was shocked by how scared I was when I saw it," said Watts (who's Nicole Kidman's best girlfriend, but Heath Ledger's amour). "I was shifting in my seat a lot, then I got the giggles!" She was less horrified as a presenter at the VH1/Vogue Fashion Awards. "As soon as LL Cool J and I walked onstage," Watts admitted, "it was clear they wanted him, not me, so it made me relaxed." Honey, that would only make me more agitated!

Watts's humility was especially refreshing coming after DJ Junior Vasquez's new Tommy Boy Records bio, which states that Junior has "a following that rivals that of Jesus Christ." Please—Jesus Christ takes requests!

Finally, those D.C.-area cops deserve to be boastful these days, though for a while they were turning the sniper situation into an unfunny version of (Chief) Moose and Squirrel. Remember, these are the same freaks who couldn't find Chandra Levy! But I bet they could spot an invisible flyer in my handbag.

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Meanwhile, the silent prayer of everyone I know when it comes to the alleged Beltway sniper and his young charge is "Dear Lord, don’t let them be gay!" . . . On a much lighter note, don’t shoot me for reporting that the gayest movie ever—Valley of the Dolls—is being remade, and guess who director Betty Thomas wants to play over-the-hill star Helen Lawson? Julia Roberts! More on this shocking development next week.

musto@villagevoice.com