SHOWGIRLS
Added 2024-01-08 18:00:06 +0000 UTCI may have asked this before, but I'd like to get people's opinions on Showgirls. A polarizing film. I would like to review it sometime soon this year, and just thought I'd get a general consensus. Are you one of the ones who love it? Hate it? Or is it overhyped?
Comments
Oh, gotcha. Thank you!
Shane Palamara
2024-02-16 02:12:06 +0000 UTCIt's been posted already for the Die-Hard tiers. I will release it for the public next week. I'll try to get those review notes out too in the meantime.
Deepfocuslens
2024-02-16 00:31:52 +0000 UTCWhat happened to your Showgirls review? I just finished watching it earlier today for the first time and I loved it. I was gonna watch your video to compare thoughts but it’s gone.
Shane Palamara
2024-02-15 23:56:50 +0000 UTCJust like when Siskel and Ebert argued about "Blue Velvet" and how Ebert just did not have the stomach for a performance like the one Isabella Rossellini did. He felt offended by Lynch's "treatment" of her because of the sex scenes... all that stuff doesn't bother me and I need to watch "Showgirls" again, because I've only seen it once, when I was a child ... yes, I was a cinephile back then too but still a child... so need to revisit it.
Sutil
2024-01-19 23:23:10 +0000 UTCThat pool sex scene... 😳
Sutil
2024-01-19 23:09:30 +0000 UTC"Congo Nights" 😂 that is hilarious!
Sutil
2024-01-19 22:59:58 +0000 UTCOne of my favorite 90s films is Atom Egoyan's Exotica which came out the same year and has similar subject matter in terms of strippers and sexual labelling but it's very haunting, traumatic, and completely hypnotic. It's what I like to call a stopwatch film where it's so absorbing and engaging that it's like being hypnotized by a stopwatch. Definitely a must see if you haven't.
Wolfman Brandon
2024-01-16 21:16:43 +0000 UTCI did learn how to properly pronounce "Versace" when I was 12 thanks to this film... lol
Sutil
2024-01-16 08:01:23 +0000 UTCI saw this film when it came out... I was 12 years old and it had a lot of that hype for being too risqué or something... at 12 I already thought of myself as a cinephile and watched it because it was so talked about and I used to watch Elizabeth on "Saved by the Bell" after school... and she was going all wild on this... but was underwhelmed by it... I think Paul Verhoeven is a very interesting director and love many of his films... crazy guy, but makes good films... At the time I didn't think much of Showgirls, so I'm eager to see what you think about it and maybe I'll watch it again... but only after I hear your thoughts on it, because from what I remember.. I wouldn't want to watch it again...
Sutil
2024-01-16 07:58:04 +0000 UTCI look forward to hearing your review on it, and to revisiting it myself! Way back then, especially being in our late teens and early 20s, we didn't have any idea to look at this film (and even Starship Troopers) from a perspective of social satire -- doing the opposite of what he (Verhoeven) believes in order to make a point. We kind of took both these movies at face value. Partly because these retro discussions reexamining Verhoeven's work didn't exist yet, and also because his manner of satire (or whatever it would be called) was very unique and something never seen before, especially in Hollywood movies. Sure, there's obvious satire speckled throughout Robocop, and we all recognized and appreciated that, but Starship, and especially Showgirls, are entirely different animals.
Paul Todisco
2024-01-11 22:52:35 +0000 UTCI think they are some of the most interesting sex scenes in movies. Incredibly special.
Deepfocuslens
2024-01-10 08:09:36 +0000 UTCVHS is the ultimate nostalgic way to watch it, Id imagine
Deepfocuslens
2024-01-10 08:09:04 +0000 UTCYeah...I'm really realizing a lot of people have no idea how to read it. Is it serious? Is it satire? I'm surprised so many people take a Verhoeven film at such face value. He's a clever man. He's not unaware at all of what he's doing here.
Deepfocuslens
2024-01-10 08:08:24 +0000 UTCYah me too. Oh Gershon is just a delight in this.
Deepfocuslens
2024-01-10 08:06:15 +0000 UTCThe film would've resonated a lot more with European audiences. Americans are rather prudish, where they see tits and get so flustered by it that they completely turn their brains off to any nuance. Though teens have an excuse lol. Cause...they're teens lol.
Deepfocuslens
2024-01-10 08:05:39 +0000 UTCIf you think Showgirls is trying to be serious...then that might be why you hate it lol. That's like saying you thought the Colbert Report was supposed to be a serious right wing show lol. It feels like a lot of what you're saying here is dismissive of a film that has a lot of complex moving pieces in it, beyond the packaging. I think it's quite a unique organism that grows with repeating viewings. Some aspects of it work, some dont. The things that dont work are beginning to work more and more for me each time I watch it. But Verhoeven is a lot smarter here than I think you're giving him credit for. Not to say this is his best film. It has plenty of flaws, and yet I'm a lot more forgiving of the flaws here than I normally am. I don't really see how the script is awful in the traditional sense of the word. I think it provides a kind of bite that the film industry could benefit more from. Like one of those bad Taboo porno scripts, but filtered through an abstract lens, through cinematic celebration. Verhoven spins it into gold as far as Im concerned. Nah this dialgue is far too charming, wild, cringe, strange, funny, awkward, cynical, and tragic, to be written off as just awful, and the film just carries that energy all through. All these fluctuating facets. Awful definitely deserves to be a description of it, no doubt. But it deserves far more credit than just awful. This movie is like All About Eve meets The Red Shoes meets Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and...maybe The Room by Tommy Wiseau. Though...it has more in common with the first two, and just a splash of Wiseau energy. One of my favorite parts is when Nomi is starting to move up in the world. She's in her new environments performing at The Goddess on her quest to rebirth. Her old mom and pop figures from the old stripper joint she used to work at come to see her. They tell her they are proud of her, and that she's doing great at her new job. It's this very schmaltzy, cringe moment, as if they used this father daughter stereotypical scene, forgetting its between a stripper and her former scummy perv boss. But right as the two characters walk away from Nomi...he turns back, as if he's about to say something beautiful and poignant to her. And he says "Must be....weird not having anyone come on you." And....boom, the scene instantly went from terrible to masterpiece. Now if Bradley Cooper had directed this thing, there would have been no final line there. But that one line reading, is just so offensive, so brilliantly out of nowhere, and it's pure comedy gold. It knew what it was doing the whole time, and it was just waiting for the sick punchline to drop so it could yank us out of this lame storybook fantasy. Almost every line could be read as both humorous and devastating. Again...some lines land and some dont at all. The ones that do I think are some of the funniest I've heard in any film, ever. If you don't get joy out of how hilarious this movie is, that's unfortunate. Takes a dark sense of humor, which I think you have in spades. So I'm surprised by the pointed reaction. Though yes...there is a sharp turn in the film, when yes, things get traumatizing, and suddenly it is quite serious. And people seem to forget that when they talk about "the sleaze." I find the sleaze to be the most boring part of the conversation. the film made me feel sick at the end. Absolutely sick. There's power in that, I think, especially from a film like this. There are many meta commentary films that try and explore the subliminal, voyeurism, all this. But this film is so much more brutal with its commentary in a way that's refreshing. Where it seemed to fully understand its point of manipulation from the first frame, because it's already jaded from this world, not new to it. And when it shows things like young children being subjected to sex, drugs, violence, and language...this is what Verhoeven wants us to be shocked and disturbed by. Not tits lol. While it's very campy, stunning cinematically, it has a lot of realism to it too surprisingly. Constant brushes with cold hard reality in a way that feel painful and real. You talk about this just capitalizing on erotic 90s movies of the time, but it endures precisely because it's does the exact opposite of what all those films did. It's honestly one of my favorite films of the 90s. And perhaps one of my favorite films of all time. I dont even look at it as a guilty pleasure. I mean...yes it has that feel to it by design but...I genuinely think it's a great work of art. I'll defend Nomi too. Also as a side note: as a former performer...this film captures the backstage performance/audition energy for dancers better than most things I've seen. This film is more honest about the female experience than most things I see, almost too honest. I enjoy those shifting dynamics constantly, even with the old tropes so firmly held in tact. It's what gives us this nice balance of elements imo.
Deepfocuslens
2024-01-10 08:01:40 +0000 UTCI never understood hate towards this movie and I don't have a problem with Elizabeth Berkley's performance, so I'm in 'team love it'. I have it on VHS.
Oskitello
2024-01-09 06:54:10 +0000 UTCSaw that with friends not long after it came out, as part of our annual night of watching awful movies ironically and mocking them. We called it "Congo Night" in honor of what we felt at the time was one of the worst big budget Hollywood movies ever made, "Congo." We watched a handful of movies and then voted on the worst, kind of like a reverse Oscars. In fact, Showgirls may have been part of the very first Congo Night. And we felt, when watching it, that it was trying to be serious but failing miserably. It came off laughably horrendous to us. Haven't revisited it since, but maybe we were missing some subtle and clever satire? I really don't know.
Paul Todisco
2024-01-08 23:05:35 +0000 UTCI like it. I’m definitely on the side of those who think it was misunderstood when it came out. Nowhere near Verhoeven’s best (Robocop, Total Recall, Elle) or even a tier below (Starship Troopers, Basic Instinct). I remember getting a kick out of Berkeleys dynamic with Gershon.
Stephen
2024-01-08 19:39:57 +0000 UTCWow, I never thought this movie would be a topic. I do have to admit, I never watched it with a critical eye. It was my first ever softcore porn, back in highschool. But the general concensus around me, was that it was trash. I look forward to hearing your take on it.
Carl
2024-01-08 19:34:24 +0000 UTCI can’t even enjoy it ironically. It’s just the epitome of ‘90s sleaze, back when the erotic drama was the big box office seller. I can just about picture the lines of coke that Hollywood execs are doing off of the script. At the same time, it’s like they took that ‘90s sleaze and infused it with the over-the-top corniness of Old Hollywood melodramas, especially in the rivalry between Nomi and Gina Gershon’s character. Put those elements together and you’ve got really bad camp. I suppose that’s highly entertaining to some people but not to me. You’ve mentioned before that underneath all the sleaze there are some wise, hard truths to be found, and that in its ridiculous way you appreciate how the film is more honest about what it is than most movies of its time, but I chalk that up to the awful script. It’s too incompetent to be anything other than the skeezy, crass skin flick it really is. I really don’t think the filmmakers meant for the film to come off the way it does. I bet they wanted a serious, hard-hitting look at what goes on behind the scenes of Vegas show business, and they utterly failed. And not for nothing, but Elizabeth Berkley can’t act for shit. I do enjoy Paul Verhoeven films. He is someone who is honest about his love for sex and violence. He is unabashedly, unapologetically tasteless and vulgar in his films. When he fuses that with great cartoon satire like RoboCop and Starship Troopers, or a thrilling plot like Black Book, he makes a wildly fun, entertaining movie. When he fuses it with the egregious hackery of screenwriter Joe Eszterhas, he gets the worst kind of trash—that which strives to be taken seriously.
Bennett Oliver
2024-01-08 19:21:41 +0000 UTCHaven’t seen any parts of this movie in 20 years, but I have to admit, this was the first nudity I had ever seen in a movie when I was a kid, and going through puberty. And even then I could tell the sex scenes were unsexy and not that special
Henri J. Mertens
2024-01-08 19:10:12 +0000 UTCIt has hype? I haven't seen it but I'm very aware of its writer. Joe Freaking Eszterhas. Siskel and Ebert always highlighted him when reviewing his films. The highest paid screenwriter of the late 80s and early 90s who wrote nothing but the trashiest and most tasteless Hollywood thrillers of that time with typically good directors. They usually had demeaning portrayals of women. I'm not one who often says a film is racist, sexist, etc. but just hearing Siskel describing Jade where the title character has her head tied up and yanked inside a stocking during sex makes me cringe.
Wolfman Brandon
2024-01-08 18:45:09 +0000 UTC
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