Showgirls (Verhoeven, 1995): Everyman Screen on the Green, 10.30pm
This 35mm presentation, part of a Paul Verehoeven season at Screen on the Green, is also being screened on April 27th (details here).
This movie was
roundly slammed on release was nominated for film turkey awards in the
past but I have always been a big fan. Verhoeven is
incapable of making a boring movie and this picture with Elizabeth
Berkley as a wild-eyed ingénue who takes the Las Vegas exotic-dance
scene by storm has energy to spare. It is also a somewhat subversive
movie.
Chicago Reader review:
Director
Paul Verhoeven and writer Joe Eszterhas's fresh meat market—a sleazy
Las Vegas porn show with clunky production numbers that resemble
body-building exercises, backed by heaps of big studio money. The story,
a low-rent version of All About Eve,
charts the rise of one bimbo showgirl (Elizabeth Berkley) at the
expense of another (Gina Gershon); alas, the only actor who seems
comfortable is Kyle MacLachlan. I must admit that, as with Basic Instinct and Starship Troopers,
which I also underrated initially, this 1995 movie has only improved
with age—or maybe it's just that viewers like me are only now catching
up with the ideological ramifications of the cartoonlike characters. In
this case, the degree to which Las Vegas (and by implication Hollywood)
is viewed as the ultimate capitalist machine is an essential part of the
poisonous package. With Glenn Plummer, Robert Davi, Alan Rachins, and
Gina Ravera.
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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