Showgirls MGM Home Video Starring xxxxxxxxxxx Written by Joe Eszterhas Directed by Paul Verhoeven

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Showgirls -- considered by many to be the worst big-budget movie in Hollywood history -- ain't all that bad, even if the vast entertainment value that can be derived from a single viewing is entirely unintentional. Writer Joe Eszterhas and director Paul Verhoeven, who previously teamed for Basic Instinct (and have yet to collaborate again since this 1995 turkey), fashioned their All About Eve knock-off (replacing witty dialogue with lots of nudity) as an entirely sincere gesture. To them, the tawdry story of stripper-cum-showgirl Nomi Malone (Elizabeth Berkley) is high drama. And that's why Showgirls is so damned fun to watch, because everybody here -- from the actors to the dancers to the folks behind the scenes -- go about their business entirely free of irony. They have no idea that the joke is on them, that legions of Showgirls fans regularly watch the film at home (previously on VHS, now on DVD) and howl with laughter.

I confess, I am one of these people. And that's because, truth be told, Showgirls is certainly an awful movie, but that doesn't make it a bad one. Bad movies require more than just lame acting, rotten dialogue, or a plot loaded with non-sequiters. Bad movies actually have to be tedious to watch as well, so dull that you realize before long that watching them the whole way through just isn't worth the two hours it steals from your lifetime. And here is where Showgirls defies its critics -- the movie, for all of its wrong-headedness, is impossible to stop watching. Some shoddy scripts (e.g., the 1998 remake of Godzilla) leave you confused, frustrated, even angry. Other notable head-scratchers (The Avengers, Virus) spin totally out of control, reaching a point where plot seems to have been abandoned altogether. But Showgirls never fails to keep its shallow dramaturgy front-and-center, and it's so poorly written, so badly performed, that you find yourself absorbed as if you are eating absent-mindedly from a bag of tasty, salty potato chips. Before long, the bag is empty, the film is over, and you realize that maybe you shouldn't have taken this obsessive little bad habit so far. But damn, that was enjoyable, wasn't it?

For those of you who have not seen Showgirls, you might want to consider renting it (even on VHS) before reading the rest of this review. Truth be told, Showgirls is an enormously complicated film, although not in any sort of artisitc or thematic sense (where its depth certainly couldn't even drown a small insect). Showgirls derives its complexity fundamentally from the innumerable missteps of Verhoeven, Esterhaus, & Co. -- missteps that require an in-depth analysis, which this writer will now undertake for the sake of posterity:

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I. NOMI ARRIVES IN LAS VEGAS

1. On The Road: Our story begins with young, allure Nomi (Berkeley) -- clad in jeans, a leather jacket, and so much makeup she looks like she just finished shoplifting the entire cosmetics counter at Nordstrom -- hitching a ride to Vegas with some redneck in a pickup truck. But when the cowboy suggests that his newfound traveling companion "sit a little closer," she whips out a switchblade, waves it in his face, and then coyly passes it back and forth in front of her lips.
   1. Eszterhas wastes no time here establishing Nomi's character -- barely two minutes into the story, Berkely has displayed the shrill, defensive, slack-jawed histrionics that will define Nomi throughout the film, and that's why she's so easy to despise.
   2. Berkeley certainly must be thinking already "This scene will make people forget I was Jesse on 'Saved By The Bell' " -- too bad for her that Showgirls has since caused the entire Hollywood establishment to forget about her existence entirely.
   
   
2. A Losing Hand: Arriving at a casino where she plays some slots, Nomi soon discovers that her suitcase has been stolen, and it contained everything she owned in the world -- a nice bit of rising action that allows Berkely to really show off her acting chops, dashing headlong into traffic, punching and kicking a parked car, and vomiting (!). Petite, braided-haired Molly Abrams (Gina Ravera), whose car Nomi was just in the process of assaulting, immediately buys her a meal and offers to let the violent, unstable young woman stay with her.
   1. The moral of the sequence? If you want to go to Vegas and be a complete psycho, rest assured that the town is full of Good Samaritans who won't notice.
   
   
3. Girl Talk: At her home the next day, Molly invites Nomi to go to a showing of "Goddess" at the Stardust, where she is one of the costumers.
   1. Molly briefly sports a nifty black bra-and-panties combo -- apparently the minimum contractural requirement for any woman to appear in this wretched film.
   2. Lightening the mood, Eszterhas has the two gal-pals playfully argue about who ate the rest of the potato chips. Fascinating.
   3. Nomi is now a stripper at the "Cheetah" club at this point, but you have to backtrack from later parts of the story to deduce this. Now that's exposition!
   
   
4. Da Big Show: As Nomi lingers in the dressing area at the Stardust, we learn that all of the female dancers in the show are rank bitches. If we figure that these ladies spend so much time together that their menstrual cycles have now synchronized, we might guess that they are all getting their periods. Then again, as the film progresses one gets the idea that PMS never ends backstage at the Stardust.
   1. Normally, bit players only have to work in small, subtle ways to effectvely do their job -- here, everybody even near the camera lens goes out their way to over-perform the most minor of details. As the curtain-time nears, the show's prodution directors yell and cajole their charges as if this were a military operation. See, this whole Vegas showgirl thing is very, very serious business.
   
   
5. Star-Struck: Out in the audience of the show (and, inexplicably, standing up with nobody around -- this thing apparently is far from a sellout), Nomi is transfixed by the dancing, which (as is the case throughout Showgirls) is uniformly awful. Seriously, this writhing, hyperkinetic dance company makes the Solid Gold Dancers look like the freakin' Bolshoi. The music can be categorized somewhere between Yanni and a bad acid trip.
   1. Wanting to be sure that nobody misunderstands that Nomi wants to be a showgirl, the slightly pre-orgasmic glow on her face isn't enough for Verhoeven -- he actually has her mimicing the dancers silly little hand motions, as if she were a six-year-old watching TV.
   2. It is here where we are first introduced to Crystal Connors (Gina Gershon), the new star of the show, who appropriately makes an erect-nippled debut. A following scene establishes that she is a "big star" and the casino is glad to have her. Sipping champagne and sounding vaguely like Katherine Hepburn, Crystal declares the pyrotechnic piece of shit we just saw as "the best show I've ever been in."
   
   
6. A Brief Encounter: The All About Eve references gain steam as Molly and Nomi wind up in Crystal's dressing room, where she has requested a refitting of a costume. Molly tells the starlet that her friend is also a dancer, but when it is revealed that she's actually a stripper, Crystal declares that stripping really isn't dancing. Immedeately abandoning her glassy-eyed stare, Nomi scowls and yells "You don't know shit!" and storms out. Sassy.
   1. In the aftermath of this scene, Berkely does more "acting" -- slamming the roof of a car (what's with this car thing?), sort of crying, but then letting out a girlish squeal when Molly offers to take her to a dance club. Yay!
   
   
7. The Dance Floor: In what will eventually be a pointless plot tangent, Nomi meets dancer James Smith (Glenn Plummer), who is working as a bouncer at the dance club. As she dances, he chats her up and offers to "teach her" how to really dance. She knees him in the groin (proud folk, these strippers). A brawl ensues as the empty-headed Nomi looks on as if she's just taken a bite of the most delicious cheesecake on earth.
   1. Of course, Nomi winds up in the local jail. But there's no lesbo stuff here (that happens later).
   
   
8. The Cheetah: After being bailed out by James (and a lame attempt at banter that will make any cinema buff reach for the nearest Bogie/Bacall DVD), Nomi returns to the Cheetah, where topless strippers backstage ponder the size of their (generous) breasts.
   1. This sequence is where we are introduced to Showgirls' most bizarre character -- Henrietta Bazoom (Lin Tucci), an obese, vulgar, middle-aged woman who somehow works in the club and flashes her unappetizing wares to the patrons while singing bawdy songs. Your humble reviewer has attended a few strip clubs in his time, and it must be said that none of the beer-swilling patrons there would have ever sat through one of Henrietta's crude bits, which tend to have the same effect on the male organ as a cold glass of ice-water.
   2. We also meet Cheetah proprietor Al Torres (Robert Davi) here, a lowlife so honestly scummy that he's actually one of the few likable characters in the film. "This is a class joint" he declares (wondrously free of the oxymoron), and even though he demands oral sex from a new employee, his straightforward manner makes him far more sympathetic than the contemptably vapid Nomi, or any of the other childish backstabbers in the movie. Perhaps why Al is so agreeable is because he's actually one of the few adults to be found in this neon-bathed playland. (cf., Tony Moss, II-A.)
   
   
9. A Private Dancer: Okay gang, here's where you get to see Liz all in the raw -- twice in one sequence. Taking to the Cheetah's stage, she takes off her skimpy outfit (all of it), while Crystal and Zack Carey (Kyle MacLachlan), entertainment director the Stardust, look on. After the performance, Crystal buys Zack a private "lap-dance" from Nomi, who doesn't do much to hide her hatred for the famous Vegas star.
   1. The lap-dance sequence itself is sort of stunning, not because it's accurate or inaccurate or anything like that, but because young Elizabeth Berkeley is basically doing soft-porn here. One can only imagine the advice that she was given before this film -- "Do it and everybody will see you as a serious, couragous actress" -- even though the result was her straddling MacLachlan while he fakes an orgasm in his Chinos. Not exactly Citizen Kane, now is it?
   
   
10. An Object of Desire Remember in Purple Rain when Prince sees the white guitar in the shop window and implies to Appolonia that it's his greatest desire in the world? Eszterhas is so dereft of new ideas in Showgirls that he actually duplicates the moment, as Nomi sees a black dress with gold trim in a Versace shop window and lingers over it (Molly is here instead of Appolonia, natch).
    1. Trying the dress on in a room full of mirrors, Nomi's self-absorption is once again established. But besides that, the sequence is essentially meaningless, only setting up a stupid joke about how Nomi can't pronouce "Versace."
    
    

II. NOMI'S BIG BREAK

1. The Audition: Approached by a Stardust employee at the Cheetah, Nomi is asked to attend an auditon for a chorus part in "Goddess." Upon her arrival, we meet "Goddess" producer Tony Moss (Alan Rachins), who humiliates his showgirl wannabes with rapid-fire dialouge that, while utterly mysoginistic, is among the small handful of clever bits in the film ("Can you spell MGM backwards?"). Nomi makes the final cut, but -- true to form -- this spunky lass gets her fill of Moss's rude demands (he asks her to place her nipples in a bowl of ice cubes to make them more erect) and storms off the stage.
   1. Rachins, formerly of NBC-TV's "L.A. Law," is chameolon-like here, playing the foul-mouthed Vegas showman rather than the conservating managing lawyer in the popular television show. Then again, he's also wearing a rug.
   2. Gershon, as the depraved Crystal, views the audition, leaning forward and practically licking her twisted lips when the girls are commanded to remove their tops. Verhoeven's point is about as subtle as a foghorn.
   
   
2. Let's Get It On: Her audition in shreds, Nomi bumps into James outside of the Stardust and he takes her back to his place, where they practice one of his dance routines -- which doesn't look much different than the pelvis-grinding lap-dance she performed for MacLachlan. When the heat gets too hot, James shoves his hand down Nomi's tights, but she claims she's on her period. As if that weren't enough information for all of us, she tells James he "can check," which he does (!). Hard-up James tells Nomi that he's "got towels," but, always the prick-teaser, she leaves him with a serious case of blue-balls.
   1. And here's where we should at least say "thank you" to Mssrs. Verhoeven and Esterhaus, because on first viewing we were sorta concerned we would find out if Nomi used tampons or pads. This is perhaps the only part of Showgirls that is (thankfully) left to the imagination. And we're glad the whole "towels" thing never led anywhere either.
   2. As she heads out the door, James tells Nomi that she's "hiding from herself" -- a thematic refrain worthy of, say, Casablanca, but woefully misplaced amongst these emotionally bankrupt characters.
   
   
3. The Big Break: Much to her surprise, Nomi is offered a job in the chorus of "Goddess," and we get to sit through even more of this rotten Vegas spectacle as our heroine joins the cast in their fierly, topless review. Zack sends flowers to Nomi at the end of the first night.
   1. Nomi meets, amongst other people, the show's obviously gay choreographer, a short little guy who runs around the stage while the girls are rehearsing, yelling lines over the music like "STAY IN SYNC!" and "1 - 2 - 1 - 2!" and "THRUST IT! THRUST IT!" How much time did Eszterhas spend on this character? "Let's see, we need a choreographer for the show. I know -- he's gay! And totally obsessive!"
   2. Nomi returns to James her to tell him the good news, only to find him in bed with another girl from the Cheetah. Playing the young woman scorned, Berkeley's "acting" here makes one long for the drama chops of Molly Ringwald, or perhaps Demi Moore.
   
   
4. Nomi and Crystal: After Nomi joins "Goddess," Crystal decides to take her to lunch. But although it's under the pretenses of a fresh start, the lecherous Crystal really just wants to get into Nomi's tights. A vague doppelganger theme is introduced, as Crystal tells Nomi that they are both whores, but Nomi declares "I'll never be like you." As with the previously suggested hidden-aspect-of-self theme introduced by James (cf. II.A.2), such trenchant motifs really have no place in a film as juvenile as this one, but it seems Eszterhas still wants to introduce them, if only to make the script seem marginally credible to his most simple-minded viewers.
   1. Gershon's twisted, sneering mouth is annoying throughout most of Showgirls, as she uses it to full effect in virtually every scene. But in this particular moment, the lips-and-mouth-and-creepy-little-smirk-thing rates an 11 on the annoy-o-meter.
   2. Nomi previously had a brief "sharing" moment with Molly over who ate some potato chips. Here, Nomi and Crystal share a bonding moment when they reveal to each other that they like to eat dog food. Seriously.
   3. After lunch, Nomi and Crystal return to the Stardust and dance alone on the stage, and Crystal manages to get Nomi's top off, running her fingers over the younger girl's nipples, which Nomi doesn't seem to mind until Crystal once again calls her a whore. "Bitch," Nomi hisses, storming away. (Nomi tends to storm away a lot, it seems. Like, every other scene in this movie ends with Nomi furious and pounding her way to the nearest exit.)
   
   
5. Who Wants To Be a Prostitute?: Courtesy of the wicked Crystal, Nomi is offered $1,000 just to appear at a local boat show in her "Goddess" outfit, but (as the Cassandra-like Molly warns her), all is not as it seems. When a Stardust employee tries to arrange a paid tryst between her and a wealthy Japanese visitor, Nomi is offended by the suggestion and -- you guessed it -- storms away.
   1. Liz gets all mad here again, with that wonderfully hostile "acting" that's barely worthy of anything outside of sequences in porn-flicks that segue from one sex scene to the next. Eszterhas' dialogue is no better.
   2. A subplot is introduced just after this sequence, where a female Stardust dancer engineers the on-stage injury of a rival, foreshadowing a later event between Nomi and Crystal.
   3. Just before this, a brief scuffle bewteen a straight dancer and two gay dancers results in the line "Do you want a knuckle sandwich?" No, really -- that's an actual line in this movie.
   4. Also in this sequence -- and in one of the most inexplicable moments of the entire 2:15 running time of Showgirls -- Cheetah owner Al Torres, with Henrietta Bazoom in tow, visits Nomi at the Stardust, just to tell her that he's proud of her. Why Al and Henrietta need to be reintroduced defies all logic, since they were dismissed from the film some time earlier and never appear again. But apparently it's important for Al to make his amends. His parting thought to Nomi? "It must be weird not having anybody come on you." Uhh... sure, Al. Who doesn't feel like that sometimes?
   
   
6. Nomi and Zack in the pool: As Zack came to her defense after the traumatic boat show/sex proposition, Nomi decides to go back with him to his lavish house, where they drink champange and have sex in the pool.
   1. Perhaps the most derided of all scenes in Showgirls, the sex-in-the-pool sequence is worth several laughs, because everything it wants to be it just isn't. Nomi's self-absorption is readily apparent, as she's clearly impressed by Zack's wealth. Then, when they get in the pool, Zack pours some champagne on her before she swims around a bit and then straddles him on the water's edge, humping and thrusting her way, arms flailing, to a silly, shattering climax. Total copulation time? About 20 seconds. If Zack thinks he got a good deal, he's nuts. He'd be better off back at the Cheetah.
   2. Meanwhile, Berkely here, while totally naked and moaning her lungs out, is about as sexy as a drowning victim. 'Nuff said.
   
   
7. COPYCOPYCOPYCOPY: xxxxxxxxx
   1. xxxxxxxxxx
   
   

-- RW

• Color?
• Widescreen (1.85)?
• 16x9 enhanced?
• Single-sided, single-layered disc?
• Dolby Digital English 5.1, French 2.0, Spanish 2.0?
• French and Spanish subtitles?
• extras?
• keep-case?

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