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"I used to love Doggy Chow, too!"

1995 NC-17 / Drama Directed by: Paul Verhoeven Starring: Elizabeth Berkley, Gina Gershon, Kyle MacLachlan

Tagline

Leave Your Inhibitions At The Door

Summary Capsule

Hooker tries to break into sexy dancing; sex equals violence; breasts abound.

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Amazon.com: DVD | Amazon.com: Soundtrack

Justin's Rating: I must've seen a hundred women's bajingos today! Bajingo, bajingo, bajingo... (with apologies to Scrubs)
Justin's Review: While there is certainly no shortage of bad films released each and every week into the public consciousness, it is a rarity to see a bad films of a specific breed: a huge, big budget, over-inflated, star-filled, heavily-promoted, mind-numbingly terrible movie. Movies like these don’t pop up very often — perhaps one every five years or so — but when they do, watch out. Actors and actresses will witness their careers abruptly end, directors will find future projects sparse, and audiences everywhere will take the name of the film and make it into such a long-running joke that no one can remember a time before the release when people actually had hopes it would be a smashing success.

"By the fifth minute, we’ve become familiar with Nomi’s personality, which is to be incredibly dumb, single-minded in focus, and as short-tempered as a mule pooping out hornets."

The 90’s saw four such big bombs land in theaters… at least, by my count. Hudson Hawk was critically maligned but didn’t deserve such a bad rap — it was a quirky, and later on, enjoyable cult film that gained a group of fans. The other two big offenders, Batman and Robin and Battlefield Earth, have no such defenders. They represent gobs of money wasted on garish productions that tortured rather than entertained. Similarly, Showgirls shared some of their key traits (high profile cast and crew, tons of money, floundering script) but differed from the 90’s big bombs in a few notable ways, starting with its NC-17 rating.

As with The Doom Generation, the only thing I can draw from watching Showgirls is that the filmmakers personally hated each and every person in the potential audience and wanted them to suffer greatly. As far from redeeming as one can be without leaving our dimension, Showgirls writhes with seething hatred: hatred between characters, hatred at their situations, and hatred toward the watchers. It’s a mean, ugly movie that just so happens to be courageously bad in scope, so that when you’re not wincing from its assault, you’re laughing at its childish results.

The core of this story and the film’s hatred is Nomi, played by Elizabeth Berkley. Berkley’s major claim to fame prior to this point was being Jessie in "Saved By The Bell", a horrid little Saturday morning sitcom that brought school into our living rooms on the weekend in an unfunny way. Jessie was never one of my favorite characters, but then again, none of them really were. After Showgirls and the resulting nuclear fallout, Berkley vanished without a trace. She’ll never work in Hollywood again, and if this movie is any indication, Las Vegas probably doesn’t want her either. (Yes, I know that she's done films since, but allow the exaggeration for my sake.)

Nomi, an ex-hooker with a desire to "make it big" by "taking off her clothes for money but it’s called DANCING not being a HOOKER when it’s in a club format", wanders into Las Vegas with a heart of gold and a sneer of silver. By the fifth minute, we’ve become familiar with Nomi’s personality, which is to be incredibly dumb, single-minded in focus, and as short-tempered as a mule pooping out hornets. (I first typed "bumblebees", then "wasps", but finally decided that "hornets" held the highest comedy value there.) Nomi simply has to be seen to be believed, because I cannot convey to you how idiotic her character acts, switching from attacking a complete stranger for no reason to crying on her shoulder within, literally, ten seconds. She’s worse than Pam Lee in Barb Wire, who would go off on someone for daring to call her stripper persona "babe". Nomi is far worse, as for any reason at all, she launches into a poor man’s rendition of what a three-year-old’s temper tantrum might look like if it were stuffed into the body of a prostitute. It’s… interesting.

Nomi’s dream to be a "star" (Lord only knows how many films out there revolve around a girl traveling to a new city to become a star for some reason) lands her in a chorus line for a nudie dance line at a casino. Splendid. It’s here that director Paul Verhoeven and writer Joe Eszterhas enter into a personal playground for their pornographic fantasies. The problem is, it’s a horrible place full of rusty swing sets and absurd notions of what is erotic and sensual.

Here’s the thing: nudity is not, by itself, erotic. A breast is just a breast (just ask any doctor who does a thousand mammograms every month). It needs to be given context, a personal connection to suddenly take form. And if you see Showgirls (please don’t, please), you’ll learn to understand that there is actually a place where all of the breasts in the world hopping about can be stripped of anything remotely sexy. Sometimes it’s far sexier to leave clothes on and something to the imagination. Sometimes it’s more alluring if a person hints at attraction and subtly flirts instead of thrashing themselves on another person in a swimming pool as if they were an epileptic lamprey eel.

If you come to rent this film out of a misguided sense of horniness, you’ll soon discover it has the same effect as temporary castration. Showgirls is, without a doubt, anti-sexy. It contains plenty of nudity, yes, but in such a gross context that you’ll be tempted to swear off sex forever. And it doesn’t help matters that all of the characters who are pleading with you to take their stories seriously are spending most of their time topless, spouting out crude phrases as if they were titillating, and prancing about like complete ninnies. It’s nothing but sad and pitiful.

Since the whole of the story is actually short — girl becomes showgirl, bullies her way to the top, has a fall, leaves town — the remaining space is filled with pointlessness. Some guy follows Nomi around wanting to teach her to dance, but she’s mean to him until his persistence results in them almost getting it on except she’s on her period and makes him do something insanely disgusting to prove it. Nomi befriends a genuinely nice girl and moves in with her, only to ruin her life by introducing her to a rapist who brutalizes her in a degrading moment of cinematic history. A fat lady keeps popping her top. Monkeys poop on stage. Gina Gershon smiles like a shark. Kyle MacLachlan is a stereotypical jerk in sheep’s clothing. Girls catfight without clothes on.

Sigh.

I’m actually ashamed to review this, because it’s telling you that I really watched it. I’m sorry I did. But if it results in warding off at least a couple others from wasting their time and morality in viewing this spectacular trash pile, then it might be worth it. As for me, I’m off to go take a bath. Fully clothed.

All I can think about is, "the GERMS" I can't disguise, I got, hungry eyes Vampires contract all sorts of nasty diseases from hookers

Didja Notice? [some sources: IMDb]

• Does she pull out a knife for just any reason?
• Girls like to fight, save each other’s lives, and then hug within twenty seconds of meeting each other
• Nudity by minute 9
• Nomi is a whiny brat with the spirit of a temper tantrum-throwing three-year-old -- and I think that’s all the notes the actress was given to work with
• Nomi does spirit fingers!
• Nomi knees a guy for no reason in the dance club, then smiles all proud-like as everyone fights because of her. She’s spiffy.
• That guy’s face ordered the extra craggy value meal
• Nomi’s a bit of wriggler during sex
• Ice cubes are threatening… for some reason…
• Checking for her period. Thank you, Showgirls. I’m off sex forever.
• So she sees 10 seconds of a routine, and can suddenly do three minutes of it?
• Monkeys in dresses! A metaphor for the movie AND its most enjoyable part!
• Ah, yet another pleasant catfight.
• The waiter hands the girls the menu and says "enjoy"… huh? Enjoy eating the menu?
• The girls bonding over eating dog food
• The mean girl saying the "F" word to the little kids, and having the little kids fake crying about it
• "It’s her knee"… gee, after squeezing it and hearing her shriek in pain, do you think it’s her knee? Showgirls make great doctors.
• Naked Kyle butt! Nooo!
• The cover image for this movie is a remake of a famous photograph by Slovak photographer Tono Stano.
• Elizabeth Berkley spends approximately 20 minutes, or 1/6 of the entire film, completely nude.

Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?

Ask yourself this: is it worth staying through the movie? No.

Intermission! [some sources: IMDb]

Kyle MacLachlan walked out of the movie's premiere, during which he was allegedly heard exclaiming "I thought this was an art movie."

The rights to show the film on television were eventually purchased by the VH1 network. However, because of the film's gratuitous nudity, a peculiar moment in cinema history occurred. An alternative, censored version of the film was created with black bras and panties digitally added over all frontally nude actresses. (This was done in addition to several scenes removed.) Berkley refused to redub her lines, so a noticeably different actress's voice was used in the dubbing.

Elizabeth Berkley was paid only $100,000 for playing the lead in the film.

The only interior scenes that were actually filmed in Las Vegas are the first ones in which Nomi plays slot machines.

The only time actresses complained that they felt uncomfortable was during the scenes with the monkeys, who constantly stared at their bare breasts.

The Los Angeles freeway sign at the end of the movie, was a hint at a sequel that Paul Verhoeven and Joe Eszterhas were already planning for, but was abandoned when this movie debuted. The sequel was to have Nomi going to Hollywood and taking on the movie business.

Groovy Quotes

Cristal: There's always someone younger and hungrier coming down the stairs after you.

Cristal: I've had dog food.
Nomi: You have?
Cristal: Mmm-hmmm. Long time ago. Doggy Chow. I used to love Doggy Chow.
Nomi: I used to love Doggy Chow, too!

James Smith: Now wait a minute. Listen, just listen. Man you've got more talent when you dance than anybody I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot of dancers. I studied at New York... Alvin Ailey. You burn when you dance.

Nomi: It doesn't suck.

Nomi: I got my period.
James: Yeah right.
Nomi: Check.

If you liked this movie, try these:

• Striptease
• Any Hilary Duff movie where she goes to a new city to make it big