"The Showgirls Blog Orgy"

"Hey wouldn't it be funny if all Showgirls-loving bloggers did their own post about the movie and then synchronized their posts to be released like viruses into the blogosphere at the exact instant in time?" asked Girish in the midst of a discussion of writing about film, blogs, style and so forth that had mushroomed in the comments section of his post on all that - a discussion, too, in which Paul Verhoeven's 1995 film (which might also just as easily be called "Paul Verhoeven and Joe Eszterhas's"), for whatever reason, kept popping up.

Well, that event has actually come to pass. It was scheduled for today, the 10th anniversary of its release in the Netherlands, and lo, it's really happening. Throughout the ether, they're talking about Showgirls. For Girish himself, the film "reminds me of the movies of Douglas Sirk, especially his voluptuous farewell to Hollywood, Imitation of Life (1959). Here's the key to both films: glorious artifice, and blithe rejection of verisimilitude. They cry out: Down with realism!" Comments follow, but skimming across the blogs:

• Flickhead opens with a quote from Jacques Rivette, who called Showgirls "one of the great American films of the last few years." For Flickhead, it "transcends the limitations normally set by genre and dramatic convention — and comes to embody every foul, odious thing it professes to abhor. That it evolves into a compelling (and very funny) reflection of western culture spiraling out of control for lack of dignity and shame was surely an accident."

• Ben at the Whine Colored Sea: "I think you might just be able to see it as a prequel of sorts to Mulholland Drive, with Verhoeven opting to tell the story as an oversexed melodrama rather than using the abstract-dream-film idiom that Lynch employs."

• Joshua Gibson at Fagistan: "Nomi Malone explodes out of the very bowels of the Earth. It's the old elemental fury again. Nomi was born to be Goddess."

• David Lowery: "An hour and forty five minutes in, I knew I wouldn't be joining the film's supporters. I tried. Honestly, I did."

• Tim at Obsolete Vernacular: "I smell sequel."

• Darren Hughes: "I'm willing to admit a certain fondness for Starship Troopers, Paul Verhoeven's satire of fascism and the pornography of violence, but whatever it is that inspires some to extoll the virtues of Showgirls... well, I just don't got it."

• Brian Darr: "I count myself among the growing number of cinephiles whose views at the very least fit under the umbrella statement, 'It doesn't suck.'"

• Zach Campbell writes an open letter to Elizabeth Berkley: "You have unfairly shouldered the blame for this 'travesty'... Eric Henderson has already stated it perfectly: the film made viewers feel bad not about wanting T&A, but about wanting the conventional dramatic payoff."

• Aaron Hillis: "Ultimately, Showgirls is an irrestistably raunchy and addictively quotable merrymaker that is having way too much fun itself to ask us to judge its immoral antiheroes."

• Speaking of those quotables, the afore-mentioned Slant contributor, Eric Henderson puts together a phenomenal entry, 20 snippets from Eszterhas's script with downloadable MP3s of readings by "the uniformly excellent ensemble cast." Plus notes for each. As Girish says in the comments to his own post, "Eric, you're somethin' else!"

Updates: Peter Nellhaus at Coffee Coffee and More Coffee: "I may be pushing a bit here, but [Gina] Gershon made me think of Barbara Stanwyck."

For Mubarak Ali at Supposed Aura, Showgirls is an "ingenious, insanely lush, even endearingly earnest satire of an institution (i.e., Hollywood) we all love and love to hate."

Updates, 1/12: Nilblogette: "How is it that certain movies are destroyed by both critics and audiences, only to be lauded years later for the very same reasons? I assume it is because these films are sold to an audience that doesn't want them, and are only later discovered by the one for which the director really made them."

Campaspe at Self-Styled Siren: "The movie is a walking, pecking, flying, gobble-gobbling, ready-for-its-bourbon-bottle-closeup turkey. Sure, it has a certain 90s social relevance. So does Veronica's Closet."

Dennis Cozzalio at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule: "Verhoeven is not condemning Las Vegas or Americans for reveling in bad taste. On the contrary, he's reveling in it himself, drawing parallels between himself, as a participant in American show business, and the characters on screen, and he's not making any excuses for anyone's behavior."

Sean at Bitter Cinema: "So, to flog a dead horse, yes sir, you're absolutely right, we are a goddamn mess; and thank you, Paul..."

Posted by dwhudson at January 11, 2006 9:44 AM