Guilty Pleasures

#2 SHOWGIRLS (1995) “Leave your inhabitions at the door, the show is about to begin” Why do I like this movie so much? It’s bad, bad, bad, bad. Now director Paul Verhoeven as done some fantastic films in his time: RoboCop, Turkish Delight, Flesh and Blood, Starship Troopers, so you have to think did he intenionally set out to make a bad film. The answer is I don’t know. Most of his films had featured a fairly healthy dollop of nudity. Basic Instinct was famous for that in between the log shot. The writer of Basic Instinct was Joe Ezsterhas, the future writer of Showgirls. For a start the movies subject was relatively controversial: rape, lesbianism and interracial relationship were some of the topics explored and not just explored- explored badly. Ezterhas, was reportedly paid $1,000,000 for the script which sees Elizabeth Berkeley stars as Nomi Malone a girl hitchhiking to Las Vegas hoping to make it big as a Las Vegas showgirl. Tangent: How could I not mention Elizabeth Berkeley and her role in Saved by the Bell, I watched it religiously as a youngster. She was always the prim and proper one or as A.C Slater referred to her as a “Don’t Call Me a Chick- Chick” and this film proves Jesse Spano was nothing of the sort. P.S. I was always a Kelly Kapowski (Tiffani Amber Thiesen man myself) since I’m on the subject of Saved by the Bell kids being dirty- what about Dustin “Screech” Diamond starring in a homemade porn video where he gives a girl a Dirty Sanchez. Mucky bugger. She ends up getting a job thanks to a new friend as a stripper at a seedy club called the Cheetah Club (Why do I remember the name of the club?). Her friend Molly works as a seemstress backstage at the Las Vegas show Goddess (again why do I remember the name of the show?) and meets Cristal (Gina Gershon) the star of the show- who is very diva’s. Cristal calls Nomi’s profession similar to prostitution somewhere around here. The next night or sometime later, I forget, Cristal and her boyfriend Kyle MacLachlan (whose the manager at the Stardust, the place where the Goddess show ) visit the Cheetah Club... Tangent: Did Kyle MacLachlan fire his agent around 1995?, he really should of, if been the male star of Showgirls wasn’t bad enough, the previous year he played the baddie in The Flintstones movie. He was in Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks. David Lynch loved casting him not 10 years previously and these where the best films coming his way at the time. Cristal pays Nomi to give Kyle MacLachlan a lapdance while she watches, Cristal watches them. This means Cristal is bisexual or something. Skipping stuff, Nomi eventually gets a job at the show, not before being asked to put ice on her nipples. Nomi eventually pushes Cristal (you go girl) down a flight of stars, injuring her badly and sending her to hospital. Noami ends ups getting the lead and there’s a sex scene with Kyle MacLachlan that’ll get to later. Then you have to watch the film to see what happens. The sex scene in the swimming pool between Berkeley and MacLachlan is comedicly funny. Berkeley must have been harpooned by accident during the filming as she struggles around like a dying dolphin, I still enjoyed it my teen years however. Showgirls was once called the worst movie ever made which is perhaps unfair, the movie is a lot of fun and in more recent years as become something of a cult movie. There is a V.I.P. Edition box-set available on R1 which features a couple of shotglasses, a naked poster, dirty playing cards and suction nipple tassles. But what geek would want to own that? Me, of course...