 15th Anniversary Sinsational Edition Tagline: Sex, seduction and betrayal. Shocking. Titillating. "Glittery (and) gleefully vulgar" (Dayton Daily News)! It's the ultimate in infamy... a deluxe Fully Exposed Edition bulging with more features than a lap dancer's bustier. From the creators of Basic Instinct comes Showgirls, an "instant camp classic" (The New York Times) and a spectacularly lusty film experience no one should miss! Vegas, baby. Where the dreams and desires to make it big are as sharp as a stiletto heel. Enter Nomi (Elizabeth Berkley), a girl with the looks and drive to devour the glitz and glamour whole. When she catches the eye of Cristal (Gina Gershon), the main attraction at the Stardust stage show, Nomi is on the brink of realizing her dreams. But as she quickly bumps and grinds her way to the top, Nomi realizes that there is only room for one starlet on the marquee... and that either she or Cristal will have to take a fall! Storyline: Nomi Malone, a mysterious young girl with the ambition to dance embarks on a journey to Las Vegas to become a showgirl in a high-class hotel show. There she meets Molly, a seamstress at the Stardust Hotel and the two quickly become good friends. She gets a job as a lap dancer at the seedy Cheetah Club but after a chance meeting with Cristal Connors, the star of Goddess, the current show at the hotel where Molly works, Nomi manages to secure an audition for a spot on the chorus line.However she soon realises that fame comes with a price as her friendships, her morals and her soul are put to the test as she works her way up the ladder and eventually becomes the star of the show, stealing Cristal's part. She begins to wonder if all of her work was for nothing and if she can reclaim her life back before it is too late. Written by David Rush Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Casey Broadwater on June 15, 2010 -- There are three possible approaches that critics and audiences alike take toward Showgirls, director Paul Verhoeven's sleazy story of an ambition stripper in the phony world of Las Vegas excess. The first is to dismiss it entirely—often before even seeing it—as a reprehensible piece of cinematic schlock, a gratuitous, boob-addled display of boundless misogyny, the stuff of adolescent masturbatory fantasies. And that, I'd say, is a perfectly valid judgment. Women are objectified, breasts are near-constantly bared, and the film's idea of sex is a grotesque charade that involves much gymnastic flailing. The second, less widely held take is to see it as a cleverly disguised satire, an indictment of the Vegas skin-dustry and a jab at the juvenile desires of the film's intended audience. While there's certainly a case to be made there, it's much more likely that the viewers and critics who ascribe to this approach are fishing for artistic integrity where there simply is none. The third opinion, though—the one that made Showgirls a cult classic on home video—is to watch it as a so bad it's good guilty pleasure, to ironically revel in the film's inane dialogue, ridiculous plotting, and sexual absurdities. This is the only reason the film is even remotely worth watching. Former Saved By the Bell good girl Elizabeth Berkley takes a naughty, frequently bare- assed turn as Nomi Malone, a hitchhiking drifter with an uncertain past—get it? No me, alone—who dreams of making it to Vegas and becoming a dancer. Within minutes of arriving in the city of neon and gold, she gets scammed by a pompadoured idiot and befriends Molly (Gina Ravera), a kindly costumer who offers—like any complete and utter stranger would—to let Nomi crash at her place indefinitely. Six weeks later, Nomi is working as a stripper—sorry— dancer at one of Vegas' seamier establishments, The Cheetah Club, the kind of place where the manager's advice on your first day goes something like, "If you wanna last longer than a week, you'll give me a blowjob." You know—classy. (Here we also meet Henrietta Bazoom, an obese, grandmotherly stripper, who tells unprintable jokes and wears a dress rigged to let her ample boob-age pop out to accentuate the punch lines. Hilarious.) While Nomi wiggles her T&A and—in one of the most unhygienic scenes in recent cinema history—licks a stripper pole lengthwise, she's noticed by Cristal Connors (Gina Gershon), the bisexual headliner of a dance show at the moderately more upscale Stardust Hotel. Cristal commands Nomi to give a lap dance to her boyfriend Zach (Kyle MacLachlan), the hotel's artistic director, and to show she's got what it takes, Nomi aggressively dry humps Zach until he stickies his pants. Now that's a good first impression. (This is the first of two laugh-out-loud sex scenes with the unfortunate former Agent Cooper.) Needless to say, Nomi lands a gig dancing in the hotel's ongoing program, "Goddess," an over-the- top, New Age-y, Zeigfield Follies-meets-S&M musical that's—and I say this with all respect— basically the gayest show on Earth. Showgirls essentially becomes a softcore All About Eve, with Nomi in an understudy role for her newfound rival Cristal, who—oops!—ends up conspicuously falling down a flight of stairs. We're in what would you do to make it to the top territory here, as screenwriter Joe Eszterhas—who was paid a whopping, wholly unearned $2 million for this trash—doles out every possible backstage backstabbing cliché. The script is a big old sex-befuddled mess, with hazy motivations and a plot with more unfilled holes than an abstinence rally. Take Cristal, for instance, who's portrayed as a "big star," attracting paparazzi wherever she goes. What, then, is she doing baring her chest in what, for all intents and purposes, is a burlesque show for rich people? The show's producers even talk—seriously—about getting Latoya Jackson or Paula Abdul to fill the role after Cristal takes her tumble. What kind of alternate universe Vegas is this? And the dialogue…oh the deliciously stilted, emotionally retarded dialogue. In Eszterhas' sexed-up fantasy-fulfillment-land, the topics of women's conversations are confined to their nails, their breasts, sex, and how brown rice and vegetables are "worse than dog food." My, what dimensional characters he's drawn! What paradigms of femininity! To say Showgirls is an affront to women is an understatement akin to saying Hitler was a little bit racist. There is, of course, a fine line between showing misogyny and actually being misogynistic—it's all about attitude and intent—but Showgirls crosses it far too often for there to be any misunderstandings. With the exception of Molly, the only character with a conscience, the women in the film are all busty, two-bit bimbos, personality-free sex objects, or world-class bitches. And just when you think it can't possibly get any more demeaning, poor naïve Molly pays for her relative purity by being brutally gang-raped and beaten within an inch of her life. It's the only truly ugly moment in the film; the rest is just tacky, as gaudy and artificial as Las Vegas' myriad recreations of international landmarks. Fake as a boob job, as desperate as Botox. If you're in the right frame of mind, though—a state that, ideally, involves like-minded friends and a generous amount of alcohol—Showgirls is grade-A material for an ironic, oh my gosh, I can't believe we're watching this viewing party. The intentionality of the humor is dubious, but there's a lot to laugh at here, especially when it comes to Elizabeth Berkley's completely bipolar performance. She seems to have two modes: staring vacantly, dumber than a china doll, or flying insanely off the handle. And, well, of course, there's also her sex mode, which involves thrashing worse than an epileptic being shocked with a cattle prod. When Zach has sex with Nomi in his pool, their motions call to mind a stoic fisherman trying to angle the most frantic, flapping swordfish imaginable. With its infamous NC-17 rating, Showgirls has a reputation as a sexy, adults- only-style film, but I've seen cooking shows on TV that were more erotic. Though Berkley spends nearly one sixth of Showgirls in various states of undress, the nudity is so rampant that it becomes essentially meaningless and unaffecting. Verhoevan gives us what he thinks his 18 to 35 male audience wants—strippers, bared breasts, lap dances—but as it turns out, it's only good for a laugh. You likely already have an opinion on Showgirls—it's either irredeemable garbage, a clever bit of show-biz satire, or a guilty pleasure on par with Barbarella. (And Paramount, if you're reading this, we could use a Barbarella Blu-ray, stat.) If you love the film—for whatever reason, I won't judge—and you're wondering whether this 15-year anniversary Blu-ray edition is worth the upgrade from the DVD, don't hesitate. Showgirls looks and sounds better than ever. I can't bring myself to recommend the film to newcomers, but if you're already a fan, have at it. Cast Notes: Elizabeth Berkley (Nomi Malone), Kyle MacLachlan (Zack Carey), Gina Gershon (Cristal Connors), Glenn Plummer (James Smith), Robert Davi (Al Torres), Alan Rachins (Tony Moss), Gina Ravera (Molly Abrams), Lin Tucci (Henrietta 'Mama' Bazoom), Greg Travis (Phil Newkirk), Al Ruscio (Mr. Karlman), Patrick Bristow (Marty Jacobsen), William Shockley (Andrew Carver), Michelle Johnston (Gay Carpenter), Dewey Weber (Jeff), Rena Riffel (Penny / Hope). User Comment: *** This review may contain spoilers *** (droberts@imdb.com) from Seattle, WA, 9 August 2000 • Calling Showgirls "poorly acted" or "sexist" completely misses the point; it's like accusing Britney Spears of not being a "real musician," as though you've discovered something. Of *course* Showgirls is exploitative and demeaning to women. Almost all Hollywood movies are demeaning to women. Almost all of them are male-written, male-directed male fantasies. But most of them cover this fact with a thin veneer of "empowerment" and "sensitivity," making perfunctory, surface concessions to political correctness. It's hypocritical, dishonest and has horrible long-term effects on the psyches of young impressionable girls (and boys). The brilliance of Showgirls is that it gathers all of the worst Hollywood masculine excess and throws it unapologetically in our faces. The movie is straight-from-the-id, primal, brutish male fantasy. Every woman in the movie is a laughable caricature who advances, if at all, by deceiving other women and becoming a sexual object for men. The "heroine," Nomi, crosses every line, sells every shred of dignity, physically assaults her female competitors, sleeps with her boss (in the most over-the-top sex scene in cinematic history), gets her best friend raped... and at the end of the film, claims that she has gambled and won "herself." This tragi-comic nod to empowerment is a slap to the face of anyone who's been paying attention. Whether Esterhauz and Verhoeven intended it as such, Showgirls is at once a camp classic and a sly satire, an example of everything our culture at once wallows in and disavows. Sure, you can react with righteous indignation, waggle your finger at the movie, and pat yourself on the back for being so enlightened. But maybe you should take a look around, at the billboards, the commercials, the sitcoms, the movies, the music videos, your own prejudices... and think about whether you can't find a better target. Summary: A Misunderstood Classic. IMDb Rating (08/03/14): 4.5/10 from 43,004 users IMDb Rating (08/21/10): 4.1/10 from 26,822 users
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