The Documentary ‘You Don’t Nomi’ Can’t Hide That 25 Years Later, ‘Showgirls’ Is Still Awful

Forbes ^ | June 4, 2020 | Christopher Orr

[L.A.Justice]

“Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough,” explained John Huston’s withered magnate Noah Cross in Chinatown. Alas, the same cannot be said of showgirls. Or rather, it can’t be said of Showgirls, director Paul Verhoeven’s infamously atrocious 1995 exploration of the Las Vegas stripping scene.

This is despite the best efforts of You Don’t Nomi, a new 25th anniversary documentary by Jeffrey McHale that attempts to rehabilitate Verhoeven’s widely (and properly) reviled debacle, now considered by some to be cult film. Featuring voiceover by nearly a dozen critics and performers, several of whom have devoted mystifying portions of their adult lives to the worship of Showgirls, McHale’s film argues that—well, it’s hard to say precisely what. The various encomiums offered up for Verhoeven’s folly frequently contradict one another, and McHale makes little or no effort to bring them into any kind of alignment.

For those in need of refreshing, Showgirls was written by Joe Eszterhas and directed by Verhoeven as a kind of follow-up to their blockbuster 1992 erotic thriller Basic Instinct.

[MisterArtery]

Worst movie I ever saw was Reptilicus, a circa 1961 Danish monster flic.

[mowowie]

Starship Troopers

[mfish13]

I was on a Ski trip with my rugby team and Showgirls was on. Awful. I was glad when they took it off and put on Groundhog Day.

[L.A.Justice]

I liked BLACK BOOK better than SHOWGIRLS...

Carice Van Houten was fine in that movie...

I did learn that there were many Dutch traitors in the Resistance during World War Two...

[L.A.Justice]

Well the worst movie in which they spent more than a few thousand dollars making it. Elizabeth Berkely waa fairly hot.

__________________________

I think she looked better than Gina Gershon...