“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...
