But this is still Showgirls, so we have to take things too far as he starts berating Nomi because her nipples don't stick out far enough and this is the part where I point out Eszterhas was paid ALMOST FOUR MILLION DOLLARS to write this movie. And this was back in the early 90s when Hollywood budgets weren't the insanity-laced trainwrecks they are today.
Nomi finally has
enough of Tony's asshole-dom, so she STORMS OFF back into the
dressing room where she runs into Cristal, who was watching the
entire audition. Nomi tells Cristal that she hates her, to which
Cristal responds “I know”. Not
quite Han and Leia, is it? Nomi leaves the
hotel, where she just happens to bump into Plummer who is now working
there as a bellhop. Good God, this guy is like Lois Lane in Man Of Steel, able
to appear wherever the plot needs me for lazy convenience in a single
bound. Nomi tells him she
just auditioned to be a showgirl, and he unintentionally sums up how
totally moronic the entire plot for this movie really is:
“You don't want
to be in this kind of show. What you're doing, at least it's honest.
They want tits and ass, you give them tits and ass. Here, they
pretend they want something else, and you still show them tits and
ass.”
Really, how am I
supposed to follow that?
Plummer's boss
tells him to quit yapping at Nomi and get back to work, but Plummer
tells him off and quits. He takes Nomi out on the town, and
apparently she's into him not based off his inability to hold a job.
He takes her to his place where he reveals he's written a song and a
routine for her, wanting her to perform it with him at a club. The practice dance
moves, which ends up in them making out. Keeping in the theme of the
ABSOLUTE CLASS this movie displays, he finds out she's on her period
the hard way. NEARLY FOUR MILLION DOLLARS. This doesn't bother him
because, oh God, he “has towels”. This causes Nomi to STORM OFF,
telling him he can fuck her when he loves her.
Nomi arrives home
to find out she got the job in the show, which naturally delights
her. She quits her job at the Cheetah and then goes back to Plummer
to tell him the good news, but sees Hope is in his bed. Plummer tries
to talk his way out of it by dissing Hope, but Nomi isn't having it
and STORMS OFF. Hope asks what that was about, Plummer dissing Nomi
which pretty much the exact same words he said about Hope.
This is a scene
that also pretty much sums up the entire movie for me, as well as
being more classic Eszterhas: almost everyone is just a monstrous
asshole that lies and uses anyone who believes in them. In the hands
of a better writer they really could have made that “morality tale”
Eszterhas claimed this was going to be, but here it's just an endless
parade of vile characters that disgust you. Although I suppose this
is another reason this movie has stuck around so long, as a lot of
people take this as an indictment of Hollywood. Which is fine, but
I've never really been a fan of being told what I already know over
and over and over again in movie form.
She goes to meet
with Tony and his assistants, wearing the dress she bought earlier in
the movie. They compliment her on it, prompting her to say she bought
it at Ver-SAY-sss, which causes everyone to look at each other and
smirk. She gets a tour of the hotel and then is taken to HR to fill
out her personal information. She is very evasive about information
on herself, which is a running theme throughout the film where she
refuses to talk about herself. Could
this mean there's a female character in an Eszterhas script with a
shady past?! GASP!
After this she
bumps into Zack and Phil, who also complement her dress. She says its
name wrong again, Zack correcting her on the pronunciation She looks
briefly mad at herself for appearing so stupid, but oddly doesn't
YELL at herself, CRY, or STORM OUT. Weird! And
thus ends the ONLY real setup/payoff in the entire film. On a joke
that was dated by 1950. Cut to the night
of her first show, as everyone gets their make up on. The movie takes
a quick smoke break so the cast of the inevitable Curious George
live action movie can run through for some WAY out of left field
slapstick comedy. Yeah, I have no
idea either. We also meet two dancers named Angie and Julie, who hate
each others guts and nearly start punching each other before getting
broken up.
After a rough
start, the show goes great for Nomi. Well, as great as a show this
bad can be. After the show she finds Plummer waiting for her and he
offers a heartfelt apology for his actions earlier in the movie. Ha
hah, just kidding! Listen to this shit:
“I have a
problem with pussy. I always have, I'm always gonna.”
Eszterhas wrote
the idea for Showgirls on a napkin and was advanced nearly two
million dollars for it. I want you to think about that. REALLY think
about that, especially next time you go to cash your paycheck for a
hard week's worth of work. The next day
Cristal takes Nomi out for lunch, where they bond over the shared
love they had for... eating dog food when they were younger? Mmm.
They start flirting with each, Cristal saying they're both whores but
Nomi takes great offense to this which has been a running bit through
the film. I find it odd she flies off the handle whenever someone
calls her a whore, it's almost like that's supposed to hint at...
nah, I'm sure they wouldn't do that. They do the good ol' “You're
just like me/I'll NEVER be like you” bit and bloody hell am I bored
at this point.
They go back to
the hotel to practice dancing, but instead Cristal takes off Nomi's
shirt and tries to kiss her. She calls Nomi a whore again, which
causes Nomi to (sing along if you know the words!) YELL at her and
STORM OFF. Fun
fact: the DVD VIP Edition of this movie came with shot glasses so you
could make your own drinking game. There's a disclaimer in the
box they're for “non-alcoholic beverages”, which is about
the funniest thing EVER. Later, Cristal
sets up Nomi with a gig representing the hotel at a boat show, to
which Nomi learns she's expected to sleep with Phil and one of the
hotel's most prestigious clients. She... already? Come on let's mix
it up a bit, I haven't seen Nomi cry in ages! She YELLS at Phil and
STORMS OFF.
She goes to the
hotel to talk to Zack, who is the only person at the hotel to be nice
to her. She tells him what happened, so he calls down Phil and lays
into him, threatening to fire him if he pulls anything like that
again. Zack makes him apologize to Nomi, then kicks him out. Nomi is
deeply moved by Zack's actions, about to kiss him when she realizes
it's showtime and rushes off. Once she's safely out of earshot, Zack
calls up Phil and starts joking around with him as that whole thing
was just a show to fool Nomi.
This is where the
film make its biggest misstep, which is REALLY saying something when
basically everything in it is a misstep. Do you like Nomi? Do you
care what happens to Nomi? What has she done to endear herself to
you? ...oh, you don't say? So if Zack uses her like Shake 'N Bake,
you don't give a single iota of a damn? Ok, just checking. During the next
show, Julie throws some beads on the floor that causes the male
dancer carrying Angie to drop her and break her leg. Nomi witnesses
this, but says nothing. She looks a little disgusted at Julie's
actions, but Angie was such an awful person in the first place it's
hard to imagine anyone would care what happened to her.
We get another
bizarre scene as Al comes to visit Nomi, telling her how good she was
in the show while more heartwarming music plays. It's almost touching
as he wishes her good luck until you realize they had no previous
relationship whatsoever to set up this kind of scene. Oh, and as he
leaves he tells her that it must be weird not having anybody come on
her anymore. WHAT. Nomi and Zack end up going to his place and
end up having that weird flopping like a fish sex in his private
pool. It is TRULY one of the funniest things of all time, as it looks
like she's having a massive seizure while he tries to hold onto her.
People make fun of the acting in this movie (rightfully so), but
these two should have gotten Academy Award nominations for NOT
laughing during this scene.
The morning after
he tells her she should audition to take Angie's place as Cristal's
new understudy. Nomi thinks this is a good idea, doing some cocaine
after turning it down the entire movie. How can a character begin a
descent into darkness when they were already dark to begin with?
Dammit Joe Eszterhas, I'm asking you a question! HOW?! Forget it! At the
audition Julie does the best performance, but Zack picks Nomi which
pisses everyone off because they know his motivations for picking
her. Especially Cristal, who deduces they've already slept together.
Nomi finds a flier
for Plummer's upcoming show stuck in her dressing room mirror. She
goes to see it, and it is just terrible with the audience booing like
crazy. She finds out Plummer is now engaged to Hope, who is pregnant.
He's giving up on his dreams to work at a grocery store, and once
again we have a completely out of place scene in this movie. This is
played up like it's supposed to be sad, but we've already established
Plummer is an asshole so WE DON'T CARE that he can't be a dancer now. Nomi returns to
the hotel so we can have the second straight scene of her finding a
crucial piece of information stuck in her mirror. This time it's a
letter telling her she's no longer the understudy for Cristal. She
STORMS OFF to go YELL at Zack, and this was awesome because they
finally mixed things up a bit!
They do the next
show which is a messed up vampire/biker thing, Cristal likely sealing
her fate when she trips Nomi during their dance. As they go down the
stairs to the dressing room, Nomi shoves her down the stairs hard and
injures her. Everyone asks what happened, and Nomi replies she must
have slipped. Julie backs up her story, since Nomi didn't rat her out
earlier. Nomi watches
outside as the ambulance takes Cristal away, another maliciously evil
look on her face. If they ever make a female version of the Joker in
a future Batman reboot, I'd say we've found our star. All
joking aside, this shot is FREAKING AWESOME and really makes you
wonder what this movie could have been if they actually had tried to
be serious.
Nomi kills in her
first performance as star of the show, getting her own press
conference. Afterward Molly confronts her about pushing Cristal, but
she denies it. Nomi invites Molly to a party Zack is throwing where
Andrew Carver will be attending, but Molly ignores her STORMS OFF.
Nomi pulls out a pistol and shoots her because that's HER gimmick,
dammit. But Molly goes to
the party anyway, because ZOMG Andrew Carver is totes a hottie with
his panty-dropping smile! Julie sucks up to Nomi, asking if she can
be her understudy. I never got this, Julie should be more pissed at
Nomi than anyone because she rightfully should be the star of the
show. She should have hung Nomi out to try and- oh, am I doing it
again? Sorry.
Zack introduces
Nomi to Andrew, who promptly establishes what kind of man he is by
whispering in her ear that he likes her ass and she should call him.
This frightens Nomi, who immediately finds Molly and tells her to
stay far away from that stupid asshole. Ha hah, just
kidding! She hooks her best friend up with the sleeze bag, who takes
her away to “go get a drink”. They go into a room to make out,
but suddenly his two bodyguards enter and here's where the movie
EARNS its title as one of the biggest pieces of shit ever churned out
by Hollywood.
They proceed to
brutally beat her up and rape her, and it is every bit as horrific as
it sounds. To make it even worse, they cut this with romantic imagery
of Nomi and Zack slow dancing to a beautiful song. I don't even want
to think about why this scene exists, it's wrong for every reason
imaginable and truly makes me happy this movie pretty much killed the
filmmaker's careers. Though
Verhoeven did redeem himself a bit with Starship Troopers, I suppose, but nowhere near enough for the nightmare we just saw. I like how the ONLY remotely nice and likeable character in the entire movie got this horrified treatment, whereas all the nasty people dance through this thing completely untouched.
Thankfully it ends
soon and the next scene is at the hospital, where Nomi asks Zack why
the police haven't been notified yet. Shouldn't the hospital have
already- oops, my bad. Zack says they won't be called because Andrew
is a “part of their team”. Nomi grabs a phone and is about to
call them herself, when Zack calls her Polly. This makes her stop,
Zack revealing he was able to find out her history from her arrest
report for the club brawl and that he knows she's an ex-hooker and
junkie.
I can't take this
anymore, I have to ask a question about the logic of this movie. WHO
GIVES A FUCK?! I take this scene to mean that if Nomi calls the
police Zack will spill the beans on her to the press and ruin her
name. But so what? Does she still want to work for the Supreme
Monster who is trying to cover up her best friend's rape? But maybe
she doesn't want her name to be ruined so she can get a job dancing
elsewhere? Does she REALLY think Zack would just let that fly? That
he wouldn't ruin her name out of spite? BAH!
Nomi gets super
glammed up and goes to visit Andrew. She seduces him, but this is all
a trick so she can kick and stomp the shit out of him. That's it?
That's his comeuppance for committing the ultimate evil? I guess so,
because the next scene is her back in the hospital telling Molly she
beat him up. And just like that, everything is perfect again! Sigh.
She then goes to
visit Cristal in a different room, apologizing for what she did but
Cristal isn't mad because she did the same thing herself when she was
younger. They share a deep kiss before Nomi leaves, eagerly anticipating the end of this thing as much as I am. On the outskirts
of Vegas, Nomi is hitchhiking again. Wait... she's leaving Vegas? So why didn't she call the cops on Andrew if she was going to leave?! Whatever. Once again she's back to not
wearing a bra, so I find it hard to believe anyone is passing her
by.
A familiar looking
truck finally stops, and hey it's Jeff! What are the odds? She pulls
the knife on him again and closes out the film with the ever so witty
“I want my fucking suitcase!” We see they're driving to Los
Angeles as the camera pans out on a billboard of Nomi and her Vegas
show.
Cue the credits.
In recent years,
this movie has gotten a reevaluation of sorts, as many critics have
begun to reexamine its merits and now herald it as a brilliant piece
of satire or whatever. This is a pretty common effect when something
has such an extreme backlash initially, years later everyone realizes
it wasn't THAT bad. You saw this a lot with The Phantom Menace and more recently Indiana Jones
and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, as people got over their
sky high expectations and looked at the films more objectively.
Something that hopefully NEVER happens with Twilight, by the way.
I get it, I
totally do. Up until the end I was able to appreciate the film as
long as I kept in mind it wasn't meant to serious, but the rape
scene... God. I just don't get why they had to be so graphic with it,
we already got Andrew Carver was an asshole, did we really need to
see detail by detail of how much of one he was? And why Andrew, who
was in the film for all of five minutes and had zero effect on the
story? I guess he was the catalyst that woke Nomi up to how bad Zack
was, but did we really need something that graphic to kick that into
motion?
Ohhhhhh wait, it's
Joe Eszterhas, of course we did. It's not a story in his book unless
he can go as crass and vulgar as possible, and boy did we get that
here. Watch it for the unintentional hilarity and acting so hammy
you'll wish you had some eggs, but turn it off before the party
starts.
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