Matt: I like Showgirls. And I don’t mean I like it in the “so bad it’s good” way I like The Postman. I actually think Showgirls is a good movie. There, I said it.
Notice I didn’t say it was a GREAT movie. Certainly, it’s nobody’s favorite Paul Verhoeven flick (unless you grew up with a major crush on Jesse Spano). But you know what? I like it better than The Hollow Man.
Showgirls tells the story of Nomi Malone, a tough blond who hitchhikes into Vegas with nothing but a single suitcase (which immediately gets stolen). But she’s got two things nobody can take away: a great body, and a gift for dancing. Nomi starts out at the seediest strip club in town. But soon she breaks into the chorus of Goddess, a lavish stage show at a big casino. There, Nomi faces off with the queen bee, Cristal Connors, who either wants to befriend her, destroy her, or turn her into a sex toy.
Nomi may be a topless dancer, but she repeatedly insists she’s not a whore and she’ll never be like Cristal. But (surprise surprise) the higher she climbs, the more she becomes everything that once made her seethe. It’s a story as old as All About Eve, but with the sex jacked up to eleven. This is the most-expensive NC-17 rated film ever produced, and you will see more breasts than Frank Perdue.
It sounds fun, right? It IS fun, damnit. But for reasons I don’t fully understand, conventional wisdom firmly believes that this film is one of the worst of all time. It has an abysmal 14% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and it won the un-coveted “Worst Movie of the Decade” award at the 2000 Razzie Awards. In fact, Showgirls has won more Razzies than any movie ever made. It’s a cinematic punching bag. And I don’t think it deserves it.
Matthew Wrather and Mark Lee welcome political operative Josh McNeil to Overthink™:
- Viral Video and the Election
- SNL: Funny or Not Funny
- 100% of Statistics are Made Up
- The City of Las Vegas
- Favorite Fictional Presidents
Overthink This
- McNeil: Sons of Anarchy (http://www.hulu.com/sons-of-anarchy)
- Lee: FiveThirtyEight (http://www.fivethirtyeight.com)
- Wrather: The Final Episodes of The Shield (http://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/originals/the_shield)
As always, leave a voicemail at (203) 285-6401 (that’s 20-EAT-LOG-01) or email at podcast at overthinkingit dot com.
Download Episode 18 (MP3)