Exile on Main Street (1/19/96)
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In a fit of Angst last night I stopped by the neighborhood video store and rented a triple feature so dismal I’ve already forgotten most of it. The centerpiece, however, was that new classic of the silver screen,
Showgirls [Paul Verhoeven, 1995], for which the celebrated screenwriter Mr. Eszterhas got an enormous amount of money. I’m sure you can see every penny on the screen, but the subtle development of plot and character that justified this expenditure must have escaped me while I was fastforwarding through the last half of the movie, trying desperately to find the denouement. In fact, there was an ugly moment there when I thought the thing really was interminable, and that I would be doomed to view it for all time to come, probably as punishment for all my past defenses of abominable B-movies. — Though it is, of course, interesting to discover that it’s possible to make a movie so bad that you can’t even watch the fuck scenes. — But don’t take my word for it. By all means check this out yourself; I suggest sometime toward the end of the twenty-first century.
____________Purple death from outer space (12/7/95)
