You Don't Nomi

I've never seen Showgirls, and I probably never will. But this movie does a nice job of laying out its history and exploring its cult-movie status. It also gives you all the nudity without having to watch the movie itself.

I see about half the reviews here hate this movie for being "woke," i.e. exploring how the movie portrays women. Having not seen the movie I can't speak to how persuasive the analysis is, but it's pretty interesting and they do make a good case. And I have never heard the opinion of anyone using "woke" or "feminist" as a criticism who wasn't a complete idiot, so that's a point for the movie over its critics.

The talking heads are smart and often witty, there are some interesting personal stories, there are a range of perspectives, its fun to see how the makers tried to spin their disaster, and there are some attractive naked ladies, so all-in-all worth watching.

If you're a fan of Showgirls for what it is, an over-the-top disaster that you can't look away from, then you'll enjoy this documentary. I found it entertaining and witty. Whether people want to admit it or not, Showgirls has become a cult-classic. You can analyze to death just l how bad it is, or you can just sit back and enjoy it in all of its awfulness. I choose to do the latter. To me, Showgirls is so bad that's it's good. This documentary does a good job of playing to that angle for fans, with the exception of one thing....

There is one "feminist" female commentator who chooses to pick the movie apart for its depiction of women. She must use the word 'misogynist' 50 times!!! It's exhausting listening to her. Isn't true feminism being able to do whatever the hell you want with your own body??? If that's showing your boobs on the big screen for 90 minutes and getting paid to do it, well so be it. She seems to only be in favor of female-empowerment when it fits her mold of what that encompasses.

If you can just tune her out, this is a really enjoyable documentary for fans of Showgirls.

This exploration of what makes Showgirls such a great cult film is at times interesting, but with one main speaker on the subject, it can feel a bit like attending someone's lecture about this in a film school hall. No idea how prohibitive that would have been, but more input from some of the people who helped bring it to life would be interesting.

Reading the reviews for this documentary on IMDB, it seems clear to me most viewers didn't understand that the context for the various critical commentaries made in the documentary changes all the time as you watch. The fact almost nobody gets that this is happening is totally the documentary's fault. The editing is simply not clear enough with in its intentions.

What happens in this documentary is that its author, David Schmader, who sees a lot in Showgirls both in the positive and negative, and from both the genuine and camp angles, gets various critics - and/or actors standing in for critics, it's not clear - to read out their genuine and mostly negative critical reviews or thoughts of the film on the soundtrack. You never know if these thoughts were written today or back in 1995, or a mixture of both; the documentary never fully declares the sources.

Schmader then contrasts each of these critical attacks with his own additional commentary (or perhaps in some cases, other people's, but again, it's hard to tell) on the same themes or scenes from the film, pointing out value, directorial skill or just other ideas that people might have missed. He also shows clips from other Verhoeven films. These are illuminating when they're used to show recurring Verhoeven themes. Unfortunately, he also alters some of these shots as a sort of gag where the people in the other Verhoeven films are 'interacting' with elements of Showgirls, and these moments are usually downright confusing.

So people ranting on about 'wokeness' of this film and such - blame each critic David was quoting. Neither he nor the documentary is outright endorsing these views. They present them in order to either comment on them, refute them or expand on them. But because the doco is really bad at saying who's speaking from what time period, and when or why, it's understandable viewers miss this.

The crucial point is, this is NOT a single point of view film. It invites a pile of points of view, mostly bundling them into positive or negative camps (which you might expect - polarisation is the hallmark of Showgirls) and compares them, through unfortunately bad editing, usually giving the positive camp the last word. By stepping away from the critics' views late in the film, it ends with other kinds of positives. But make no mistake, you will hear a lot of negative commentary on Showgirls in this film.

This documentary puts forward the idea that perhaps Paul Verhoeven's Razzie winning film "Showgirls" needs reappraisal.

If you haven't already seen it I would suggest you watch "Showgirls" first and then wait at least a day, if not a week, before watching this documentary.

My overall impression of the original film was it was a mis-fire from an over the top, intelligent and creative director who likes to provoke and entertain at the same time. The performances throughout the film are so exaggerated that it is not enjoyable to watch, and while there is a lot of nudity this film is not sexy or titillating at all. As with all the Verhoeven films I've seen there is sex and graphic violence.

This documentary takes the viewer on the journey of how the film has been received over the years, and how it has gained cult status. Fans of the original film praise it, books have been written about it.

The use of excerpts from Verhoeven's other films with insert images of Showgirls on TVs and monitors was interesting, as well as cutting excerpts from other films to compliment the narration/interviews from various critics.

Showing how Paul Verhoeven's stance towards "Showgirls" has changed over the years is interesting, but In the end the film is still a bad film and not the masterpiece that some of the participants in this documentary put forward.