You Don't Nomi

The great thing about Showgirls (1995) is that it gives a semi-futuristic image of a wasteland while at the moment it was shot it is taking place in reality. It was history in the making. In fact Paul Verhoeven created a dramatized documentary by hiring actors and a scenario writer. It was not a bad movie but a bad dream about American society. That's against the American Dream. Showing Americans that they are in a Third World Country was in those years the biggest taboo. The documentary You Don't Nomi does not come to this conclusion, it describes the fuzz and confusion from a film press perspective, wondering why after so many years the movie regained respect. Ask Paul Verhoeven to do a movie about the recent Capitol attack and he will show the ugliness of the patriots, including woman. Showgirls is about that. Show the ugliness of the American way of setting up a sex industry and not able to handle it. A third world country, in 1995 nobody in the US was thinking of it this way... only an outsider could see it.

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.

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.

Or don't I? Actually who knows ... Nomi? And of course there are other interpretations of that word. Maybe one of the most wicked things about the movie - the characters name. Know me - no me - no! Me! - as you can see you make it what you think it should be. And maybe some won't like how certain people view this movie. But then again, why are watching this? I personally thought the audio commentary was enjoyable enough and most topics that are being highlighted there, get repeated here.

But you also get to see how some just cherish the movie, by reanacting it. But also how different some view it! Is it a feminists worst nightmare or does it show and depict how powerful women are? I don't have to tell you how to feel about the movie, you are the one deciding. And no one can make you have fun watching the movie Showgirls, but maybe the documentary brings you closer to that point. Especially considering where Berkley came from and where she went after that movie ... all depicted here. I almost feel sorry for her. But she accepted that the movie will always be a part of her and she relishes in it. One of the things you will learn here ... for fans of Showgirls mostly, but can work for others too. Still it makes sense to have seen the movie to fully understand or have the complete context

A documentary about a terrible movie. A story about a movie so bad, that it got a cult following. An interpretation of kitsch, making it valuable again.

This is quite a fun watch, because listening to this huge fan of "Showgirls" explain to us viewers why this terrible flop has still got some worth to it, is quite interesting.

Should I watch it again? No, I dont think so. But terrible movies can become great cult movies and they sure can turn into fun documentaries!