05 August 2010

BEST SHOT: SHOWGIRLS

I am, without doubt, late to the party; but I couldn't pass up the first regular episode of Nathaniel R's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" series, in which he invites anyone with the will to pick their favorite image from a movie he preselected. Today's - make that yesterday's - candidate: Paul Verhoeven's amazing camp masterpiece Showgirls.

How to pick just one image from a movie as chockablock full of brilliantly mad conceits and wretched excess as this one? In the end, I went with one that isn't necessarily a particularly colorful or well-framed image, but seems to me to an appropriate encapsulation of the bent energy that makes the film such a gas.

It's utterly and absolutely NSFW.

Two horrible people fucking in a pool in Vegas - what screams "ludicrous hedonism" more than that? And not just normal-people fucking, but the most enthusiastically gymnastic fucking in any movie I can immediately recall having seen. Nothing sums up the Showgirls experience to me as does observing that Elizabeth Berkley is, by all available evidence, humping Kyle MacLachlan's solar plexus.
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5 comments:

  1. NATHANIEL R8/5/10, 12:28 PM

    two horrible people fucking in a pool' HA. so true. Y'know i know we're supposed to think that everyone is "bad" (thespianically speaking) in this movie but i think they're all pretty great because everyone is just so crudely boldly colored. And isn't Kyle Maclachlan's chin and profile its own ludicrous homage to profane hedonism?

    what am i talking about? sorry. this movie makes me crazy (with love)...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tim8/5/10, 1:33 PM

    Not to give away a surprise or nuthin, but I plan on going a little love-crazy myself on a certain movie's 15th birthday this September.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The.Watcher8/5/10, 8:11 PM

    Hm...is that particular movie comprised of two words? The first word starts with a T and the last one ends with a Y?

    Am I right?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Tim8/5/10, 9:13 PM

    Oh, no, I meant Showgirls. I've already given Toy Story some excessive love recently.

    ReplyDelete
  5. quidquid katie8/13/10, 7:25 PM

    I was going to be REALLY SAD if the screenshot was not from this scene.

    ReplyDelete

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