28 Film Discussion Threads Later

[baby doll]

...that doesn't mean that Basic Instinct, Showgirls, Femme Fatale etc is anything more than a well-shot bit of nonsense)

Apart from the intrinsic interest of its hyperbolic narrative and punchy movie dialogue that teeters on self-parody ("She's got that magna cum laude pussy that done fried up your brain!"), Basic Instinct is particularly fascinating as a site of ideological contradiction. Hysterical in the Freudian sense of the term, it's a movie in which the representatives of patriarchal order come out looking far less appealing than the destabilizing feminine other. Sharon Stone is simply spectacular here.

Although Elizabeth Perkins is obviously no match for Stone, Showgirls is similarly contradictory: it's a movie that attacks the commodification of the female body under capitalism by rubbing the spectator's nose in it. In other words, Verhoeven and Esterhaus are honest enough to acknowledge their own participation in the capitalist system, rather than assuming some bogus moral high ground as if they were somehow outside of it.

On the other hand, Femme fatale is a sustained virtuoso performance: the theme-and-variation structure has the rigour and musicality as some of Alain Resnais' films, and De Palma is one of the few filmmakers working in Hollywood who seems to care at all about craft. Whatever flaws the film may have, lack of moxie isn't one of them.

[Irish]

- "Showgirls" was meant to be a titty movie, not a critique of capitalism. I will never understand the eagerness to lend credit to this film where none is due. It's a high budget Skinemax movie. Have you ever heard Joe Eszterhas talk? He's full of bourbon and bullshit. He's not what anyone would call a deep thinker. He's also, as trans noted, a gleeful perv. Why can't junk be junk, or trash be trash?

- That the women come off better than the men in "Basic Instinct" seems like a retroactive read. From memory, the "murderous dyke" play at kink was not well received and the presence of gay characters in a mainstream thriller was controversial in and of itself. (Then again, I dunno. I can't re-watch early 90s Michael Douglas, those movies where you can practically hear the sweat drip off his balls as he leers at his female co-stars.)

- "Femme Fatale" may be a virtuoso whatever from a formerly great director, but it doesn't work on a basic level as commercial entertainment. As a movie. I've read different interpretations of it over the years and they all ring empty to me because the film simply sucks. To cover my ass: I say this as a huge fan of his 70s horrors and 80s thrillers.

[baby doll]

- "Showgirls" was meant to be a titty movie, not a critique of capitalism. I will never understand the eagerness to lend credit to this film where none is due. It's a high budget Skinemax movie. Have you ever heard Joe Eszterhas talk? He's full of bourbon and bullshit. He's not what anyone would call a deep thinker. He's also, as trans noted, a gleeful perv. Why can't junk be junk, or trash be trash?

Trust the tale, not the teller. This is a deeply unsexy film, so if it was meant as a titty film it clearly failed. But even assuming that was the intention, it's sometimes the case that a film reveals more than its makers intend; indeed, part of the film's achievement is that its meanings arise naturally from the story without the filmmakers seeming to strain for significance.

- That the women come off better than the men in "Basic Instinct" seems like a retroactive read. From memory, the "murderous dyke" play at kink was not well received and the presence of gay characters in a mainstream thriller was controversial in and of itself. (Then again, I dunno. I can't re-watch early 90s Michael Douglas, those movies where you can practically hear the sweat drip off his balls as he leers at his female co-stars.)

I don't think the film would've been a hit, or Stone become a big star, if audiences at the time didn't find her character appealing. Also, the gay advocacy groups that picketed the film hadn't seen it.

- "Femme Fatale" may be a virtuoso whatever from a formerly great director, but it doesn't work on a basic level as commercial entertainment. As a movie. I've read different interpretations of it over the years and they all ring empty to me because the film simply sucks. To cover my ass: I say this as a huge fan of his 70s horrors and 80s thrillers.

It may be the case that it fails as commercial entertainment but it works so well as cinema that I could care less. There are no characters and the story doesn't make any logical sense but, like Un chien andalou (one of De Palma's sources), it makes film sense. It's De Palma's most fully realized film because his technique is perfectly suited to the narrative, in contrast with more commercial projects like The Untouchables, where he superimposes autuerist flourishes on somebody else's boring script.

[transmogrifier]

Apart from the intrinsic interest of its hyperbolic narrative and punchy movie dialogue that teeters on self-parody ("She's got that magna cum laude pussy that done fried up your brain!")......

So where do you draw the line between forgiving narrative nonsense like this you believe almost parodies what a typical fan of this genre is looking for and nitpicking the plot of something like Fight Club to death and claiming that it is disrespecting the audience?

[transmogrifier]

Apart from the intrinsic interest of its hyperbolic narrative and punchy movie dialogue that teeters on self-parody ("She's got that magna cum laude pussy that done fried up your brain!"), Basic Instinct is particularly fascinating as a site of ideological contradiction. Hysterical in the Freudian sense of the term, it's a movie in which the representatives of patriarchal order come out looking far less appealing than the destabilizing feminine other. Sharon Stone is simply spectacular here.

Although Elizabeth Perkins is obviously no match for Stone, Showgirls is similarly contradictory: it's a movie that attacks the commodification of the female body under capitalism by rubbing the spectator's nose in it. In other words, Verhoeven and Esterhaus are honest enough to acknowledge their own participation in the capitalist system, rather than assuming some bogus moral high ground as if they were somehow outside of it.

On the other hand, Femme fatale is a sustained virtuoso performance: the theme-and-variation structure has the rigour and musicality as some of Alain Resnais' films, and De Palma is one of the few filmmakers working in Hollywood who seems to care at all about craft. Whatever flaws the film may have, lack of moxie isn't one of them.

And just as an aside, it is wild how differently we approach movies. To me, this is similar to someone waxing lyrical about hand-sourced ingredients of some dish and how the the specific combination can be traced back to traditional agrarian practices and how the dish itself is a hallmark of a cultural shift away from atomized family units towards more communal living, but with additional ingredients that reflect the creeping globalization that is slowly homogenizing global culture....

And I just nod and think "Yeah, but it kinda tastes like shit."

[Irish]

Trust the tale, not the teller.

The teller in this case is Joe Eszterhas. That's not insignificant. Being as degenerate as Don Simpson and as craven as Jerry Bruckheimer would be a step up for him.

This is a deeply unsexy film, so if it was meant as a titty film it clearly failed. But even assuming that was the intention, it's sometimes the case that a film reveals more than its makers intend; indeed, part of the film's achievement is that its meanings arise naturally from the story without the filmmakers seeming to strain for significance.

I don't quite buy your last line there. This is America. You can point a camera in any direction and land on a critique of capitalism, because the natural outcomes of capitalism are also a critique of it.

So no extra credit to Verhoeven and Eszterhas for making a movie about strippers in Vegas and somehow stumbling onto a theme about commodification, because that idea is evident in the premise and it would have been nearly impossible not to include it.

I don't think the film would've been a hit, or Stone become a big star, if audiences at the time didn't find her character appealing. Also, the gay advocacy groups that picketed the film hadn't seen it.

Of course Stone appeals. It's a great role and she's fully invested in it ... and there's also the T&A and the near-constant tease of T&A and grisly violence.

But otoh, the female characters are gay because Joe thinks chick-on-chick is hot, and the movie treats homosexuality as a deviant kink. I don't think we can quite score one for representation or empowerment, even retroactively.

I'm not sure about the advocacy groups' timeline, because (again from memory) the movie was in general release (and everybody was seeing it) when the controversy took root.

It may be the case that it fails as commercial entertainment but it works so well as cinema that I could care less. There are no characters and the story doesn't make any logical sense but, like Un chien andalou (one of De Palma's sources), it makes film sense. It's De Palma's most fully realized film because his technique is perfectly suited to the narrative, in contrast with more commercial projects like The Untouchables, where he superimposes autuerist flourishes on somebody else's boring script.

I don't think it's in the same league, honestly, with "Un Chien Andalou," nevermind this is an apples and oranges comparison on a commercial level.

I think a better comparison, if you'll allow me to say so, is "Carrie," a commercial film earlier in his career that also contained a perfectly realized technique.

So if we know he's capable of both great narratives and world class techinque, why does "Femme Fatale" fail so miserably in one significant area and why are people so willing to give that a pass? I legit don't get it.

So where do you draw the line between forgiving narrative nonsense like this you believe almost parodies what a typical fan of this genre is looking for and nitpicking the plot of something like Fight Club to death and claiming that it is disrespecting the audience?

ya but "Fight Club" really deserves it tho

[Skitch]

Lady Snowblower is awesome.

Showgirls is trash and doesn't have a deeper narrative, if even on accident. Its like saying a fire hydrant has a commentary. Anything can if you want to view it that way, but sometimes a hydrant is just a hydrant.

[DFA1979]

I think the tag line for this site should be "Match-Cut: We Think Cinema Died in 1979."

Anyways last year I burned through all of the Police Academy movies. This year I'm viewing the Airport series. Why? Because cinema and streaming services make it easy, that's why!

[transmogrifier]

ya but "Fight Club" really deserves it tho

Nah, it's the best comedy of the 90s. But that's neither here nor there. I'm interested in bbdoll's reasoning because sometimes he comes across as Armond Whiteish in reading every film at the subtext level, which is cool and all, but like White himself often does, can be abused to basically make a case for or against any film at a whim based on how what interpretation they feel like making at the time - in White's case, it is often seems based on the director's political leanings, his own loyalties to specific directors, on his perception of how other critics have responded to a specific film, and his own safeguarding of his renegade image, rather than anything happening on the screen itself.

[Dukefrukem]

-
- I've never seen talk about "Breakfast Club" on the internet. (How is it overrated?)

People couldn't stop talking about this movie when I was in HS and College and it carried over into my adult life.

[quido8_5]

Flashy, kinda pervy directors find it relatively easy to find and keep a strong fanbase (De Palma, Verhoeven, Bertolucci, Von Trier, Noe etc), which means even their generic trifles get the "this is actually secretly genius!" treatment. (It should be noted that I don't thing a flashy, pervy director cannot make a great movie - many of the directors on my list have, in fact - but that doesn't mean that Basic Instinct, Showgirls, Femme Fatale etc is anything more than a well-shot bit of nonsense)

Von Trier flashy? I think I see where you're coming from (mainly Dancer in the Dark), but wasn't dogme 95's whole ethos supposed to be a response to flashy filmmaking. At any rate, I think all those directors have good films, although they generally get away with too much bc people want provocative filmmakers and that covers a multitude of craft-related sins.

[Yxklyx]

Flashy, kinda pervy directors find it relatively easy to find and keep a strong fanbase (De Palma, Verhoeven, Bertolucci, Von Trier, Noe etc), which means even their generic trifles get the "this is actually secretly genius!" treatment. (It should be noted that I don't thing a flashy, pervy director cannot make a great movie - many of the directors on my list have, in fact - but that doesn't mean that Basic Instinct, Showgirls, Femme Fatale etc is anything more than a well-shot bit of nonsense)

Pervy? Get out of your 50s code mentality. What's really troubling to me is how Hollywood aggrandizes violence in lieu of sex. The code is still in place, it was just modified to pump up the violence and gore level. It takes a foreign director to show how religiously puritanical most Hollywood films are. There was nothing perverse about Basic Instinct.

[Irish]

Nah, it's the best comedy of the 90s.

If "Dazed and Confused" is a comedy and the best movie of the 90s, how can "Fight Club" be the best comedy of the 90s?

I noticed your comment about "Harry Met Sally" awhile back, and now I'm wondering if you really mean this stuff when you say it or you're simply waiting for someone to challenge you.

:winking emoji: :this post is tongue in cheek and intended as gentle ribbing: :winking emoji: :wink: :wink:

[transmogrifier]

If "Dazed and Confused" is a comedy and the best movie of the 90s, how can "Fight Club" be the best comedy of the 90s?

I noticed your comment about "Harry Met Sally" awhile back, and now I'm wondering if you really mean this stuff when you say it or you're simply waiting for someone to challenge you.

:winking emoji: :this post is tongue in cheek and intended as gentle ribbing: :winking emoji: :wink: :wink:

I genuinely do believe that When Harry Met Sally is the best romantic comedy ever made, and that Dazed and Confused is the best film of the 1990s (at the moment; if I rewatch Short Cuts, that might change again), and that Fight Club is the best comedy of the 90s (in that I laugh with it more than I do with Dazed and Confused, which is all about atmosphere and capturing youth on the cusp of everything and nothing all at once). I genuinely adore all three of those films, and could sit down and watch them once a year for the rest of my life and never once get bored of them.

You could challenge me on them, I guess, if you wanted, but I would just shrug and just keep watching them

[megladon8]

You know what movie doesn't get enough MC appreciation?

Wet Hot American Summer

[transmogrifier]

Pervy? Get out of your 50s code mentality. What's really troubling to me is how Hollywood aggrandizes violence in lieu of sex. The code is still in place, it was just modified to pump up the violence and gore level. It takes a foreign director to show how religiously puritanical most Hollywood films are. There was nothing perverse about Basic Instinct.

Hey, I've got nothing against pervy. One of my favorites that I have seen this year is Wet Woman in the Wind, after all. There is nothing very perverse about Basic Instinct, you are right. It is flashy, conventional, and somewhat hollow, with some well-directed and cut interrogation room scenes. It's perviness or lack thereof is neither here nor there.

[transmogrifier]

Von Trier flashy? I think I see where you're coming from (mainly Dancer in the Dark), but wasn't dogme 95's whole ethos supposed to be a response to flashy filmmaking. At any rate, I think all those directors have good films, although they generally get away with too much bc people want provocative filmmakers and that covers a multitude of craft-related sins.

Maybe I should have used provocative instead of pervy Wanna copyedit my posts from now on?

[Idioteque Stalker]

Wet Hot American Summer

I appreciate it. Not scream-from-the-rooftops appreciate, more like randomly-think-about-it-from-time-to-time-and-chuckle-to-myself appreciate.

[megladon8]

I remember watching Showgirls as a kid and thinking the pool sex scene was what it was gonna be like.

[Idioteque Stalker]

Hey, I've got nothing against pervy. One of my favorites that I have seen this year is Wet Woman in the Wind, after all.

For some unknown reason this strikes me as a high-quality cinematic experience. I think I shall look into it.

[baby doll]

So where do you draw the line between forgiving narrative nonsense like this you believe almost parodies what a typical fan of this genre is looking for and nitpicking the plot of something like Fight Club to death and claiming that it is disrespecting the audience?

Notwithstanding some occasional lapses which are probably inevitable given the film's commercial context (e.g., an under-motivated car chase that seems to have been included simply for the sake of having a car chase), the characters in Basic Instinct all have a certain internal consistency. Consequently, Verhoeven's film is all of a piece while Fight Club simply goes to pieces.

[Irish]

You could challenge me on them, I guess, if you wanted, but I would just shrug and just keep watching them

Sure, but that doesn't do much for discussion, though, right?

I genuinely do believe that When Harry Met Sally is the best romantic comedy ever made,

Are you using "best" as a euphemism for "favorite"?

Or do you generally think that by whatever aesthetic criteria we measure, it's legit better than all challengers? I like the film enough but having seen it recently, I couldn't help remember all the critics who piled on with Woody Allen comparisons. Between the ersatz-Allen vibe and Billy Crystal being Billy Crystal, I just sorta shrugged at it.

It feels like minor work from a minor director (and an overrated screenwriter).

Maybe I should have used provocative instead of pervy

No, when talking about dudes like DePalma, "pervy" is definitely the right word.

PS: "Harry Met Sally" isn't even the best romantic comedy of the 1980s.

PPS: Harry and Sally would have divorced within 5 years. Around 1994, maybe. 10 at the most.

[baby doll]

The teller in this case is Joe Eszterhas. That's not insignificant. Being as degenerate as Don Simpson and as craven as Jerry Bruckheimer would be a step up for him.

I don't quite buy your last line there. This is America. You can point a camera in any direction and land on a critique of capitalism, because the natural outcomes of capitalism are also a critique of it.

So no extra credit to Verhoeven and Eszterhas for making a movie about strippers in Vegas and somehow stumbling onto a theme about commodification, because that idea is evident in the premise and it would have been nearly impossible not to include it.

I think one only has to compare Showgirls with Boogie Nights, which views the '70s porn industry more sentimentally--and rather fancifully--as a substitute family unit to demonstrate that the film didn't stumble accidentally onto a theme of commodification, much less self-reflexive critique of the entertainment industry at large. Eszterhas and Verhoeven seem to have gone out of their way to emphasize the gaudiness of the story's milieu and the unpleasantness of its characters.

Of course Stone appeals. It's a great role and she's fully invested in it ... and there's also the T&A and the near-constant tease of T&A and grisly violence.

But otoh, the female characters are gay because Joe thinks chick-on-chick is hot, and the movie treats homosexuality as a deviant kink. I don't think we can quite score one for representation or empowerment, even retroactively.

I never said anything about representation and empowerment, only that the film reveals certain ideological contradictions of American society in the US at the time of the AIDS crisis, contradictions that make the film more interesting and revealing rather than less. The film is simultaneously terrified of, and fascinated with, female sexuality as a threat to the stability of the established patriarchal order.

I'm not sure about the advocacy groups' timeline, because (again from memory) the movie was in general release (and everybody was seeing it) when the controversy took root.

If memory serves, the advocacy groups were already picketing the film while it was in production.

I don't think it's in the same league, honestly, with "Un Chien Andalou," nevermind this is an apples and oranges comparison on a commercial level.

I think a better comparison, if you'll allow me to say so, is "Carrie," a commercial film earlier in his career that also contained a perfectly realized technique.

So if we know he's capable of both great narratives and world class techinque, why does "Femme Fatale" fail so miserably in one significant area and why are people so willing to give that a pass? I legit don't get it.

Whether or not one judges Femme fatale to be as good as Un chien andalou (personally I love both), my point was simply that the film has a dreamy logic of its own that has nothing to do with the logic of the real world. In his book Narration in Light, George M. Wilson writes that certain films situate the spectator at a "certain epistemic distance from their usual habits of perception and common-sense beliefs," his chief example being the sequence in The Lady from Shanghai where Rita Hayworth pushing a button in one location seems to "cause" a car accident in another. To accept the logic of Femme fatale is not to give the film "a pass" any more than it's giving Carrie a pass to accept that, in the world of the story, telekinesis exists.

[Irish]

I think one only has to compare Showgirls with Boogie Nights, which views the '70s porn industry more sentimentally--and rather fancifully--as a substitute family unit to demonstrate that the film didn't stumble accidentally onto a theme of commodification, much less self-reflexive critique of the entertainment industry at large. Eszterhas and Verhoeven seem to have gone out of their way to emphasize the gaudiness of the story's milieu and the unpleasantness of its characters.

Look closer at the other work Verhoeven and Eszterhas produced during that decade, both alone and together. I think that's a much better indication of where their artistic heads were at.

These are not subtle filmmakers. They have no use for heddy themes. If they have something they want to say, they'll slap the audience in the face with it (eg: the so-called satire of "Starship Troopers," or the sexual politics in "Jagged Edge"). If they happen to pick up thematic baggage that makes them look smart and stylish, they will happily claim it as their own invention. (See also: the entire career of George Romero, or going the other way, the current pseudo-controversy around "Nomadland.")

I haven't seen "Boogie Nights" since it premiered, but from memory it travels to one or two dark places with some of its characters, particularly Heather Graham and Philip Seymour Hoffman. I agree it has a more sentimental tone, but I can't say it doesn't comment on its premise and setting because ...

I don't think you can produce work that doesn't contain implicit commentary. Eg: War films will always say something about state sponsored killing from the go. A sex film in the most commercial city in the world can't help but comment on sex and commerce.

I never said anything about representation and empowerment, only that the film reveals certain ideological contradictions of American society in the US at the time of the AIDS crisis, contradictions that make the film more interesting and revealing rather than less. The film is simultaneously terrified of, and fascinated with, female sexuality as a threat to the stability of the established patriarchal order.

It's glib and reductive of me to frame your argument this way, but I read this (below) as a sorta "girl power" nod:

> it's a movie in which the representatives of patriarchal order come out looking far less appealing than the destabilizing feminine other.

I don't think that's true, because of authorial intent, and I think this argument is only possible in the present of 2021. I also think that on a story level, it doesn't work out, because the ending of the film is a narrative wash, with no clear resolution. The movie doesn't take a stance on the fundamental questions it raises, so how can the audience? If you think the woman come out better than the men, I can't really argue because of the way the movie is structured. But the reverse is then also true. I can walk out thinking Michael Douglas is King Cock of the World, who really stuck it to that bitch Stone, and the text won't refute me.

Whether or not one judges Femme fatale to be as good as Un chien andalou (personally I love both), my point was simply that the film has a dreamy logic of its own that has nothing to do with the logic of the real world. In his book Narration in Light, George M. Wilson writes that certain films situate the spectator at a "certain epistemic distance from their usual habits of perception and common-sense beliefs," his chief example being the sequence in The Lady from Shanghai where Rita Hayworth pushing a button in one location seems to "cause" a car accident in another. To accept the logic of Femme fatale is not to give the film "a pass" any more than it's giving Carrie a pass to accept that, in the world of the story, telekinesis exists.

This reads like a handy dodge for forgiving narrative shortcomings in any film. ("Well, if you accept the logic of Freddy Got Fingered, then ..."). I'm being facetious but you get the idea.

PS: I like that "Shanghai" reference.

PPS: Telekinesis is plausible in "Carrie's" world with a single moment where the audience suspends its disbelief. There is no amount of disbelief that solves the narrative problems in "Femme Fatale." You can only ignore them and ride the technicals, BDP's mastery of form --- or in an extreme case such as this, actually credit them to DePalma as intentional.

[Skitch]

It makes me really happy that trans likes Fight Club (and correctly calls it a comedy).

[

Show Spoiler

One of my favorite jokes that most people miss is at the end when the narrator repeats what he said at the beginning of the film, but says it differently, and Tyler says "Ah, flashback humor", acknowledging the difference. I also look at that part as the movie admitting the narrator's possibly flawed memory or version of events. I love that.

]