Day 23- Funny how I mentioned Clarissa Explains it All last post, because just today I saw Marshall Darling on "Mad Men"

Hi everyone. Today I am trying out something new. My good friend, who I have mentioned before as Daniel "I wish I were a Coen Brother" Arkin, although now who I will refer to as Daniel "If I could have dinner with two people living or dead they would be Keith Olberman and Jason Bateman" Arkin, is one of the people I respect and trust most when it comes to movies. That's him on the right. In fact, many of the topics I have written about here have come from our random conversations. For example, in ninth grade we came up with the David Paymer/Kevin Pollack connection. Yes, I was that big of a movie weirdo in ninth grade.

Anywhozelbees, I have offered him the opportunity to be a guest contributor to my blog and today he has taken me up that offer. As you will read, he also is a phenomenal writer. So here it is. Daniel's article:

What Is This Shit?: The Films of Paul Verhoeven

On a recent Saturday afternoon, I browsed the aisles of Taschen Books in Beverly Hills, a publishing house best known for turning out the second-most-expensive book in Western history: G.O.A.T., a 75-lb, $12,500 tome on the life and legacy of Muhammad Ali. Less imposing is Taschen’s series of books about important film directors – from giants like John Ford and Alfred Hitchcock to contemporary masters like Roman Polanski and Michael Mann. I spotted all those titles in the store, along with a suspicious little ditty dedicated to – you guessed it, folks – the films of Dutch director Paul Verhoeven. After an involuntary double-take that would make John Ritter smile from his cloud in heaven, I thumbed through the pages of that hardcover novelty in complete disbelief.

Really? Paul Verhoeven, the braintrust behind the Razzie-wining camp classic Showgirls? The sci-fi visionary who brought us the big-budget B-movie Starship Troopers? The man responsible for Sharon Stone’s infamous leg-cross in Basic Instinct? Yes, that fellow, an auteur for our trashy times – or, as Taschen calls him, the mind at the helm of some of the “most courageous and contentious films of recent years.”

If you say so. No doubt Verhoeven churns out a sleazy genre flick like the best of them (or the worst of them), but I don’t think his work merits a hardback tribute, flanked by curios about Fellini and Renoir. So I thought only a few weeks ago, before I spent an embarrassing slice of my summer break returning to some of the director’s most well-known cult favorites. Now, after that mini-retrospective, I definitely don’t think Verhoeven deserves a flashy coffee table book. But, hot damn, the guy can make a memorable movie! And I guess that’s worth something.

Without further ado, some thoughts on two of the most bizarre, brutal, and bombastic Verhoeven flicks out there:

Robocop (1987)

This dystopian action thriller stars Peter Weller (a.k.a. Jack Bauer’s nemesis Christopher Henderson) as the title character, a stern Detroit police officer gunned down in cold blood by a high-profile gang lead by one Clarence Boddicker (a.k.a., Topher Grace’s curmudgeonly father on That 70’s Show) Murphy’s dead body is swiftly appropriated by a venal techno-corporation as the “organic basis” for a metallic, indestructible crime fighter called … Get it?

There’s a scene early in the movie that sums up the visceral sucker-punch that is Robocop: in a penthouse boardroom, a throng of smarmy executives test out a giant robotic prototype called ED-209 (a hefty hunk of metal that looks like a mash-up of an AT-AT and Mr. Potato Head) on a meek junior executive. The results of the test-run are horrifically violent, shamelessly grotesque, wildly overblown, and darkly comic. The rest of the movie proceeds accordingly.

On the surface, Robocop is a fairly straightforward genre exercise with a few touches of wit and decidedly unsubtle satire. But a torrent of recent scholarship on Verhoeven’s work suggests that the movie may be something more – a rich allegory about corporate avarice; cultural glorification of hyper-violence, the decay of urban American life; Reaganomics, and its associated mid-80’s decadence (see character actor Miguel Ferrer snort coke off a glass tabletop, make out with two hookers and have a ticking bomb shoved in his mouth!) Take your pick, because there’s something for everyone. And oh, how could I forget: the plot is occasionally interrupted by a fake tongue-in-cheek newscast starring two vacuous “Tom Tucker/Diane Simmons” types, who winkingly comment on the action.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy re-watching Robocop, because in the end it’s an entertaining mess of loud noises and hammy weirdness capped off by an extremely violent, truly disgusting climax. The satire is coarse, the subtext is overexplicit, but Robocop is fun. Its crudeness forecasted the second stop on the Verhoeven tour, arguably the director’s most derided . . .

Showgirls (1995)

(ED. NOTE: You're welcome for the picture) Presumably looking to cast off the shackles of tweendom fame (courtesy of a starring role on Saved by the Bell!), Elizabeth “Jessie Spano” Berkeley signed onto this deliriously campy exploration of the Las Vegas underbelly in the role of Nomi Malone, a fast-food-loving exotic dancer with a dark history. But who really knows why – maybe she figured the role would propel her to stardom like Sharon Stone’s turn in our guy’s Basic Instinct only three years earlier. But whatever: the results are legendary in their own right.

You’ve probably seen the heavily edited cut of Showgirls on VH1, which frequently airs a truncated, neutered version of the profanity-laced, boob-laden NC-17 record-holder for most Razzie wins. The plot is true pulp fiction: Nomi shows up on the strip looking for a dancing gig in a casino nudey show; comes to blows with the reigning queen of the revue, vindictive bisexual/attempted murderer Cristol Connors (played by Gina Gershon, who’s been in the tabloid news lately for her alleged affair with Bill Clinton); seduces Kyle MacLachlan in a unintentionally hilarious hot tub sequence; and traipses around naked with a lot of other naked people.

Showgirls has inspired college drinking games (Author Naomi Klein reports that “trendy twenty-somethings were throwing Showgirls irony parties, laughing sardonically at the implausibly poor screenplay and shrieking with horror at the aerobic sexual encounters”), numerous YouTube parodies, a deluxe “VIP edition” DVD for the true pervert, and the ardent devotion of midnight-showing enthusiasts. The movie remains one of the top 20 highest grossing home video releases in the MGM catalogue, which means a bunch of James Bond titles aren’t really that popular.

Like Robocop, Showgirls has also inspired a healthy stream of academic criticism, with many scholars and some critics praising the film for its self-reflexive look at American movie sleaziness, bold investigation of modern eroticism, and good-natured satire of showbiz nihilism. I’m willing to grant that Robocop has its moments of legitimate satire and even some philosophical seriousness, but Showgirls is all sex and snuff – it’s an exercise in hedonism from the same screenwriter who penned Basic Instinct, a far less contentious but comparably sleazy throwaway movie that doesn’t have all that academic pomp and circumstance attached to its legacy.

So, to sum up: Showgirls is bad . . . just not nearly as bad as you’re lead to believe.

That concludes my little Verhoeven piece. Thanks to Ethan for letting me take up real estate on this here blog. If there’s demand I might be back with more . . . I didn’t even get to Neil Patrick Harris’ supporting role as a fascist alien-fighter in Starship Troopers!

-Daniel Arkin

Wow right? Daniel really knows his stuff. And he has a great vocabulary. He makes the New Yorker's David Denby sound like Gene Shalit. And in case you were wondering, yes he is related to Little Miss Sunshine's Alan Arkin. And no, he has never met him.

Until Tomorrow--