There's more to Sharon Stone's crotch than meets the eye

Basic Instinct (1992)

This movie is funny because the only thing that everyone seems to remember about it is Sharon Stone's crotch. And to be honest after so many years since I last saw it, that's about all I could remember as well. So as I just watched Showgirls (1995) I thought it's about time to give this one another try as I remember I didn't really like it when I last saw it back in the 90's. Well turns out there's quite a bit more to this than Sharon Stone's crotch, though I didn't remember how brilliant that scene actually was, hilariously genius moment. Anyway this turned out to be quite a gripping thriller and definitely kept me guessing all the way to the end. Funnily enough I didn't even remember who the murderer was, but Sharon Stone's crotch I couldn't forget, go figure... Another thing I noticed was that the nudity wasn't as explicit as I remembered, I guess it has just become more common in the movies since the early 90's so a movie like this doesn't have as strong of an impact anymore as it most likely had back then. I also didn't remember that Sharon Stone did a brilliant performance in this one, probably the best of her career right after Casino (1995). So I did enjoy this one a lot more this time around as I did back then, but it's not without problems. Even though Sharon Stone is brilliant and Michael Douglas was quite ok as well, the supporting cast is rather bad. Jeanne Tripplehorn as a psychiatrist was about as believable as a flying cow and George Dzundza as Gus was surprisingly weak as well. But with the sometimes not that great acting I can live with, it's the story which is the weakest point in this movie. It's highly interesting with plenty of twists to keep you entertained, but if you stop to think about it for even a second you can see that it's full of huge plot holes. In that light all the twists take a bit of unintentionally comic theme on them and that waters down the thriller part quite badly. With a bit more effort on the plot holes and a better supporting cast this would actually be a brilliant thriller. Now it's just above the average mostly because of a few single scenes and Sharon Stone's performance which live up to higher standards than the rest of the movie.

65%

A misunderstood satire

Showgirls (1995)

Well the story is about a girl called Nomi (Elizabeth Berkley) coming to Vegas with nothing more than the clothes she's wearing and a passion to become a show dancer. She meets Molly (Gina Ravera) who helps her out with a place to stay until she can get her dancing career going. Soon enough she's competing for a spot in a show with the biggest star of the business Cristal (Gina Gershon). Then of course money and greed step in and things go wrong. Simple and even stupid story, but yet so familiar from quite a many Hollywood fame and fortune movies, this is just told with a bit more exploitation. This movie rocked the Razzie's in it's days with 13 nominations and 7 wins, but what made it even better was that Paul Verhoeven himself actually showed up to receive the awards for worst movie and worst director. And that's something special right there. It also failed miserably on the box office, even though it later became the highest grossing NC-17 movie of all time. But this movie was a huge success on home video, reeling in more than 100 million dollars, that's pretty clear indication that people rather watch "porn" at home and not at the theaters, even if it's a satire wrapped in softcore sex like this one.

But that's not all this movie is, it's actually a lot more. Even though there's no goofball comedy or witty jokes, this movie is a comedy. It's a satire about the roles of women in many Hollywood movies, the fact that it's done in an exploitative manner is probably why many people seem to miss that point. After all most Hollywood movies are male made male fantasies, they are just politically correctly covered in less exploitative themes. So when this movie hides nothing and couldn't care less about being politically correct it's misunderstood, either intentionally or unintentionally. Those who intentionally misunderstand it see that this could just as well be any other movie out there where a woman is trying to earn a living, just replace the usual romance and comedy with sex and drama and that scares them. Those who unintentionally misunderstand it just can't see the big picture behind the tits and asses. The big picture of course is that satirically every woman in this movie who thrives for success is nothing more than a sexual object for men and advance through their career by deceiving other women. Sure many people see that as a flaw in the character development, but it's the ending which really ties the satire together. I won't give out any details even though you can't really spoil a movie like this. When the movie ends with it's themes of empowerment of women it's just pure comedy brilliance. It's of course tragic as it makes you realize how similar many other woman characters in other Hollywood movies are, but still you have to admit it's also funny as hell.

The acting is from bad to worse most of the time, though funnily enough the black actors and actresses gave out by far the best performances. I'm willing to bet my money on that being deliberate as many from this cast can do and has done a whole lot better. And that's just another indication of this being a satire. My only complaint is the running time, at a bit over two hours this is on the edge of becoming boring at times, but luckily there's plenty of eye candy to balance out those few moments when the comedy stalls. This movie is pure camp brilliance and a great satire, though obviously hugely misunderstood.

90%