 From the director of Robocop, Total Recall, and Basic Instinct comes Showgirls, a cinematic achievement on par with the likes of Tommy Wiseau's The Room. In 1995, a NC17 movie would shake up the industry like no other, release in theaters to the admiration of a bunch of young, prepubescent boys and elderly men looking to get the rocks off. Showgirls was a film that said, we're throwing caution to the wind and our clothes. In this two hour and eight minute tour day force, you will see Elizabeth Berkeley do things Jesse Spana wouldn't approve of. But why now, Adam? Why, after all this time, bring up showgirls? Well, it's because Matt Sklarow over on Patreon.com slash Adam Does Movies said, I want you to review this, dammit, and you don't have a choice because I have a mithril membership. And for $30, you have to watch what I say and give me a shout out on top of it. What a bastard. To make me sit there with my wife in bed watching this. Best case scenario when the film's done, she's a little frisky and we can maybe have some 50 Shades of Adam. But at the worst, we sat and watched a shit movie and she falls asleep. Less titillated than she was when we went in. Well, it was a worst case scenario. Cox on the table, I can tell you that right now. Because somehow, showgirls managed to take some smoking hot women, get them naked constantly, and yet have it all play out in the least sexually pleasing way possible. It's quite an achievement. Elizabeth Berkeley plays Nomi Malone, the most unlikable character I've ever seen in a movie. She's getting away from a mysterious past hoping to make it big in Las Vegas. In one of her very first scenes, we're greeted to her pulling a knife on a complete stranger who's really not even being that rude to her. Ready to stab this dude who picked her up and is taking her to Vegas, free of charge. What's he getting return? Possibly shivved. A small stabbing to the jugular maybe? Who knows? Well, he's gonna find out when this movie's done, I can assure you. We are gonna spoil showgirls, just... Again, it's a thousand years old now. I'm gonna be Frank. You can be Mike if you want. It doesn't really matter to me. This film ruined Elizabeth Berkeley's career. Now, how much of a career she was gonna have after Saved by the Bell, Saved by the Bell, the college years, it was yet to be determined. She did come back for that Peacock Saved by the Bell for a couple of seasons before it was inevitably canceled. So check it out on the cock if you haven't already. We've had a couple of penis references so far. This is going very well. Anyway, she is a trainwreck in this movie. Her body is constantly convulsing, flailing, flying, pushing, shoving, tripping, stumbling. She is full blown bipolar in this thing. People will go out of their way to help her and she will thank them by throwing fits, temper tantrums. There's a scene where she just starts throwing fries all over the place, just like, I don't wanna, I don't wanna. I'm so excited. I'm so excited. I'm so scared. Subscribe for Saved by the Bell references. Her number one goal is to become a dancer, but not the stripping kind. She wants to be classy. She wants to be a celebrity, famous. Kinda like Crystal Connors, played by Gina Grishan. Gina Grishan makes it out of this movie pretty unscathed, to be fair. She's fine in it. She's caddy. She's a little bit intriguing. She's the puppet master behind the scenes who's fucking up every single thing Nomi tries to do. Every single minute of the movie that went by, I kept thinking to myself, how did this get greenlit? Who the hell is the audience for this? Nomi's just a terrible individual. And of course, she does end up stripping. Now, I mentioned earlier how she wanted to stab a guy for giving her a ride. I guess to her credit, that guy did end up stealing from her and leaving her out in a parking lot, abandoning her in the middle of a new city. So he is kind of a douche. But who knows if he would have done that she would have been nice to him, you know? It's like chicken or the egg, which came first sort of situation. Luckily for her, she stumbles upon a kind young woman in the parking lot named Gina, who sees her having a freak out and is like, yeah, this is the person I want to get involved with. That's the lady I want to hitch my way into. Why don't you come stay with me? We then fast forward many months and it turns out Nomi's a stripper. She didn't become that Cinderella ballerina dancer that she wanted yet. But this black swan is ready to shed those feathers and become the white dove she was meant to be or something, I don't know why the swan turned into a dove in this scenario. Anyway, she's working at the CD Strip Club and in comes, you guessed it, Crystal. Crystal's got her eye on her and she's gonna give her the opportunity of a lifetime and that's to dance in her special Showgirls Performance Act, where it's basically Cirque du Soleil with a lot of nudity. A lot of pageantry going on, a lot of flips, a lot of twirls, a lot of spins and a whole lot of Nomi. Nomi thinks she can dance. No me, no how, that's true. I don't know why but every person that comes into contact with her is like, this is the girl, she's got the moves. With a little bit of training, she could be great and then they show her dance. Thank you, this is dancing. And then it's back to the person that's just enthralled, like, this is it. This is the girl. Show me what you got. How about this? I feel good. Nomi will eventually join the showgirls and that's where things will go from bad to worse. I'm talking about the story. Well, the story's bad but I'm talking about everything. Everything just spirals out of control in this film. There's also a young gentleman named James Smith played by Glenn Plummer and he's got his eye on Nomi. He wants her to be in his special dance group. He's gonna change the game. He's gonna show people, pervy men, that there's more to strip clubs than just taking off your clothes. James Smith is a fucking idiot. And he will learn that as this movie unspools and everybody gets to see his live event and the guys are just sitting there like, so they're gonna take off their clothes, this is garbage. What was he thinking? His whole storyline is just ridiculous and goes nowhere. Then again, nothing really goes anywhere. No one learns anything in this whole film and for some reason it's over two hours long. The bottom line is Crystal Connors has it all. Nomi wants to take it from her and as the movie progresses, that's exactly what happens. Not only does she sleep with her man, but she freaking pushes this bitch down the stairs, throwing her in the hospital. And then she has the audacity to go see her and kind of put it in her face. But Crystal, having the experience, have the reputation she does, kind of looks at her like, yeah, I know. No crap you did that. How do you think I got where I'm at? You dumb bitch. I did the same thing. Game recognizing game is really what it comes down to. I didn't want to gloss over the greatest scene in the entire film though. We're gonna get to it. And I remember it as a young child watching that one scene on Showtime late when my parents were in bed and that's the pool moment. She gets in the backyard pool with a gentleman who starts banging her like he just won first prize at the Macy Day Parade drum line. Just boom, boom, boom and she is convulsing. Like she's getting fucking waterboarded. She's back in the water seizing while a fountain is spraying her in the face so she can't breathe. She's getting rammed beyond all belief and she's having a seizure. Just like. She's like Marv from Home Alone when he's getting electrocuted. Anyway, I love this scene. It's very tastefully done, well executed. The movie ends as all good movies do with her friend being raped and these bad guys now after our girl Nomi because she worked her way into his penthouse suite and kicked the living shit out of him in one of the funniest scenes in the film. She then goes to the hospital, says goodbye to Crystal and takes off for California for an inevitable sequel that will inevitably never come out because this movie bombed. I should point out that she meets up with that truck driver from the beginning one more time as she does another Hulk. She puts out the finger hitchhikes and conveniently the same exact guy is driving by at that exact same time on that same exact road. It's remarkable. And so is this film. Showgirls, what a treat to watch. I wanted to kill myself. It was miserable. Some have said over the years that this movie was meant to be tongue in cheek. It was meant to be satirical. It was supposed to be funny over the top. Over the top, I understand. Funny? No. Satirical? No. Satirical of what? What is it making fun of? What is it mocking? What's the joke here? Because the joke I see on display is the movie, the actors that signed up for it. Now, I don't blame Elizabeth Berkeley. This seems like, imagine, this seems like such a great opportunity on paper. You're gonna have to get nude. It's NC 17. So it's edgy. It's taking risks. But look who's attached. The guy that did fucking Robocomp. Basic instinct. I mean, come on. Sharon Stone's career was basically made from basic instinct. It's gonna do the same for you. Wrong. Dead wrong. Bad movie. Bad meme. For having to sit through it. But especially Bad Matt Sklarow for recommending it. I'm joking. I appreciate all Patreons. Thank you very much Matt for the recommendation. It was a fun watch. Mainly so I could do the review afterwards. He also has me next month for Howard the Duck. So stick around for that. Make sure to subscribe if you haven't. Like the video if I had some fun. Make sure to comment below if you've seen showgirls. Maybe even defend it if you think it's brilliant somehow. Misunderstood. Or if you're like me, feel free to just go off on this thing. Maybe you saw it in theaters when it came out and you were very disappointed with the end result. Anyway, thanks again for watching. If you excuse me, I have some Howard the Duck to view for the first time. I heard there's nudity in that one too. Duck nipples. Can't wait.