This summer, we are counting down our 25 favorite movies that didn’t connect with audiences on their initial release! View the whole series here.
3. Showgirls (dir. Paul Verhoeven, 1995)

• Budget: $40 million
  
• U.S. box office: $20.35 million
  

The first time I saw Showgirls was on VH1. I was about 14 or 15 and it was one of the WE CAN DO ANYTHING AFTER 11 movies they would show every once and a while. It was still heavily censored, but the “plot” remained. The best thing about watching Showgirls on VH1 is that instead of showing boobies (there are a lot of boobies) VH1 drew MS Paint style undergarments on the girls that would float as they walked. It’s just as ugly as you’d imagine. I loved every second and it became a mission to seek out the VHS of the true version. A friend of mine had a parent who collected DVDs and we had a secret sleepover to watch Showgirls. We were transfixed.

I often wonder if the genius of Showgirls lies in its ability to polarize an audience. I love pop culture “trash” and I love Las Vegas. It’s my favorite place. Losers parading around as successes. I’m rarely interested in prestige pictures and I’d rather see something take a big chance and fail spectacularly than stay the boring course. Showgirls takes all the swings. Between the thrusting we thought was sexy in the 90’s and performances spanning from strained (poor Elizabeth Berkley) and sickening (Gina Gershon eats every scene she’s in) it’s a wildly uneven 2 hours. But maybe that’s the point. Nomi isn’t any good, that’s why she cheats to get ahead. The ONLY nice person in the entire movie gets brutalized. The bad people constantly win. They are corrupt, they are connivers, and they are assholes.
The reason this film works for a lot of people is because it has become something beyond what it was intended to be. I do believe the cast and crew intended to create some sort of biting commentary on the unreal expectations show business puts on women looking for stardom in seedy nightclubs and strip clubs. The fact that the movie stays so serious and SO earnest in this “mission” is what makes it so hilarious. If anybody on set went into the project with the mission being “camp” it never would have worked. Camp succeeds when it’s earnest. It makes the viewer sit back and say “this CAN’T be serious” and allows the film to work as a piece to be laughed with, even if you’re laughing at it.

The reason this movie doesn’t work for some? The drama of the piece is pretty difficult to be invested in. The dialogue is wildly stilted. The ONLY good character in the film (Molly, played by Gina Ravera) gets BRUTALIZED. The movie isn’t sexy. At all. Oh, and the marketing is questionable at best. They tried to sell the movie to women by saying it was an honest portrayal of injustices girls on the Vegas strip… but at the same time they were trying to sell it as a cheap sexploitation film.
Did they succeed with either? Questionable
I’ve seen this movie a number of times now and I just let it wash over me. It requires no brain power to participate as an audience member. And honestly? Often that’s the best way to experience film.
I love this movie because it requires no work on my end.
Hollywood. Gotta love it.

Re-post from Cinema76.com

This summer, we are counting down our 25 favorite movies that didn’t connect with audiences on their initial release! View the whole series here.
10. Shoot ‘Em Up (dir. Michael Davis, 2007)

• Budget: $39 million
  
• U.S. box office: $12.8 million
  

Shoot ‘Em Up is not a subtle movie. In fact, there’s not subtlety to be found. And that’s what makes it so great.
A live action, R-rated, Looney Tunes episode, Mr. Smith (Clive Owen) and Mr. Hertz (Paul Giamatti) are a Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd in the middle of a bloody gun control debate.

The movie isn’t too concerned with plot, but for those who need a refresher: a mysterious gunman delivers a baby in the middle of a gruesome shootout. With the baby’s mother dead, Mr. Smith is on a mission to save this mysterious child from a group of mercenaries, lead by Mr. Hertz, who want to harvest the baby’s organs to keep and old, crusty, presidential hopeful alive. Aided by a lactating prostitute named Donna Quintano (Monica Bellucci), Mr. Smith spends 86 fast-moving minutes destroying every person after him in new and gruesome ways.
It doesn’t get more complicated than that. We know who the bad guys are and who the good guys are. The baby is named Oliver after Oliver Twist, because orphan. There are a lot of “carrot kills” and they are all giggle inducing. The conspiracy at the heart of the conflict is found out quickly and the film plays as a jump cut from action scene to action scene. Each new location brings new kills into the equation. It’s gross and extreme and corny, and because of that it is darkly funny. I laughed a lot in the way that only things pushed to 500 million can make you laugh.

The characters are caricatures. The hero with super-powered gun slinging abilities. The sociopathic evil boss who will stop at nothing to kill our hero and his helpers. Our hooker with a heart of gold. The two women in the movie are treated like mothers or symbols of maternity and not much else, although Donna is a playful badass. There’s even a shoot out while Smith and Donna are having sex. Donna doesn’t seem to mind.
Sometimes these symbols are subverted. For example, Donna gives a back-alley blow job to make some money and buy little baby Oliver a bullet proof vest instead of a blanket. Oliver sleeps to the soothing sounds of heavy metal music. Mr. Hertz fields phone calls (set to the ringtone of Wagner’s “Flight of the Valkyries” aka “Kill the waaaabbbit, kill the waaabbbit, kill the waaabbbiiit”) between blowing dude’s heads off to tell his wife he’ll be home for dinner. Giamatti is also not the imposing figure we expect from a movie villain. He’s just some dude. He could be anybody. That makes him all the more terrifying.

​With Hamilton dropping on Disney+, sans fucks, I have decided to give all the fucks to movie musicals. To see Leslie Odom Jr., Daveed Diggs, Renee Elise Goldberry, Philipa Soo, Christopher Jackson, Oak, and Lin-Manuel Miranda do their dang thing in #hamilfilm… I’m feeling nostalgic for theatre. I’m an actor by trade and the COVID “pause” of theatre and film sets leaves me looking for the jolt good live theatre can give to a day. If you’re also missing the theatre, let me steer you towards some musical gems in the film world.

If you went to public school, you probably saw this movie in middle school music class. Stephen Sondheim considers it his most embarrassing work as a lyricist, but it’s hard to not feel moved by the Shakespearian sentiments of this 1961 take on Romeo and Juliet. You know the story. The Jets and the Sharks are two rival gangs. The Jets are white, the Sharks are Puerto Rican, and one member of each side of the schism falls in love, resulting in unnecessarily violence shaking the core values of the two groups. This film won 10 Academy Awards, including acting accolades for the legendary EGOT Rita Moreno and George Chakiris as Anita and Bernardo. Russ Tamblyn also gives a fantastic performance as Riff, the Mercutio stand in.
Special shout out to choreographer (and co-director of the film) Jerome Robbins for making the transition from stage to screen seamless. The Prologue is one of the most beautiful examples of wordless character set up.

Never has a show explored the disappointment and dehumanization of auditioning for a Broadway show than A Chorus Line. As a working actor, disappointment and rejection is the name of the game. For every 1 Yes you hear 500 Nos. Hard work, passion, experience, and skill does not always equal a job. The show was on Broadway in 1975, Michael Bennet, the show’s creator and choreographer, won the Pulitzer Prize in drama and explores the insides of the industries only the way an insider can. The movie is SO 80’s and has a very stiff performance by Michael Douglas at its heart, but the heart is there. The characters are endearing, the songs are catchy, the choreography is amazing, and I dare you not to want to get up and dance with them at the end. Oh, and it’s directed by Richard Attenborough. Yes. Jurassic Park’s Richard Attenborough.

A movie, based on a concept album, that was then adapted into a stage musical. If it sounds like a lot, wait until you see the movie! The film is full of wild performances by A list stars. Highlights include an incredible Tina Turner as The Acid Queen, Elton John as a high-platformed pinball wizard, Oliver Reed grumbling and calling it singing, Eric Clapton as the Hawker, and Jack Nicholson as a doctor. Ann-Margret and Roger Daltry, as Mrs. Walker and Tommy, give great performances and the visuals of the piece are fantastically fun. They even have an extended instrumental sequence where Ann-Margret rolls around in a bunch of chocolate, looking like a fresh poop. It’s perfect.

A Frank Oz film is always a rip-roaring good time, and Little Shop of Horrors, the 1986 film, based on the 1982 broadway musical by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, based on the 1960 Roger Corman black and white movie, is no exception. Seymour (a nerdy Rick Moranis) and Audrey (Ellen Green, who originated the role on broadway) live on skid row with no way out of their hopeless situations. Seymour will never escape working in a flower shop. Audrey will never escape her never-ending parade of terrible men who are terrible toward her. Suddenly, a plant arrives to the shop (Levi Stubbs voices “Audrey II”, and also has the best singing voice known to man) and while this new plant seems to be turning Seymour’s luck around, it starts requiring blood to live. Human blood. And it demands to be fed.
In a fun cameo, the newest asshole in Audrey’s life is Steve Martin, huffing some gas as Orin Scrivello, a sadistic dentist. One of the folks he tortures is Bill Murray, making this the only movie they ever appeared in together.

The musical follows traditional Tevye, a Jewish dairyman, attempting to preserve Tradition as his three oldest daughters find love and marry in a pre-revolutionary 1905 Russia.
The 1971 film naturalizes the action of the musical in ways that ground Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick, and Joseph Stein’s 1964 story. When Tevye (a legendary performance by Topel, who still performs the role to this day), talks to the screen, it feels natural. The music exists as a companion to the action, as opposed to stopping momentum to sing. Like, they’re just doing their chores. Feeding chickens and shit. But singing.
The characters in Fiddler are real and three-dimensional. It’s a joyous and shattering to spend time and experience a changing world, for better and for worse, alongside them.

​Did you know that Chicago is still running on Broadway? The same Bob Fosse-inspired revival that opened in 1996 is (was? Thanks COVID) still playing, making it the longest running revival in Broadway’s history. Set in the murder obsessed 1920’s Chicago, two death-row murderesses Roxie Hart (Renee Zellweger, pouting) and Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones, doing splits at 3 months pregnant) compete for publicity, fame, and a super star lawyer (Richard Gere) who will save their lives at the price of their fame. Directed by Rob Marshall, the film won 6 Oscars, including Supporting Actress for Catherine Zeta-Jones and Best Picture. In stark contrast to Fiddler on the Roof’s naturalistic tone, Chicago instead decides to spotlight the stage within a screen aspect of Roxie’s personality to varying degrees of success. Queen Latifah as a hard-nosed prison warden and John C. Reilly as Roxie’s sad sack husband are delightful as the best singers in the bunch.

​It’s the pelvis thrust that really drives you insay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ayn and your sexuality probably took a turn for the better if you were a human who discovered this movie at a formative age. Based on Richard O’Brien’s deliciously weird 1973 The Rocky Horror Show, this movie is one of the best things that has ever happened to film. Newly engaged Brad Majors (Barry Bostwick, ASSHOLE) and Janet Weiss (Susan Sarandon, HOT) breakdown in a strange area and have to seek shelter at a castle in the middle of nowhere, inhabited by Dr. Frank ‘n Furter (Tim………..SAY IT….. Curry), a sweet transvestite from Transsexual Transylvania. An exploration of kink, seduction, and some banging (lulz) songs follow. If the Disney-fication of Hamilton’s fucks bothered you, give yourself over to absolute pleasure and experience this movie for the first time or the five millionth time. It’s a cult classic and was one of the first popular musicals to depict fluid sexuality in a positive way. The 1975 Broadway run closed after 45 performances. They weren’t ready. The show is rarely produced now. Maybe because the movie regularly comes equipped with a shadow cast. Maybe because people are still prudes.

​Bob Fosse was known for being a dickhead, but he was also a master at musicals and let that mastery spill into the world of musical movies. Cabaret is an example of that mastery. Joel Grey and Liza Minelli give game-changing performances in this musical about a crumbling Cabaret in the middle of the rise of Nazi Germany. It’s terrifying, seedy, and there are no good guys. Kander and Ebb set the scene with some of the most famous music to come out of the theatre. Sam Mendes directed a seedier revival starring Alan Cumming as the Emcee. The production kept its punch in 1993 and was touring the country until the COVID shutdown.

​Internationally ignored songstress Hedwig Robinson, is left questioning who she is in the world. With a botched sex change operation and an ex-lover getting famous of her songs, she is left giving A+ dive bar performances while searching for her other half. John Cameron Mitchell and Miriam Shore reprise the roles they created off-broadway and Mitchell steps into the director’s seat. The result is a fast, funny, and heartbreaking, experience. It’s my favorite musical movie about finding yourself in a sea of loss and unfulfilled potential. It gave a place for all the misfits, and the losers, and the strange rock and rollers to know we’re doing alright, listening to the midnight radio.

​We follow Claude, a wannabe rebel, as he is embraced by a group of hippies protesting the draft and embracing free love and drugs during the time of the Vietnam War. The movie, directed by Milos Forman, is vastly different than the 1967 musical. The musical is more of a collection of vignette style protest songs, as it was supposed to be a contemporary celebration of the hippies at the time. Every once and a while we get some plot, but for the most part, we are following a movement and an energy. No, Hair is not intended to be a “period piece”, but it’s been set in the 70’s ever since. The movie reorganized the songs and sharpens the characters into movie stars. We’ll see if a true to the source version of the musical ever gets adapted to film, but for now, we have this goosebump inducing final scene.

Just kidding.