Poor Things (2023) & Showgirls (1995)

Poor Things is a high-brow steam-punk fantasy which just garnered the second largest number of Oscar nominations for 2023 including BEST PICTURE and has received universal acclaim for this surrealist tale of Bella Baxter (Emma Stone, also nominated for Best Actress), a young woman in Victorian England (?) who has recently been reborn/revived via a series of questionable experiments by a mad scientist Dr. Godwin played by Willem Dafoe.  We follow her on several adventures throughout Europe as she explores what it means to be a free-thinking human being.  It was directed by acclaimed Polish filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos whose previous film The Favourite also garnered several Oscar nominations five years ago.Showgirls is a trashy exploitation melodrama which was universally panned upon initial release in '95 while also flopping notoriously at the box office, also receiving multiple Razzie Awards for that year.  This story focuses on Nomi Malone (Elizabeth Berkley, who was blamed for its failure and whose career never quite recovered afterwards) who is a wandering dancer (?) who stumbles into Las Vegas seeking fame and fortune, working her way up from an exotic dancer at a sleazy local club to an all-out phenomenon leading THE premiere exotic dance show in Vegas!  We follow her character as she navigates through various dangerous and tawdry situations towards becoming.....well it's not really clear. :o This film was directed by Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven who had recently given us Basic Instinct and Total Recall....though from this film on, he was never able to find that level of success in the US again. Now what could these two films possibly have in common?  Well more than you would think, especially the extreme reactions they each seem to elicit from audiences... Host & Editor: Geoff GershonProducer: Marlene Gershon Send us a Text Message.https://livingforthecinema.com/Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/Living-for-the-Cinema-Podcast-101167838847578Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/livingforthecinema/Letterboxd:https://letterboxd.com/Living4Cinema/