You Don't Nomi
- Director: Jeffrey McHale
- Producer: Ariana Garfinkel; Jeffrey McHale; Suzanne Zionts
CGiii Comment
Definitely...a film for a small niche market...to be part of the intended audience:
1. You have to have seen Showgirls.
2. You have to have either loved, liked [or - at least - appreciated] what Paul Verhoeven was trying to say!
3. You have to be able to - willingly - digest absolute fantasy...courtesy of Adam Nayman and his book: It Doesn’t Suck: Showgirls - without which, this film would probably never have been made.
The big question is: Does Jeffrey McHale's [almost] academic reappraisal - of one of the worst films ever made - manage to change hearts and minds? No, it's a simple as that!
No amount of analysis, re-analysis and proselytizing will change the fact that Showgirls is...garbage. Apart from some archive footage, Paul Verhoeven does not take part...shouldn't the man - himself - defend his own film instead of these two flunkies?!?
Without his input, You Don't Nomi is reduced to nothing more than mere [flunky] fandom...and, just like its inspiration, is laughable...for all the wrong reasons.
Still...and, it has to be applauded...a massive amount of work and thought went into the making of this!
Trailer...
The(ir) Blurb...
When it was released in 1995, Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls was reviled. The first NC-17 release to receive a wide theatrical release, the public and critics of the era—with a loud, clear, collective voice—rejected the film. It was nominated for a record 13 Razzie Awards, and won a then-record seven. Roger Ebert, in one of the more generous reviews the film received, summed his opinion up by noting that, “the film is not, in short, quite unredeemably bad.”
But Showgirls’ reputation has been resuscitated in the intervening 24 years, and conceding one’s admiration for Nomi Malone’s sordid tale is no longer the admission of questionable taste it once signified. You Don’t Nomi brilliantly draws on archival footage of Showgirls’ production, revealing interviews with the major players, and surprisingly thoughtful conversations with the cinephiles who are leading the charge in the film’s redemptive journey from a notorious flop to cult classic. Is it a masterpiece? Or is it a piece of shit? McHale’s addictive documentary argues for a third designation: the masterpiece of shit.
—Jason Gutierrez
Cast & Characters
Elizabeth Berkley
Jeffrey Conway
Joe Eszterhas
Gina Gershon
Joshua Grannell
April Kidwell
Kyle MacLachlan
Haley Mlotek
Adam Nayman
David Schmader
Paul Verhoeven