Joe Queenan has a review in the New York Times of a new book by Joe Eszterhas, the guy responsible for a whole boatload of bad movies including Basic Instinct, Flashdance and Showgirls. The review is positively dripping with sarcasm. My favorite part:
Ruthlessly honest, uncompromisingly ethical, Eszterhas comes across as an enormously likable, homespun prole who feels more at home with welding Rust Belt ballerinas than big-shot Hollywood muckety-mucks, because female welders won't ever get tired of hearing about Sharon Stone, whom he created (and bedded) when he wrote "Basic Instinct" -- before meeting his current wife. Money clearly is not the prime motivational force for this working-class hero, even though he once held the record for highest-paid screenplay when he was dallying with Sharon Stone; the real joy in life is penning timeless lines like the one he wrote for Jennifer Beals in "Flashdance": "When you give up your dream, you die."
Beams Eszterhas: "Twenty years after I wrote that line ... my parish priest told me it had been the inspiration of his life."
It is not clear whether the priest ever became a ballerina.
For some reason, this reminds me of Steve Iott's brilliant line about the loathsome movie Punchline: "Punchline is to comedy what Flashdance was to welding."
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I still love the scene in the Full Monty where the former factory workers are saying how they can weld better than girl in Flashdance.
You owe me a can of monitor cleaner.
Fantastic. I hate Eszterhas with a burning passion that cannot be fully described. I saw Basic Instinct when I was 14. Keep in mind that I was desperately horny and had no access to the internet at that time, and I still hated that stupid movie with every fiber of my being.
A few years ago some friends finally convinced me to watch Showgirls, because, as they said, it was so awful as to approach hillarity. I have to say they were right. Ironically, I have met two people- both of them friends, both of them black females- who insist to this very day that Showgirls is a great movie. Go figure.
I will say this, though. If you think there can't possibly be a sexploitation movie, masquarading as a real movie, worse than anything Eszterhas has put out, I challenge you to watch Embrace of the Vampire. Naked Alyssa Milano aside, sweet jesus is that a horrible, horrible movie.
Mmm... if I recall correctly, my step-father likes both Showgirls and Basic Instinct.
Of course, he also adores Starship Troopers and Moontrap.
I still don't understand how he got paid $3m for Jade. It's not like people watched Basic Instinct because it had a great script.
Normally I'm a huge fan of "so bad it's good" films, but Showgirls bored me stupid, which is quite an achievement for a film with so much gratuitous nudity.
Starship Troopers is one of the top 5 films of the 1990s.
I only saw Basic Instict for the first time about a year ago and I have to admit I really liked it. It's Hitchcock done up as trashy softcore porn and for me it works.
I challenge you to watch Embrace of the Vampire
A cheesy vampire movie I haven't seen it!! I'm on it. I'll stop at the video store tonight and report my findings later this week.
And speaking of Flashdance, I hope this is worse than Irene Cara in The Vampire's Kiss.
Oops. First sentence is of course, a quote of Chris Berez from above.