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April 03, 2006

McCarthy! Puritans! Lions! Tigers! Bears!

I am so tired of hearing these Hollywood "artistes" talking about the pall of repression that they are tirelessly struggling under. Basic Instinct 2 had rather...limp box office receipts in its opening weekend. Do they blame the actors? Do they blame the directors? Do they blame the script? Hell, do they Blame Canada?

No! They blame Bush!

Paul Verhoeven, director of the first "Basic Instinct" (which scored $353 million worldwide) as well as the widely ridiculed "Showgirls" (now regarded as something of a camp classic), attributes the genre's demise to the current American political climate.

"Anything that is erotic has been banned in the United States," said the Dutch native. "Look at the people at the top (of the government). We are living under a government that is constantly hammering out Christian values. And Christianity and sex have never been good friends."

Scribe Nicholas Meyer, who was an uncredited writer on 1987's seminal sex-fueled cautionary tale "Fatal Attraction," agrees, noting that the genre's downfall coincides with the ascent of the conservative political movement.

"We're in a big puritanical mode," he said. "Now, it's like the McCarthy era, except it's not 'Are you a communist?' but 'Have you ever put sex in a movie?'"

Oh puh-lease. Maybe it's 'cos, you know, the script and the direction...suck?

At least finally at the end of the article they find someone who isn't a nut:

"For producer JC Spink, the genre's demise has little to do with politics, scripts or willing talent and everything to do with the Internet, which became ubiquitous in American homes around the same time studio executives were suffering through such debacles as "Body of Evidence," "Showgirls" and "Jade."

"Why pay $10 to see something at the movies that you can see for free on the Internet?" Spink asked. "I think the genre is suffering because sex is more pervasive in our society now than it was 10 years ago, from Vanity Fair ads to reality TV. I mean, there's porn stars on reality TV."

And even Verhoeven grudgingly admits in the end that the scripts stink. Geesh. But I guess the scripts are poor because of the theocratic climate of fear, so the writers (those few who haven't been dragged off to the Gulags yet, obviously) can't think erotic thoughts.

Yeah, that's it.

Posted by Mr. Bingley at April 3, 2006 10:10 AM

Comments

And the success of Sin City was a fluke I guess.

Posted by: Cullen at April 3, 2006 10:48 AM

It must have been, because I want God to give me back the two hours I spent watching that drivel.

Posted by: John at April 3, 2006 11:46 AM

John, while I understand that you didn't like it, it was very well received by critics (78% on Rotten Tomatoes)and did extremely well in the theaters.

Posted by: Cullen at April 3, 2006 12:17 PM

"We're in a big puritanical mode," he said. "Now, it's like the McCarthy era, except it's not 'Are you a communist?' but 'Have you ever put sex in a movie?'"

Oooooooo, poor oppressed widdle revolutionaries! Does you wants Mommikins to kiss the ouchie, and makes it feel all better?

What a whinging idiot.

Posted by: The_Real_JeffS at April 3, 2006 12:18 PM

Um, I realize I'm getting older and perhaps my mind isn't quite as sharp as it used to be, but doesn't the word "banned" mean the movie could never have been made in the first place?

Posted by: Ken Summers at April 3, 2006 12:26 PM

It's called KARMA, Verhoeven, you ass. It's what happen when you produce crap like "Starship Troopers" and "Basic Instinct 2".

Posted by: mojo at April 3, 2006 12:42 PM

I liked Starship Troopers. Well, for the fluff that it was.

Posted by: Cullen at April 3, 2006 12:58 PM

I liked the book; never got around to seeing the movie.

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at April 3, 2006 01:07 PM

I liked the song, but never got around to seeing the movie either.

Verhoeven's been to Amsterdam a few too many times, I think. Christians are the "barefoot and pregnant" crowd who nevertheless hate sex? This makes even less sense than some of his movies.

Posted by: Nightfly at April 3, 2006 01:16 PM

Amen, Brother John!

(Cullen, you REALLY have me worried. Sin City and BRAIN BUGS?! Dear God.)

Posted by: tree hugging sister at April 3, 2006 01:29 PM

The book and the movie are completely different. Robert Heinlein, were he alive today, would use his original manuscript of "Starship Troopers" to pummel Verhoeven's ass into tiny, greasy, chunks of fat.

OTOH, if you want nothing but gratutious violence, brutality, brain sucking bugs, bug blasting, incompetent tactics, decent special effects, and occasional nekkid wimmen, why, yes, the movie has some redeeming features.

But if you drink beer while watching movies, buy cans, not bottles, as empty cans do less damage to TVs than empty bottles. Just a thought.

But I'd forgotten that Verhoeven did "Starship Troopers", else I would have refered to him as a brainless and narcisstic whinging idiot. Everyone, please note this correction.

Posted by: The_Real_JeffS at April 3, 2006 01:35 PM

BTW, aside from Verhoeven's butchering of Heinlein's book, my major complaint about that movie?

There were no nude shots of Denise Richards.

Posted by: The_Real_JeffS at April 3, 2006 01:37 PM

In retrospect, I would have been far happier if one of the brain bugs had done the deed to Ms. Richards.

Posted by: Cullen at April 3, 2006 01:57 PM

The Starship Troopers movie bore little resemblance to the book, especially considering the fact that the book had very little action in it.

But I would have to guess that Heinlein would have liked the movie because his later books contained most of the themes in the movie, and he was really big on sex in all situations at all times. I think he may have objected slightly to the blatant use of Nazi uniforms, but everything else he probably would have been okay with.

The book was designed more for teenagers and thus didn't have any sex.

Personally, I liked the theme of individualism, and was disappointed that the solitary mobile infantry soldier was replaced with a levee en masse an the bugs were converted from sophisticated, well armed insect-like intelligent species into just big mindless bugs.

But the movie was fun, too.

Posted by: Mike Rentner at April 3, 2006 02:30 PM

Oh, the movie was fun, Mike. No argument there. Although a six pack of beer does aid in gaining that perception.

But the book was as much a thesis on a person's duty to their community/nation/planet/species as it was entertaining fiction. Verhoeven turned that thesis into a cartoonish description of a facist state. He could have called the movie "Bug Wars: The Return of Doogie Hauser", and probably done better on it, since many people had high expectations, being based on a Heinlein novel and all.

And having read extensively of Heinlein, I suspect that he would have objected STRENUOUSLY to the quasi-Nazi uniforms. That alone causes me to believe that Heinlein would have whupped Verhoeven but good.

Posted by: The_Real_JeffS at April 3, 2006 02:51 PM

In retrospect, I would have been far happier if one of the brain bugs had done the deed to Ms. Richards.

I agree, but she would have to be attacked while taking a shower. Sorta like "Psycho", y'know? ;-)

Posted by: The_Real_JeffS at April 3, 2006 02:53 PM

Please. The schmuck couldn't even manage to get Denise Richards to show off her tits. I mean, how hard is that? Charlie Sheen some kinda genius?

Ok, so points for Dina, but she was hungry.

Posted by: mojo at April 3, 2006 03:50 PM

In retrospect, I would have been far happier if one of the brain bugs had done the deed to Ms. Richards.

That would imply there was a brain to be sucked.

Posted by: tree hugging sister at April 3, 2006 04:55 PM

Brains? Denise Richards? She has brains?

Posted by: The_Real_JeffS at April 3, 2006 05:02 PM

No, but she sure does suck.

As an actress...

Posted by: tree hugging sister at April 3, 2006 05:09 PM

Acting? I thought she just, er, ah, bounced around the place. Or, ummmmmm, something like that.

Y'know?

Posted by: The_Real_JeffS at April 3, 2006 05:13 PM

Part of the genius of "Undercover Brother" - they played to those strengths, JeffS. That scene, with Eddie Griffith and the henchmen pulling up chairs to watch the fight, just kills me every time.

AND that movie had Doogie too!

Posted by: Nightfly at April 3, 2006 05:44 PM

Getting back to the *cough* original point, all of these guys claiming that their movies are suffering at the box office because we're all too busy lengething our hemlines and buttoning up our collars while looking for witches to burn at the stake...um, how do they explain the thriving multi-billion dollar a year porn industry? I'm just asking like...

Posted by: Emily at April 3, 2006 06:07 PM

That was sorta kinda the reason why I brought up Denise Richards, Emily. Indirectly, anywho. Really. But, all right, I'll go back on thread....

"Starship Troopers" had everything that Verhoeven claims is banned, like his other movies. But, in most ways, that movie is a stinker. That's the real problem Verhoeven has noted. And most of Hollywood for that matter.

But Verhoeven has not learned his lesson -- he still pushes the same crap, expecting us to get with the program.

Not on my nickel.

Posted by: The_Real_JeffS at April 3, 2006 06:39 PM

Don't you see, Emily? The porn "industry" is actually a giant AshKKKroftian sting plot of Rovian proportions!

Let me explain to you how it works: Buried deep in their putrid cubicles, cynically "decorated" with such supposed tender things as photos of "loved ones" or perhaps some illegible message brightly scrawled in some ungainly imitation of a child's script, in the large gray government buildings (in the ugly part of town, where such buildings are kept) festooned with the names of their anglohomophobic forebearers sits an army of failed Donnie Osmond clone wannabees, all feverishly devising new and more outrageous forms of pornography to entice unwary viewers into, um, viewing such, um, er, pornography so that they can then be arrested and hauled away in the middle of the night by leather clad jack booted minions of the misogynistic christo-neo-porn industrial complex that truly runs this once great land of ours; an eroto de fe if you will whose sick twisted roots and fetid tendrils have wormed their way so perniciously and with such perspicacity that our selected not elected leadership would rather read books about goats than truly face the rising tide of icecap-melt fed tide of Bectelian oppression that is, even now, rushing forth to sweep away that which we hold most dear.

I hope this helps.

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at April 3, 2006 06:52 PM

I knew I could count on you to be the guy who did all that extra research on the subject.

Posted by: Emily at April 3, 2006 06:59 PM

It is a pleasure to be of assistance.

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at April 3, 2006 07:06 PM

I noticed he worked goats into it. Some social scientist HE is.

Posted by: tree hugging sister at April 3, 2006 07:39 PM

Yeah, but I think the reference to Donny Osmond belies the frivolous nature of the goat remarks.

Posted by: Emily at April 3, 2006 07:45 PM

Thank you Bingley, brilliant!

I was wondering where all my neighbors went but it's all clear to me now....except why are they coming for me last? Is that good or bad?

Posted by: Dave E. at April 3, 2006 08:50 PM

"[Sin City] was very well received by critics (78% on Rotten Tomatoes)and did extremely well in the theaters."

Plus, it had Jessica Alba gyrating in next to nothing. Works for me.

Posted by: Dave J at April 4, 2006 02:12 AM