Showgirls – Blu-ray Disc Review

June 16, 2010 – 3:17 am - Posted by: Brendan Surpless

Tags: Alan Rachins, Ben Myron, Elizabeth Berkley, FOX, Gina Gershon, Gina Ravera, Glen Plummer, Joe Eszterhas, Kyle MacLachlan, MGM, NC-17, Paul Verhoeven, Robert Davi

has an average rating of 4.1 on IMDb
1080p in AVC MPEG-4 on a 50gb disc
DTS-HD 5.1 MA / Dolby Digital 2.0
includes a DVD and few features
– NC-17
– 1995
– 131 minutes
– MGM (FOX)
–
This uses 38.5GB for the movie out of 41.9GB total.

Overall Verdict – Fans Will Be Pleased

Buy it for $22.99 @ Amazon.com

— Gangbanged by: Brendan Surpless & Justin Sluss —

Trailer:



The Movie Itself was directed by Paul Verhoeven (known for directing “Robocop“). With a desire to become a dancer, not a stripper, Nomi Malone (Elizabeth Berkley) heads to Las Vegas in search for this dream. Upon arrival she’s tricked by a hitchhiker and left with nothing. She soon befriends Molly (Gina Ravera) and the two become best of friends. Still insisting that she doesn’t want to become a stripper but rather a dancer, she finds herself working at…wait for it…wait for it…a strip club. So much for that huh? Well, it’s one night that she gains the attention of Cristal (Gina Gershon), the lead dancer in the Stardust Hotel’s main attraction. At first Nomi is confused at what Cristal sees in her but perhaps her interest is genuine. Will Nomi make it or will something else we don’t care about occur? What results is a movie that I don’t really see what all the hype was about. Literally this film is 131 minutes of softcorn porn mixed in with rather bad performances and terrible dialogue. But what’s odd is that the film isn’t necessarily BAD as there’s far worse out there, just it isn’t anything remotely good.

Seemingly the verdict out there with “Showgirls” is that either you really, really love this movie or you really, really hate it. I can’t say I’m in either boat as the film isn’t BAD per say but just doesn’t really have much going for it. The dialogue is ridiculously bad at times (“I’m not a whore! I’m a dancer”), the plot is quite stupid and the characters are extremely monotone and flat. Yet, I’ll be honest and say I never once felt like turning off the film while watching. Am I being a hypocrite now that I had mentioned that the film was bad but never shut it off? Not really as even the worst movies you still have to sit through. In all reality “Showgirls” was never shut off simply because I wanted to see and perhaps understand just what the hype was about. More importantly, I wanted to see if the hype was well warranted. The ending verdict? Certainly not the ‘cult’ film it has become, certainly not good in any sense of the word, but still I was drawn in.

In closing, “Showgirls” isn’t a good film, isn’t a bad film but is somewhere in between. Never did I feel like I was wasting time watching the film, but once it ended I didn’t really feel like I had spent two hours of my life watching anything particularly good. More I guess I was interested in all the hype the film has as it has been labeled a ‘cult’ film (for some reason). If you must watch the film, I suppose I can’t fault you as I was in the same shoes you are. Just you’ll probably feel the same way I did upon finishing this one up.. What’s the big deal?

Video Quality on this release is in full 1080p using the AVC MPEG-4 codec on a BD-50 (50 gigabyte dual-layered Blu-ray Disc) in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Let me get this off my mind first… This transfer didn’t surprise me, rather it shocked the hell out of me. I expected, having briefly seen a few sequences on the dvd, that “Showgirls” would look okay but somewhat aged and washed out. Such isn’t the case here as MGM has put together a fine transfer that fans of the film will certainly eat up. The film’s color palette all but showcases the Las Vegas locale as a bright, high energy place. Bright yellows, reds and blues dominate the palette, all of which look solid. Even blacks are inky. Flesh and skin tones are both accurate while contrast levels haven’t been adjusted resulting in a clean image. Speaking of clean, the film’s print is in shockingly good condition with little evidence or print damage or any real noise. Grain levels are kept to a bare minimum. The film has an impressive amount of detail for a 15 year old film, particularly the close ups of our characters. All in all this earns a rather impressive “4.5 Star Rating” for overall video quality. Great job MGM!.

Audio Quality on this release is presented in DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio as well as in Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo. Dialogue, as laughable as it is at times, is well reproduced with no instance of drop out. The mix, seemingly fitting, has great atmosphere particularly in the rather over-the-top performance numbers at the Stardust hotel. It’s here that LFE is deep and responsive giving us low-end that is impressive for a 15 year old film. The music mixes in with the dance movement rather well giving that little ‘oomph’. The hustle and bustle of the behind-the-scenes happenings results in solid dynamics, whether it be background dialogue of other characters or simply the happenings of a show ready to go. Las Vegas certainly comes alive in this mix putting us right on the casino floor with the slot machines making noise and the cars revving by. I didn’t really expect much out of this so I was rather surprised with this. All in all this earns a good “4 Star Rating” for overall audio quality.

Bonus materials are presented in both High Definition (AVC MPEG-4 and Standard Definition Video (MPEG-2) with English Stereo Sound.

• A DVD of the film in Standard Definition (also from this 15th Anniversary) restoration (re-master) is included. This features a “behind-the-scenes” featurette not found on the Blu-ray.
• Pole Dancing: Finding Your Inner Stripper (HD): First off, haha at the feature’s title. With that said, this runs 11min54sec and shows us how to perform varying pole dancing techniques. Not the Vegas stripping kind but rather the aerobic kind.
• Lap Dance Tutorial (SD): This runs 4min56sec and tells us that ‘a perfect lap dance leaves him wanting more’.
• Audio Commentary by David Schmader: Dubbed as ‘The Greatest Movie Ever Made’ Commentary, David Schmader (a writer from Seattle) comes in after hosting numerous showings of the film where he labeled it as a ‘misunderstood piece of cinema history’. No but seriously this is more poking fun at the film.
• Showgirls Fact-Up Trivia: More tongue in cheek poking at the film.
• A Showgirls Diary (SD): This shows some of Verhoeven’s storyboard work and behind-the-scenes work.
• Trailer: The film’s theatrical trailer is shown.

Overall, the bonus materials are pretty weak to be honest as they only contain some goofy lap dance (softcore porn) — much like the film — as well as a tutorial on pole dancing (more softcore porn), a cheesy pop-up trivia track and lastly a DVD of the film (which includes a behind-the-scenes featurette) as well as the other little things housed on the Blu-ray like a diary, audio commentary by a film critic and the trailer.

Blu-ray Disc packaging:

Screenshots:

NOTE: The full-sized 1920×1080 files are in a .PNG file format and uncompressed. Please bear with the slow loading times, keep in mind these files are at least 1MB (1 megabyte) in size each.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider making a purchase through us on Amazon.