The Zany Satire of Showgirls Is Equal Parts Entertaining And Impressively Thoughtful

Content Warning: Discussions of sex (it's a review of the most high-profile NC-17 movie of all-time, what did you expect?) and sexual assault ahead. 

What Ishtar was to the 1980's, Showgirls was to the 1990's, a unique high-profile movie that generated all kinds of scorn and became known as an all-time entry in the halls of bad cinema. But just like Ishtar, Showgirls has been given a hefty critical re-evaluation in recent years, with praise of the film being widespread enough for the project to warrant a theatrical screening at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City on Sunday, June 24, 2018 that I was lucky enough to attend. What better way to watch Paul Verhoeven's incredibly divisive motion picture for the first time than on a 35mm print projected on the big screen? Even if the film was terrible, the experience itself was too good to pass up!

Remember That 1994 Movie Adaptation of The Flintstones? Probably Not And There's A Good Reason For That

The fifth biggest movie of 1994 was The Flinstones, a live-action adaptation of the animated TV show of the same name. Only four movies (Forrest Gump, The Lion King, True Lies and The Santa Clause) managed to make more cash than this Brian Levant directed project, yet today, The Flintstones has basically faded away from the pop culture landscape. Some of that can be attributed to how its cartoon source material has not been as heavily utilized as a source for merchandise and direct-to-video follow-up's as fellow Hanna-Barbera toons Scooby-Doo or Tom & Jerry, but it can also be chalked up to the fact that The Flintstones is just thoroughly forgettable fare.

I'm Blue (Velvet) Da Ba Dee Da Ba Daa

The unusual seems to just come natural to David Lynch. His movies are world-renowned at this point for having incredibly idiosyncratic visual touches to them and extended dream-like sequences while his 1982 movie The Elephant Man (previously the only David Lynch movie I'd seen) concentrated on a man whose physical appearance was so different from society it caused him to be ostracized from the rest of the world and treated unfairly like a freak. For his 1986 feature Blue Velvet, Lynch once again embraces the unorthodox to create incredible and distinctive cinema, the kind that really feels like it could only come from the mind of Lynch himself.

Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. (S2E8) Review: Attacking From The Back(stories)

Everybody's got a story is how the old saying goes, and Agents of SHIELD proved that this week with it's focus on backstories for many of it's characters. What I found interesting about these backstories is not only in how they're presented in an entertaining manner, but in how much they rely on the universe SHIELD has created for itself. Last season, it felt like everyone named dropped Thor or Iron Man every five minutes, and that was the extent of a larger world beyond the central cast, but now the show has developed itself to the point where there's much more to this show. And that makes for very interesting storytelling possibilities.