Scanlines

("Scanlines" wishes to thank Encore Movies & Music, I Love Video, and Vulcan Video for their help in providing videos and laser discs.)

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Kansas City Confidential

D. Phil Karlson (1952)
with Preston Foster, John Payne, Lee Van Cleef, Jack Elam, Neville Brand

Any movie from the early Fifties starring the weatherbeaten mugs of Lee Van Cleef, Jack Elam, and Neville Brand would hold some promise; add the potent direction of Phil Karlson and you have Kansas City Confidential.

Preston Foster plays Joe Rolfe, an ex-cop with the designs for a perfect crime. He hires the three aforementioned thugs, all career criminals, and gives them all masks to keep their identities secret from each other. Each man is given half of a playing card, with instructions to

meet at a predetermined spot in Mexico; the split will be done when the other half of the card comes in the mail. John Payne plays Timothy Foster, a floral delivery man set up to take the fall for the caper; his previous felony record makes him a natural for the job. Since his delivery van is identical to the getaway vehicle, he's picked up by the cops and thrashed mercilessly by a linebacker-sized thug-with-a-badge for a couple of days until the real truck turns up. Once released from jail, he's got a serious axe to grind and sniffs around for the holdup men. He finds greasy creep Elam first and follows him to the airport; however, Elam's luck runs out when he's gunned down by the cops, so Foster simply assumes his identity. Once in Mexico, the plot twists start to come even quicker. Karlson directs like Robert Aldrich on steroids or Samuel Fuller minus the political/social agenda; there's not a wasted shot or word of dialogue throughout. Cinematographer George Diskant specializes in the tension-enhancing sweaty closeup as the men perspire right through their tropical suits (especially with the cruel but intelligent features of Neville Brand); his shots often show very inventive composition while keeping a cheap and sleazy look at the same time. John Payne shines as Foster, a penultimate antihero with only the tiniest shred of virtue; the three mistrustful hoods exude real menace in every scene. Shamefully ignored for years, Kansas City Confidential is violent as hell, kinetic, and suspenseful; it's a shot of pure B-movie muscle that Tarantino has probably seen a time or two, and possibly one of the best caper films ever.— Jerry Renshaw

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Starship Troopers

D: Paul Verhoeven (1997)
with Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards, Jake Busey, Neil Patrick Harris, Patrick Muldoon.

Showgirls

D: Paul Verhoeven (1995)
with Elizabeth Berkley, Kyle MacLachlan, Gina Gershon, Glenn Plummer.

Elizabeth Berkley's two talents are on display in this revealing frame from Showgirls. Hold your nose and pass the popcorn.

Move over, John Waters. There's a new king of schlock in town, and he's got a much bigger budget. The recent video release of last year's Starship Troopers reveals a master at work, comfortably at home in his truest of elements: cheesy action films. Paul Verhoeven is the master in question, the director of such fare as Robocop and Basic Instinct, his last really successful film, in 1992. With a $95 million budget, Troopers eventually grossed a little over half that domestically, but it has done well enough overseas to ensure that, like Schwarzenegger in Verhoeven's Total Recall, he'll be back. Watching Troopers is a much different experience than watching, say, Aliens. While both are oriented around the wholesale slaughter of an alien race (giant bugs this time), Aliens treats its plot with complete seriousness. Troopers is a bit more underhanded, feeding you a special effects extravaganza (which include, in all honesty, some of the best I've ever seen) with one hand, and slapping you with the leather glove of history with the other. In fact, what makes Troopers and the book it's based on, I'm told, so enjoyable is its ode to fascism. Whether it's Neil Patrick Harris in a fully buttoned black leather S.S. trench coat or the "I'm doing my part!" propagandist chants, the homage is blatant. And, it's an incredibly entertaining look into what must have been going through the minds of young Nazi recruits. If this isn't enough to interest you, Verhoeven doesn't pull any stops with the full tilt cheesefest. The casting of the likes of the whiter-than-white Harris, Meyer, Richards, and Van Dien as Argentinians is the first tip-off that you're in for a screamer of a time. But wait, there's more! Troopers has sadistic drill sergeants, co-ed group showers, and some of the richest dialogue in cinema. One of the best lines comes from Muldoon's Zander, directed at the bugs, when he screams "One day someone like me is gonna kill you and your whole fuckin' race!"

Better juicy dialogue can be found only in Verhoeven's pinnacle of Bad Taste: Showgirls, the movie that was simultaneously Elizabeth Berkley's Big Break and her Career Killer. Why? This instant NC-17 cult classic features such great exchanges as:

Crystal (Gershon): You've got nice tits. I like nice tits.

Nomi (Berkley): I like having nice tits.

With Joe Eszterhas feeding you lines like these, it just doesn't get any better. Showgirls became such a phenomenon after its 1995 release that it was subsequently put on the midnight movie circuit under the title of HOgirls. Showgirls is widely misunderstood as a mere Bad Movie, because people take it far too seriously. I'm not sure Verhoeven intended it otherwise, but watching Showgirls for its sheer hilarity can't be topped. Like Troopers, it offers some real science fiction: Check out Berkley's re-engineered body and MacLachlan's hair, for starters. The story of a hard-ass stripper who comes to Vegas with a dream and a cast-iron will may not have the sociological layers of some of Verhoeven's other films, but it's just so much fun you can't help but have a good time watching it. So cut Paul some slack and check out Starship Troopers. Throw in Showgirls for a really tasty double feature. After all, it's going to take some solid video rental revenues to make sure Verhoeven gets funding for another big-budget free-for-all.

And hey... I'm doing my part!— Christopher Null