On the Greek island of Hydra, there is only one movie theatre – and at the time of year I happened to be there, that theatre does not open for business. For an obsessive movie watcher like myself, only a television set can provide any solace. And, on one particular night, there was only a single film screening on the slightly fuzzy, hotel room set, an American movie with Greek subtitles. It was SHOWGIRLS, directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Joe Eszterhas, released worldwide in 1995.

On the film's initial release, I wrote a long, very negative review and delivered it over the airwaves of Australia's Radio National. As is so often the case with reviewers and critics, I managed my bad vibes by channeling them back at the movie. How often have you read that a film is “confused”, when it is plainly the critic who is experiencing the confusion, rather than the movie?

I argued, essentially, that SHOWGIRLS was really, really bad. I actually felt a little uncomfortable doing this, because every other reviewer in the world seemed to be arguing exactly the same thing – Verhoeven's expensive, splashy melodrama was almost universally damned, appearing on innumerable “worst of the year” lists (it did not do much business at the box office, either). So I in fact went to Showgirls in 1995 hoping to salvage it from the pack of middle-of-the-road reviewers – and I failed in my mission.