On Thu, 28 Sep 1995, Roderick Donahue wrote: > NO! Don't ever confuse the Hollywood slime of Paul Verhoeven with the genius > of Gus Van Sant. > Paul Verhoeven is the director of Showgirls and Basic Instinct and Gus Van snip... Granted that both Showgirls and Basic Instinct were truly dreadful films, however, lest we forget that Verhoven also directed Robocop and Total Recall (two science fiction films which, although problematic, also influenced a great deal of the genre's gestalt up to today) and the films he directed in his native Holland, Spetters, The Fourth Man, and Flesh and Blood were all quite marvellous. The culprit of both BS and SG seems to be screenwriter Joe Esterhaus (sp?). Verhoven's biggest sin seems to be his trying to intuit what Americans expect from cinematic sexuality, because the treatment of sexuality in his Dutch films is quite a bit different (i.e. The Fourth Man). Just some random thought... Mikel Koven Department of Folklore Memorial University of Newfoundland ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]