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On Friday at Vidiots, a 35mm screening of Paul Verhoeven’s “Showgirls” featured Max Minghella previewing his own next film and unannounced introductions from Kristen Stewart and Elizabeth Berkley, star of the evening’s film.
At the Egyptian Theatre on Saturday, filmmaker Michael Mann was a surprise guest on hand to speak about his 2006 movie “Miami Vice” following a 35mm screening.
Minghella had been announced as introducing the Vidiots screening of “Showgirls” but he also presented the opening scene from his upcoming film “Shell,” which is having its world premiere at next week’s Toronto International Film Festival and features Berkley in a small role.
Then Stewart, who along with director Rose Glass spoke about the influence of “Showgirls” while promoting “Love Lies Bleeding” earlier this year, came out to extoll the virtues of the film and Berkley’s performance. A notorious flop when it was first released, Berkely saw her career derailed for many years by the response to the film, in which she plays Nomi Malone, an ambitious dancer in Las Vegas.
“How can you even know what this movie has done for everyone?” Stewart said of Berkley’s performance and the film’s reclamation as an empowerment anthem.
“Imagine being the girl that thrusted that f— hard in the movie,” said Stewart in reference to one of Berkley’s more notorious scenes. “And not having any homies to be like, ‘You’re right. Every decision that you have made is the right one and you’re the best thing about this movie. And yes, it was somebody else’s idea, but you’re the reason it has lived.”
Stewart added, “The nights that we’ve gone too hard and gone home and had doubt — ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have, maybe I should never have been anything.’ — this movie f— barrels through that.”
Then Berkley came out to a riotous ovation from the crowd.
“If my 21-year-old self had known that this would be possible at any point in my life, that people would continue gathering and enjoying and drawing inspiration from this,” Berkley said, “whether it’s entertainment to you or rite-of-passage or permission to be your most authentic self, whatever you draw from Nomi and this movie, I would hope it gives you exactly what you need.”
She addressed Stewart when she said, “Kristen, that was such a surprise and so beautiful, from an actress who is so bold. You are so bold in your work, fearless, vulnerable. And I didn’t have women at the time when this movie came out championing me in any way. It was a very lonely time when it first came out.
“Think about the ’90s, we didn’t have that support,” Berkely added. “It didn’t make any sense to me because I grew up when women had each other’s backs. So it was a very strange, isolating time. So again, my 21-year-old self, to have an introduction like that in the form that is you is very healing.”
Berkely added, “I didn’t go to film school, I went to Vidiots,” noting that before she first met with Dutch-born director Verhoeven, she rented his international films from the original Vidiots location in Santa Monica.
