April 30 movie: Starship Troopers. Georg and I watched this with our friends in Baltimore, and then on the drive home the next day, had a very long discussion of whether the movie is fascistic, as I remember hearing at the time, or whether it was a critique of fascism, as director Paul Verhoeven claims. We came to the decision that it was probably both. On the one hand, there's no way the Nazi overtones of the society in Starship Troopers were an accident. The TV ad with the smiling children touching the gun? The black leather coat Der Doogie wears? Clearly this is intended to mock, not glorify. But on the other hand, when it gets going the movie does seem to revel or even wallow in the "us vs. them" mentality, which tends to overwhelm whatever social critique is in there.
Lest you think I had a purely dry, intellectual response to this movie, I should mention that my main thought while watching the movie was trying to place the actor who played Carmen, the fighter pilot/love interest. Finally I got it: she was the other girl in Wild Things. After figuring that out, I couldn't see her face on screen without thinking of her getting it on with Neve Campbell and/or Matt Dillon.
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And in real life she plays the recently-filed-for-divorce wife of Charlie Sheen.
The Starship Troopers facism discussion turned into one of the most cutting flame wars I ever saw on a social listserv that belongs to some friends. I can't hear the title "Starship Troopers" without thinking of one person's comment about another person's "intellectual dick-waving."
i LURRVE starship troopers!
i was one of the few people laughing when i saw it in the theater, though.