POLL Verhoeven

I'm looking forward to his film about Jesus, which will no doubt piss every one off. Flesh & Blood to Basic Instinct was one hell of a run for a mainstream Hollywood director, but think I'll probably go for Black Book.

Black Book, of course.

always been curious about his pre/non-Hollywood stuff. But when he's bad he is TERRIBLE... voted Starship Troopers out of the ones I've seen.

He's a high-class (and gloss) hack.

Flesh & Blood.

Hollow Man really stands out as a waste of time, doesn't it?

hollow man was totally weak but still pretty twisted and kind of entertaining. dude's got some classics up there, kind of a tough choice tbh.

I'm curious about his Dutch work too, according to wiki they were phenonemally popular in his home country. Themes seem familiar from his later Hollywood work.

'soldier of orange' is a good companion film to 'black book'. definitely the same kind of take on WW2.

first instinct is 2 go for robocop but starship troopers is dope too and turkish delight was pretty good

idk

Cannot for the life of me remember Flesh + Blood, but I'm sure I've seen it (Rutger Hauer's ahem "sword" looks awfully distinctive on the front cover.)

Probably voting Robocop.

voted total recall, which i prefer to any of the more prestige dick adaptations

(except maaaaybe a scanner darkly, for robert downey jr and woody harrelson's delivery of the bike conversation)

Nah Bladerunner's better than Total Recall.

Total Recall way behind Bladerunner and Scanner Darkly in my book - just marginally above the shitheap that is most PKD adaptations

Scanner Darkly isn't very good, but given how highly I rate the book there was no way it would be in my eyes.

Total Recall was and still is holy scripture in my household 'o boys.

C'mon, the tri-breasted woman!

have only seen robocop -->

black book was great

Starship Troopers.

Always thought Verhoeven should do a Judge Dredd film.

Black Book by far. Never rated Starship Troopers. Rewatched Robocop last month, and it wasn't as good as I remembered. Hollow Man is fucking AWFUL. But I've seen none of the earlier Dutch ones.

he deserves a worst and best poll. best would be Starship troopers or Robocop.

what movie is better than robocop? like on earth

i've seen spetters. it's terrible!

maybe if you're dutch and my age it has some nostalgic irony value, like the karate kid or something

Total Recall is probably the most accurate representation of what reading PKD is like (right down to Perky Pat Messiah and PKD's obsession with speaking German (Ahnold))
fully captures the pot-boiler flavor of PKD.

Haven't read Starship Troopers but am willing to bet it pins down the essence of the book more than defenders of the book would like to admit.

"fully captures the pot-boiler flavor of PKD."

Uh yeah but there's more to most Dick novels than just that.

no one is voting for showgirls??? it's more outrageous and twisted and brilliant than all the rest of these combined

Total Recall is holy-shit-is-this-really-happening violent. I mean, I can't think of a major studio release today that could get away with using a bystander as A SHIELD, or shooting in closeup a guy screaming as a javelin or whatever sticks out of his eye.

what's total recall missing in the PKD checklist?
high-concept paranoia, pull-rug-from-underneath ending, stiffly acting protagonist -- it's got it all!

The Fourth Man has a thing sticking out of a guy's eye as well.

no one is voting for showgirls??? it's more outrageous and twisted and brilliant than all the rest of these combined

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, June 24, 2009 8:08 AM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark

Came here to ask this - probably the most harrowing of all his films that I've seen. For me it's between Starship Troopers and Showgirls.

Always thought Verhoeven should do a Judge Dredd film.

― chap, Wednesday, June 24, 2009 7:17 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

The one we have now is actually pretty good until Rob Schneider unceremoniously sinks it halfway through. Agreed though, Verhoeven on Dredd would be pretty amazing.

i've seen spetters. it's terrible!

maybe if you're dutch and my age it has some nostalgic irony value, like the karate kid or something

― moonship journey to baja, Tuesday, June 23, 2009 11:46 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

It actually does! It's a terrible movie, but has that value nonetheless. Went with Turkish Delight (Turks Fruit) though, because of it's sincere emotion and eroticism, and perhaps a bit of the before-mentioned nostalgia value. Yet I don't know if that indeed has to do with being Dutch.
Starship Troopers - although a movie of an entire other planet all together - is a close, close second though.

"Does this hurt? Does this hurt???"

"...and she was sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet, mmmm! I took her out! BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"

"I got the muscle to shove so much of this factory up yer smelly wop ass that you'll shit snow for a year."

"Guns! Guns! Come on, boys! Tigers are playin'... to-night! I never miss a game."

"You... just... FUCKED! with the wrong guy!"

"Cops don't like me. So I don't like cops."

"I LIKE IT!!"

Do I have to mention the awesome and hilarious fake TV commercials? Or the ED-209 robot?

voted total recall - considered showgirls, black gook (not fixing that) but noted cumbeards shakey and AiSF voicing their disapproval of TR only strengthens my stance

One of the few directors where I've seen basically everything they've done (at least his films, haven't seen his TV stuff from the 1960s). Probably going to vote for Soldier Of Orange (difficult to vote against Rutger Hauer), but could just as easily vote Robocop or Black Book

Flesh + Blood is one of the most strangely overlooked AWESOME movies ever. I can understand someone voting Robocop over it, but F+M gets my vote every time.

Spetters is so terribly dutch. It has some nostalgic value but it ain't my thing really (as I'm Belgian).

voted total recall, which i prefer to any of the more prestige dick adaptations

oO How on earth did you blurt out that line?!? Blade Runner! Come on! :-)

I haven't seen Black Book. I didn't pick Flesh'n'Blood even though I do remember the juicy scenes. So I went with Starship Troopers.

His work is incredibly varied, but there's something about his style which is instantly recognisable regardless of genre.

And yeah, Starship Troopers ftw. (With Black Book and Total Recall close behind).

voted total recall, which i prefer to any of the more prestige dick adaptations

oO How on earth did you blurt out that line?!? Blade Runner! Come on! :-)

Blade Runner may look better and have better actors, but I think Total Recall does the whole PKD paranoia/identity/existentialism thing better. It's hard to say which one is better though.

blade runner is gay as hell and no one wants to admit it

Fourth Man was a belter, Verhoeven does not make bad movies ever but I know people who I'm gonna ignore will disagree. I'm voting RoboCop here because I think it will be the movie he's most remembered for, because it spawned 14 million straight-to-video rip-offs and because it totally fleshes out all his hi-larious cynical old fuck capitalism fetishes with the best splatter to laughs ratio.

Also cankles kind of otm

or to expand, Blade Runner is aight but it's fucking shit at filming PKD whereas Total Recall is way closer to his spirit.

Black Book was a great movie and totally recommended to anyone who hasn't seen it, but Starship Troopers and Robocop are some obscenely classic re-re-re-watchable shit. Tough choice.

Fuck. And Total Recall. Still haven't seen Showgirls though. Sounds amazing.

"The Fourth Man" and "Soldier of Orange" are both absolutely perfect. The rest of his work? Not so much.

Okay, I'll give ya "Robocop" as well.

I always assumed he'd had some sort of frontal lobotomy between his Dutch films and his Hollywood films, as seemingly all thought, finesse and restraint went right out the window.

Hmmm, I wonder if comedy anarchist Verhoeven might be doing that deliberately or not?

As Variety‘s Elsa Keslassy reports, he plans to re-team with Elle producer producer Said Ben Said on three further projects, “a French resistance drama, Lyon 1943 (working title), a film about Jesus (to be shot in French) and a movie turning on a Medieval women monastery based on a real story that occurred in Italy and will be transposed to France. Verhoeven revealed he also had a project set in the US: An English-language film called The Rogue which he’s doing with American producer Bill Mechanic.”

http://variety.com/2016/film/global/paul-verhoeven-on-elle-star-isabelle-huppert-producer-said-ben-said-future-projects-exclusive-1201938937/

as someone who's actually read his book on the subject I maintain there is absolutely no way he ever gets his Jesus movie made

IIRC he hasn't yet figured out how to film the parables.

i just watched the fourth man and the placement of the fourth man in that verhoeven ranking upthread is rong rong rong

I don't think I've ever seen the entirety of that one, for some reason, despite all the times I borrowed the (now quite rare/expensive, I think) early-Verhoeven box from the video store I used to work in

Likes: Verhoeven
Dislikes: Eszterhas

I had never seen Basic Instinct - I started it once years ago, when I was snobbier, and could barely watch - and now that I have:

1) Looks great! Not bad, Jan de Bont.
2) For all it luridness, it's pretty old fashioned.
3) Like at least half of his stuff, it's Hitchcock with a wink (I think), totally ridiculous to the point of hard boiled parody. It's super hard to discern if this is simply the writing or how Verhoeven is approaching the writing. (This is more of a problem with Showgirls, or of course, maybe just a problem with Eszterhas.)
4) Great score! Goldsmith does Herrmann.
5) Stephen Tobolowsky!

i think basic instinct is maybe goldsmith's best ever score

Poltergeist for me.

There's this, Poltergeist, Omen, Apes, Patton, Alien, Chinatown ... those are the ones that come to mind.

Oh, forgot 6) Rob Bottin!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C-SSul3XkAAEdb_.jpg

Seems like this is going to happen!

https://variety.com/2017/film/global/paul-verhoeven-approaches-blessed-virgin-with-elle-star-virginie-efira-1202399023/

My humble rankings.

Verhoeven + that concept + soeteman sounds like a winner to me

Watching Total Recall for the first time in maybe 15 years. Verhoeven and DP Jost Vacano had such a weird, almost unique look going on, totally drab and flat (both the look *and* Arnie) but it works, not least because the blood is so rich and vibrant. Arnie, for his part, is totally game for this strange mix of almost old-fashioned cornball and state of the art and the gleeful embrace of sheer absurdity. I kept thinking to myself how patient he must have been for all these crazy set pieces, esp. considering he's the least coked out looking/acting of the whole cast.

yeah it’s super-entertaining and the supporting cast is great - sharon stone in particular has a blast playing a character which probably seemed pretty flat on the page

i watched this again fairly recently and one thing which really struck me is how good arnold is as the super-spy quaid who appears in video messages to the regular quaid - he’s got this laidback cockiness that schwarzenegger never really played in any other role, weirdly. i wish we got to see more of that side of arnold onscreen during his career!

also the visual of construction-worker arnold holding a jackhammer will never not be amazing and hilarious

Boy, “Benedetta” gets a poop joke in there less than five mnutes into the movie and then it just keeps going.iCan’t say I didn’t enjoy lots of it, though, regardless. This is full throttle trashy Verhoeven.

i wanna see the nun titty movie so bad

You ain't never seen Jesus like this!

It's wild.

and, yeah, it's trash with verve

attempting a ranking of verhoeven films which will make no sense whatsoever

total recall
showgirls
elle
robocop
the fourth man
benedetta
starship troopers
katie tippel
black book
turkish delight
soldier of orange
flesh & blood
hollow man
spetters

still haven't seen: business is business, tricked

thought Elle was surprisingly good but otherwise am not that interested in his films

really liked Total Recall at the time. I should see it again, but I already know I'm going to be disappointed

watched Showgirls again recently. loved the scene showing her companionship with the drifter she hitchhikes a ride with at the beginning of the film, who robs her. she ends up getting the better of him at the end

Total Recall ruled when I watched it last year.

Really love Soldier of Orange. Just a great buddy war film, although I can understand if one would consider it lacking in Verhoevenesque tendencies. It’s played pretty straight.

He's made only two films in the 12 years since this poll and yet I think he's due for a repoll.

ive always liked-but-not-loved robocop, but total recall just delivers a full buffet of insanity and then some, outrageously fun when i revisited it recently, forever #1 PV for me

GIVE ZEZE PEOPLE ZEH AIIIR

black book higher for me, maybe no. 2 after showgirls and just ahead of total recall

i need to see it a second time for sure

Benedetta was quite good but I feel just a little underwhelmed. Still worth seeing.

Benedetta was enjoyable enough in the old-fashioned sense of trashy-arty Euro films like Just Jaeckin’s ‘Emmanuelle’ and ‘The Story of O’

it’s wild how I always have to be reminded that he did Basic Instinct. which I’m assuming was his biggest earner?

and Robocop.

It's been years since I've seen Soldier of Orange, but I remember liking it a lot.

Huh, I wonder what happened to the RoboCop documentary, "RoboDoc"? This piece claims it finally wrapped (after four years) over a year ago:

https://deadline.com/2021/04/robocop-robodoc-documentary-peter-weller-movie-paul-verhoeven-1234747420

looks like RoboDoc is finally coming to streaming:

https://bloody-disgusting.com/movie/3775706/robodoc-the-creation-of-robocop-four-part-docuseries-premieres-august-29-on-screambox/


but what I really revived this for is to say that I finally watched Benedetta and it was a lot of fun! every powerful character see-sawing between what they believe and their ambitions was great. was not expecting it to be as funny as it was

How long as that been in the works, a decade?

having seen Reservation Dogs before Benedetta, I kept thinking of her visions in terms of the visions in that show. which isn’t that far off, really

Benedetta is wonderful, and I highly recommend reading its source material, Immodest Acts, too. I love its really dry humour.

Not listed in the poll, but his experimental Dutch mini-feature TRICKED is definitely worth a watch.

Gave Showgirls a fresh rewatch thanks to the new 4K and it feels even more of an otherworldly miracle now, in the nu-puritanical ‘20s

Not one vote for Soldier of Orange? Surprising.

While he hasn’t found a sci-fi project that piqued his interest, Verhoeven has plenty to keep him busy. He is currently preparing to shoot a political thriller called “Young Sinner,” which would mark his fist American film since he released “Hollow Man” in 2000. Verhoeven said that the film, which sees him reteaming with “RoboCop” writer Ed Neumeier, could be ready to enter production as early as this year.

“I’m working with Ed Neumeier, who wrote RoboCop. You could say it’s a political thriller, if you want, situated in Washington,” he said of the project. “The last couple of years I’ve been working in France because I couldn’t find something interesting here at that time. But Ed came up with a really interesting proposal. For two years we have been working on the screenplay. It should be done in two months and then we can find out if someone can finance it.”

BTW, Verhoeven is 85!!!

That probably sneaks up on a lot of American viewers - he had a long and extensive filmmaking career before making Robocop.

Thankfully he makes a lot of appearances in NYC - highly recommended, but Lincoln Center usually records and uploads his talks so you can see them on their YouTube channel. A few recommended ones:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6_0CwGuiMc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QotxGy4CKk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O5QZncVjuw

He's definitely a filmmaker who's grown on me in recent years. Starship Troopers alone seems very underrated and sadly a film that the country's lived down to thanks to the increasingly warped right wing.

(FWIW, I would've voted for Black Book)

Is there any director that could have made "Benedetta" other than Paul Verhoeven? Or would have made "Benedetta" (perhaps an important distinction)?