Your move, Cork!

This summer Cork will be treated to a season of films from one of the most divisive, controversial, and successful directors in cinema during the late 20th century: Paul Verhoeven.

Hosted by the Triskel Arts Centre, the season begins on 3 August with movies to be screened over five consecutive Saturdays.

Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven’s career began in Europe and lasted over 20 years there. During this time, he made ‘Turkish Delight’, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and is still the most successful film in the history of Dutch cinema. Frustrated by the confines of the Dutch film industry and wanting to work with bigger budgets, Verhoeven set his sights on the United States.

He chose ‘Robocop’ for his American debut and the result is a bold and audacious sci-fi action movie with a strong satirical edge, ranking amongst the most notable science fiction pictures of the eighties.

His second American movie, ‘Total Recall’, was based on Philip K Dick’s novella ‘We Can Remember It for You Wholesale’ and starred Hollywood superstar Arnold Schwarzenegger. The result was a wild thrill ride pumped with action, violence, and (for their time) state-of-the-art special effects.

After two science fiction movies, Verhoeven changed tack with a steamy, Hitchcockian neo-noir thriller. One of the most financially successful films of 1992, ‘Basic Instinct’ is a melodramatic crime thriller starring Michael Douglas as Nick Curran, and Sharon Stone as Catherine Tramell.

The fourth film in the season was panned by critics when it was originally released and was a failure at the box office. However, ‘Showgirls’ has gone on to become a major cult movie, with viewers appreciating Paul Verhoeven’s hyperbolic approach to the material and recognising the film as a damning indictment of the pitfalls of fame and fortune in the American entertainment industry. The film was originally banned from Irish cinemas.

The final film of the season is sci-fi action blockbuster ‘Starship Troopers’, an adaptation of Robert A Heinlein’s 1959 novel of the same name. The film is grisly in its violence and heavy in satire and irony. The result is a one-of-a-kind Hollywood science fiction war epic that was reported to have cost in the region of $100 million to produce.

Tickets for the Paul Verhoeven film season at Triskel Cinema are on sale now from triskelartscentre.ie.