Sony Pictures Classics has paid a six-figure sum for the North American rights to director Paul Verhoeven's World War II film Zwartboek (Black Book), which was recently ridiculed at the Toronto International Film Fest as being Schindler's List meets Showgirls, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Now, I don't know about you, but I am perversely drawn to Verhoeven's films, but then I always feel dirty afterwards... literally, like I need to take a shower or something. It really became apparent to me after watching his last effort (way back in 2000!), Hollow Man, with Kevin Bacon. The whole thing about how the moment the guy turns invisible, the FIRST thing he does is go out and rape a woman... I don't know. Are you guys REALLY that pathetic? At the same time, I love Robocop to death, and even thought Starship Troopers was darkly hilarious, and what MILF worth her salt wouldn't put Basic Instinct on their Top 10 list?
Some of the more memorable scenes in Black Book include the Jewish female lead character graphically dying her pubic hair blonde to infiltrate the Nazi party as a member of the resistance, captors dumping a vat of dung on her, and several ribald sexual encounters.
Oh, that Paul. So predictable. Not since Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS have concentration camps been this sexy.
Not to be immediately dismissed, the Netherlands has made the film their official foreign language entry for this year's Academy Awards, with some saying that it's just because this is Verhoeven's first film directed in his native country for the last 23 years.
