September 4, 2000 Features Never Mind the Bollocks BY BILL BOISVERT Here's the new Republican Party The Battle of Philadelphia BY DAVE LINDORFF Working It BY DAVID MOBERG Will unions go all out for Gore? Black Radicals Regroup BY SALIM MUWAKKIL Detroit hosts the Black Radical Congress. Mad Sheep Scare BY TERRY J. ALLEN Farmers, scientists and the USDA square off in Vermont. News Cleaning Up BY HANS JOHNSON Missouri, Oregon consider campaign finance initiatives. Star Strike BY BEN WINTERS Actors demand a better deal. Renegade or Redeemer? BY STEVE ELLNER Hugo Chavez leads Venezuela into a new era. The New Front BY KARI LYDERSEN American anti-abortion groups crusade in Ireland. Profile BY TED KLEINE Johnny Lira is in their corner. Views Editorial BY DAVID MOBERG Big money problems. Appall-O-Meter BY DAVID FUTRELLE A Terry Laban Cartoon Dialogue: The Balkans More Conspiracy Theories? BY EDWARD S. HERMAN A Humanitarian Crusade BY DIANA JOHNSTONE Culture A Man for All Seasons BY HOWARD ZINN Francis Wheen's Marx: A Life. Interstate Rambler BY PHILIP CONNORS On the road with Larry McMurty. England's Dreaming BY JOHN GHAZVINIAN History falls off the back of a lorry. Under the Influence BY JASON SHOLL Sadie Plant writes on drugs. Vanishing Act BY JOSHUA ROTHKOPF Paul Verhoeven's Hollow Man. Presidential Dance Parties BY GREG SMITHSIMON

Vanishing Act By Joshua Rothkopf Naughty bits of Bacon harsh Elizabeth Shue's mellow. Credit: Sony Pictures Imageworks. To Paul Verhoeven's loyal audience of dirty-minded adolescent boys and closet fascists you may now add postmodernist critics. In recognition of a distinguished career showcasing nude ice-picking (Basic Instinct), corporate-sponsored brutality (RoboCop) and jiggling lesbian chic (Showgirls), ArtForum has pronounced Verhoeven a secret satirist. Leave it to them to find the urinal in the gallery and sniff a "mass-market auteur" unappreciated by popular-press "dumbness." Trash has its own standards, however, and Verhoeven's new feature, Hollow Man, falls considerably short of them. The movie takes a durable subgenre, the invisible man picture, and strips it down to its most puerile hypothesis. Whereas past protagonists of such movies used their invisibility to rehabilitate deflated egos, to overcome their weaknesses, Verhoeven's uses his to ogle perfectly rounded breasts. We're clearly beyond comic book fantasy here, moving on to those back-page ads for x-ray glasses and see-through underwear.   TOP HOME SUBSCRIBE MAIL   In These Times © 2000 Vol. 24, No. 20