The Last Showgirl (2024)

Jack and I found Pamela Anderson to be very good as a woman whose long-running job in Las Vegas is coming to an end. Her naturally breathy voice fits the character of Shelly, who is determined but not realistic about life. Strong support in this R rated movie comes from, among others, Jamie Lee Curtis (in makeup that made me laugh), Brenda Song, Kiernan Shipka, Dave Bautista, and Billie Lourd, who is Carrie Fisher's daughter in real life and plays Shelly's daughter Hannah.

Gia Coppola (Francis' granddaughter) directs with a firm hand from the script by Kate Gersten. Watch for the cameo by Coppola's cousin Jason Schwartzman.

Andrew Wyatt's score, ranging from jaunty to thoughful, can be streamed on Apple Music and elsewhere. The movie has seven wins and 25 other nominations, nine of which are for the closing song Beautiful That Way by Miley Cyrus, Wyatt, and Lykke Li. It's the last track on the soundtrack album.

It won't take you too long to read the fun trivia, including the fact that the showgirls' headdresses, designed by Jacqueline Getty and Rainy Jacobs, were so heavy that the actresses needed massages! We also liked all the Vegas locations.

Curtis was last blogged for Everything Everywhere All at Once, Song for Brave though she has many other credits, Bautista for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Lourd for Ticket to Paradise

Coppola for Palo Alto, Schwartzman for Megalopolis, and Wyatt for Barbie.

I wasn't among Baywatch's billion+ weekly viewers, so didn't know much about Anderson, but she has been in many other movies, videos, and TV series besides her 100 episodes of Baywatch, and there's a documentary out about her, not to mention (oops, I just did) the infamous sex tape with her then-husband Tommy Lee (didn't see that either).

Shipka, now 25 years old, is best known for 89 episodes of Mad Men (2007-2015) as young Sally Draper but has dozens of other roles to her credit, including Twisters. This is Gersten's first produced screenplay, but she was executive story editor and writer on two wonderful serieses: Mozart in the Jungle and The Good Place.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics, averaging 83%, are betting more on this picture than its audiences at 72. We rented it on Apple TV on March 19 and it's still widely available as a rental.