You can deliver a quality film with a substantive plot while still making an action movie for the masses.
I'm just as into film as you are, if not possibly more so, but please just fuck off with your snobbish anti-Hollywood nonsense. Most of Europe's actors, directors, & what-have-you all work in Hollywood from time to time to eat.
Shit, while we're on the topic of Paul Verhoeven, the guy made the most successful (most seen) film in the history of Dutch cinema (1973's Turkish Delight) and put Rutger Hauer on the map with it. And did it again later with The Fourth Man (loosely remade later as Basic Instinct) which was a global hit and the most financially successful film made in the Netherlands.
I'd go so far as to state that a true film "fan" appreciates both high-brow and popular cinema. There's no such thing as a "guilty" pleasure if you truly enjoy something.
No, but it's culture-building. "Everything goes" seldom builds any great appreciation, it just makes everything a big interchangeable blob.
>The works of both Spielberg and Tarkovsky are worth watching.
Well, that's not some natural law. It's just an expression of a specific cultural norm.
Same thing with Starship Troopers which by itself is also quite a funny piece of political satire apart from creative use of gore and trashy characters.
What is arthouse for you? A man and a woman speaking french and driving into the sunset?
As a European into classic and arthouse cinema, from the resume he rather sounds like someone we'd call a "film fan" would not know, if not actively avoid the movies he was involved.