Poll

What's your favorite film by John Waters?

Hag in a Black Leather Jacket
0 (0%)
Roman Candles
0 (0%)
Eat Your Makeup
0 (0%)
Mondo Trasho
0 (0%)
The Diane Linkletter Story
0 (0%)
Multiple Maniacs
0 (0%)
Pink Flamingos
3 (12%)
Female Trouble
3 (12%)
Desperate Living
0 (0%)
Polyester
1 (4%)
Hairspray
4 (16%)
Cry-Baby
5 (20%)
Serial Mom
1 (4%)
Pecker
1 (4%)
Cecil B. DeMented
0 (0%)
A Dirty Shame
0 (0%)
Haven't seen any
5 (20%)
Don't like any
2 (8%)

Total Members Voted: 24

Author Topic: Waters, John  (Read 4874 times)

1SO

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Re: Waters, John - Director's Best
« Reply #30 on: May 11, 2015, 09:50:37 AM »
I'm going to hold off on building a new Poll until I find out what Kiddie Flamingos is.

DarkeningHumour

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Re: Waters, John
« Reply #31 on: May 12, 2015, 05:53:20 AM »
None...
« Society is dumb. Art is everything. » - Junior

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1SO

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Re: Waters, John
« Reply #32 on: May 12, 2020, 04:40:30 PM »
1. Cry-Baby
2. Hairspray
3. Cecil B. DeMented

4. Female Trouble
5. Serial Mom
6. Pink Flamingos
7. Multiple Maniacs
8. Polyester
9. Desperate Living
10. Pecker
« Last Edit: May 14, 2020, 08:48:17 PM by 1SO »

1SO

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Re: Waters, John
« Reply #33 on: May 14, 2020, 08:46:12 PM »

Female Trouble (1974)
"I've done everything a mother can do. I've locked her in her room.
I've beat her with the car aerial. Nothing changes her.
It's hard being a loving mother!"


I admire people like MartinTeller who can praise and enjoy a John Waters film so freely. I can't ignore that these films are horribly acted, barely plotted and contain all the production value of a High School stage show from the 1970s. However, there is also a voice and a vision, louder and stronger than most Hollywood product, though the more you know Waters from interviews and appearances the better. While this is a terrible place to start with Waters, (that would be Hairspray) it's the one where he seems the most confident in what he's doing and the biggest showcase for his star Divine.


Divine plays teenage troublemaker Dawn Davenport and Earl, who rapes Dawn Christmas morning when she runs away after pulling the Christmas tree down onto her mother (who keeps repeating, "not on Christmas.") The whole movie piles on events at a similar breakneck speed. Waters puts Divine on a pedestal, where everyone else admires her great beauty or is jealous of it. There's also her 14-year-old daughter, played by Mink Stole who was in her 30s, but the dialogue explains, "For 14, you don't look so good. It's because you've been such a brat all your life, that now all that brattishness is showing in your face." There's a lot of swagger in the dialogue - "I don't want to seem overly bitter, but I'd appreciate it if you would destroy all of his belongings." - and I have love for this group and their DIY leaders in front of and behind the camera, but I can't recommend a movie on those terms.
RATING: ★ ★ ½

1SO

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Re: Waters, John
« Reply #34 on: May 14, 2020, 09:09:50 PM »
I now get that the films of John Waters work best together, like the Harry Potter films. (If you only watch one, it's Pink Flamingos/Prisoner of Azkaban, but if you go for the entire series it culminates with Hairspray and Cry-Baby.) They don't play well compared to other movies, but work real well placed next to each other, with the stock cast you won't find anywhere else and an evolving sense of purpose. On this level, I prefer the Divine comedies and now having completed the journey, I have a special fondness for Female Trouble because it's the one where Divine takes no prisoners.


Multiple Maniacs (1970)
★ ★
“Rape is never funny, but it’s kind of funny with a lobster.” – John Waters on Multiple Maniacs

I was going to say how surprised I was to see Waters film The Passion Play, which is straightforward considering how bonkers the rest of this film is. For Divine, it's closest to Female Trouble, but the filmmaking is very crude and the storytelling too nonsensical even for John Waters.


Desperate Living (1977)
★ ★
This starts wild and funny with some pretty funny, outrageous dialogue. However, the more it wears on the more it’s just wild and not very funny. Divine gives his films something emotional to anchor onto and without that anchor it's too much id. I’ve come to like John Waters and this little corner of trash cinema he’s carved out, and he really lets it rip with this one, but the result is a more aggressive and off-putting brand of shock.


Polyester (1981)
★ ★
This early attempt at something closer to mainstream is harder to forgive, knowing Waters would eventually get it right with Hairspray. The odor-ama gimmick is one of Waters' best jokes, and it's easier to laugh with it without the anxiety of having a card. It was great seeing Edith Massey finally play a high society woman who's on top of the world - a hell of an arc from her early films - but I kept wanting Divine to snap and get some Female Trouble style revenge.

MartinTeller

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Re: Waters, John
« Reply #35 on: May 14, 2020, 10:00:23 PM »
Yeah, Divine's character in Polyester is just too much of a doormat. It's an unpleasant (and only occasionally funny) experience watching her get beaten down again and again.

Knocked Out Loaded

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Re: Waters, John
« Reply #36 on: May 21, 2020, 09:35:43 AM »
Cry-Baby, 55°
Desperate Living, 50°
Hairspray, 50°

Female Trouble, 30°
Serial Mom, 25°

Pink Flamingos, 20°
« Last Edit: July 27, 2020, 01:41:15 AM by Knocked Out Loaded »
Extraordinary (81-100˚) | Very good (61-80˚) | Good (41-60˚) | Fair (21-40˚) | Poor (0-20˚)