| | | Waters' chief influence was exploitation cinema (H. G. Lewis is his favorite director), and his earlier films are a bizarre collision of drive-in trash and NyC underground films. Both of these films are APALLING and quite explicit. not just in poor taste, but in such poor taste that they'll shift your understanding of what taste even is. They are also funny as hell! PINK FLAMINGOS is justly famous as the most disgusting movie ever made. Divine lives in a trailer with her degenerate son Crackers and her 250-pound mother (Edith Massey) who lives in a playpen, assured of their status as 'the filthiest people alive'. That designation is coveted by rich perverts Connie and Raymond Marble, who sell heroin to schoolchildren and kidnap and impregnate female hitchhikers, selling the babies to lesbian couples. Finally, they challenge Divine directly, to determine once and for all who the filthiest people alive really are. If you will ever vomit from watching a movie, this will be the one. FEMALE TROUBLE (1975) is Waters most complete homage to the exploitation film, following the sordid career of Dawn Davenport (Divine) from schoolgirl to crazed mass murderer - stemming from her parents' refusal to buy her cha-cha heels for Christmas. She runs away from home, is raped (by herself. Divine plays both rapist and victim, which is a remarkable thing), becomes a single mother, criminal and glamorous model before her inevitable rendezvous with the electric chair... This is one of Waters paeans to ugliness, with Dawn becoming a fashion rage after being horribly disfigured. . English (Dolby Digital 2.0) . Audio commentary by John Waters |
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| | | This movie is mean as a snake! Waters' most incisive social and political critique and full of scenes so funny you'll swallow your tongue. Made without Divine (who was on tour), DESPERATE LIVING reveals a malevolent intellectual edge that's submerged in other Waters' masterpieces. I love Divine, but his bigger than life presence was so broad it sometimes undercut Waters' bitchy dry wit and smothered his colder visions. When brittle hysteric housewife Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) comes home from the mental hospital her quiet suburban Baltimore home seems a house of horrors. She is soon convinced that she's under attack from neighborhood kids and that her five-year-old daughter is pregnant. When her long-suffering husband comes home she decides he's trying to kill her and starts beating him wih a lamp. When the poor man feebly begs for help she shrieks, "He's attacking again!" Finally she coerces her obese maid, Grizelda (Jean Hill), to suffocate him with her sizable bottom and Peggy and Grizelda take it on the lam. After being hilariously molested by the police and adding to their list of crimes the duo head to the last stop for criminals and social outcasts, Mortville, a bizarre off-the-map shantytown where they find lodging with a predatory lesbian ex-wrestler and her murderess lover. Ruthless and demonstrably retarded tyrant Queen Carlotta (Edith Massey) rules the kingdom of Mortville with the assistance from a cranky pre-op transsexual (Susan Lowe) and her hot-pants lover (Liz Renay). Carlotta's daughter, Princess Coo-Coo (Mary Vivian Pearce) wants to renounce the throne and marry a nudist garbageman, so the Queen has him killed and enlists Peggy's aid in infecting the kingdom with rabies. Production designer Vincent Peranio created the entire village with no budget, resulting in a surreal hybrid of school play, CABINET OF DOCTOR CALIGARI and Fairy-Tale Village. Mentally deficient Edith Massey is phenomenal. Watching her wield ultimate political power will awaken the anarchist in the most autocratic viewer, just as her turn as an imbecilic but suddenly rich cleaning lady in POLYESTER (spouting garbled French) made communism seem almost attractive. This DVD features Audio Commentary by John Waters and star Liz Renay. |
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| | | Your best entertainment value! These are Waters' two best films. New Line is to be commended for this DVD series which is more than just "tapes on a disc". Waters' commentary tracks are very funny and even hold up to repeated listening. Taken as a whole POLYESTER is Waters' best and funniest film. It's still outrageous early-Waters, but with enough of a budget to realize its ambitions. Divine plays Francine Fishpaw, and obese upper middle class suburban housewife who loves her hideous family, but they don't love her. Her porno theater operator husband is screaming at the picketers on their front lawn when he's not of with his mistress. Her daughter is a fast little idiot working her way up to prostitute. Her son is a violent serial sex offender, stomping on women's high-heeled feet in public places. Her mother is a vicious shrew. Her best friend (Edith Massey) is a retarded woman who inexplicably inherited millions (and is a hilarious indictment of inherited wealth). But one day Francine meets Todd Tomorrow (Tab Hunter) who offers the fulfillment of every simple-minded fantasy she's ever had. POLYESTER was released in ODORAMA, a gimmick where you would use a scratch-n-sniff card to provide the odors in various scenes, and a replica ODORAMA card is included in this set. DESPERATE LIVING (1977) is Waters' most incisive social and political critique, and contains some scenes so funny you'll swallow your tongue. Part of what makes it great is that Divine was not available. We love Divine, but his presence was so broad that it sometimes smothered Waters' colder visions, and undercut the bitchy dry wit. Desperate Living is mean as a snake! A rich housewife (Mink Stole) having a nervous breakdown murders her husband (for no sane reason) with the help of her overweight maid, and the two go on the run, ending up in Mortville, a town providing refuge for criminals. They shack up with a lesbian ex-wrestler and her murderess lover, before running into the tyrannical Queen Carlotta (Edith Massey), ruler of Mortville... Just as mentally deficient Massey represented money in Polyester, here she represents political power. Now that's just mean! If you could only save one Waters movie, save Polyester. If you could only save 30 minutes of a Waters movie, save the opening of Desperate Living... . Aspect Ratios: Widescreen letterbox, Full Screen (Standard) - 1.33:1 . English (Dolby Digital 2.0) . Audio commentary by John Waters |
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| | | POLYUESTER is just right-more polished than DESPERATE LIVING, more evil than HAIRSPRAY. John Waters' best and funniest film. His early films are brilliant, outrageous, and crudely amateurish. His later films have professional budgets and are polished but merely rude-outré but hardly a threat to the system. Only POLYESTER, his first "real" movie, combines the demented excess of his youth with mature craft. (Albeit immature mature craft: POLYESTER was released in ODORAMA, a gimmick where you would use a scratch-n-sniff card to provide the odors in various scenes.) Waters' inspiration here is the 1950s "women's picture," a genre of cinematic soap opera that subjected stoic heroines (often Joan Crawford) to an outlandish escalating hail of heartbreak and betrayal. Divine plays Francine Fishpaw, an obese upper middle class suburban housewife. Francine loves her hideous family, but they don't love her. When her abusive farting porno theater operator isn't with his mistress (Mink Stole) he's mortifying Francine by battling with the anti-porn picketers on their front lawn. Her daughter is a fast little idiot working her way up to prostitute. (She performs lewd dances in her high school cafeteria for quarters) Her son is a violent serial sex offender, stomping on women's high-heeled feet in public places. Her mother is a vicious shrew. Her best friend Cuddles (Edith Massey) is a retarded woman who inexplicably inherited millions (and is a hilarious indictment of inherited wealth). But one day Francine meets Todd Tomorrow (Tab Hunter) who runs an art-house drive-in theater. Dreamy Todd offers the fulfillment of every simple-minded fantasy she's ever had. |
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| | | (Not really directed by Waters - this is the documentary Directed by Steve Yeager) The life and times of Baltimore film maker and midnight movie pioneer, John Waters. Intercut with a 1972 interview of Waters are clips from his first films and recent interviews with his parents, his brother, Divine's mom, actors and crew, other directors, film critics, a film curator, psychologists, and Maryland's last censor, who shudders at the memory of Waters's pictures. Also included is footage of Waters making his early movies, culminating in an up-close and in-depth look at Pink Flamingos: the script, the set, the filming conditions, its editing, its distribution, and its impact. Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only). Color, Black & White . Theatrical trailer . Features interviews with John Water and Divine . Exclusive footage of the rehearsal from Pink Flamingos |
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