Next guilty pleasure:
John Waters
Okay, so maybe this isn't such a "guilty" pleasure, because I'm not at all ashamed to be a John Waters fan. On the other hand, I don't think there are too many of us true fans out there. I mean, I'm not talking about the folks who just like his mainstream stuff like
Hairspray and
Serial Mom, but folks like me who love him even at his most depraved (hell, that's part of his charm, isn't it?).
Female Trouble
Although even I admit that
Pink Flamingos is not a good movie (although it has some really funny bits), I really like some of the other stuff that most people would turn away from:
Female Trouble and
Desperate Living, for example. Many of his early films appear to have been made on a budget of about ten bucks and feature some of the worst acting you're likely to see this side of Ed Wood, but still...there's something something infectious (like the plague), that gets under your skin (like a dirty needle) that can't be denied...well, not by me, anyway.
Female Trouble, for instance, contains some of my favorite lines ever:
"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!"
and
"And remember my offer still stands. If you get tired of being a Hare Krishna, you come live with me and be a lesbian!"
Desperate Living
Even when he started to go mainstream with the likes of
Cry Baby (starring Johnny Depp) and
Polyester (with Tab Hunter, no less!), he still managed to put some people off with his trademark humor in poor taste. Ah, I can still remember going to the opening of
Polyester in DC and getting the scratch and sniff card that featured such odors as dirty sneakers and dead fish. (I can't believe I didn't hang on to that).
Oh, and I thought
Cecil B. Demented was great! It was a real treat seeing John Waters get back to his roots and make the kind of movie that made me a fan in the first place.
So here's to you John Waters, King Of Bad Taste, Queen Of Baltimore! May you live forevah!!!!