John Waters' underrated "Cecil B. Demented" (2000) is finally getting released on Blu-ray

It’s amazing how many films have yet to hit blu-ray, never mind 4K.

One of his movies that I wanted to like more than I actually did. Melanie Griffith was funny. Maybe I should give it another chance.

R2 Melanie is hilarious in it. It's one of her funniest performances IMO. I also adored Alicia Witt as the "all-anal" pornstar princess, Cherish. I still belly laugh every time at this:

Waters originally wanted Elizabeth Taylor for the Melanie Griffith role.

An unfunny mess that bombed. This plus A Dirty Shame ended his directing career.

its on tubi, i dont understand it. i did laugh a few times

It’s John Waters’ ultimate love letter to cinephiles. I think the enjoyment of it partly depends on being privy to all the references. It’s absurdist humor, but that’s to be expected. It has a great cast and a bunch of random cameos too.

Melanie is no Meryl but she's slumming here.

I guess his films are all with different studios so a box set is out of the question. Criterion has a few titles but I don't know if Cecil B. Demented would qualify. Desperate Living and Pecker need bluray releases as well

Waters was more interesting before he became successful. Among his last few films, A Dirty Shame was sort of prurient but not so funny or interesting. I felt bad for everyone involved.

I think A Dirty Shame was a failure because mainstream society has become too gross and sexual. That movie was tamer than some episodes of South Park. He should have made that movie in 1984 instead of 2004.

I went through the trouble of buying the unrated DVD off Amazon because Waters said that is the only version of the film that he stands by. Pretty disappointing experience.

For all it's faults, I think Cecil is a funnier movie.

I saw A Dirty Shame at the Sunset 5 when it came out and remember nothing about it other than being disappointed it wasn't very funny. I completely forgot Chris Isaak is in it. I wouldn't mind revisiting it but it looks like only the edited R-rated version is available for streaming

Manola Dargis of the Times once noticed that, since Waters is a terrible dialogue writer, as his casts became better and more professional, his films became worse.

All John Waters movies without Divine are unwatchable. This includes Hairspray in which Divine was reduced to supporting cast under Waters' new muse Ricki Fucking Lake.

You don't like Serial Mom, r14?

R6 Thanks. I'm watching it now.

zip

Fuck Manohla Dargis r13, what a lunatic - Waters is not a terrible dialogue writer. His movies are one quotable line after another. As if anybody's going to be quoting or remembering anything that NYT hack wrote even a month after she's kicked the bucket. I HATE HER, HER HUSBAND, HER CHILDREN, AND HER RELATIVES!!!

This is America, you know. It's a free country. People can make bad movies if they so desire.

[quote]Manola Dargis of the Times once noticed that, since Waters is a terrible dialogue writer...

Waters at his genius-best is what Manny Farber would’ve called a Termite Artist. Unkempt, open-form and ravenous. And he’s not a naturalistic writer, which is crucial, because naturalism has served as the governing aesthetic in the popular arts over the last 40 years or so. So Dargis’ premise there doesn’t come as any shock. Though she often cites Manny Farber as an influence and quotes him freely, her sensibility has always struck me as miserably conventional. She's a champion, consciously or not, of the kind of films Farber would likely have bracketed under White Elephant cinema. Those lumbering, colossi that proclaim the director’s genius from the first frame to the last (think There Will Be Blood, one of her Sight & Sound picks). Hers is the sensibility William Deresiewicz described as Upper Middle-Brow.

"The upper middle brow possesses excellence, intelligence, and integrity. It is genuinely good work (as well as being most of what I read or look at myself). The problem is it always lets us off the hook. Like Midcult, it is ultimately designed to flatter its audience, approving our feelings and reinforcing our prejudices. It stays within the bounds of what we already believe, affirms the enlightened opinions we absorb every day in the quality media, the educated bromides we trade on Facebook. It doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know, doesn’t seek to disturb—the definition of a true avant-garde—our fundamental view of ourselves, or society, or the world."

I couldn't finish it...terrible. But thanks R6 for letting me know where to stream it!

a dirty shame

I read that John Waters kept a portrait of Gertrude Baniszewski. That made him an untouchable to me.

Alicia Witt has always come across as a pretty strait laced person to me, but she’s played against type a lot—her porn scene where she takes a hamster up the ass in this is outrageous. The girl is a good sport.

I taught her everything she knows, r24

R15 Nope.