..Gary
Dretzka
..Noah
Forrest
..Leonard
Klady
..R.J.
Matson
..David
Poland
..Douglas
Pratt
..Ray
Pride
..Michael
Wilmington
A Dirty Shame
Directed by John Waters
..Review by Gary Dretzka
Demonstrating that you can make movies for four decades and not mature a day, John Waters returns to his ill-mannered cult roots with an irreverent NC-17 comedy, A Dirty Shame, which has been released by New Line Home Entertainment (N7754, $28). Tracey Ullman, Johnny Knoxville, Selma Blair and Chris Isaak star, but don't let that level of casting fool you. The film is essentially about sexual inhibition spreading through a town like a contagious disease, each character seeking out his or her favorite fetish, with the film's villains being those who don't approve of such goings on. On the one hand it depicts what the world might be like if women had the same constancy of sexual desire that men have, but on the other hand, it has the intelligence level of a teenage boy's dirty joke. It's a mess of ideas and gags thrown together every which way, more cacophonous than articulate and more tiresome than erotic. The gags are jammed in your face like a lap dancer's bosom, and aren't nearly as funny.
The 2004 movie may be a waste of time, but the DVD is not. The film itself runs 88 minutes, but there is an 82-minute production documentary that succeeds in every way that the film fails - specifically, it is a reasoned and engaging look at why rational adults would be willing and in fact eager to debase themselves for the sake of entertainment. Waters himself has not aged a day in 40 years-he's the Dick Clark of the unwashed - but when he speaks to the camera about the different sex acts he wanted to glorify and everything else he wanted to accomplish with the movie, your abject irritation toward the feature cannot help but subside. And then when the other cast and crew members weigh in with their stories about deciding to participate, you're almost entirely won over. They talk about the joy of using the Baltimore locations, how amazing it is that people actually embrace such eccentric sexual proclivities, and what a trip it was to be on the set. Waters even has some intelligent things to say about the movie's rating. "'Pervasive sexual material' - so you can't talk about sex any more. You can't even talk about it, I guess, or, at least, this type of sex. I believe it's fair. The MPAA said to me, 'There's nothing the matter with an NC-17 rating,' and they're technically right, but they should use their lobbying power, which they have-big lobbying power-to go to Blockbuster, go to Wal-Mart, places that will not accept or sell NC-17 movies and make those corporate people change their mind. That is their duty, as the MPAA, if they want this rating to be real. They need to go out there and get their product accepted, which is the NC-17 rating. I'm doing my best with this film."
The movie is presented in letterboxed format only, with an aspect ratio of about 1.85:1 and an accommodation for enhanced 16:9 playback. The color transfer looks fine, with bright, stable hues. The 5.1-channel Dolby Digital sound brings a nice tonal delivery to the obscure but often quite funny pop songs on the music track (there is this one, about a pet cat…). There are optional English and Spanish subtitles, a trailer and a 16-second blooper in keeping with the spirit of the film.
There are also two commentary tracks, one with Waters and one with the other members of the crew. Both talks repeat material that is in the documentary, but also supplement it with other details. Waters talks about working with the cast and about the locations, and he goes into great detail about the different sexual peccadilloes he researched for the film, sharing probably more than most viewers want to hear, even if they're listening to him voluntarily. "I always believed that when famous people die, the call goes out. 'All right, it's a hundred grand and you got two hours. Get on a plane.' I really believe that if you're famous, in a funeral home, they're all necrophiliacs, somehow. If you're one, who else you gonna get?"
Most of the individuals in the group talking on the crew track have been with Waters for years and years, and they speak about accomplishing things on a small budget, working with the different cast members, and their own reactions to the film's content. "I've felt recently that some of our films had been a little too sweet. They're dear films, [but] you know, I always liked the old days when we were just real radicals and stuff, not that you can be that all your life. So it was kind of fun to, like, get back to this meatiness."
July 13, 2005
DVD Roundup: This Week's DVD Releases
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