Friday, September 12, 2014

I'm Ready For My Close-Up, Mr. Demented

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Well tonight's the night. The Film Society of Lincoln Center's John Waters Retrospective has had me cooped up inside their cinemas all week long with every manner of depravity (so much toe licking, you guys) but while the retrospective runs through the weekend it is tonight, tonight, fateful tonight, which finds I your genial host watching the very last piece of the John Waters puzzle. To this date, of course - we're all still crossing our fingers that he'll make one (or a dozen) more, some day. 

But as of tonight I will have seen everything he's so far made when I see 2000's Cecil B. Demented. I'm really not sure how it is I've managed to miss this film until now - I was a John Waters fan by the time it came out in theaters, even. But then I only saw Pecker for the first time a few months ago, so who can comprehend my rhyme or reason? In the Q&A I saw John Waters do just last night he said that Divine's father was always saying to him with exasperation, "What goes on in that head of yours???" Such is moi.
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If you wanna be awesome like me and check off an unexpected box in your John Waters filmography check-list, that there is the minute's worth of footage that he shot in 1968 for the never-realized Wizard of Oz spoof Dorothy, the Kansas City Pot Head - I was shocked to find it on YouTube; FSLC isn't even showing that! This week they have filled in all the rest of the holes though - specifically the four short films of John's that are basically impossible to see: Hag in a Black Leather Jacket, Roman Candles, Eat Your Make-up, and The Diane Linklatter Story... they have all been mine now.

After Cecil B Demented tonight John is doing another Q&A (my third time watching him in a week! Four times this year counting the Isabelle Huppert thing!) and then he's introducing one of my favorite pieces of trash ever, the first Final Destination movie. I consider that fitting. Together we will watch nice girls get splattered by buses and nice boys decapitated by train wrecks and together we will laugh off into the night. And then he'll make another movie and we can get this goddamned thing rolling again!

3 comments:

The Bloody Munchkin said...

Cecil B. Demented is one of his that I didn't actually know was his and it's weird in the best and worst possible ways. The hamster gag goes on for way too long.

The reason I wanted to see it was unfortunately Stephen Dorff but the revelation in this movie is Adrian Granier. In a shoot out he utters "I'm stuck in a k-hole and I can't get out" and I laugh so hard at that just thinking about it I can't even tell you. Also, watch out for the awesomeness that is Maggie Gyllenhal as a young goth chick.

Sean said...

What I find slightly disturbing is that everyone seems to forget that at the Andy Warhol retrospective he did years ago, they showed these: Hag in a Black Leather Jacket, Roman Candles, Eat Your Make-up. I know they did, I sat there and watched them in 2005. I think even John has forgotten! I still wish that I have attended at least one of these events - JEALOUS!

Sean said...

http://artdaily.com/news/13113/The-Andy-Warhol-Museum-Presents-John-Waters-#.VBbPlWd0yUk