John Waters Tagged Articles at Cinematical

While I've made no secret of my distaste of musicals, there's a faction of them that really, really irks me most of all. In fact, if not for the ever-prevalent existence of these suckers, I'd be much more appreciative of the whole musical movement. That faction: Sanitized, Purelled musical remakes -- Hairspray being the prime example. If you want to celebrate a film, celebrate it. Don't lobotomize it.

Yeah, Adam Shankman went wild throwing John Travolta in a female fat suit, but as we all know, that's merely a tiny shade of "perversity" in the Waters universe. In January, he mentioned not being able to do some of the wild "John Waters-y" sort of things in the upcoming sequel, but now he's described this whole project to a T. Straight from Collider: "John Waters wrote a treatment that was so insane. That was really a sequel to his version of the movie with all the cattle prods and the electro shock therapy, and seaweed. And Penny blew up the world at a certain point out of anger. It was this crazy thing. But we saw it as something to borrow from, so we took some of the less insane ideas." (Emphasis mine.)

The unique, visionary minds of cinema are not idea banks to pillage and plunder, picking wholesome moments out of a world of perversion and insanity -- especially when that world is created by Waters. You want to make a sequel out of a watered down remake? Make it. Don't get the original film's creator to write a wonderfully insane-sounding story just so you can pick at it and rip it apart at the strangely wonderful seams and take it in a different, tame direction. That's pure laziness.

But it's not like we should be shocked. Hollywood seems to have lost the art of risk taking and brainstorming long ago.

400 Screens, 400 Blows is a weekly column that takes an in-depth look at the films playing below the radar, beneath the top ten, and on 400 screens or less.

Lately I've been dreaming of a TV show I'd like to see. Ever since Roger Ebert hired Richard Roeper to be the permanent replacement on his review show, I've dreamed of something a bit edgier and funnier -- you know, like when Ebert used to fight with Gene Siskel. Now the network suits have made things even worse with the two idiots they have on now (I mean, really! Could they be any worse?). Here's my idea: Joe Bob Briggs and John Waters. That's a show I would pay to see each week!

For the uninitiated, Joe Bob Briggs was the world's first and only "drive-in movie critic." He was nationally syndicated from the early 1980s to the late 1990s and he reviewed horror and trash movies, rating them based on gallons of blood, number of "nekkid breasts" and so forth. (His favorite movie is the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.) John Waters, of course, is the director of such films as Pink Flamingos (1971), Hairspray (1988) and Cry-Baby (1990), but he is a big movie fan and occasionally writes about movies for magazines like ArtForum. (His favorite movie is Joseph Losey's Boom!) To put it mildly, they each have a slightly off-kilter view of movies that generally has nothing to do with hype; they tend to see through the B.S.

I think its time that John Waters gets a phone tree going, lassos in his worldwide band of freaks and friends, and introduce Adam Shankman to a different sort of life. He needs to get wild. Besides tackling Bye Bye Birdie, there's more Hairspray sequel news, courtesy of MTV, that has its quirky perks and boring pitfalls.

The sequel will be titled Hairspray 2: White Lipstick -- which just so happened to be Waters' original title for the 1988 film (without, of course, the "Hairspray 2" part). And it does have some Waters zaniness, according to Shankman: "[The treatment] is amazing, but it's crazy. There are things in there that I was like 'Can we do that?' It's real John Waters-y stuff, and it was more like a sequel to his movie than to our movie. Which I love, because then that becomes re-interpreted."

But don't expect too much quirk -- this is Shankman, so his crazy scale definitely isn't equivalent to your run of the mill Waters fan. Sadly, one of the things to go is Zac Efron taking acid and having "trippy conversations with acne on his forehead." (Wussy!) Things from the treatment he'll probably keep: Edna's addiction to diet pills, a new villain -- which means that Michelle Pfeiffer and Brittany Snow are most likely out, and lastly, someone (other than Link) will get drafted for Vietnam.

Any guesses? Any hopes for this White sequel?

Remember that Hairspray sequel that William Goss mentioned back in July? Adam Shankman had signed on to direct the sequel, and the master of the perverse (and creator of the original), John Waters, was going to whip up a story to send out to writers. Looks like things are on schedule -- according to EW, Waters has finished scheming up the sequel, and they're now hunting for a writer.

Basically, Waters has handed over "an outline and some ideas" for the film that will ultimately become the next instalment of Tracy Turnblad as she heads for the "next era of music," the '60s. "That period was superpolitical, it was a time of serious change. We're trying to track, in a comedic way, the historical elements" says Shankman. This will include the British Invasion, which consumes Link (played by Zac Efron in the remake).

On the plus side: Waters schemed up the outline. On the negative side: Waters isn't writing the meat of the script. Will a Waters outline be enough? I'm not so sure.

"Well, you tried it just for once, found it all right for kicks.
But now you found out that it's a habit that sticks,
and you're an orgasm addict." – The Buzzcocks

The new movie Choke, adapted from the Chuck Palahniuk novel, is about a sex addict (Sam Rockwell) who, in one element of the plot, hooks up with other sex addicts who attend the same Sex Addicts Anonymous meetings as him. Ah, the irony. The same thing happened to Sam Malone on Cheers, if I'm not mistaken, which makes the joke around 20 years old. Yet, despite that fact, sexual addiction as a term and a (non-DSM-recognized) medical problem seem fairly new to cinema.

Sure, there have been sex addicts in films for many decades, but they were more likely to be described as nymphomaniacs, lechers or typical men. Think of Dorothy Malone in Written on the Wind, a number of the female characters created by Tennessee Williams and certainly the locked up nymphos in Shock Corridor. In the past few years, however, there have been a slew of actual "sexaholics," both male and female, though some aren't exactly referred to in such a manner.

As pleasantly surprised as I was by last summer's musical remake of Hairspray, I can't say that the prospect of sequel potential ever once came to mind. Thankfully, that's why we have Hollywood bean counters and the like, who see the success of that film, Mamma Mia! and High School Musical (including a fair amount of CD and DVD sales for each) as reason enough to have John Waters -- who wrote the 1988 original -- whip up a treatment for a Hairspray sequel.

According to Variety, returning for the project is director Adam Shankman and ... um, no one else at the moment. There isn't a writer attached, nor are any of the original stars lined up to return, although I have little reason to think that most of the young cast wouldn't be down for another one (just what is Nikki Blonsky up to now, anyway?).

Warner Bros. hopes to have Hairspray 2 (Hairspray-ier?) in theaters by July of 2010.

Last weekend, Baltimore hosted Honfest. "Hon," short for "honey," refers to those women, often seen in the world of John Waters and '60s kitsch, who sport audacious pieces of style like beehive hairdos, spandex, cat's-eye glasses, bright-blue eyeshadow, leopard print, and pearls. But, like many small niches that start out as celebrations of alternative culture, the festival has become a huge deal where non-hons don their best impressions of retro kitsch-wear.

As the Baltimore Sun notes, not everyone is digging the increasing popularity -- especially John Waters, who says he's leaving the world of hon behind: "To me, it's used up," Waters said of the Hon. "It's condescending now. The people that celebrate it are not from it. I feel that in some weird way they're looking slightly down on it. I only celebrate something I can look up to."

Funny, that's just what I would say about the new Hairspray. It was popular and successful, and I love some of the people involved (Christopher Walken, Michelle Pfieffer, Allison Janney), but the re-do was like Hollywood Halloween -- people trying out "weirdness" for kicks.

Methinks it's time for Waters to reclaim the wonders of transgressive art!

When word hit last year that John Waters was going to make a children's movie, I was all sorts of excited -- the King of Sleaze branching out into new and impressionable territory! I imagined kid-ified versions of his past films, or just what was in store for a film with the name "Fruitcake." But then there was nothing, and the Waterific news seemed like a distant memory ... until now!

The Hollywood Reporter posts that Parker Posey and Johnny Knoxville have signed on to star in the film. This will be Ms. Posey's first foray into the world of Waters, which is ridiculously long overdue, while Knoxville is following John right out of A Dirty Shame. There's no word on who they'll play, but this is what we know of the story: It focuses on a boy named after his favorite dessert. (ew) "He runs away from home during the holidays after he and his parents are caught shoplifting meat, then meets up with a runaway girl raised by two gay men [My Two Dads!] and searching for her birth mother."

Parker and Johnny could be ma and pop itching for some free meat, or maybe he's one of the gay men and she's the birth mother. Whoever they play, there is absolutely no way I'll miss this movie. Not with Waters and Posey together. I just wish this was the sort of film that would have a set visit. You can definitely expect to hear more from me as the cast fills out, but it will take a little while to get to us -- John plans to film it over a real winter.

Before the rain pooed on my parade and the poo rained on my parade at the Independent Spirit Awards Saturday, I had a pretty great time. The highlight for me was being "on set" for a series of interviews between Martin Short's Jiminy Glick and various celebs. I was just tipped off by the good folks at Netflix that those conversations have hit youtube, and if you're a fan of the character, you may want to check them out. Here's Jiminy with Matt Dillon, with a never foxier Illeana Douglas, with the always youthful Dennis Hopper (an interview that opens with a depantsing), with Ed Begley, Jr, with Juno director Jason Reitman and his father Ivan, with Aaron Eckhart, with John Waters, and with Allison Janney. They could all stand to be edited down a bit, but there's a lot of good stuff in there. If I had to direct you to the funniest couple of discussions, I'd recommend the Illeana Douglas and the Ed Begley, Jr, which contains graphic mouth-to-mouth.

I intended to run a live blog from the show, but the internet connection went out -- one of the dangers of doing a live show from a tent in the rain! I did get to see some cool people up close and personal. Philip Seymour Hoffman (a winner for Best Male Lead) charmed the little press room in a fun Q & A with Savages writer/director Tamara Jenkins (a winner for Best Screenplay) and it was a thrill to meet Scott Frank, a screenwriter I truly admire. He won Best First Feature for The Lookout, one of my favorite 2007 films. I always question what they deem "independent," but I do appreciate that the Indie Spirits have special honors -- like the John Cassavetes Award -- to honor the truly independent and low-budget films each year. Did anyone watch the broadcast? I know it's not the biggest awards show of the year (or even the weekend), but the show was really entertaining. Have favorite moments or disagreements with the winners?

Cinematical is live at the 2008 Independent Spirit Awards! Our own Patrick Walsh will report back throughout the afternoon.

Jiminy Glick just wrapped up a graphic conversation with indie legend John Waters and now he is asking Maria Bello what it's like to show her "down there hair" on camera. Oh wow, now he's humping her. Now he's asking Allison Janney if Juno is a film about people who won't tolerate Jews. "Jew? No!" The man is insane. He's interviewing The Office's Rainn Wilson now, who's looking mighty unkempt and unshaven considering he's hosting the show. And now the two are engaged in a huge pillow fight. There's Dennis Hopper! What does Jiminy ask a legend like this? "Why do men have nipples if they're not supposed to breast feed their pets?" Of course.

He just told Matt Dillon he was excellent as Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump, and followed that up with a rave about his work in Saving Private Ryan. Dillon was in neither film. The red carpet is heating up, I just saw Kate Beckinsale, Tom Wilkinson, and now Aaron Eckhart -- who is discussing Mormonism with Jiminy. And now the skies have turned an unsettling gray, the winds are picking up, and I have a feeling a lot of expensive dresses are about to get destroyed. I'm gonna take shelter, but I'll be back.

For more photos and coverage, head on over to Moviefone.