A Dirty Shame Review
by Jerry Saravia (faustus_08520 AT yahoo DOT com)March 2nd, 2006
A DIRTY SHAME (2004)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
RATING: Three stars
John Waters is one of our more peculiar directors. He made some of the naughtiest, nastiest movies in the 70's, such as the ultimate bad taste in your mouth, "Pink
Flamingos." When his potty, obscene and downright
degrading humor caught up with him in the 90's, Waters seemed like a distant memory. For every "Hairspray" and "Serial Mom" that appeared, there were unwatchable
atrocities like "Cry Baby," "Pecker" and "Cecil B.
Demented." To my surprise, "A Dirty Shame" is far better than any Waters comedy in over a decade and that is
high praise indeed.
Tracey Ullman is the sexless Sylvia, a married woman
who is disgusted when her husband (Chris Issak) masturbates in the toilet seat. Their daughter is Caprice aka Ursula Udders (Selma Blair), whom they keep in a padlocked upstairs bedroom because of her indulgent go-go dancing. Ursula also has inhumanly gargantuan knockers and has had one too many indecent charges. In the midst of all this, Sylvia is uptight about sex for reasons never made clear, her husband wants to bang her, and their daughter wants to get out of house arrest and go-go some more (though one
scene indicates she is merely playing a role for her
parents.) Is all this the makings of pure filth from the self-professed Pube King?
On a sunny day in Harford Road in Baltimore, Sylvia
accidentally bumps her head during a traffic stop and morphs into a sexual addict. She is discovered by some sex guru (Johnny Knoxville) who leads some sort of
sexual underground where the lead motto is "Let's go
sexin'!" This is hardly the world of David Cronenberg's "Crash." Sylvia's noggin had induced a sexual liberation where she tries to bang anyone or anything she sees,
including a scene involving a dance and a plastic water bottle set to the tune of "The Hokey Pokey" song that will long be remembered by Waters cinephiles as a classic (consider it on the same wavelength as the singing
butthole from "Pink Flamingos.")
So what can you expect from the shameful mind of John Waters this time around? There is a group of burly gay men who calls themselves the Bears and hover over each other. There is also a mechanic who loves to lick car wheels, dirt, etc. Johnny Knoxville flicking his tongue at anything in close-up. A grown man who gets off on defecating in women's purses. And let's not forget the Neuters, led by Sylvia's mother (Suzanne Shepherd), who is appalled by the public display of sexual shenanigans. When you see Mink Stole, another Waters regular, decrying sex then you know you are not in any typical movie.
There's not much point or purpose in "A Dirty Shame" except to shock you into laughter and most of the time it works (Even Waters regular Patty Hearst will make you crack a smile when she glibly uses the f word). It is a movie overwrought with animated sexual references and pervasive use of old songs like "Sylvia," "Baby Let me Bang Your Box," and the aptly titled "Let's Go Sexin'!" by George Clinton." It is an outrageous, cartoonish sexual fantasy that is difficult to pinpoint as anything except the world of John Waters mind set on a hyperbolic spin. Or you can consider it a gleeful shockoroma of naughtiness that will leave you waiting to see what new outrage is around the corner (you haven't lived until you've seen Knoxville dry humping an excited tree). For Waters fans, it will work wonders and be seen as a return to form. For others, well, your memory of his work might've been sullied by "Pink Flamingos." That's a shame.
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