Cecil B. Demented

Too bad John Waters can’t take his own advice. Oh, sure, this one’s twisted, but it’s totally confused, too. But I get ahead of myself.

Cecil B. Demented (Stephen Dorff from Backbeat (awesome movie) and Blade) is the leader of a terrorist film crew that includes lead actress Cherish who used to do porn (Alicia Witt from Citizen Ruth and Urban Legend…but don’t blame her for that one), leading man Lyle who is addicted to every drug under the sun (Adrian Grenier from The Adventures Of Sebastian Cole and Drive Me Crazy…but don’t blame him for that one), Raven who worships Satan but is really a sweet girl (Maggie Gyllenhaal from Homegrown and Waterland) and a whole host of other freaks. Each of them have tattoos of their favorite renegade filmmaker’s names somewhere on their body from Sam Peckinpah to Kenneth Anger to Spike Lee.

Meanwhile, in a ritzy hotel, Honey Whitlock (Melanie Griffith) is bitching out her personal assistant (Ricki Lake in her fourth role for Waters). Honey is what we in Film School Land like to call a Total Bitch. She’s pretty much pure evil. Kind of how we all wish that Julia Roberts was. (Why does she have to be so nice? It makes it so hard to hate her.)

Luckily her new film is premiering in Baltimore (only because it’s Waters’ hometown–no films besides his actually premiere there). That gives Cecil and his crew a chance to teach her a lesson.

The Sprocket Holes take over the Senator Theatre, start shooting and take Honey hostage in the name of Sinema. Soon thereafter they force her to be in her movie. Then, befitting any movie with Patty Hearst in a bit part, she starts to get involved with her captors and takes up their cause. Now she’s wanted by more than just her adoring fans.

This is actually a pretty funny movie. Lots of in-jokes for us movie buffs. The idea wasn’t bad, either. Real independents beat up and maim filmmakers/goers because they make expensive, bad movies.

The problems start when you really think about it. First off, this is a John Waters film. Now, if John had made this movie back in his Divine days it would have been totally appropriate. Now, though, he’s been making mainstream studio movies since Hairspray back in 1988. (Some would even go back to Polyester, but any film shot in Oderama can’t be too mainstream.) Granted, his movies certainly aren’t “the norm,” but he’s financed by the same big studios that he’s defacing here.

Typically I would think that this was totally cool and subversive. Just look at my review of South Park. Great movie and completely subversive in its attack of the studio system and the MPAA.

The problem here is that we don’t really know who the good guys are. Are we supposed to root for the guys who are killing people because they watch bad movies? Sure, I’d love to kill some of these guys who MAKE the bad movies, Michael Bay and Renny Harlin being first on my list. (Greg Araki would be first, but he doesn’t spend any money on his and he’s the kind of asshole that Cecil would love.) But can we really blame the public who has been brainwashed into spending $7.50 to spend an evening with Keanu Reeves?

And are we supposed to empathize with these guys? I really didn’t like any of them except Raven and she was a Satanist. (Of course, then there was Cherish, but only because Alicia Witt is hot.) The rest of them were just angry young idiots who were brainwashed by Cecil…and he’s one of the biggest assholes to make a presence in recent film. I even started to find new reasons to hate Honey.

And then there were long stretches of the film that only seemed to be there in order to show how much John knows about film. Cecil will start to name drop Preminger or Fassbinder and then we can just stop listening.

Basically this film is all bite, but no real brains. Remember, John, we have to care about somebody. Even in Pink Flamingos we wanted Divine and her family to win the “Filthiest Family Alive” title. Here I was just wanting Raven to cap Cecil.

All in all, it’s worth a look if you’re a Waters fan. It’s not that it’s a bad movie, it just doesn’t live up to the potential of what Waters could have done with this story.

And I could be totally off base here. My roommate thought it was great. I just thought it was another example of Waters’ fall from grace. I liked his last two films better.