A Dirty Shame (2004)

Having not seen many John waters films I certainly can't call myself an avid follower of his movies. One thing I can say is that having seen this one I won't be rushing to see any of his other films. A dirty shame tried to be funny and I got the feeling it was trying to make a point on peoples views on sex but I just didn't find it funny. I wasn't particularly offended by anything in the film although I can imagine some people would be. I'm sure there will be many John waters fans who will love this movie and think it's hilarious. I will just remember to avoid ever watching this very trashy unfunny film again. If John waters was aiming to be trashy he got it spot on. If he was intending it to be funny he missed the target completely.

Fmovies: "A Dirty Shame" is a John Waters film about a prudish, uptight mid-western woman who, after having concussion in a motor vehicle accident, becomes a raving sex addict.

Although I'm a bit of a John Waters fan - "A Dirty Shame" was a pretty big shame and a disappointment.

I guess society and comedy has moved on a bit from drag queens eating doggie-do (see Pink Flamingos). Shows and films like South Park, Wonder Showzen and Team America seem to push the envelope in terms of bad taste comedy. "A Dirty Shame" just seems to fall a little short of that "pushing the envelope in bad taste" name.

Most of the sexual discussion feels not quite as raunchy as "Sex in the City" or even "Jerry Springer"!! Most things about this movie feels a little on the amateurish side - the acting, the cinematography, the script... However - one plus was the Selma Blair character - although it sort of felt it was a little underused.

Overall - A Dirty Shame was a big disappointment. John Waters appears not to be pushing that "bad taste" envelope anymore. Perhaps he needs to return to more kitsch mainstream territory (a la Hairspray).

Here comes "A Dirty Shame", John Waters' last hooliganism. It must be said: Waters is more a product of a specific time than a good cinema director. He was in the right place at the right moment to scandalize the so puritan American society of the 70's with movies such as "Pink Flmingos" or "Female Trouble" (most of them played by the unclassifiable Divine and a huge cast of freaks and outsiders). Disrespect, ugliness, a look worthy of the "do it yourself" punk slogan... A few movies that, in their own context, were so valuable, they broke taboos, they spit in the face of that society because the future was coming.

Well, now the future has come, and Waters left behind the amateur ways in order to make some brilliant pieces ("Cry Baby", "Serial Mom") that were more in the Hollywood style, much more according to the mainstream ways. With "A Dirty Shame" John seems to want to go back to his origins, to scandalize deep America's rednecks, the friends of the Rifle Association, the Mormons... In order to achieve that he's written a rather coarse story about an epidemic of sex-addiction somewhere in middle America, sort of a spicy version of the "Invasion of the Body snatchers". Rough humor, and a few laughing.

Main attractions? Well, we got the MTV-boy Johnny Knoxville and Tracey Ullman that were born to make comedies, and the exquisite taste of Mr. Waters for the music: "S Dirty Shame" has a soundtrack full of fantastic 50's music. In short: maybe with some wallpaper, a camera on the shoulder, and going 30 years back in time this product would make any sense. But we're in 2005, and the man who shot Divine eating canine feces has just made his worst film ever. Let's see if the next time John Waters does it better (I really hope so).

*My rate: 2.5/10

A Dirty Shame fmovies. Tracey Ullman does some priceless double-takes in this John Waters comedy, playing uptight wife and mother in a Baltimore suburb who gets a rap on the noggin and becomes a sex addict. A shabby-looking enterprise with scrappy editing, this would seem amateurish even for a first-time director, but Waters certainly doesn't seem to mind. As a filmmaker, he is gleefully puckish, with a heightened sense of the ridiculous, and as usual he gets his cast to ride right along on his coattails. Selma Blair is Ullman's daughter, who has "mutilated her mammaries"; Chris Isaak is Tracey's husband who also gets a knock on the head and dreams of musclemen posing; Johnny Knoxville is a sex guru/auto mechanic; Suzanne Shepherd is Ullman's mother, Big Ethel, who runs the Park and Pay. Relatively short film isn't compact (the final reel is just a lot of hamming and running around) but the first-half has some laugh-out-loud moments and the whole picture benefits from Ullman's work--she's a stitch. **1/2 from ****

After seeing "A Dirty Shame" twice, I was awed at how far John Waters has pushed the envelope with his trademark trashy fun. Also, whenever I hear the Ray Anthony classic "The Hokey Pokey" any more, I now think of what Sylvia Stickles (Tracey Ullman) did...not to give the story away, but it involved a water bottle. That scene has to be up there with Divine's eating doggie-doo-doo in "Pink Flamingos". "A Dirty Shame" will be a classic, in the same league as Waters' pre-"Hairspray" films. Still, the concept of getting horny just by banging your head is weird, to say the least. Especially as the movie goes on, more and more people are realizing that "fact". I would highly recommend "A Dirty Shame". Can't wait for the DVD to come out.

John Waters has made a great film with a "A Dirty Shame". I used to think, how can a director make so many films that have no point other than to shock, disturb and make people laugh? Well, I soon found out that it was a bit too simplistic to see them that way. You know, if you look at Warhol's Cambells soup paintings, you'll see that they are different types of Cambells soups. Well that's the same thing that's going on in his films. They may have similar flavors but the content is different. (well minestrone is different from clam chowder..okay bad soup analogy) The point is that John Waters has something to say and although trash is the reoccurring theme of his films, he always adds something new to the subject.Before, it was just about the freaks against the normal people and all the tabboos that were broken in the film as a result. Then there was the trash of films and art versus the "norm" and here we have sex politicized as the deviant and immoral act versus the neutered normal people. The irony is that none of the characters in this or any other Waters film is actually normal. He pokes fun at just about everything so it is a celebration of being freakish whether you're from Baltimore or anywhere else. John Waters knows how to be overt without being too mean about it. He is anything but pretentious, in fact he loathes it. There is something absurd about cultural hierarchy and without Waters, we would'nt be able to feel good about all the filth that exists in this country.

We have to hand it to John Waters. Its a miracle that he can make these films and have large audiences see them. John has brought the underground to the surface of mainstream and allowed audiences to either shake, laugh, think, get sick or all of the above. In my mind, John Waters is a real treasure to the art of American cinema and "A Dirty Shame" is a reason why.