Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999)

One of the best films I've ever seen (and I've seen a lot). As a mockumentary, it actually deserves an 11 ...

Bought it on DVD - can watch it again and again and my admiration for the perfection with which it has been made only grows. Every detail is right on the spot, the actors are fantastic, the script is amazing, and the director hits just the right note ...

A biting social commentary if there ever was one, it shows a side of America which people pretend doesn't exist, and that without any exaggeration - it only condenses a lot of things into one story which in reality you probably would not find that close together. One can see that the author knows exactly what she is writing about. I can understand that many people don't like this film - it hits too close to home ... though they'll never admit that this is the reason and cite bad taste or whatever. The miracle for me is that this picture got made at all.

Hard-hitting as it is, the film never gets mean - it always stays human and in a detached way almost compassionate towards all its characters. The author is a woman, and I noticed one thing about women as artists: if the're bad, they're bad as any male artist who's bad, but when they're good, they tend to be *exceptionally* good, and often they bring up angles which a man would have never thought of.

One thing - I do not think the critique in this film concerns only America: exchange just a few minor cultural details for their continental counterparts and you'll see that here in Europe we have the same types of people who recognize themselves in this movie and consequently hate it, like their cousins overseas ... so finally I think its valid worldwide, wherever people live.

Fmovies: This is probably one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. Kirstie Alley, Ellen Barkin, Kirsten Dunst and Denise Richards are all perfectly cast. Not your ordinary comedy, much more akin to the humor in Very Bad Things.

As good as the whole cast is, Ellen Barkin really steals the show in this movie playing a beer guzzling, trailer park, hairdressing single mother with faults aplenty-but a heart of gold. I own this one, and every time I watch it I find something else that makes me laugh. Well written, incredibly well cast and exceptionally well acted. 10/10 for this one, highly recommend (unless you're easily offended.)

I really found Drop Dead Gorgeous great!! I've seen it on TV and I found it really hilarious. Humour is very dark and second degree, mocking as much beauty pageants and deep America and the decision ways in small towns as well as the fake values so often praised by mainstream television. Several scenes are incredibly funny (but cannot be described here in order to avoid spoilers).

The cast is great (and includes the marvelous Denise Richards as well as a bunch of Young great actresses)and the scenario follows its dark humor to the end of the movie.

Definitively a movie to watch, especially if you are open minded and like deep irony and subtle but strong messages.

Drop Dead Gorgeous fmovies. This is a great film for anyone who hates beauty pageants, and enjoys dark humor. The "mockumentary" aspect was done greatly, and the performances were also great, especially by (the very hot) Kirsten Dunst. I really like films that poke fun at serious topics (like death and mourning), and this one did a great job of it without being completely tasteless.

Beauty contests are of all times and for people of all ages. There are all kinds of contests, but they don't always have a very good status (just to give you a few examples: We have Miss Belgium, but also Miss Egg, Miss Grape, Miss Strawberry...) But one thing they all have in common. The girls that participate in it all believe that they are the only ones that deserve to win and their supporters, with their parents on top, are convinced that their girl is the next miracle on two legs. And there aren't too many differences between the different countries. This movie was clearly intended to make fun of the American beauty contests, but it all felt very familiar.

"Drop Dead Gorgeous" isn't exactly what I would call a subtle satire. They use some standard situations, magnify them by a factor of 1000 and then aim at them with a large cannon so they certainly will not miss their target. Does that mean that the humor isn't any good? No, certainly not. It's sometimes so over-the-top that you will almost certainly have to laugh with it, but it's just not the kind of movie for the people who only like very 'intelligent' comedies. And even though the idea of a 'mockumentary' isn't new, it is done quite well in this movie and in a more or less original way. They make fun of the contestants and their fans in this movie, but don't really spare the TV-crews either. They make for instance fun of their eternal drift to sensation and spectacular news items.

In the end this is a nice comedy that may perhaps not be liked by everybody, but that certainly offered some good performances by all the actors. They made the many funny characters look even more ridiculous as what they are in real life (and that's certainly not always easy). The story was good and the entire movie really could have been a lot worse. I liked what I saw and I give this movie a 7/10, maybe even a 7.5/10.

This is a seriously funny film, deeply subversive and a great piece of work. What it's not is a satire on the vacuousness of beauty pageants.

DDG aims at the emptiness of our whole materialistic culture and the way we have traded in the more valuable things in life for the pursuit of a perfect self image and will even cash in that perverted, limited objective for a few minutes of fame on TV. Life is a house of cards with hidden truths under every shiny surface.

The humour is so dense and the jokes are so profligately thrown around that it occasionally feels like an incarnation of The Simpsons, 54 episodes of which benefited from the efforts of DDG scriptwriter Lona Williams. She may have written your favourite. The performances are no less praiseworthy with outstanding leads and fabulous and memorable minor characters. Look out for the Sheriff. Amongst them all, I'll single out two which I think are pitch perfect, Sam McMurray as the ruthless father in thrall to his wife and daughter and Nora Dunn as the drunken 'has it come to this?' State Pageant organiser. There are lots of others to choose from.

Every you time you watch you get something new, enabling you to rejoice further in the fact that half the people who watch it don't get any of it at all. In fact it's so sharp that even people who like this type of thing can get cut to pieces by it. We are, after all, watching ourselves. Mind your fingers . . .

Most smartest and funniest American film since The Producers? Yes, it's THAT good.