News

Building on what is already the largest film-related collection in the world, comprised of more than 52 million items, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences revealed some of their most recent acquisitions today, including the Studio Ghibli animation collection, which contains more than 80 pieces of original art by Hayao Miyazaki and Noboru Yoshida, as well as the studio’s Japanese movie posters and animator’s desk. Another hot ticket item, presented at the Academy Museum Gala on October 19 in Los Angeles, is Quentin Tarantino’s personal, handwritten script for “Pulp Fiction,” which won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar and celebrated its 30th anniversary this year.

Filmmakers Curtis Hanson, Nicole Holofcener, Barbara Kopple, Oliver Stone, and Paul Verhoeven also donated their personal collections to the Academy, which features production records, photographs, scripts, and more from films such as “L.A. Confidential,” “Harlan County, U.S.A,” “Platoon,” “Showgirls,” and “Enough Said.

Stories of young love have always captured the attention of moviegoers and the 1990s and 2000s saw a lot of teen romance movies add to the genre. While not every teen movie from this time period aged well, many of them remain watch-worthy for more than just nostalgia. Whether it is the beautifully executed tropes of friends-to-lovers, enemies-to-lovers, miscommunications, nerds and jocks falling in love, or just some classic teen coming-of-age stories, these remain absolute classics.

Teen romance movies can be comedic high school adventures or dramas that tug at the heartstrings, but they always seem to play out like a modern fairy tale. It's not every day that a teenage outsider learns they're actually royalty or becomes embedded with the most popular kids in school, but teen rom-coms find a way to make the audience believe it. The 1990s and 2000s are two decades notorious for producing some of...

After taking a look back at House II: The Second Story (a favorite of mine since childhood), House of 1000 Corpses (which celebrated its 20th anniversary last year), the awesomeness of Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight, the leg smashing in the Stephen King adaptation Misery, three separate moments from John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China, the “Jason vs. Tina” battle in Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood, the “all hell breaks loose” sequence from the start of Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake, the opening sequence of Pitch Black, and a memorable moment from The Crow, JoBlo’s own Lance Vlcek is continuing his The Best Scene video series with a look at a scene from director David Lynch‘s 1997 cult classic Lost Highway (watch it Here). To find out which moment Lance chose to highlight, check out the video embedded above.

by Nick Taylor

As regular Tfe commenter par pointed out in the comments for my Tina Holmes piece last week, there’s a lot of supporting actresses from 1999 who I could honor this Pride month. It’s a very tempting idea, and though many of those women will likely get their flowers later in the year - who wouldn’t want to pick over Election as the nonsense of the US Presidential race really starts heating up? - I think this is a terrific opportunity to hop across major eras and remind folks that, hey, queers have been around and making films for a long fucking time. We’ve been rubbing our grubby hands all over cinema since its inception.

If we’re talking about queer cinema, and if we’re talking about a peak among peaks, there’s really nowhere else to go but Female Trouble, John Waters’ inspiring...

There aren’t many movies like Cry Baby, just like there aren’t many directors and writers like John Waters. Both are unique and unlike anything that has come before or since.

Cry Baby hit screens at the beginning of a new decade, 1990, and celebrated a time many decades prior. It was skewering of teenage delinquent movies of the 50s with a healthy dose of weird, transgressive and musical theater. The overly dramatic time of a teenager and how rebel films of the 50s took that angst and upped to off the charts.

John Waters grew up with those films, and Cry Baby was his unique and amazing spin on that genre. Cry Baby tells the story of Wade “Cry Baby” Walker and his bizarre family and gang of Drapes. These are the weirdos and outcasts of Baltimore, the ones Waters himself would identify more with than the Squares of the story.

Baltimore native John Waters is filmdom’s pencil-mustached titan of trash who has spent a lifetime of dumpster-diving into a vat of bad taste, sleaze, kinky gross-outs, over-the-top camp, maudlin melodramatics, sick jokes, taboo sexuality, vulgarity and bizarre personalities. At least he has a fabulous sense of humor. The director is a New York University film school dropout who instead became a scholar of transgressive, envelope-shredding cinema, influenced by the directorial likes of Herschell Gordon Lewis, Federico Fellini, William Castle, Douglas Sirk and Ingmar Bergman. Early on, Waters assembled a stock company of players from suburban Baltimore who he would the Dreamlanders, including Mink Stole and Edith Massey.

But Waters would find his true muse and favorite leading lady in his childhood friend, Glenn Milstead, a drag queen whose alter-ego was known as Divine. When Milstead died at age 42 from an enlarged heart in 1988, Waters’ output went more mainstream, with...

It’s not easy to shock John Waters. The “Pink Flamingos” director spent his career pushing, prodding and profaning the envelope in every way imaginable. But one thing the self-proclaimed “pope of trash” never thought he’d see was a career-spanning show at the Academy Museum.

The exhibition — which features everything from a full-scale trailer home to Ricki Lake’s cockroach-covered dress from the movie “Hairspray” — opened last September and runs through the end of August. Waters spoke to Variety ahead of the opening, but because of the writers’ strike last summer, he wasn’t able to discuss current or upcoming projects.

Back in Los Angeles this weekend, Waters provided a candid live commentary for his first two short films, “Hag in a Black Leather Jacket” and “Roman Candles,” and fielded questions from the audience. When asked how he feels to be paid such respect by the same organization that bestows Oscars,...

Killer Collectibles highlights five of the most exciting new horror products announced each and every week, from toys and apparel to artwork, records, and much more.

Here are the coolest horror collectibles unveiled this week!

The Guyver 4K Uhd from Unearthed Films

The Guyver will merge onto 4K Uhd + Blu-ray + CD on May 21 via Unearthed Films. Based on the Japanese manga series of the same name, the 1991 sci-fi superhero film has been newly restored in 4K from the original, R-rated 35mm camera negative.

Special effects legends Steve Wang (Predator) and Screaming Mad George (Society) co-direct from a script by Jon Purdy. Mark Hamill, Vivian Wu, Jack Armstrong, Jimmie Walker, Michael Berryman, David Gale, and Jeffrey Combs star. Brian Yuzna produces.

New special features include: a commentary by George and Wang; interviews with George and Yuzna; suit tests, outtakes, and a gag reel with commentary; and a gallery. A soundtrack CD...

It's celebration time for Golden Eddie winner The Holdovers

Oppenheimer and The Holdovers continued their awards season success this evening by taking home the top industry prizes for editing at the Golden Eddie awards. Ace member Jennifer Lame and the organisation's president, Kevin Tent, will be celebrating at an after party with DJ Lance Rock.

The Los Angeles ceremony was hosted by Drag Race star Nina West, who kicked it off with a spectacular performance of a new song. It also saw John Waters receive the Ace Golden Eddie Filmmaker of the Year Award for distinguished achievement in the art and business of film, with his past collaborators Mink Stole and Ricki Lake there to applaud him.

Those film awards in full:

Best Edited Feature Film Oppenheimer - Jennifer Lame, Ace

Best Edited Feature Film The Holdovers - Kevin Tent, Ace

Best Edited Animated Feature Film Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse - Michael Andrews,...

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures has unveiled its slate of public programming for the 2024 spring season, which will include a tribute and retrospective of the work of Marlon Brando, a May the 4th “Star Wars” celebration and a world premiere 4K restoration of “Amadeus,” among others.

The Academy Museum will screen John Waters’ short films “Roman Candles” and “Hag in a Black Leather Jacket” with live commentary by Waters. Exhibitions include a celebration of Oscar-winning music in Indian cinema, a film series focused on queer female lensers in early Hollywood, a retrospective on actor Youn Yuh-Jung, a behind-the-scenes presentation of Dykstraflex, used to film the original “Star Wars” trilogy.

Special guests will include Ed Begley Jr., Cary Elwes, Jane Fonda, Yunte Huang, Nyla Innuksuk, Dr. Naomi Oreskes, Patricia Rozema, Bird Runningwater, Mink Stole, John Waters, Youn Yuh-jung and more.

“This spring, we’re delighted to present an array of one-of-a-kind programming,...

15 years ago Diablo Cody and Karyn Kusama joined forced to deliver "Jennifer's Body," a genuine cult classic that went from mismarketed box office failure maligned by critics who didn't understand its brilliance, to the reclaimed favorite that became one of the selling points in the marketing for "Lisa Frankenstein." Cody returns to the teen horror comedy space alongside Zelda Williams (in her feature directorial debut) with a zany, heartfelt, and unapologetically odd story about a particularly peculiar high school outcast named Lisa (Kathryn Newton) who goes on a murderous adventure with the reanimated corpse of a young man — whose grave she hangs out at — in search of new limbs, a sense of autonomy, and maybe even love.

Set against the backdrop of the candy-coated neon bubblegum of the 1980s, "Lisa Frankenstein" makes no qualms about being for weirdos, and by weirdos. It's the resulting lovechild of a raucous orgy between "Edward Scissorhands,...

John Waters was delighted that he’s “closer to the gutter than ever” as his name was added to the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Tuesday.

In his acceptance speech, Waters said that the Walk of Fame was the first landmark he saw when he got to Los Angeles.

“After driving across the country with David Locke, I got out of my vehicle in 1970 at Hollywood and Vine, darted across the street and got a jaywalking ticket,” he recalled. “The first one — and I never looked back.”

Waters’ star is located outside of the Larry Edmunds Bookshop on Hollywood Blvd. and N. Cherokee Ave. Waters said bookstore, which specializes in literature about film and showbiz history, is his favorite spot on the famous street.

The Walk of Fame event, which was sponsored by Outfest, came alongside the newly opened Academy Museum exhibit “John Waters: Pope of Trash,” which looks back...

When John Waters touched down in Hollywood decades ago, he immediately had a run-in with authorities. “I got out of my vehicle in 1970 at Hollywood and Vine and darted across the street and got a jaywalking ticket, the first one, and I never looked back,” recalled the filmmaker while standing at the podium Monday to receive a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.

Waters, surrounded by throngs of fans and well-wishers, found himself not far from that famous intersection, but on the other side of a Hollywood career that has produced such films as Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, Desperate Living, Hairspray, Cry-Baby, Serial Mom, Pecker, Cecil B. Demented and others. And he couldn’t be happier with the gritty Hollywood setting. “God, here I am, closer to the gutter than ever,” quipped the 77-year-old, who has long been referred to as a maestro of “trash” films or the “king of filth.

When John Waters shocked audiences with “Pink Flamingos” more than 50 years ago, he probably didn’t foresee major museum exhibitions of his trashy aesthetic and irreverent filmmaking. But half a century later, he’s become the elder statesman of rebellion, and the Academy Museum is celebrating Baltimore’s treasure with a career-spanning exhibit and accompanying film retrospective.

Opening Sunday in Los Angeles, the extensive exhibit includes 400 pieces over 12 galleries. At the preview, Bill Kramer, CEO of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, said, “John Waters: Pope of Trash is a salute to an individual creative voice and the distinctive contributions he has made over the past six decades, not only to the art of film but to American pop culture.”

Among the many must-see props and costumes on display were the jackets Johnny Depp wore in the 1990 film “Cry Baby” and the prop electric chair from “Female Trouble.

John Waters is no longer a cult filmmaker. The filmmaker, author, artist, actor, and spoken-word performer has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1990 (David Lynch was his sponsor). He’s screened “Hairspray” in the museum’s theater (with a Q&a moderated by Oscar-winner Barry Jenkins). The Academy Film Archive preserved his PSA, “John Waters Doesn’t Want You to Smoke.” He’s even getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. As Waters likes to note, he’s so respectable he could puke.

At this point, everyone loves John Waters. John Waters should be hosting the Oscars, an idea so commonly held that if you ask the upbeat and unerringly polite Academy CEO Bill Kramer the odds of making that happen, you can hear him doing his best not to roll his eyes. “If I had a dime for every time that question’s been asked,...

John Waters looks positive giddy as he perches on the edge of his chair at the Provincetown Film Festival, chuckling as he recalls the bad reviews Variety gave him back in the day.

I recall one from the 1974 write-up for “Female Trouble” — “‘Camp’ is too elegant a word to describe it all” — and he rolls his eyes at the word “camp.” “No one says that word anymore,” he laughs. “To me, ‘camp’ is like two older gay gentlemen talking about Tiffany lampshades in an antique shop. We were never that. We used ‘trash’ or ‘filth,’ which was more punk, to describe our style.”

Trade reviews offered a strange sort of validation for the budding “smut-eur,” who would take the put-downs and twist them to his advantage back in the early ’70s, turning bad blurbs into good publicity for his gonzo stunts. When Fine Line rereleased Waters’ most notorious film, 1972’s “Pink Flamingos,...

Multiple Maniacs. Photographs by Lawrence Irvine courtesy and copyright Dreamland Studios.John Waters still shocks. While the Pope of Trash may now be something of a respectable elder to queer cinema, appearing on talk shows and making annual movie recommendations for Artforum, his films have retained their ability to surprise and challenge the status quo. Works like Mondo Trasho (1969) and Multiple Maniacs (1970) have kept audiences squirming in their seats (and reaching for the barf bags), but they’ve also gained their long-denied critical understanding. They’re now taken seriously, viewed as earnestly as any kind of “respectable” film that doesn’t feature singing anuses, mother-son incest, or rape via giant lobster. Pink Flamingos (1972) is almost certainly the only film in Sight and Sound’s Top 250 greatest films of all-time list that features its lead eating dog feces from the sidewalk.Yet not every aspect of the Waters canon has been given its rightful due.

The Pope of Trash is about to be the Trash of Tinseltown, as John Waters is slated to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The 77-year-old John Waters will receive his star – designated as the 2,763rd – on September 18th as he is surrounded by frequent collaborators Ricki Lake, Mink Stole and Greg Gorman. As part of Waters’ Dreamlanders troupe, Lake has appeared in five films for Waters, most notably Hairspray, while Stole has appeared in every single one, beginning with 1969’s Mondo Trasho. Meanwhile, Gorman has photographed Waters numerous times, capturing some famous images of the director’s trademark pencil mustache.

As per Ana Martinez, producer of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, “John Waters has been a huge part of pop culture for many years…As a director, he has created some of our historic and favorite film moments and we’re thrilled to welcome him to...

The magic of John Waters' 1972 cult classic "Pink Flamingos" is that even after decades, it still possesses the power to disgust and repel audiences. Bearing an Nc-17 rating — it deserves nothing less — "Pink Flamingos" features copious nudity, cannibalism, assault, vomiting, unsimulated sex, torture, real animal death, and real coprophagy. The characters constantly scream about how much they hate the world, and how wallowing in filth is the only thing that brings them true happiness. Indeed, breaking rules, destroying property, shoplifting, public sexual exposure, and eating poop are acts of blissful, pointedly perverted defiance against a world that demands normality. "Pink Flamingos" is a big queer, naked, punk rock middle finger to the pearl-clutching bourgeoisie.

Waters' movies from the 1970s — "Mondo Trasho," "Multiple Maniacs," "Pink Flamingos," "Female Trouble," and "Desperate Living" — are all essentially supervillain movies. Waters once said in an interview with yours truly (an interview that is sadly now...

It’s been an incredibly robust and busy year for horror, which also extends to its physical media releases. The good news is that shopping for the holidays is more manageable than ever. The bad news is that the sheer selection available can be overwhelming, to say the least.

To help, here’s a Bloody Disgusting Gift Guide for some of the year’s best horror releases, from brand new 4K upgrades to must-have collector’s editions and beyond. All are packed with extras and special features to make the discs worth adding to your collection.

These 20 releases are perfect for gifting (or receiving), from deep cuts to new releases.

All About Evil (Special Edition Blu-ray)

“When a mousy librarian (Natasha Lyonne) takes over her late father’s struggling movie theater, a series of grisly murders caught on camera will transform her into the new queen of indie splatter cinema.

Happy Thursday, everyone! We’re going to spend today highlighting all the great horror—both new and old—that has come out on home media throughout the year. And to make things easier for everyone, I’ve broken down everything into categories that should hopefully be helpful as you do your holiday shopping this year.

Cheers!

Recent Horror Hits

Pearl

Filmmaker Ti West returns with another chapter from the twisted world of X, in this astonishing follow-up to the year’s most acclaimed horror film. Trapped on her family’s isolated farm, Pearl must tend to her ailing father under the bitter and overbearing watch of her devout mother. Lusting for a glamorous life like she’s seen in the movies, Pearl’s ambitions, temptations, and repressions all collide, in the stunning, technicolor-inspired origin story of X’s iconic villain.

X

At a secluded farmhouse in Texas, a film crew...

Jamie Babbit's 1999 film "But I'm a Cheerleader" is a broad, colorful satire that takes aim at that most deserving of targets: conversion camps for teens. So-called conversion therapy, openly lambasted by the Human Rights Campaign, is the attempt to alter a young person's sexual orientation or gender identity, often using any number of abusive or manipulative means. As of this writing, conversion therapy is illegal in France, Germany, Spain, Mexico, Albania, Canada, and multiple U.S. States. Bans are pending in other countries. Many of these conversion camps are run by church groups, "ex-gay" ministries, and other non-profit organizations. Many people who have run said camps have come out to denounce them as psychologically torturous. 

In media, conversion camps have appeared as the central setting of several recent major feature films. The 2022 slasher film "They/Them" is set at a conversion camp. The Netflix documentary "Pray Away" -- a shortening...

Hello, everyone! We’re back with the final round of horror and sci-fi home media releases for the month of August, and we’ve got quite a few killer titles headed home today. Scream Factory is giving Paul Schrader’s Cat People remake a 4K overhaul in a brand-new Collector’s Edition release, and Severin Films is keeping busy with several titles today as well, including All About Evil and Fearless, and if you haven’t had a chance to check it out for yourself yet, Jane Schoenbrun’s extremely unsettling We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is headed to Blu-ray this week as well.

Other titles being released on August 30th include Arrow Video’s Giallo Essentials: 3-Disc Limited Edition Collection, Lux Aeterna, Satan’s Children, Jack Be Nimble featuring Alexis Arquette, The Oregonian, Raw Nerve, and Shriek of the Mutilated.

All About Evil: 2-Disc Special Edition

It's...

Pink Flamingos

Blu ray

Criterion

1972 / 1:66:1 / 93 Min.

Starring Divine, Mink Stole, Edith Massey

Written by John Waters

Directed by John Waters

In 1980, J. Hoberman and Jonathan Rosenbaum began an exploration into those elusive films that could only be seen at the witching hour—a time when most theaters were closed and, it was implied, most decent people were home in bed. Published in 1983, their book was a catalogue of curios that defied categorization until Rosenbaum and Hoberman named them: Midnight Movies. But even alongside renegade efforts like Jodorowsky’s El Topo and Jack Smith’s Flaming Creatures, John Waters’ Pink Flamingos stood out as the tarnished gold standard for transgressive entertainment; it felt then, and it feels now, like a genuinely lawless movie—as of this writing, it remains banned in the town of Hicksville, New York.

A gender-bending satire of a great republic’s rush to the bottom,...

There is no greater purveyor and icon of shock cinema than Baltimore’s favorite son, John Waters. From his humblest beginnings making silent shorts in the late ‘60s, he’s always had his thumb firmly up the butt of good taste, but it was 1972’s Pink Flamingos that put him on the map and put the rest of the arthouse community on notice. The story of one woman’s quest to be crowned the filthiest person alive, Pink Flamingos follows the feud between the Babs Johnson (Divine/Glenn Milstead) clan and the despicable duo of Connie (Mink Stole) and Raymond (David Lochary) Marble. Babs dabbles in theft, vandalism, incest, coprophagia all while looking absolutely fabulous and leading a demented crew of societal outcasts with predilections for bestiality, ovaphilia, and...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Digital Release Announced for So Vam: "Distribution Solutions, a division of Alliance Entertainment, announces the Digital release of Mutiny Pictures’ So Vam coming June 21, 2022. The queer horror is impressively co-written, produced, and directed by then 16-year-old Alice Maio Mackay, a young trans filmmaker in her feature debut!

Kurt is a high school outcast in a conservative town who dreams of moving to the city to be a famous drag queen. When he is kidnapped by a predatory old vampire and attacked, he is rescued just in time by a gang of rebellious vampires who feed on bigots and abusers. As a

vampire, he finally knows empowerment and belonging. However, his killer is still out there, creating new minions with their own rotten

hatred and threatening all that he loves. Until Kurt faces the monster, he will never truly be free. But, this time, he need not face it alone.

The...

“A tribute to midnight cinema that wears its influenceson its red-soaked sleeve.” — Screen Anarchy

Following a world premiere at the San Francisco International Film Festival and a limited theatrical run in 2010, Peaches Christ’s All About Evil disappeared underground for years, becoming the stuff of legend. Now, the demented, blood-splattered classic is back for good, courtesy of a June 10th special edition Blu-ray release from Severin Films and a North American streaming release on Shudder June 13th. Here’s the trailer:

To celebrate, Peaches Christ herself will present the film at “Peaches Christ 4-d Screenings” along the West Coast, including the Los Feliz 3 in Los Angeles on June 9 and the Victoria Theater in San Francisco on June 11 where the film was shot. Fans in Los Angeles can also attend a Blu-ray signing event at Dark Delicacies on June 12 with Peaches Christ and members of the cast.

All About Evil combines...

John Waters mixed do-it-yourself moviemaking with don’t-try-this-at-home mayhem to produce the ultimate and most fiercely independent film. Made for $12,000, Pink Flamingos premiered at the Baltimore Film Festival 50 years ago. The cult masterwork replaced Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo as the midnight movie in residence at Elgin Theater in Manhattan and set high and low standards for no-budget motion picture filmmaking.

While the extremely low-budget Plan 9 from Outer Space is renowned as the worst film ever made, Pink Flamingos has a street rep as the raunchiest. Ed Wood’s sci-fi horror mashup cost $60,000 to make, which by 1956 standards is still five times the budget Waters spent. And this from an NYU film school reject who stole textbooks and sold them back to the college bookstore, and went to sleazy exploitation movies more often than going to class.

“I went to New York University, very briefly,” Waters is quoted on Dreamlandnews.

Tw: This article contains references to fictional depictions of sexual assault and animal cruelty that some readers may find disturbing.

Social commentary in motion pictures implies high art. Pink Flamingos, which premiered on a single screen in a rented theater in Baltimore 50 years ago, is an antisocial commentary. It goes in the other direction. Written, directed, produced, shot, edited, and narrated by counterculture icon John Waters, the film features singing assholes, chicken-crushing sexcapades, and dog-doo finger foods. It changed movies forever.

Pink Flamingos was the first of Waters’ “Trash Trilogy,” which would go on to include Female Trouble (1974) and Desperate Living (1977). It led beat poet legend William S. Burroughs to declare Waters the “Pope of Trash,” and was even trashier than Andy Warhol’s Trash. Written and directed by Paul Morrissey, about a heroin addict looking to score and screw, that 1970 film made an impact on Waters, and Andy Warhol paid it forward,...

Exclusive: A new stage production of the 1970s cult comedy Women Behind Bars will stream exclusively on the BroadwayHD platform beginning August 26, with comedian Kathy Griffin hosting the presentation and, in their final performance, the late RuPaul Drag Race star Chi Chi Devayne.

Filmed in early 2020 at Hollywood’s Montalban Theater, the new production of Tom Eyen’s 1975 Off Broadway play also features RuPaul’s Drag Race All-Stars‘ Eureka O’Hara and Ginger Minj, John Waters favorites Mink Stole and Traci Lords, and Miss Coco Peru, Suzie Kennedy, Wesley Woods, Poppy Fields, Tatiana Monteiro and Adrienne Couper Smith.

A parody of 1950s prison exploitation films, the new production has been “reimagined for today’s audience” and was originally produced as a film by Winbrook Entertainment. The 2020 stage production is directed by Scott Thompson and produced for the stage by Just Pow Productions.

In a statement, Griffin described the show as “raunchy,...

The first time director Jamie Babbit heard the song “Both Sides Now” on the radio, it immediately felt familiar.

She realized she knew the song, not from Joni Mitchell’s expansive library of hits, but because it had been sung at the drug and rehab center her mom ran in Ohio, with different lyrics meant to amplify the perils of addiction.

The revamped lyrics went: “I’ve looked at drugs from both sides now. And still somehow it’s drug delusions. I recall, I really don’t like drugs at all.”

“Growing up, I always thought, ‘Wow, that’s a fun song.’ I didn’t think about the lyrics. But obviously my mom was singing it because it was a drug rehab song,” Babbit recently recalled in an interview with Variety. “And then I heard the Joni Mitchell song on the radio and it had totally different lyrics. I was like,...

Stars: Divine, Tab Hunter, Edith Massey, David Samson, Mary Garlington, Ken King | Written and Directed by John Waters

After his prolific 1970s, enfant terrible John Waters directed only two films in the 1980s, at each end of the decade. They were also his two most mainstream and – relatively speaking – palatable works. One was 1988’s Hairspray, and the other was Polyester, made in 1981.

Waters’ muse Divine plays Francine Fishpaw, a middle-aged housewife who’s married to a wealthy porn cinema owner, Elmer (David Samson). They have two teenage kids: the uncontrollable and self-destructive Lu-lu (Mary Garlington), and Dexter (Ken King), whose frustrated foot fetish leads him to a stint in prison after a rampage as the “Baltimore Foot Stomper”.

Like most Waters flicks, there’s no real plot, just a melting pot of outrageous characters doing hideous things to each other. Francine is the glue that holds the tenable parts of the family together.

Baltimore native John Waters is filmdom’s pencil-mustached titan of trash who has spent a lifetime of dumpster-diving into a vat of bad taste, sleaze, kinky gross-outs, over-the-top camp, maudlin melodramatics, sick jokes, taboo sexuality, vulgarity and bizarre personalities. At least he has a fabulous sense of humor. The director, who turns 72 on April 22, is a New York University film school dropout who instead became a scholar of transgressive, envelope-shredding cinema, influenced by the directorial likes of Herschell Gordon Lewis, Federico Fellini, William Castle, Douglas Sirk and Ingmar Bergman. Early on, Waters assembled a stock company of players from suburban Baltimore who he called the Dreamlanders, including Mink Stole and Edith Massey.

SEEHonorary Oscars: Full list of 132 winners from Charlie Chaplin to Cicely Tyson

But Waters would find his true muse and favorite leading lady in his childhood friend, Glenn Milstead, a drag queen whose alter-ego was known as Divine.

In 1997, the Chicago Underground Film Festival held its fourth annual edition on August 13-17 at the Theatre Building at 1225 W. Belmont Avenue. One way the festival promoted itself that year was it published a four-page pull-out section in the Chicago-based political magazine Lumpen, vol. 6 no. 4.

These pages included the entire festival schedule, which the Underground Film Journal has re-created below. In addition, scans of the original Lumpen pages appear at the bottom of this article. This program schedule did not include director names for the most part, but the Journal has included names that we could find through research.

In the Theatre Building, Cuff screened on two screens simultaneously. One theater screened films shot exclusively on film; while the other theater screened films shot exclusively on video. In addition, a Closing Night event of director John Waters‘ live performance piece “Shock Value” took place in the film theater and was simulcast into the video theater.

“She’s just upset because the fish on her plate is the only kind she can eat.”

But I’M A Cheerleader plays this weekend (August 17th and 18th) at The Tivoli at midnight as part of their Reel Late at the Tivoli midnight series.

Natasha Lyonne stars in But I’M A Cheerleader as Megan Williams, a seemingly normal cheer-leader at her local high-school. However, the posters of Melissa Etheridge on her bedroom wall, her less-than-enthusiastic kisses with her boyfriend plus her enthusiasm for tofu lead Megan’s parents and friends to suspect her of being a lesbian, and she is promptly packed off to True Directions, a ‘Sexual Rehabilitation’ camp led by Cathy Moriarty and an out-of-drag RuPaul. Megan’s not even sure that she is a lesbian, but once at the camp she meets several other gay teens, including Clea DuVall’s Graham… The story may be a simple one,...

Female Trouble

Blu ray

Criterion

1974 / 1:66 / Street Date June 26, 2018

Starring Divine, Mink Stole, Edith Massey

Cinematography by John Waters

Directed by John Waters

The story of one woman’s odyssey from trash-talking trouble maker to tabloid superstar, John Waters’ Female Trouble assembles a hot-tempered crew of terrorist fame whores ready for their close up – America’s Got Talent: Apocalypse Now Edition.

The astonishing Divine plays Dawn Davenport, a spiteful social climber with her heart set on a pair of cha cha heels. When Christmas arrives with no fancy footwear in sight, the brawny teenybopper propels her mom into the Douglas fir and hits the road.

The road hits back – she’s immediately assaulted by a leering factory worker (played by Divine), gives birth, works a strip club, walks the streets and mobilizes a cadre of criminally-minded floozies (“upper-echelon cat burglars”) to shake down the neighborhood.

Seduced by nihilistic fashion mavens Donald and Donna Dasher,...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced its summer programming lineup this week for both Los Angeles and New York. A full schedule and tickets for the screenings can be found here: oscars.org/summer-at-the-academy.

Schedule is as follows, participants listed will be in attendance (schedules permitting):

June

Sideways (2004) – June 1 – 7 p.m.

Academy at Metrograph, New York City

With Oscar®-winning co-writer Jim Taylor.

George Stevens Lecture: Alice Adams (1935) – June 4 – 7:30 p.m.

Samuel Goldwyn Theater, Beverly Hills

With Academy Writers Branch governor Robin Swicord.

Acting And Performance Capture:

A Revolution In Technology And Collaboration – June 14 – 7:30 p.m.

Presented by the Academy Science and Technology Council

Samuel Goldwyn Theater, Beverly Hills

Co-hosted by Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor John Nelson and actor Cch Pounder.

With actor Karin Konoval and more.

The Sherman Brothers: A Hollywood Songbook – June 20 – 7:30 p.m.

Samuel Goldwyn Theater, Beverly Hills

With Oscar-winning...

John Waters plays nice but not too nice in this bent scenario about a suburban mom who’s really a serial killer. Starring Kathleen Turner, it’s Mommie Dearest taken to the next level and Waters positively revels in outlandish social satire; he’s like Tex Avery directing a Preston Sturges screenplay (during her trial Turner’s daughter sells merchandise on the courthouse steps). The presence of Waters stalwarts Mink Stole and Mary Vivian Pearce assures us the bad boy from Baltimore hasn’t gone completely Hollywood.

The Criterion Collection is going bowling. Michael Moore’s Oscar-winning documentary “Bowling for Columbine” will be released on DVD and Blu-ray by the Collection this June, ditto “Manila in the Claws of Light,” “El Sur,” “Female Trouble,” and a new edition of Ingmar Bergman’s “The Virgin Spring.”

16 years later, Moore’s take on America’s gun culture in general and the aftermath of the school shooting at Columbine in particular feels more relevant than ever, making this new release nothing if not timely. More information — and, as ever, cover art — below.

Manila in the Claws of Light

“Lino Brocka broke through to international acclaim with this candid portrait of 1970s Manila, the second film in the director’s turn to more serious-minded filmmaking after building a career on mainstream films he described as ‘soaps.’ A young fisherman from a provincial village arrives in the capital on a quest to track down his girlfriend,...

This weekend Toronto horror fans will have plenty of opportunities to celebrate the genre's past as well as its present at Horror-Rama IV, with panels including a look back at Night of the Living Dead with co-writer John A. Russo and remembrances of both George A. Romero and Bob Clark:

Press Release: (Toronto) Horror-Rama is thrilled to welcome actress Ashley C. Williams to her Canadian convention debut!

Ashley found instant cult infamy for her tragic turn in director Tom Six's notorious black-comic horror masterpiece The Human Centipede where she was stitched rear-to-mouth as the middle segment of a mad scientist's insane experiment. In 2015 she received acclaim for her blistering turn in director Matthew A. Brown's psychological horror film Julia and both she and Brown (who will also be attending Horror-Rama 2017) will screen their masterpiece and meet their fans.

Ashley joins previously announced special guests: John Harrison (Creepshow,...

Horror-Rama Toronto, the Only stand-alone horror convention and cult cinema celebration, returns for its 4th year in a larger and wilder space with a gaggle of amazing celebrity guests and cinema icons –including actress Ashley C. Williams in her Canadian convention debut!

Ashley found instant cult infamy for her tragic turn in director Tom Six’s notorious black-comic horror masterpiece The Human Centipede where she was stitched rear-to-mouth as the middle segment of a mad scientist’s insane experiment. In 2015 she received acclaim for her blistering turn in director Matthew A. Brown’s psychological horror film Julia and both she and Brown (who will also be attending Horror-Rama 2017) will screen their masterpiece and meet their fans.

Ashley joins previously announced special guests: John Harrison (Creepshow, Day of the Dead, Tales from the Darkside, Dune); Frank Henenlotter (Basket Case, Brain Damage); Mink Stole (Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, Serial Mom); Vernon Wells...

Director John Harrison (Tales from the Darkside: The Movie) and actress Lesleh Donaldson (Happy Birthday to Me) are joining the list of guests set to attend Horror-Rama Toronto IV, which kicks off on November 4th and will screen cult cinema favorites throughout the weekend!

We have the official press release below with full details on the new guest announcements, and to learn more, visit Horror-Rama Toronto's official website.

Press Release: Horror-rama-toronto IV Celebrating All Things Horror

November 4 & 5, 2017 at 918 Bathurst St., Centre for Culture, Arts, Media, and Education

Just Announced: Lesleh Donaldson and John Harrison attending.

Horror-Rama-Toronto, the Only stand-alone horror convention and cult cinema celebration, returns for its frightful 4th year, in a larger and wilder space with a gaggle of amazing celebrity guests and cinema icons.

The shocking soiree runs November 4 and 5 at the remarkable 918 Bathurst, an arts and culture sanctuary and converted Buddhist temple located just North of Bloor St.

Horror-Rama Toronto, the Only stand-alone horror convention and cult cinema celebration, returns for its 4th year in a larger and wilder space with a gaggle of amazing celebrity guests and cinema icons – including the already announced Frank Henenlotter (Basket Case, Brain Damage); Mink Stole (Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, Serial Mom); Vernon Wells (Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, Commando, Weird Science); Lisa Langlois (Class of 1984, Deadly Eyes); Composer Carl Zittrer (Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things, Black Christmas, Deathdream, Blood Orgy of the She Devils); Illustrator Mike Diana; Artist and Something Weird Video braintrust Lisa Pettrucci; and Night of the Living Dead co-writer and producer John Russo

Horror-Rama organisers have also just announced that the guest line-up will be boosted by two, with the appearance of Scream Queen Lesleh Donaldson (Happy Birthday to Me, Deadly Eyes, Funeral Home) and writer, director and actor John Harrison (Creepshow, Day of the Dead,...

Is Serial Mom John Waters’ best movie?

On the bonus features of the new Scream Factory Blu-ray, the legendary writer/director says that it is. And who am I to disagree? While I think Hairspray is still his most commercially accessible film—there’s a reason it was turned into a hit broadway musical, then adapted for both the big and small screen—Serial Mom is, like Brian De Palma’s adaptation of The Untouchables, a brilliant marriage of a commercial aesthetic and the filmmaker’s true voice. It’s a movie that can appeal to everyone while still being very much a John Waters movie, and for that alone it must be considered a huge success.

Kathleen Turner plays Beverly Sutphin, an idealized 1950s-style housewife with the perfect American family: her husband (Sam Waterston) is a successful dentist and her two teenage kids (Matthew Lillard and Ricki Lake) are happy and well-adjusted.

For this Tuesday’s Blu-ray and DVD releases, we have an eclectic assortment of titles coming home, including films from the likes of Frank Henenlotter, John Waters, Roland Emmerich, and Gus Van Sant's remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s most iconic film. Scream Factory is keeping busy this week with two different titles—Serial Mom and Psycho (1998)—and Arrow Video has put together an impressive special edition set for Henenlotter’s cult classic Brain Damage.

For those who may have missed it earlier this year, the surreal indie horror flick The Void makes it way to DVD on May 9th, and we have a bunch of other notable titles arriving on Tuesday, too, including Making Contact, American Mummy, The Gorenos, Clown Kill, and The Evangelist.

Brain Damage: 2-Disc Special Edition (Arrow Video, Blu-ray)

It’S A Headache From Hell! From Frank Henenlotter, the man behind such cult horror favourites as Basket Case and Frankenhooker,...

This week, Scream Factory is releasing a fantastic Collector’s Edition Blu-ray for John Waters’ subversive domestic comedy, Serial Mom, which follows a well-meaning mother (Kathleen Turner) who embarks on a murderous rampage after she finds out that certain folks are out to harm certain members of her loving family. In Serial Mom, frequent Waters collaborator Mink Stole stars as Dottie Hinkle, the bane of Turner’s character’s existent and tormented victim of her malicious sense of humor.

To celebrate the brand new Blu from Scream Factory, Daily Dead had the pleasure of speaking with Stole about her career, from starting out with Waters during the 1960s through her experiences on a variety of his other cinematic projects, including Pink Flamingos, Hairspray, and, of course, Serial Mom. Stole also reflected about her time on the set of Waters’ 1994 dark comedy, working with Turner and more.

Great to speak with you,...

The "perfect" nuclear family gets a blood-stained twist as only John Waters can provide in Serial Mom, and Scream Factory is releasing the cult 1994 film on a Collector's Edition Blu-ray that would meet even Beverly Sutphin's high standards. To celebrate the new home media release, we've been provided with three Blu-ray copies to give away to lucky Daily Dead readers.

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Prize Details: (3) Winners will receive (1) Collector's Edition Blu-ray copy of Serial Mom.

How to Enter: We're giving Daily Dead readers multiple chances to enter and win:

1. Instagram: Following us on Instagram during the contest period will give you an automatic contest entry. Make sure to follow us at:

https://www.instagram.com/dailydead/

2. Email: For a chance to win via email, send an email to [email protected] with the subject “Serial Mom Contest”. Be sure to include your name and mailing address.

Entry Details: The contest will end at...

On May 9th, Scream Factory is going to remind viewers why you don't dare cross Beverly Sutphin with their Collector's Edition Blu-ray release of John Waters' Serial Mom, and we have high-def clips and a trailer that tease what to expect from the new home media release.

Serial Mom Collector's Edition Blu-ray: "Every woman wants to be wanted… just not for Murder One!

Director John Waters (Pink Flamingos, Hairspray) brings his twisted cinematic vision to the seemingly mundane world of suburbia in Serial Mom, an outrageous dark comedy starring Kathleen Turner (Body Heat, Romancing The Stone).

Beverly (Turner) is the perfect happy homemaker. Along with her doting husband Eugene (Sam Waterston) and two children, Misty (Ricki Lake) and Chip (Matthew Lillard), she lives a life straight out of Good Housekeeping. But this nuclear family just might explode when Beverly's fascination with serial killers collides with her ever-so-proper code of...

Commentary Commentary“Now this is especially hideous. There’s no possible reason that this shot is in the movie.”Multiple Maniacs (1970)

Commentator: John Waters (director, writer, producer, cinematographer, editor)

1. Frequent Criterion Films partner, Janus Films, has been a big part of Waters’ life, and he’s thrilled to be recording this track on the day this film was actually premiering in a Janus art theater. They “were the first ever to show [Ingmar] Bergman to me when I was in high school, I’d see art movies and it was always Janus Films. Criterion always was a class act with what kind of films they’d pick, so I’m incredibly honored that they’d pick to distribute this movie.”

2. “Is it ironic, or is it a natural ending to my career in the best kind of way,” he says regarding his arrival on the Criterion label. He adds the film is what he started with (it was...

From the opening of Multiple Maniacs when Mr. David introduces us to Lady Divine’s Cavalcade of Perversion are we being introduced to John Waters’ own perversion? And how long do we want to stay? Divine’s entrance is as an engorged Elizabeth Taylor bathed in shimmering white light furthering the early mystique of Divine and her Cavacade. From robbing to rosaries, movie posters to murder John Waters is “performing acts” as we have truly entered Waters’ World.

“Produced, directed, written, filmed, and edited by John Waters” – auteur: check. Multiple Maniacs is not a high-budget film and was certainly never screened before the hours of midnight in the 1970’s. Waters made the film for $5000 borrowed from his father also borrowing the land surrounding their house to set the film. During the making of his first film, Mondo Trasho, he was arrested by the police so the early scenes of Multiple Maniacs...