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| Genre: | Comedy |
| Year: | 2000 |
| Rating: | R |
| Length: | 1 Hour 28 Minutes |
| Cast: | John Waters, Melanie Griffith, Stephen Dorff, Alicia Witt |
A mediocre Hollywood star, Honey Whitlock (Melanie Griffith) is kidnapped at a film premiere by a group of "cinema terrorists." Called the "Sprocket Holes" and led by director Cecil B. Demented (Stephen Dorff), these malcontents bear a faint resemblance to both the SLA (the group that captured Patty Hearst, who of course has a cameo) and the chic radical leftist group the Weathermen. Waters has confessed to loving the antics of these radicals, so it's hardly a shock their fashion sense and taste for blunt statements ("Celibacy for Cinema!") are reflected in Cecil. Fans who fondly remember the desperate fringe days of Waters's early surrealist work (particularly Female Trouble, Multiple Maniacs, Pink Flamingos) may have felt his Pecker too saccharine and cuddly. Thankfully, Cecil B. Demented is a partial throwback to the fragrant, colorful anarchy of those films. The gags are as fast and sloppy as a good kiss, but never less than amusing. From the corny, iconic tattoos on the terrorists' arms (including Fassbinder, Preminger, Spike Lee, Warhol, Fuller, Lynch, and William Castle) to the multiplexes boasting the Patch Adams director's cut, no one gets out of Waters's world alive. Incidentally, this cranky, whirligig satire is also his most political film since the civil rights musical Hairspray. Eddy Crouse
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