A Dirty Shame (2004)

That was an excellent one.

I'll tell you why so serious

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Depressed puritanical housewife Sylvia Stickles (Tracey Ullman) with a nice but horny husband (Chris Isaak) and a HUGE breasted kid (Selma Blair) is hit on the head one day. It immediately turns her into a raving sex addict and she finds there's a whole group of people like her led by Ray Ray Perkins (Johnny Knoxville).First off I should mention I saw the 84 minute R rated cut and not the 89 minute NC-17 one. Some of the cuts were obvious as were the voice overdubs but I don't think it changed the movie a lot. What I saw was a typically strange John Waters film with plenty of good moments but it didn't totally work. The main problem is the script is all over the place! The first half of the movie is coherent but the film totally derails during the second half. Complications come on fast and furious and it all ends up not making a lot of sense. The movie is chockful of dialogue discussing frank sexual acts and some incredibly unsubtle imagery. Some of it works but, more often than not, it just doesn't hit its mark. A cameo by David Hasselhoff particularly makes no sense and isn't funny at all. Also the pacing here is atrocious--but that's not uncommon in a Water film. Acting really helps this one. Ullman is fearless here considering some of her very sexually explicit lines and costumes. Blair deserves a lot of credit for wearing these HUGE breasts and making the character sympathetic and believable. Isaak is given little to do but he's good. Best of all is Knoxville who has a real difficult role to play--and pulls it off. So, it has its moments but not enough of them. I can only give this a 5.

I'd never heard of this movie which I watched last night purely on the basis of Chris Isaak's being in it. When it was over, and I had gathered my jaw off the floor, what I believed I'd seen was a wrongheaded attempt at a John Waters movie, without any of the wit or skill. Imagine my surprise to discover this IS a John Waters movie. Where to start? The blank-eyed performances? The screwed-up dualism? The awful editing and pacing? The banal innuendo? The heartless sexual politics? Maybe you need to be American and to have suffered the crazy US religious right to really get this movie - to the rest of us, it feels like someone crossing the street to pee on a Madonna statue... Therapeutic for them but a bit embarrassing if you're with them. The worst thing is, it's almost put me off Chris Isaak for going anywhere near a script this bad. I'll never be able to watch Wicked Game in the same light!

... because the soundtrack is absolutely great. John Waters is a true connaisseur of 1950ies rockabilly music.Also a shame about the great cast consisting of Tracey Ullman, Selma Blair, Chris Isaak ... erm, and Patty Hearst and David Hasselhoff (aka his Hoffness). And a bunch of surprisingly effective unknowns. It's a John Waters movie, after all.This is a pastiche that plays off sexual depravity against a 1950ies style puritanism. A stolid housewife gets whacked over the head, turns into a sexfiend, and joins the local league of sexual perverts, each of which developed a fetish such as "paydaying" (you'll find out) after getting whacked on the head. There are many conversations like this in this movie: "I'm horny, I need hard cock!" -- "Wash your mouth out with soap and water, sexuality is a sacred duty." When was this ever funny or captivating? Never. But it is particularly out of place in an age where there is a whole, worldwide medium almost solely dedicated to the exploration of every last perversion the human mind is capable of -- and writing cinema reviews. This movie really needs a storyline.

Everyone who took part in this movie should be ashamed.Even actors who I actually like have totally collapsed before my eyes.Seeking any deep meaning and symbolism in this movie is just absurd.It completely lacks any originality.Istead there is some kind of redneckish humour in which there can't be any allegory - it is what it is - incredibly flat and superficial.I love sex jokes but they should at least be funny,not just a line of dirty words and gross images of horny old people.I voted with one star just because there is no option to vote with half or less,but this movie doesn't deserve even that much (well,maybe for the music,but that is quite merciful).Seriously,one of the worst movies ever made.