John Waters

[MacGuffin]

Director John Waters recalls career of bad taste

Director John Waters, self-confessed king of all things tasteless and tacky, celebrates a life spent shocking audiences and mocking the movie world in a film version of his stand-up act.

In "This Filthy World," Waters delivers a rapid-fire monologue about life in film, from his first home-made picture "Hag in a Black Leather Jacket," reportedly costing $30, to international fame for cross-dressing classic "Hairspray."

The "Pope of Trash" was in Berlin this week to present the film, and the laughter and applause at a packed screening late on Monday showed his cult following spreads well beyond the shores of his native America.

The moustachioed 60-year-old ruminates on everything from shop-lifting as a boy to battles with movie censors, and from how to make voting more attractive to young people to what is wrong with capital punishment.

"I am against it (capital punishment) for the reason that I'm afraid I'll get it," he quipped. "We all have bad nights."

He also had advice to gay people trying too hard to act as they feel they ought to.

"You don't have to like Liza Minnelli," Waters told a live audience at a U.S. college where "This Filthy World" was shot over two nights. "And S & M does look stupid on the beach."

When he was younger, Waters said he used to tour courtrooms across the United States to get ideas for his films, and he and other members of the public would boast to each other about which famous cases they had watched.

One woman topped them all, however, when she told him: "I was at Nuremberg," referring to the trial of leading German Nazis after World War Two.

The arch-provocateur also recalls his long collaboration with Divine, the obese, cross-dressing star of many of his movies including "Pink Flamingos," which includes the infamous scene where his character eats dog feces.

"I'm not a sadist, it was only one take," joked the director.

Another of their collaborations was "Polyester," where audiences were given scratch-n-sniff cards so they could smell what they saw on film.

Asked if his movies had become tame over time, and whether he would return to the more cutting edge pictures of the past, Waters told the audience after the film was shown:

"I never want to go backwards and do something I did before. If I wanted to do what I did at the very beginning I wouldn't be here any more."

He was also asked if wanted to make a spoof of a science fiction movie, one of the genres he had yet to tackle. "That's the only genre I could never do," he said. "I don't get it."

And his next venture? A "very weird" children's movie for "special children and their even more special parents."

[MacGuffin]

From cult to kid movies. Has John Waters mellowed?

After years as a cult filmmaker specializing in all things tasteless and weird, John Waters has edged closer to the mainstream with two recent projects -- a children's film and starring role in a TV drama.

Over the past four decades, Waters, 60, has gradually moved from underground movies to more commercial films, acting, screenwriting and photography, and this year will shoot a "terribly wonderful children's Christmas adventure called 'Fruitcake."'

One of his best-known films, "Hairspray," is headed back to the big screen in a New Line Cinema remake starring John Travolta.

While Waters is enjoying more mainstream acceptance, one thing has not changed -- his fascination for the macabre, which attracted him to another project, playing the narrator, or "Groom Reaper," in a Court TV cable series dramatizing real-life murderous marriages.

"I'm known for humor that makes people a bit nervous, but I'm never mean spirited. I've done horror but with a wink," Waters told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"Have I gone more mainstream? I think the general public has changed more than I, but you do have to reinvent yourself," he said.

Waters said his work still causes a stir, even though it may no longer be quite so shocking as the notorious scene at the end of his 1972 film "Pink Flamingos" in which the obese, cross-dressing lead character eats dog feces.

As an example, he cites his 2004 movie "A Dirty Shame," about a suburban housewife who becomes a sex addict after she is hit on the head.

"It was a huge censorship hassle," Waters recalled.

But a children's movie?

"Children have always enjoyed my movies. They are just not allowed to watch many of them," he said.

Waters expects his fans to enjoy the dark humor in the 13-part TV true-crime drama series "Til Death Do Us Part," which debuts on Court TV on March 19, featuring a different story each week that always ends in murder by one of the spouses.

Waters said the role of the moderator was irresistible to him because since an early age he had been intrigued by crime and what leads ordinary people to do something terrible. He used to spend days in courtrooms watching trials until he kept being recognized.

"It's a sardonic part in a TV show that is about a serious topic. Everyone has that moment when they say one little thing that really gets on your nerves," he said.

"The stories we do are all based on regular people. These are the people who live in your neighborhood and had a wedding as optimistic as you did. The main question is why they did not get divorced.

"Stay single and stay alive. That's my theory."

[MacGuffin]

Johnny Knoxville, Parker Posey join 'Fruitcake'
John Waters' film may go to ThinkFilm
Source: Hollywood Reporter

Johnny Knoxville and Parker Posey are attached to star in John Waters' Christmas film "Fruitcake."

The plot is officially under wraps but is said to center on the title character, a boy named after his favorite dessert. He runs away from home during the holidays after he and his parents are caught shoplifting meat, then meets up with a runaway girl raised by two gay men and searching for her birth mother.

This Is That Prods. and Killer Films are producing "Fruitcake," which once was set up at New Line. ThinkFilm is said to be in talks to come aboard.

[Bethie]

John Waters Notes to Obama

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/world_news_america/7814498.stm

[wilder]

[jenkins]

**** a John Waters Criterion video has happened ****

[jenkins]

jesus christ:

HAIRSPRAY (1988) 30TH ANNIVERSARY
JUL 23 7:30PM PT

Samuel Goldwyn Theater

With writer-director John Waters, cast members Deborah Harry, Ricki Lake, Clayton Prince, Mink Stole, Pia Zadora and more. Hosted by Oscar-winning writer-director Barry Jenkins.

Tickets on sale July 2, 2018.

[wilder]

John Waters Returns to Filmmaking After Nearly 20 Years to Direct Adaptation of His Novel 'Liarmouth'
Variety

Legendary filmmaker John Waters is stepping back to the director's chair for the first time in 18 years, for an adaptation of his 2022 novel "Liarmouth: A Feel-Bad Romance." Waters — a pioneering independent filmmaker who catapulted to cinema infamy with bad taste masterpieces like 1972's "Pink Flamingos" and 1981's "Polyester" — will write and direct the project for Village Roadshow, with Steve Rabineau producing. It will be Waters' first movie since 2004's "A Dirty Shame."

"'Liarmouth' is the craziest thing I've written in a while so maybe it's fitting that my novel was shocking enough to jumpstart the engine of my film career," the 76-year-old filmmaker said in a statement. "Thrilled to be back in the movie business, hopefully to spread demented joy to adventuresome moviegoers around the world."

The novel follows three generations of women in the same family: Adora, who runs an unauthorized veterinarian practice on the Upper East Side of Manhattan that specializes in plastic surgery for pets; Adora's daughter Marsha, a pathological thief and misanthrope who is the "liarmouth" of the title; and Marsha's daughter Poppy, who runs a trampoline park on the outskirts of Baltimore. Eventually, they all conspire to kill each other.

"Liarmouth" is, somehow, Waters' debut novel. In the 1980s and '90s, he shifted from the gleeful fringe of subversive cult cinema into a kind of mainstream avatar for his own queer, campy sensibility, especially after his 1988 film "Hairspray" was adapted into a Tony-winning Broadway hit musical in 2002, and then re-adapted into a 2007 feature film. But after "A Dirty Shame," Waters stepped away from filmmaking, publishing a series of non-fiction books, touring with spoken word performances, and appearing in a series of cameos in other film and TV projects.

The deal for "Liarmouth" was handled by Jack Tantleff at Paradigm, on behalf of Bill Clegg at The Clegg Agency and Waters' lawyer Jason P. Hendler at Hansen, Jacobson, Teller, Hoberman, Newman, Warren, Richman, Rush, Kaller & Gellman, L.L.P.

[ono]

A Dirty Shame was pretty bad.  No wonder it's been so long.  But maybe Waters just isn't my thing.

It will be Waters' first movie since 2004's "A Dirty Shame."

... Waters' lawyer Jason P. Hendler at Hansen, Jacobson, Teller, Hoberman, Newman, Warren, Richman, Rush, Kaller & Gellman, L.L.P.

LOL.