To celebrate John Waters' birthday, why not buy yourself something fun that will also benefit him?
Purchase the DVD of his scandalously underseen and underappreciated "This Filthy World," his one-man stage show turned one-man movie. (That's Waters presenting it at the Berlin Film Festival, left.) Jeff Garlin, best known for playing Larry David's manager on "Curb Your Enthusiasm," directed, without diluting Waters one bit.
Waters emerges from a fake confessional onto the stage of the Harry De Jur Playhouse in New York in a black jacket with white trim that makes him look like a negative of the Music Man. Waters wants to stir up trouble in New York City, River City, every city.
He describes Baltimore in loving and uproarious detail as a place where people think they're normal but are insane from the get-go. To his mind, that makes it the opposite of New York.
In a tone that alternates between amusement and amazement, Waters presents a terrific argument for nourishing the untrammeled imagination. Waters was the kind of kid always drawn to books marked "see librarian," such as "Freud's Three Famous Case Histories."
He takes the attitude that if a kid is old enough to have heard of William Burroughs' "Naked Lunch," he should be old enough to read it. "This Filthy World" does many things, including transform tabloid commentary into comic art.
But at its best, it shows that the child is father to the wild man.
What are your favorite Waters movies?
Photo by Markus Schreiber