PINK FLAMINGOS
Prod/Dir by John Waters

"I guess there's just two kinds of people. . .my kind of people and assholes. It's rather obvious which category you fit into. Have a nice day." With those words, Connie Marble (a delicious Mink Stole replete with garish red hair and cat's eye glasses) dismisses a job applicant. Connie's gauche criminal life with her blue-haired husband, Raymond (the equally delicious David Lochary), unfolds in John Waters’ classic trash opus. Sporting red and blue pubic hair, respectively, Connie and Raymond suck each other’s toes as they plot to become the “Filthiest People Alive” in downtown Baltimore. Connie and Raymond run a black market baby ring where hitchhikers are kidnapped, raped by the Marble’s cross dressing butler, Channing (Channing Wilroy), and left for dead after childbirth. The babies are sold to lesbian couples. As a gesture of filth, the Marble’s have no qualms about mailing a box of Raymond's crap to an enemy. But a formidable enemy it is. The Marble’s crimes pale to those of the trailer trash family headed by the reigning Filthiest Person Alive, obese transvestite Babs Johnson/Divine (in a hilarious, stunning role that erases the line between “actress” and character). Waters’ camera unflinchingly captures the family’s depraved accomplishments: breaking into a house to drool on the dinner table settings, shoplifting meat by hiding it in a sweaty crotch, crapping on someone's lawn, killing a chicken in a bloody sex act, and participating in voyeurism, incest, and cannibalism. Even the Marble’s show disgust in a memorable scene that’s best left as a surprise.

Pink Flamingos is the grand mal seizure of trash, poorly shot and "acted" by Waters' friends. Each evil line (a.k.a. "every sentence") is delivered in a drugged-sounding drawl, even when the characters are screeching at each other, which is often. Waters' funny dialogue--often missed on the first viewing because of the visuals--is genius. Divine has several great, ranting monologues. If you're new to the genre, this film is the jumping off point of shock cinema. It is a trash masterpiece. Waters' makes filth an art form while extending a middle finger to the mainstream.

And yes, Divine eats dog shit in a moment that, true to the best trash films, has NOTHING to do with the plot. Tacked onto the end of the film, the deed is done in one shot. Divine takes a handful of loose stool fresh from a squatting mutt’s ass and puts it in her mouth. The camera zooms to a close up of the only TRUE shit-eating grin in cinema. Divine gags. You'll get tears in your eyes. Mine are tears of joy. Rarely in the annuls of trash film have performers given so much for their art. Bless these Baltimore denizens. Bless Saint Waters.

-Zzilly Gutbuckets