You'll either laugh heartily at "A Dirty Shame" or feel unclean - unclean, perhaps, in the biblical sense. Director John Waters takes us to a working class neighborhood in Baltimore where Sylvia Stickles (Tracey Ullman) and her husband Vaughn (Chris Isaak) keep their libidinous stripper daughter, Caprice (Selma Blair), under literal house arrest, apparently under court order. The always marvelous Ms. Blair sports enhanced breasts whose size isn't given but, conservatively, I'd say they're about 60 DDDDDDDD. (Amusingly, Ms. Blair's actual mammary appendages, as observed in a nude scene from an Indie film a few years ago, are of the type that one former girlfriend described, sadly, as "my bee stings.")
Gays and lesbians are moving into the neighborhood to the disgust of Caprice's convenience store-owning grandma, Big Ethel (Suzanne Shepherd). She wants to organize the community to fight depravity through civic action and she seeks, "Neuters," folks who aren't sex crazy - in fact, she wants the most frigid types possible.
The story takes a bizarre twist when Sylvia is hit on the head and her mild concussion turns her instantly into a nymphomaniac. She's both helped and serviced by Ray-Ray (Johnny Knoxville) who turns out to be the Big Guru of a platoon of concussed sex fetishists (every taste is represented, many of which are truly tasteless).
The story becomes increasingly frenetic, anarchic and bizarre as the concussed ones do their thing in public. There's a very funny take on 12-Step programs and the meeting of sufferers introduces another sexaholic, Paige, played by occasional actress Patricia Hearst who made her screen debut thirty years ago in a grainy bank security film.
There's no way to Take "A Dirty Shame" seriously. It's one sex spoof after the other. The scenes are manic with some good special effects. Ullman and Shepherd are particularly good in their over-the-top roles. But everyone in this movie is flying.
In case you're wondering, both medical literature and law cases do describe near instant nymphomania and satyriasis from head blows. But I don't think Waters was thinking about that when he put this romping raunch flick together.
7/10 and definitely not an Oscar contender for 2005.
Gays and lesbians are moving into the neighborhood to the disgust of Caprice's convenience store-owning grandma, Big Ethel (Suzanne Shepherd). She wants to organize the community to fight depravity through civic action and she seeks, "Neuters," folks who aren't sex crazy - in fact, she wants the most frigid types possible.
The story takes a bizarre twist when Sylvia is hit on the head and her mild concussion turns her instantly into a nymphomaniac. She's both helped and serviced by Ray-Ray (Johnny Knoxville) who turns out to be the Big Guru of a platoon of concussed sex fetishists (every taste is represented, many of which are truly tasteless).
The story becomes increasingly frenetic, anarchic and bizarre as the concussed ones do their thing in public. There's a very funny take on 12-Step programs and the meeting of sufferers introduces another sexaholic, Paige, played by occasional actress Patricia Hearst who made her screen debut thirty years ago in a grainy bank security film.
There's no way to Take "A Dirty Shame" seriously. It's one sex spoof after the other. The scenes are manic with some good special effects. Ullman and Shepherd are particularly good in their over-the-top roles. But everyone in this movie is flying.
In case you're wondering, both medical literature and law cases do describe near instant nymphomania and satyriasis from head blows. But I don't think Waters was thinking about that when he put this romping raunch flick together.
7/10 and definitely not an Oscar contender for 2005.