Cecil B Demented (2001)

After the disappointment of the previous film (I don't even want to say it name), I retreated to a cantankerous old friend, John Waters and his film, Cecil B Demented. I've never been in any rush to see his films in a completist way and if anything, i love the man for himself, less than his films but they have a delightful distasteful fug them. I don't know why but the 3 or 4 films of his i've seen, have a comforting simple entertaining trashyness about them like fast food. They're superfluous, salty and probably bad for you. I love his sense of absurdity like in this film, he has a character that's continually torturing one of the main characters, as a way of venting his own frustration at being heterosexual and that his life would be so much easier if he were gay!
Cecil B Demented is the story of a wannabe director and his cult-like desciples who kidnap a Hollywood actress, for the purpose of using her to make a movie. But this is more or less, a vehicle for Waters to vent about Hollywood and how fay their movies have become. Cecil's gang/crew have directors like Fassbinder and Sam Fuller and William Castle tattooed on their body and Cecil takes time give sermons on the weight movies used to carry, while they hang on his every word. The Hollywood actress, played by Melanie Griffith, exemplifies everything wrong with them- she stars in these trite romantic comedies, that are offensive by their inoffensiveness.
Another delightful surprise about the film is that 10 or 11years later, it features glimpses at a youthful Maggie Gyllenhall and Michael Shannon. They look so cute!
The point of Water's message is 'I don't care if you make high drama or pornography but do something that makes me feel!'. I mean obviously the idea of an audience paying to see Patch Adams 2 or a sequel to Forest Gump is a joke (and a righteously distasteful Waters-ean joke at that!) and but, there's obviously a realistic sense that it's not exactly far from reality in this 'Wild Hogs/Old Dogs' industry.
There are many sight gags set by Waters like cinemas showing the likes of Lake Placid 2 and Scream 4,obviously auspicious by the reality that they actually exist nowadays.

I watched Cecil B Demented (2001) on LoveFilm Online.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Screwed (2010)...

Teenage Paparazzi (2010)

And so this is the inaugural documentary of the blog. 
I love documentary and I love that documentary is more mainstream and theatrical then ever. Two of the best loved films of last year were Exit Through the Gift Shop and Catfish. But i wanted to define where the line between TV doc. and feature film doc. was- so while i saw Teenage Paparazzo on TV, i decided since it was included at Sundance... I think it counts.


You have to at least admit, it's a direct unmistakable title. The paparazzo is Austin and he's 13. I appreciate that Grenier comes to the conclusion early that we live in a world consumed by celebrity interest, especially by teens and this is LA. Since it only takes a few hours after school, it's practically the Californian equivalent of a paper-round.
Okay, not quite but the film really succeeds in selling one of the most scummy occupations around-it's fast and dangerous, you get to see famous people and get paid stupid money.

What Grenier and his crew brilliantly capture is how equally exciting and terrifying being a pap can be-chasing Austin around as he's chasing Lindsey or be acausted by winos on the late night streets of LA.
By this point you wonder how this situation has got this far? How has Austin survived running with the bloodthirsty LA paparazzi but you seen how much equal respect there is for Austin from the hacks-they protect him in scenes similar to when maggie gets adopted by grizzly bears in the woods on The Simpsons.
But the film also highlights Austin's double standard- he can get great photos cos he's small and he can get people attention cos he's so young.
Austin's mother (his main guardian) comes off pretty well too, as an astute woman, who treats Austin's part-time job like an after school sport and doesn't seem like a 'stagemother' at all. That said, for all her assertions that 'at least he's not on drugs'- considering the aforementioned money and excitement, you could understand how a young mind might become warped by that. Which arrives perfectly on time for the 2nd act development- the teenage paparazzo becomes the focus of worldwide interest... And almost right up until the end, the film doesn't fall into the perpetual mirror-echo of cameras filming cameras.
In it's curiousity about the relationship between the public and celebrity and the weight that fame carries, it's reminiscent of Chris Atkins' Starsuckers except this is more a story than academic indictment.
The paps (and wierdly Lewis Black) argue that celebrities enter the public eye in the hope of attention and that they shouldn't bite the hand that feeds them but i think 'celebs' are prepared to publicise their work as you or i would network for our living but being obstructed and stalked can't be acceptable, can it? I mean Lewis Black is a road Comedian and might work 252days/year but i don't expect he's required to be funny at, say, the dentist and if he is... he probably doesn't feel like it.


I watched Teenage Paparazzo on Channel4. (Unfortunately unavailable on demand...)
My 2011 in Movies will return with The Green Hornet (2011)...