Divinely trashy director captures his one-man vaudeville show. And there's never a dull moment

POPE OF FILTH; John Waters might have had to invent himself if he didn’t exist. His story is well known to gays and straights alike, but it’s always fun to hear it again.

"This Filthy World"
Dokument Films, $19.98

In his one-man show, captured in New York in 2006, John Waters just stands there talking for 85 minutes. And there's never a dull moment.

Jeff Garlin's direction consists of cutting between cameras, TV style. Waters enters from a confessional booth and never looks back as he provides a running commentary on his life and career.

There are stories of growing up in Baltimore, shoplifting with Divine, shocking the neighbors or not as they made their little movies. And yes, they were on drugs when they made them.

Starting with "Pink Flamingos" the titles become more familiar. Waters tells a few stories about each and goes off on a lot of tangents. Familiar or not, it's all fun to hear.

He's still in touch with Johnny Depp. The fart remains on "Polyester's" Odorama scratch-and-sniff cards but the glue has been replaced with something less provocative. Waters was as surprised by the NC-17 rating on "A Dirty Shame" as he was by the "PG" for the original "Hairspray."

The worst-taste thing Waters ever did? Making "The Dianne Linkletter Story:" Waters was on LSD, and he made the suicide film so quickly it was shown before Dianne's funeral.

But, as Waters points out, the film wasn't as tasteless as the anti-drug album Art Linkletter released to capitalize on his daughter's death.

Waters tells anecdotes about each and goes off on a lot of tangents. There's plenty about his hobby of going to trials and about bizarre sex practices he's discovered or invented (and how "teabagging" has given way to "helicoptering" at a certain Baltimore bar).

Waters pays tribute to artists and showmen who influenced him - William Castle, Kroger Babb, the Kuchar Brothers, Kenneth Anger, Andy Warhol - and takes shots at a few celebrities: Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett and, "The first time [Divine] met Richard Simmons, he felt homophobic!"

"This is not a lecture," Waters says at the beginning. "This is vaudeville."

Well, there's only one act and no singing, although he sometimes juggles several topics Let's just call it entertainment.

Grade: B


"Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea"
New Video Group, $26.95

John Waters was the perfect choice to narrate this documentary about a California low point, geographically and aesthetically. Waters could cast his next movie with the local residents, who make the place look like Baltimore West. While the locals tell most of the story themselves, Waters periodically pops up on the soundtrack with facts and comments about the place he calls "wonderfully bizarre."

An inland sea in the middle of the desert, the Salton Sea was created a century ago by "an engineering screw-up" when water was diverted from the Colorado River to California's Imperial Valley.

In the 1950s they planned to create a retirement community and lure tourists. But after a brief heyday in the 1960s, the little that was actually built was destroyed or submerged by the floods of 1976 and '77.

Most of the first wave of settlers have moved on, one way or another. And while a couple of people are still trying to sell real estate, the local politicians would rather be left alone.

Directors Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer have gathered quite a human menagerie, apparently representative of the area. If the Salton Sea didn't exist, John Waters would have had to invent it.

Grade: B


SCISSOR SUPERGROUP

If you caught and loved the Scissor Sisters' stop at the Palladium Ballroom in March, you'll want to re-live the excitement. The new DVD "Hurrah: A Year of Ta-Dah," ($19.98, Universal) comes out on Dec. 4. It includes a 90-minute concert filmed in London. But the accompanying documentary is fun, funny and shows why the Sisters deliver such fabulous performances: because they never stop having a good time.



This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition November 30, 2007