CECIL B DEMENTED (written and directed by John Waters, USA, 2000, 88 minutes, colour; starring Stephen Dorff, Adrian Grenier, Melanie Griffith, Patricia Campbell Hearst, Mink Stole, Alicia Witt et al.)

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Of course, the guerilla defense of low-budget, DIY pictures isa theme of Cecil, so the relatively small audience for Mr. Waters' latest is an irony greater than any in the film itself, and simultaneously validates and makes more disturbing the message about the pervasive nature of Hollywood 'subversion', not to mention, given John's declarations that he has little anger left, providing justification for ill feelings.

Basically, the film deals with one Honey Whitlock (Griffith), a publicly sweet and bubbly comic actress who is privately mean-spirited, vulgar and spoiled rotten, and what happens to her when she is kidnapped by the Sprocket Holes, a cinematic terrorist cult led by one Cecil B. Demented (Dorff) and forced to make their film 'Raving Beauty', which is an exercise in cinema verite (shot on location, using real people, real light and real bullets and bombs).

Honey's co-stars are Cherish (Witt), a former porno star who has serious baggage due to recovered memories of being raped around the Christmas tree (some of the best, if most tasteless, humour in the picture centers on those recollections, though one gathers John is skeptical about the whole concept of recovered memory) and Lyle (Grenier), a perpetually drug-addled fellow. The crew are not much better, consisting as they do of the likes of: sadistic, self-loathing-straight hairdresser Rodney; good-ol'-gay-boy chauffeur Petie; masturbation-obsessed costume designer Fidget; semi-drag-kingy control freak producer Dinah; and so much more.

Over time, Cecil and crew brainwash and/or convince Honey to join their war against mainstream cinema and for their own film, though it takes little effort, which suggests she is dissatisfied with her 'wonderful' life to begin with.

This film is not as heartwarming as Pecker or Hairspray, but not as horrifying and vicious as Pink Flamingos or Serial Mom. It is Waters on medium spin, which is still intense compared to the average Hollywood picture. I would, however, agree with critics who suggest he is becoming tamer, and that some of his more recent works might be disliked by the Sprocket Holes, an irony too delicious to be unintentional.

Putting revised revolutionary slogans in the mouths of the characters was genius, and Honey's grating whine is almost a star in and of itself.

However, the second time around, some of it STILL seems repetitive, recycling ideas used in earlier Waters films (weapons hidden in hairdos; concepts like 'beauty comes from pain'; diatribes about how 'family is a dirty word for censorship'). I am not going to call it on improbable plot developments, such as how the Sprocket Holes managed to have a phone and electricity in their abandoned factory hideout, or whether the news would really announce the location and time of a film festival luncheon and dare the terrorists to show their faces, because this IS a John Waters film, and such things are to be expected. However, there are times it is far too heavy-handed and clumsy, and almost appears to be saying that all independent films are good and all Hollywood pictures are bad (I do not believe Waters genuinely believes that, and I do not think the film REALLY intends anything that simple - but its sledgehammer tendencies occasionally do it a disservice...).

Nevertheless, it is entertaining and violent (don't the two always go together?); thought-provoking (but camp - I do not think the revolution will be shot on Super8); and too twisted for colour TV (to quote Shirley MacLaine fromSteel Magnolias...hmmm? what? Yes, I AM a fag...duhhh...).