Return-Path: bsb Received: from localhost (bsb@localhost) by necronomicon.aa.ans.net (8.8.5/8.8.3) with ESMTP id UAA10346; Wed, 1 Apr 1998 20:38:12 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199804020138.UAA10346@necronomicon.aa.ans.net> To: krish, bsb, shiao, selina, djf, rcl, tfc, tar, lam, rjs, lon, lcr, law, tck, gcb, danno, michaelo@arin.net, erw, lss, dwm@caida.org, cemcgrath@aol.com Subject: John Waters talk Date: Wed, 01 Apr 1998 20:38:12 -0500 From: "B. S. Blair" Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2642 John Waters ----------- John Waters talked at EMU and totally rocked. This film producer has been a major influence throughout my life and was introduced to me by my old college roommate. His point is making fun of society as much as possible, taking weird and fucked-up shit to the extreme, offending people, and grossing people out. It's like Weekly World News with a hardcore edge. Audience members were sporting leopard accessories and large pink hair. Pink Flamingos is being re-released since this is its 20-year anniversary. This is Waters' most famous film because Divine (the voluptous drag queen) actually eats a dog turd on camera. The ads for the re-release are being run with quotes from the original movie reviews on the side, like "avoid this seething cesstank". There is one difference between the original release and the new release. In the old release, the "youth with the singing asshole" was often blocked out. Although, it was the asshole that was blocked out. Now, the face of the youth is blocked out and the asshole stays. Actor is now an important executive somewhere and may be recognized. The best part of the presentation was when Waters talked about the old days at the movies. They would have gimmicks like fright-o-vision where a cheesy skeleton on a string would pop out at the audience and slide down the middle of the aisle so that kids could throw popcorn at it. During Smell-o-rama films, they would pump various odors into the theatre. Problem was that they couldn't get the smell out when the film was over. They also rigged the movie seats with buzzers and vibrators that would make you jump during allegedly scary parts of the film. Waters and his gay friends would often abuse this feature. Smell-o-rama was the inspiration for what I believe is Waters' best film, Polyester. Definitely rent this film. I hope they re-release the movie with the odor-a-ma cards (scratch and sniff). Includes such smells as a rose, a fart, gas oven, sweaty socks, and more. At the end, Waters took questions from the back of the audience. One chick asked him about the short article series that he did for Allure fashion mag. He pointed out that the article series was in fact short, having consisted entirely of one article, and asked the chick to move farther back in the theatre. His next film is called "Pecker", the name of which he had to get by the censors. He brought up the fact that the film is actually about a kid who pecks at his food and that if "Free Willy" flies, "Pecker" should too. Plus, nobody actually uses "pecker" as a serious swear word, although I think I will start just for laughs.