Pecker

[1998, Movie, R, 87 mins]

Pecker: Review

Once, the question of what to make of John Waters wasn't a question. Underground provocateur, deadpan hipster, the guy who filmed a 300-pound cross-dresser eating poodle poop: What more did you need to know? But since HAIRSPRAY, his first bona fide hit, Waters has been on less easily defined ground, equal parts juvenile grotesquerie and sunny silliness. This gentle fable about a sweet Baltimore shutterbug named Pecker (Edward Furlong) -- because he used to peck at his food, you gutter-minded perv, you -- getting a taste of Downtown stardom is pleasant enough, and features some mild naughtiness that might shock an elderly minister or a sheltered virgin. There's a bar run by rude lesbians, a make-believe miracle involving a devout ventriloquist granny and a statue of the Holy Virgin, a gay strip joint called the Fudge Factory where studly young things "teabag" the clients, a pair of rats copulating in a garbage can and a giant cockroach in some french fries. Pecker photographs them all with his battered little camera, and jaded, easily persuaded New Yorkers embrace the sweet kid as Diane Arbus with a heart. Of course, his girlfriend (Christina Ricci), who owns a laundry, doesn't cotton to being dubbed a "Stain Goddess" by the Village Voice. His sister (Martha Plimpton), who works at the Fudge Factory, gets into trouble when the teabagging photos draw hordes of straight voyeurs to the bar. Shoplifting best bud Matt (Brendan Sexton III) gets nabbed after the cops see photos of him at work. And Pecker's aggressive art dealer Rorey (Lili Taylor) starts making some moves that aren't strictly business. But it all ends well and noone really gets hurt. We've come a long way from the filthiest people in the world: Who knew Waters could be so bland? --Maitland McDonagh

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