Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine JOHN WATERS flicks!

I saw a commercial for it the other day. I hate to say it but it doesn't look too promising. John Travolta playing Divine's character is a travesty enough in and of itself but the :voice" he's doing just makes Edna sound like a retarded man doing a fakey voice. If you can't tell, I kind of hate John Tavolta. Loooove me some John waters though. For some reason I still haven't seen Desperate Living. I'll add it to my Netflix cue toot sweet.

HAIRSPRAY-- opening TONIGHT! Must GO!!!!!!!!!

And went I did! Saw the 10pm showing last night.

It was really good! Stayed very true to the original 1988 version. Primary Differences: No Mr. Van Tussle/Tilted Acres, a much reduced role for Mrs. Pingleton (including a complete elimination of one of the original's funniest moments, when she is seeking out Penny at Motormouth Maybelle's record shop). Also an altered role for Mrs. Van Tussle.

John Travolta's acting was great, it was his voice I found annoying. Far too put-on.

The opening number "Good Morning Baltimore" by Tracy/Nikki Blonski, both Queen "Motormouth Maybelle" Latifah Numbers, Michelle Pfiffer/Mrs. Von Tussle's number and Corny Collins' "Nicest Kids in Town" were lots of fun.

Link/Zac Effron was a living dream, as was the guy playing Corny Collins. Amanda B./Penny Pingleton was stunning... I knew she was going to be huge the first time I caught "The Amanda Show" on Nickelodeon.

I never could have imagined anyone other than Ricki Lake as Tracy Turnblad, but Nikki Blonski is fantastic!

I love the closing song, but I've only seen HAIRSPRAY (the musical, anyway) on stage.

In the production I saw, the gal playing Penny Pingleton stole the show, the curtains, and the stars off the dressing room doors.

That would be James Marsden, aka Cyclops in the X-Men films. Sometimes way sexy, sometimes not. He fell into the way sexy camp in Hairspray i thought.

We went to see it yesterday and absolutely loved it. They've managed to take the stage show and alter it slightly to fit the running time (losing the whole jail sequence) without it feeling like it's been hacked to pieces (which they didn't manage with Chicago or The Producers imho). I didn't really notice the songs they'd cut until it finished and the ones they did cut made sense to do so.

The cast were pretty universally great (although good as he was Travolta was the weakest) and it just looekd like everyone was having great fun. Michelle Pfeiffer, who usually annoys me, was great althogh she is looking awfully thin. Her arms were bonier than they should be, but hger singing voice was very good. She also had some great little withering looks and snide remarks. Link was very pretty but James Marsden and the guy playing Seaweed were much, much sexier. Nikki Blonksy was superb and managed to channel Ricki Lake's performance while still making it her own. I'm glad they did an open casting call for Tracy and found her because I'd fuind it hard to think of anyone already famous who could have done such a good job.

Also if you stayed for the credits you got a new song and then you got a version of 'I'm A Big Girl Now' performed by the original Tracys, as in Ricki Lake, the girl who originated the role on Broadway (I forget her name, dagnabbit) and Nikki Blonksy (plus a little bit from Harvey Fierstein).

I may have to go and get the soundtrack now so that we have both the stage version and the film version. Chris uses the original version of film with some of the classes he teaches about segregation and civil rights so apparently half the girls (and some of the boys) are unbelievably excited about going to see this version. I doubt they'll be disappointed.

Okay so I knew there was a semi-recent John Waters film starring Tracey Ullman and Johnny Knoxville that I hadn't seen... I stumbled across it ON DEMAND this week...

"A Dirty Shame" is the title.

I didn't like it. It was reaLLLLy stupid, and not good stupid either. In fact, at one point I almost quit watching.

Anyone else see it? I'd be curious to see what anyone else thought. Maybe I was just in a funk that night...?