Cecil B. Demented (2000)

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

This is utterly hilarious - satire fun big time. I laughed my ass off so many times... Adequate actors, great acting within reason - it feels like the Comic Strip doing a Fassbinder parody. Well done. All of the fun poked at the film industry and its surroundings, circumstances, people, ways of doing things etc. is just so over the top you just got to love it. Of course, it's some kind of statement or else it wouldn't be John Waters (remember "Pink Flamingos"?). I leave it to you to figure out all the innuendos and discuss them from an intellectual point of view - have fun! As of me, I enjoyed the film (at least, we had a giggle) and recommend it as such to everyone with some sort of substantiated background, an appreciation for the bizarre, and a general sense of off-color humour.

Set in the film capitol of America - Baltimore, Maryland - "Cecil B. Demented" is a brilliant reminder that the art of film once was - and ought to be - a craft for those who make love to and through a camera, not industry management types who sit on their rosy behinds muttering platitudes about "what the audience expects".Although "Hairspray" was Waters' most accessible film for the general public, it was not quite a "John Waters film". This is.As actors, I have hated Melanie Griffith, and hated Stephen Dorf. But in this film, they both have their respective characters down pat, they give excellent performances here, I'll have to rethink my judgments on their talents; perhaps it was all just bad scripts in the past.the rest of the cast is kinky and earnest and funny.In fact this is one of the funniest films I've ever seen.Of course it is about the love of film - specifically about the passion needed to make film just as film.I keep seeing all these interviews and documentaries about contemporary film-makers - they blather on and on so self-confidently about their love of video, of CGI, the way they use such technology to stay as far away from the camera, the actors, the editing deck as possible; heck why even show up pretending to be the "director", why not just phone it in - better yet, hire someone else to do it - with three hundred million bucks, even after the cocaine's gone you should have enough to hire someone else to do the job; all Hollywood directors are whores - god, they make me sick.I've made films myself; there's no replacement for the feel of celluloid between your fingers, it is an enjoyment preferable to a good lay. After a good lay, you fall asleep; but a good film lasts forever.the era of cinema is probably over; eventually a generation will come along convinced film is nothing more than bad advertisement for computer games. Perhaps that generation has arrived.So this is certainly a pleasing celebration/ faretheewell for one of the great forms of entertainment modern humanity invented - a gorgeous reminder that it was all about passion, not money, about getting it down as quickly as possible, not about getting it to "look good".Cinema is - or was, or ought to be - an act of desperation, as much for the audience as for the film-maker.This film captures that superbly.A brilliant film by one of America's true eccentrics - and when all the CGI has bored its audiences into an early grave, their children may yet rediscover this, and with it the possibilities that were cinema.Thank you John Waters.

Hollywood's aging star Honey Whitlock(Melanie Griffith, who seems like she was born to star in a John Waters flick)is kidnapped by "cinema terrorists" with director Cecil B Demented(Stephen Dorff)head honcho behind the whole ordeal. Honey is to star in his underground film which is shot on the streets completely devoid of the studio system. The whole point behind the anarchy of Demented and his group is to pointedly bitch-slap the establishment in the face, by any means necessary. Unfortunately Baltimore will be the target of their crusade and Honey becomes a cult hero as a media circus develops. The police make it their mission to bring down Demented. The crew of this film range from a porn star(who claims she was molested by her entire family underneath the Christmas tree)to a Satanist(who gulps down goat urine), but they are extreme fans of cinema and believe the system Hollywood is backing needs a revolution. Demented's film is aimed as the start of the evolution of a new artform. Soon violence erupts as a result of his raw film-making style(they attack a theater showing the director's cut of PATCH ADAMS;and a stand-off with police during a riot of a Maryland Film Commission luncheon). As the film continues, Honey has a change of heart regarding her captors once she realizes that Cecil is behind her new rise in popularity.Grows more and more absurd as the Waters' film continues(Honey leaps off a building landing on her feet below;Honey sets her hair on fire for Cecil)such as Demented and company raiding the set of a FORREST GUMP sequel starring Kevin Nealon(!)resulting in a gunfight with teamsters! There's an inspired chase into a porno theater where Cherish(Alicia Witt)gets seats for her group in a film starring her as the remaining teamsters find themselves against an army of pervs! There's even a chase into an action flick where Demented calls on the fans of the theater to assist them against a pack of spiteful mothers from a grocery store(!) who hate what the cinema terrorists are doing to their youth. The film is as demented as the title character who is willing to burn himself alive in a wheelchair for his film!

At the start of CECIL B. DeMENTED, we see a cluster of close-ups showing teens posing as ushers, doormen and whatever, getting ready to celebrate the premiere of a new film starring Honey Whitlock (MELANIE GRIFFITH), an overage Hollywood diva making a personal appearance to promote her new flick. All of them are treating the premiere as a countdown to some sort of disastrous event because they're all in on the kidnapping plan.Well, the disastrous event does happen--but it's this John Waters film that scores big in that department! Just awful. All the dialog, all the sight gags, all the performances are just short of amateurish, so painfully bad that I forced myself to pay attention until the final out of control ending, by which time director Waters seemed to have lost all control of his project, his cast and his story.Ironically, the theme of this "comedy" is supposed to be "down with mainstream film-making" as the insane Cecil B. DeMented intends to kidnap movie star Griffith so that he can use her as the drawing card on his own underground film where only the first take is ever used because he's a seeker of "the truth" and pure vision. But Water's film, while making fun of mainstream trash (and sometimes rightfully so), is itself an example of less than mediocre craftsmanship, crude, tasteless, and full of puerile humor, the kind that grosses some people out, as well as an unhealthy dose of vulgarity.It's when director DeMented (played by STEPHEN DORFF) takes his film-making crew on the road into the real world that all hell breaks loose. None of the cast has anything more than paper thin characterizations to worry about so they appear to be having a good time as they wreak havoc everywhere. The laughs are scant and the film itself just keeps getting worse as it wobbles on and on toward what is supposed to be an exciting finale.Summing up: Lots of R-rated stuff. Keep the kiddies home for this one.Strictly amateur night material which had me wondering whether MELANIE GRIFFITH was so hard up that she had to take part in such an enormous mess. She fully deserved her "Razzie" Award for Worst Actress of the Year. Too bad someone didn't do her a favor and really kidnap her to prevent her from showing up at the studio!I felt like I was watching an Ed Wood film, except it wasn't in glorious B&W!