My Review of Cecil B. Demented (2000)

 

Written And Directed by John Waters 

Cecil: "I'm Cecil B. Demented, and you're in my movie. Do not look into the lens and ruin the shot or you will be shot."

Heading into the 2000s, was it the right time to make a film deeply critical of Hollywood? Maybe it was a case of being a little ahead of it's time. That's happened with certain directors before.

Let's take an actress named Honey Whitlock (Melanie Griffith). She's an A List actress but she's not very liked and one of her first scenes involved her humiliating her put upon publicist, Libby (Ricki Lake). She's also not a fan of Baltimore either.

Being in Baltimore for work however put her in the cross hairs of rebel filmmaker Cecil B. Demented (Stephen Dorf) and his band of misfits. Those involved actors like Cherish (Alicia Witt) and Lyle (Adrian Grenier), art director Lewis (Larry Giliard Jr), make up artist Raven (Maggie Gyllenhaal), hairstylist Rodney (Jack Noseworthy), driver Petie (Mike Shannon), costume designer Fidget (Eric M. Barry), sound artist Chardonnay (Zenzele Uzoma), cinematographer Pam (Erika Lynn Rupli) and producer Dinah (Harriet Dodge).

That's a lot of characters to keep up with for this particular band of terrorist filmmakers. Honey's not particularly thrilled with helping them but it's not long before their rebellious spirit started to rub off on her and she became a bit too willing to go along with Cecil's increasing demands.

This included disrupting a screening of the directors cut of Patch Adams, public filming, endangering the general public but on the plus side, Cecil and the gang did manage to do humanity by sabotaging an ill advised sequel to Forest Gump and a very public final act at a drive in theatre. I'll give Cecil his due, he certainly knew how to go out in a blaze of glory while Honey Whitlock might have given herself a defining career performance.

- Honey had an ex-husband played by Eric Roberts. He had problem blasting her on Roseanne Barr's show. John Waters and Mink Stole had minor roles.

- We got to see some of Cherish's pornographic past on the big screen. One of her moments involved a gerbil. I can't imagine who that was referring to.

- Standout music: Substance D's Everyday and Liberace's Ciao!

- Chronology: Baltimore of course in 2000.

Cecil B. Demented did take a bite out of so many trends in Hollywood that are rather relevant to today. I wasn't sure about this one at first but I found myself  pretty taken with this movie.

Rating: 7 out of 10