Pecker

1998 John Waters comedy

Rating: 12/20

Plot: A burger flipper named Pecker becomes an overnight art sensation after he shows off his photographs of his weird family, friends, and neighbors. His new-found fame stains those relationships though.

Pecker's likely a thinly-veiled autobiographical Waters joint, about as mainstream glossy as it gets for the director. My problem with Waters' movies is that he doesn't seem to be able to write anything funny and tries to make up for it with the crude and unusual. But where else are you going to get lines like these:

"Knock yourself out, butt plug."
"You teabag a customer again, and he'll fire your ass."
"Three times loser and he's sentenced to the chair but he's still got a boner."

And where else are you going to get shots of rats doing it, frequent references to "beaver," Virgin Mary ventriloquism, so many ugly people, and a scene with a guy getting it on with a washing machine? Add a really unusual soundtrack featuring novelty songs, nutso country, and indescribable alien lounge music, and you've got yourself a movie that's fun for the whole family. I don't know who this Edward Furlong is, but he seems like the type of actor who needs to be in television sitcoms, probably playing characters who are much younger than he is. At least this has the always-lovely Christina Ricci though.