This Filthy World (2006)

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This Filthy World (2006)

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Emerging from a mock confessional booth on a purple-draped stage where flower arrangements and heaps of garbage set a mood of sweet decay, John Waters has come not only to pine for vanished decadence but to dream up new transgressions for a world with few remaining taboos. He's doing it for the children – the college kids, to be precise, who have come to see the entertaining one-man show captured in this performance documentary.

The genre, and the fact that Waters isn't a star on the stand-up circuit, suggests a niche appeal at the boxoffice, but fans will be very pleased. The endearingly louche filmmaker might even win the love of some viewers who can't be bothered with his button-pushing features.

Directed by "Curb Your Enthusiasm's" Jeff Garlin, the high-def pic is shot and edited conventionally, which suits it fine. Waters' anecdotes are so colorful, conjuring such outrageous imagery, that it's a relief the filmmakers aren't trying to compete.

There's the image, for instance, of this man-of-the-world as a young child who counts Captain Hook among his top three heroes: Lacking the villain's curly locks, he tapes a mass of his father's ties to his head, sticks a coat hanger out one sleeve and scares off the family housekeeper for good.

Or of the ceremony he staged when protege Traci Lords decided to tie the knot, and he needed to be baptized to qualify for a church wedding. At a stolen altar, with a clergy license obtained for Waters by Johnny Depp's people, "The Pope of Trash" cleansed the porn legend's sins and (from the sound of it) threw in a little therapy for free.

That episode is one of the monologue's occasional hints that Waters is a good deal less jaded than some would think. Cracks in his ironic facade appear momentarily when a subject like capital punishment comes up, though that doesn't keep him from getting some laughs. And while his suggestions for would-be-rebel teens are deliberately silly, they seem to spring from a genuine sympathy for today's youth, for whom garden-variety transgressions would hardly raise a parent's eyebrow.

His most inspired cultural commentary comes, not surprisingly, on the subject of art. Drawing connections between art house cinema and schlockmeister sensationalists like Kroger Babb, he imagines how university film programs might again become something special.

None of which is to suggest that "This Filthy World" is an agenda-driven film. While ostensibly a micro-memoir touching on every point in Waters' bad-taste oeuvre (paying particular attention, naturally, to his late friend Divine), he'd rather you call it vaudeville than a lecture. The term doesn't quite fit – he hasn't yet booked the freaks and low-rent strippers to open for him onstage, and the monologue as it is dips in rare moments to the feel of straightforward stand-up comedy – but even if he's never able to mount a full-scale return to the happy depravity of his youth, Waters is one of bad behavior's most likable champions.

John DeFore

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This Filthy World (2006)

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French subtitles is here

Interchangable links.