A Dirty Shame (NC-17 rated version) (DVD)

The world presented to you in Jerry Springer is brought to life with sexual innuendo galore and a bit of religion twisted together, and when I say twisted that is exactly what I mean. Terms such as getting your red-wings, blossoms, discover the oyster, grippers, helicoptering, plate job, Roman showers and sploshing are all common place, and don't worry if you don't know what any of those mean, this DVD is here to help, unfortunately the funny phrases are all there is to laugh at.

I must first go on record saying that I have never seen a John Waters film before A Dirty Shame and unless I have to I don't plan on seeing another. Waters is the man behind such films as Hairspray and Pink Flamingos and seems to be something of notoriety yet all I can do is consider him a Steve Buscemi look alike with straight teeth and less hair.

A Dirty Shame is a raunchy, humorless, romp through Harford Road in Baltimore where sex is in the air and a battle is set to be waged between the enlightened sex addicts and the "neuters" that wish to oppress the sexual urges that seem to be taking over. At the center of the story is the Stickle family led by Sylvia (Ullman) and Vaughn (Isaak). Their daughter Caprice (Blair) a.k.a. Ursula Udders is currently on house arrest for three strikes of public indecency as she can't seem to contain her medically enhanced mammories, but things are about to change.

Sylvia suffers an accidental concussion and is awakened by Ray Ray (Knoxville), a self professed sexual healer, and he shows Sylvia her true path in life, which leads Sylvia down a path in search of sexual pleasure as her only wish is to have someone "sneeze in her cabbage."

The primary source of supposed humor in A Dirty Shame revolves around sex jokes and public fornication and considering you get your laughs on those two counts in the first few minutes of the film the rest of the feature simply becomes a monotonous attempt to shock.

As for the DVD features, fans of John Waters will get their fill as there is an 80 minute featurette on the making of the film, which more-or-less strokes Waters' ego as they take you through the details of putting the script to screen. There are also a couple of commentaries, one with Waters and the other with several members of his production crew, there is also a deleted scene, a theatrical trailer and a couple of DVD-ROM goodies that may actually have the best content.

On the DVD-ROM there is a "Dirty Glossary," which will clue you in on all the terminology used in the film including all the terms I used in the opening paragraph above and more including clips from the film in case you forgot just how the terms were used. There is also a script-to-screen comparison that features the movie and a scrolling script running in real time along with what is going on in the film.

Overall I would suggest newbies to Waters' work to steer clear of this title, but those who know what to expect from the filmmaker and enjoy his work will probably get a kick out of this flick, but Lord knows I didn't.