Absolutely the worst movie.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I'd never heard of this movie which I watched last night purely on the basis of Chris Isaak's being in it. When it was over, and I had gathered my jaw off the floor, what I believed I'd seen was a wrongheaded attempt at a John Waters movie, without any of the wit or skill. Imagine my surprise to discover this IS a John Waters movie. Where to start? The blank-eyed performances? The screwed-up dualism? The awful editing and pacing? The banal innuendo? The heartless sexual politics? Maybe you need to be American and to have suffered the crazy US religious right to really get this movie - to the rest of us, it feels like someone crossing the street to pee on a Madonna statue... Therapeutic for them but a bit embarrassing if you're with them. The worst thing is, it's almost put me off Chris Isaak for going anywhere near a script this bad. I'll never be able to watch Wicked Game in the same light!

The bard of Baltimore has made a career out of championing the outsider who can't or won't conform to what is considered normal. Over forty plus years, Waters gave us some of the craziest pictures to come out of the so called underground and stake a place in the popular imagination. Now, he's like the kindly, if strange Uncle figure to the world's alienated youth who find a kinship with his interests in serial murderers, body modification, the changing gender roles in society and making films his way, becoming one of the few true auteurs of cinema."A Dirty Shame" gets off to a kooky start with a scenario based on the apparently real facts about some head injury survivors developing a stronger sex drive, post accident. Tracy Ullman has her greatest US role as "Sylvia", a somewhat dowdy lady who gets to shock the whole city with her transformation from prudish to wild. Her husband (Chris Isaak) and very large breasted daughter (Selma Blair) are taken aback by the new Sylvia, who's "got the itch" and runs around Baltimore looking for someone who can scratch it!This disc has just as much wonderful behind the scenes detail, with many chapters (all worth watching) about everything from the real nature of unusual sex practises (now the proverbial cat out of the bag, thanks to the internet) to how Waters gets help with his soundtrack selections. "A Dirty Shame" is no grand thesis on religion and carnality. It's a wild comic ride through familiar territory for fans, this time with an NC-17 rating instead of the old Waters' standard of X (I've never liked this "NC-17" thing, to me it's like something the matronly woman in those old underwear ads would stamp on defective men's briefs!). The biggest shock nowadays would be if an elder statesman on bad taste like Waters made a totally family friendly movie and earned a truly shocking "G".

For the past decade, I have been fascinated with John Waters, upon having viewed his 1988 classic, Hairspray. I was later introduced to Cry Baby, but my Waters obsession did not begin until this year, when I viewed his "masterpieces," including my personal favorites, "Female Trouble" and Hairspray." I picked up the John Waters DVD box-set for a steal on Amazon, and popped in "A Dirty Shame," having never seen it before. I was dissatisfied with the results. Unlike Waters' previous forays into film, there is not one likable character to encounter. Nearly everyone grated my nerves throughout the film, and I did not laugh until well into the second half of the film-- a good forty-five minutes in. I found even Mink Stole to be dull and unsatisfactory, which was wholly unnerving to me. The phrase "Let's go sexin!" uttered throughout made my stomach turn whenever I heard it, because it became so God-awful annoying. Every single character is flawed and undeveloped, which is unheard of in any of Waters' other films. A few moments with Selma Blair-- Ursula Udders-- made me chuckle, but main players, Sylvia Sickles (Tracy Ullman) and Ray-Ray Perkins (Johnny Knoxville) were bland and nearly unwatchable in their roles. Although "Shame" garnered an NC-17 rating, it is tame at best-- a bad move on the Ratings Board, in my book. I've seen COUNTLESS "R-rated" films that are a million times worse. Shame on the MPAA in that regard. Although the purpose of this film was largely to recapture the essence of Waters' earlier films ("Pink Flamingos"), it lacks the dialogue and the characters that made those films fantastic to view. A weak film altogether, but I am definitely looking forward to Waters' "Fruitcake."

One of John Waters best yet. Waters writes and directs this quirky and raunchy comedy about an underground subculture of sex addicts led by Ray Ray(Johnny Knoxville). Sylvia(Tracey Ullman)is an uptight frigid middle-aged woman with sex being the last thing on her mind. Her husband Vaughn(Chris Issak)however still has those urges for the horizontal bop. She even keeps her daughter Caprice(Selma Blair),kept in a garage apartment under lock and key. The daughter with mammoth sized breasts is actually under house-arrest due to charges of indecent exposure and public nudity stemming from her striptease act. Suburban Baltimore is up in arms about the trend of public sexual expression. When Sylvia suffers a concussion, she eases into Ray Ray's band of sex addicts trying to discover a new and the perfect sex act. Big Ethel(Suzanne Shepard)tries gathering as many "Neuter" folks she can. The "Neuters" are basically prudes that are trying to take their neighborhoods back from the sex addicts that love to "go sexin'" Funny, funny, funny. Also in the cast: Mink Stole, Patricia Hearst, Wes Johnson and Jackie Hoffman.