Fall Film Preview, 1998, Part 1

Updated August 5, 2020 | Infoplease Staff
infoplease.com fall film preview

Ed Furlong and Lili Taylor

Edward Furlong in John Waters' Pecker

But don't look for any modern cowboys this fall. They've been replaced, for the most part, by an assortment of amiable kooks and wide-eyed bumpkins. In fact, one title says it all — Babe: Pig in the City (November 27). Yes, in the ultimate out-of-his-element allegory, the talking hog heads for urban climes to learn there's more to life than herding sheep and slopping at the trough.

Likewise, director John Waters introduces a boy named Pecker (September 25) to skewer the black-clad pretentiousness of the art world. Edward Furlong is the eponymous lad who's thrust into the limelight when a New York art dealer (Christina Ricci) discovers his photographs of blue-collar Baltimore. Will Pecker sell out?

Critics, inevitably, will be asking the same question of shock-meister Waters, with this, his first film since 1994's Serial Mom. Director Steve Yeager charts the filmmaker's strange, strange rise with his documentary Divine Trash (September). A favorite at Sundance, this movie explores Waters's impact on fringe filmmaking, plus dumps the behind-the-scenes (dog) poop on the making of 1972's audacious Pink Flamingos.

Another director with a finely-honed sense of the absurd, Todd Solondz, unveils his Cannes-winning follow-up to 1996's Welcome to the Dollhouse. In the subversively titled Happiness (October 16), Solondz returns to suburbia for more black-as-tar themes about family dysfunction and misguided love. But don't ink the release date just yet: with its frank treatment of masturbation and sodomy, Solondz has been encountering his share of distribution and ratings roadblocks.

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