Fall Film Preview, 1998, Part 1
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![]() Edward Furlong in John Waters' Pecker |
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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