Magnificent Obsession & Cry-Baby

Magnificent Obsession is everything that Douglas Sirk's melodramatic masterpieces are, without any of the positives. His next film, All That Heaven Allows shows that he quickly figured out what was wrong with it, but this just seems like a mess. Plus, the daughter was hot and wasn't nearly as fun as the daughter in All That Heaven Allows. I think it's the flashbacks and voiceovers that hurt Mag Obs so much. I also think that it's a little too much for the whole happy ending. I mean, the only way it could have been more happy is if the doctor was resurrected after Rock Hudson was crucified somehow, and it became this terrible Christ parable, rather than just a terrible Christian message movie. Plus, it wasn't nearly as fun with colors as All That Heaven Allows.

Cry-Baby is a mix between the cheesy John Waters and the dirty one. The movie itself was trash, but that was intentional, and the music was actually fairly good, although I would have gone for the Squares for everything except the last song. The Drapes just were a little too Rockabilly for me. I think that Waters was just trying to get a normal film. I can't really be entirely positive about a movie with it's love of the Confederate flag, even if it was there for the kitsch value. It did have Iggy Pop washing himself in a tub in the front yard of a trailer trash house ("Woo-Wee, you caught me in my birthday suit! Buck naked!"), Traci Lords in a non-porn role (too bad almost all her porn is illegal in the US, because she's attractive), Johnny Depp in his "I'm too hot to have to act, but I'll do it anyway" stage, Willem Dafoe in a funny cameo (just love that prayer), a foreign exchange student who only says "ya", and Amy Locane who is there for window dressing. The dubbing is sometimes obvious, and other times it's blatantly obvious, but the love with which the movie is made (and almost every Waters film is made with that love, even if that's all it has going for it) help to smooth over some of the rough edges. It's better than his early trash films, but not as good as his best.