The musical Hairspray is in town and you might be thinking about seeing it, or maybe you already have seen it. If you haven't, you should check out Cry-Baby first. I would call it Hairspray's funnier, smarter younger sibling. Both movies are from self proclaimed 'king of bad taste', John Waters (except the Hairspray with John Travolta is a remake). I'm not really a fan of the new Hairspray, in my opinion it had too much Zac Efron and not enough Christopher Walken.
Anyway, Cry-Baby is a parody of those silly teenage musicals like Grease. Wade 'Cry-Baby' Walker (Johnny Depp) is a juvenile delinquent who falls for Allison Vernon-Williams (Amy Locane), the queen of the squares. Soon after a chance meeting outside of school, Allison finds herself drawn into Cry-Baby's crazy world of rockabilly music, fast cars and loose women, much to the disapproval of her family and friends.
It's a corny movie and some people will like it for that, that's why it's become such a cult classic. However, there are times when the dialogue just make you cringe (eg. 'you got it Allison, you got it raw', extra emphasis on the raw). Allison is such an annoying character, her voice is about as painful as sticking a fork in your ear and it only gets worse when she sings. And you might notice there are some really stupid over-exaggerated sound effects that keep popping up at random.
But Cry-Baby is a cult phenomenon, what's bad about it is also what makes it so good, it needs to be cheesy to be appreciated. Johnny Depp is obviously the reason a lot of people will have seen this (because yes, he is so very good looking) there's so much more to it. The music is pretty good (for a musical), it nicely follows the rockabilly theme in the movie. Yeah it's a trashy movie, but that's John Waters' style, it's meant to be fun and a real piss-take of the oppressed 50s.
By the way, the girl who plays the drape Wanda (Traci Lords) was a porn star at some point (and an underage one at that). True fact.
Cheerio chaps, I'm off, but I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be EPIC since I am watching the nearly 5 hour long Cleopatra. Goodnight xxx
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