No. 40 Cecil B Demented (2000) 8 of 100

 

Some more early Michael Shannon now, with this offering seeing him far down the credits and listed as ‘Mike Shannon’. It is a reasonably sized role although he doesn’t get a lot to do and is mainly seen as part of a wider gang.

The film was written and directed by John Waters and is basically a satirical swipe at the film industry and cinema goers in general.

Stephen Dorff plays the titular film director who has yet to make a full feature. He’s against everything that makes up the film industry these days from crappy sequels to films made about video games. You can tell that Cecil is really just Waters who is using the platform to vent.

Cecil has a cult like group of film lovers and students and among their number is Shannon's ‘Petie’ who is first seen as a chauffeur and later as a delivery driver complete with a brown uniform. Petie is gay and looking for love. All of the gang have the names of famous directors or other film crew tattooed on their person, with Shannon having Fassbinder as his. Later on they all get branded with Dememted’s name suggesting that he has taken over as the dominant force in the movie world.

The film is set in Baltimore, as is the case for most of Waters’ work, and the big news is that Hollywood star Honey Whitlock is having her movie premiere in the town. Honey is played by Melanie Griffith, who does well with her somewhat limited material. The crew kidnap Honey and have her star in their own guerrilla film. As you may guess Honey isn’t keen at first but soon gets used to the idea in a Patty Hearst style conversion. To emphasise the point Heart herself shows up as one of the character’s mothers.

The crew crash various events to shoot segments for their film including a porn cinema screening complete with wanking men and a press conference for the Baltimore Film Associate which looked a lot like Waters scoring some points.

The film makers get more militant as the film progresses with plenty of cops and civilians getting shot. The deaths are so over the top and obviously fake that it’s hard to be outraged, and they may as well have had ‘SATIRE’ flashing on the screen if they wanted it to be any more obvious.

The film ends at a drive in move – with Honey now onside and the cops moving in will the gang get the last shots to complete their movie and will it be as awful as the one I’ve just watched?!

I tried to like this film but there was too much shouting and oppressive music to gain my buy in. There was a pretty strong cast that included Maggie Gyllenhaal and Ricki Lake but the whole thing came across as an amateur film school project with the cast all yelling and mugging to the camera to no real effect.

Shannon was decent, apart from a floppy haircut and weak beard. I didn’t buy that his character was gay and there was an embarrassing scene near the end where he exchanged blow jobs with a friend before being picked up by the cops.

There were some funny bits – I liked the declaration of war against those who talk in cinemas after the main feature starts - but the whole thing was too preachy and self aware. I felt there was a fun party going on but I wasn’t invited. The loud punk and rock score drowned a lot out and the cast should have been told that louder wasn’t necessarily better or funnier. Overall a decent pop at the film industry but ultimately this was another dud, the kind they were trying to rail against.

When is Shannon-On? - 05.21

Outcome? Carted off to prison

Film 1.5/5

Shannon Stars 2.5/5