I'm a big fan of Cry-Baby. It was a great movie where the characters were ridiculous, they all had some quirky idiosyncrasy and it all fit because it was set in the 50s and while telling a good story and being "just plain weird' it was a musical, which generally are a little weird, and it managed to indirectly make fun of the cheesy movies about teens that were played in theaters in the 50s... I thought John Waters had done all this intentionally for that film. I was wrong, it turns out he does that for every film of his, and Cry-Baby is simply the one time when it made sense. Pecker is a terrible mess of a film where these kooky character types just walk around spouting lines that make sense for their weird characters and then every once and awhile a straight character is introduced so that the story can just barely follow a very tired and clichéd plot line. This movie was equivocal to watching a grade 8 acting class play an improv game where they are all zany people for different reasons and must interact. It was terrible, and full of wasted talent. The modernity of the setting and the lack of the musical element should have evoked a change in his style, sadly it did not. This film was just stupid. And when you get passed the quirks of the characters, you realize how vapid and bland the story attempted to be, I say attempted because it seems as though the players are acting independent of the plot through the entire movie, there is no cause and effect for events, they simply happen, so that the movie can seem like it's actually going somewhere. If you've heard any good things about Waters and you are curious rent Cry-Baby, stay far away from this mess.
