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John Waters - DVD Scrapbook
John Waters - DVD Scrapbook
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The disc is organized along a timeline stretching from Waters' birth to the present ("This DVD is produced" is the last entry). Lots of important dates, both in Waters life and in general, are marked off and video and audio clips can be found in the camera and microphone icons, respectively. Still, a menu somewhere with every clip compiled in one place would have been a good addition.
Videos:
The videos start with home movies of Waters as a young child and stretch through promotional material for Pecker (Cecil B. Demented, like other non-New Line releases is not represented). Rumor was that hours of footage would be included. While a lot less than that actually appears, there is some terrific stuff.
Foremost is Robert Maier's 1975 short "documentary" Love Letter to Edie. This bizarre look at Waters regular Edith Massey (The egg lady from Pink Flamingos) includes some extraordinarily weird footage, right from the opening moments through a strange brouhaha at Edie's Fell's Point shop. Previously only available on dubs of dubs, Love Letter to Edie is the most exciting item included on the disc (so to all those of you who have written me over the years asking where you can find it, here it is!)
Interview with Waters conducted by WJZ's Denise Koch, a strange, shrill newscaster who stands out among the weirdo crowd of Baltimore anchors. Her stoned affect always makes watching the nightly news an adventure and her funny 80's tour of Waters' apartment is perfect.
Also of local interest is what Waters calls the 25 cent tour of Baltimore, a quick drive through some of the city's more decrepit areas. Waters laments the closing of the Wigwam Room, which he says was a velvet rope VIP room for bums.
There are a few interviews with Waters from Boston and San Fransisco tv which are nice for completists, but not essential. Similarly, a recent 20 minute interview from the Sundance Channel is included.
Also included is a huge selection of recent interviews with Waters regulars on topics ranging from deceased friends to wild adventures. These are hit and miss as some of these characters are truly too wacked out to tell a coherent story: Several minutes into a ramble about the late Cookie Mueller, Susan Lowe (Mole from Desperate Living mentions that the two were once kidnapped by hootch swilling hillbillies. Say what?
Audio:
Another treasure on the disc is a large collection of audio interviews that Waters took of Divine. There is almost too much to go through here, but there are some truly classic moments. Divine describes a long drawn out series of events that ended with him dueting with Elton John at Madison Square Garden, all while his birds chirp away noisily in the background. It's great that this material will be preserved for future generations to marvel at.
Trailers for each of the films in the John Waters Collection are included, although they are also on the individual discs too. Additional publicity materials for some of the films are also included.
VIDEO:
The video quality is mostly pretty low. The archival footage is of varying quality, but most of it is, technically, in bad shape (and bad taste). The recent interviews look fine. They're shot on video. Most of the clips are window-boxed (they appear in a black frame on all four sides) so nothing is cut off.
Region 1.
