This is the last film from my LGBT Cinema class. For Spring, I'm taking Cinema of Exploration so get ready for some travelogues and adventure films. This is a really entertaining documentary. Steve Yeager explores the impact and the influences of John Waters' early works, focusing especially on Pink Flamingoes, a cult classic considered the most important queer film ever made. John Waters is a fascinating individual and he has a genius for seeing the sublime in the grotesque. His principal actors are no less interesting and their insights behind some of the shooting conditions are hilarious.
I would recommend this to anyone interested in John Waters' films, and especially to people interested in filmmaking. You can learn a lot about how to film on a shoestring budget from Waters' early works.
My only criticism is that I wish there had been more footage and interviews of Divine (Glen Milstead) but he had died a decade before this film was released. Divine was clearly a powerful muse for Waters as well as a trailblazer for drag queens and really anyone who never felt like they fit in.
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