Waters has, for decades now, reigned over cult cinema with a gleefully wicked eye. He made Divine eat dog shit ( Pink Flamingos), orchestrated anal sex scenes with rosaries ( Multiple Maniacs), and penned some of the screwiest one-liners to hit the silver screen (from Female Trouble: “I wouldn’t suck your lousy dick if I was suffocating and there was oxygen in your balls!”). His later films pack the same twisted bite—and soon, his glossiest film to date will be re-introduced to the public. Serial Mom, the 1994 true-crime satire starring Kathleen Turner as a homicidal homemaker, will get a new collector’s-edition release on May 9, featuring director’s commentary; a conversation with Waters, Turner, and longtime Waters collaborator Mink Stole; interviews with the cast (including Ricki Lake and Matthew Lillard); and a “making of” featurette, a scrumptious assortment fit for any Waters completist.
Serial Mom, viewed through a 2017 lens, is oddly ahead of its time. It’s a crime story, the genre of the moment, with marvelous performances centered around an antiheroine and a biting sense of humor. To date, it’s Waters’s most expensive film, with a crisp $13 million budget. He made the most of it, casting his “Dreamlanders” (the nickname for his frequent collaborators) and stars like Turner, and building brand-new sets in warehouses—a far cry from the days when Waters would make movies in his family’s home. Though fans of Waters’s earlier work might not find the film as radical, it’s still got a dark, absurdist core—Turner’s character is a serial killer with a Stepford Wives pedigree who tortures her neighbor with hideous prank calls (“Is this 4215 Pussy Way?!”) and plots to kill women wearing white after Labor Day.
Waters himself also makes a little cameo, playing the voice of Ted Bundy. With Serial Mom, Waters was able to achieve a slickness he couldn’t figure out as an up-and-comer. “I always wanted them to look like Hollywood movies, I just didn’t know how to do it,” he says. Though he called technique “nothing more than failed style” in his film Cecil B. Demented, he doesn’t always believe that credo: “Underground, raw movies that come out of nowhere and change everything, they aren’t slick-looking. But I have nothing against slick-looking as long as the scripts are funny. To me, the most important thing is the script.
I would never make a movie that I didn’t write. I wouldn’t know how to.”. Aside from re-releasing Serial Mom, Waters has kept busy working on new material, like his upcoming book Mr. He also recently guest-starred in Feud, the Bette Davis–Joan Crawford drama, as B-movie horror star William Castle, who directed Crawford in the axe thriller Strait-Jacket. It was a full-circle moment: Castle is one of Waters‘s own biggest influences.
(Proof: in Serial Mom, characters are shown watching a scene from Strait-Jacket.)“I’ve been a big fan forever,” he says. “I met his widow; I know his daughter Terry.” Castle also inspired Waters to try out promotional gimmicks early on in his career, though some of them went awry. For the 1977 film Desperate Living, Waters paid a bunch of college students (instead of “the Mafia,” he notes; his first mistake) to plaster posters of rats on plates around the city. “They would put them on doors of restaurants and stuff, which turned into a nightmare. What restaurant wanted a picture of a rat on a plate on their front door?”.
Sam Waterston and Kathleen Turner with John Waters on the set of Serial Mom, 1994. From Savoy Pictures/Everett Collection.Waters never met Crawford or Davis, but is a dear fan of both actresses as well as their late-career hagsploitation films. Meeting Jessica Lange, who plays Crawford, was a delight for the filmmaker, especially since she was constantly in full Joan drag.Waters’s adoration of Crawford runs so deep that when the British Film Institute in London asked him last year to select his favorite British films, Crawford’s truly “embarrassing” final project Trog was on his list.
“Even when she was in Trog, she acted like she was in Long Day’s Journey into Night,” he explains. “She gave it her all.”Though few things shock Waters, he is still human (don’t tell!) and is finding ways to use his art to cope with devastating political news—by, for example, writing profane jokes about President Trump, which he hopes will “humiliate” him. (Waters is especially fond of dreaming up Trump-inspired porn titles, like Comb Over and Blow Me.)“That’s the only way to get him—but the scariest thing is if he’s gone, we have Pence, who’s even worse,” says Waters. Because, the filmmaker explains, the vice president “Mother”—which means he might be “an adult baby.” Waters, by the way, spits out the word “mother” like it’s a horrid slur, a funny reversal coming from the king of blasphemy. “All powerful men—ask any hooker—they like to lose power. If he is calling his wife ‘mommy’ or ‘mother,’ well, that’s what adult babies do,” he continues. “That’s what fag hags are called within the adult baby movement.”If Waters could summon someone to effectively mock Trump out of the White House, he would call on the late anarchist activist Abbie Hoffman and his crew of like-minded protesters.
“They mocked and they humiliated. They used humor as terrorism, and I’m all for that.”So, Waters is still working, writing his book and dreaming up edgy Trump material for his frequent live performances. He has no plans for retirement; Waters hopes to keep grinding until “the day I drop dead.” He cites as a role model the late Joan Rivers, who used to joke that if her fans were lucky, she would die in the middle of a stand-up set—and they would forever get to tell people they were there when it happened. That prospect tickles Waters.“I think it would be fun to die onstage!” he says.
“Just drop dead in the middle of my show? That wouldn’t be so bad.”.
You will see the 'busy season problems' we hear most from MOM users.We will share the big issues our clients have reported over the yearsso that YOU can minimize and avoid those issues entirely this year -and every year going forward.Join us as we cover high-level recommendations for:Ensuring shipping accuracy and setup.MOM settings to configure BEFORE your busy season strikes.Handling your inventory earlier to avoid problems later.Reconciling & accounting best practices.And more!Thursday, August 31, 2017 1:00 PM. This webinar is part of our new BusySeason Prep series, where you'll be receiving a varietyof handy advice & tips for preparing MOM forthe busy season.Join us next Thursday, November 3rd, at 1:00PM ET, to discuss a variety of ShippingOptions, Tips and Processes in MOM.The topics will include:. Carrier Options. Custom Rates.
Patricia Dunnock
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Linkoptimizer Serial Mom And Daughter
Using Windows versus SQL authenticationwhen setting up users on SQL server. And how to handle common issues that occur duringinstallation.Reserve your spot.After you complete the registration form you'llreceive an email confirmation. If you don't see that email in a fewminutes, check your 'spam' folder, and if it's still not there, justand we'll resend it to you ASAP.Best regards,Cesar and PaulM.O.M. Webinar TeamP.S. Please forward this invitation to anyoneat your office who may benefit. In addition, if you'd like them toreceive these emails, justThursday, September 21, 2017 9:00 AM. You will see the 'busy season problems' we hear most from MOM users.We will share the big issues our clients have reported over the years so that YOU can minimize and avoid those issues entirely this year - and every year going forward.Join us as we cover high-level recommendations for:Ensuring shipping accuracy and setup.MOM settings to configure BEFORE your busy season strikes.Handling your inventory earlier to avoid problems later.Reconciling & accounting best practices.And more!Friday, August 21, 2015 1:00 PM.
Kathleen Turner
Join us to learn the exact differences when publishing between SiteLINK 7.3 and earlier versions!If you're a SiteLINK user, chances are good that you've heard about the publishing improvements in the latest version of SiteLINK, 7.3. What you might not be so familiar with are the details of what we've improved for the publishing process.See this webinar to learn:What you should do if you can't access the SiteLINK tab when going to publishing store data from MOMWhere in MOM to increase the number of days of order history to publishAnd other items that have been improved between SiteLINK 7 and 7.3Thursday, July 9, 2015 1:00 PM.