If you're looking for a trashy, cheesy, camp film to watch, you can always rely upon Baltimore's finest filmmaker, John Waters, to come up with one!! Over the past 40 years, he's gone from an underground filmmaker finding brief success in Hollywood, before returning to his roots. He's famous for making Pink Flamingos (1972), which was a camp, gross-out comedy, (predating Jackass by 30 years), famous for when transvestite actor Divine, (still sadly missed), eats dog-shit!!
But, since then, Waters showed signs of maturity, beginning with his affectionate yet still camp homage to the weepie films of Douglas Sirk with Polyester (1981), before hitting the big-time with Hairspray (1988), an innocent, likeable dance film which was remade as a musical. He helped make a star out of Johnny Depp with Cry-Baby (1990), gave Kathleen Turner her best role with Serial Mom (1994), before returning to his underground roots with the underrated likes of Cecil B. DeMented (2000) and A Dirty Shame (2004). Now, he's back!!
Yep, he's got a new film on the way, which should be a contrast to the NC-17 rated filth of A Dirty Shame, here, he's making a kid's film!!
Fruitcake should see Waters back in the same sort of mode he was 20 years ago, but it's the sort of film he's best at!!
Fruitcake is set around Christmas time, and it follows a young boy named Fruitcake, (named after his favourite dessert), who runs away from home after he is caught shoplifting. He soon encounters a young girl, who is also a runaway, only this one is being raised by two gay men, whilst she looks for her birth mother.
From a plot like that, it sounds like Waters is going all sentimental, far from it. Waters himself describes it as a "terribly wonderful children's Christmas adventure". Fruitcake's family are a band of black market meat resellers, they shoplift meat from supermarkets and sell it to poor families for half price. From this, you know you're in familiar territory, Waters hasn't gone all "Robert Rodriguez" on us!! (He went into kids films, and nearly got stuck doing them until Sin City...
) Waters wants the film to be PG or PG-13, but despite the plot, and the fact that most of the adults in the film inhale amyl nitrite on a regular basis, Waters already has a hefty task ahead of him to try and bring it in at a kiddie friendly rating!!
Filming doesn't start until November, but already, Waters has begun casting. After his role as Ray-Ray in A Dirty Shame, Jackass star Johnny Knoxville is back to work with John Waters again!! Here, he'll be playing Fruitcake's father, for the role of the mother, Waters has cast Parker Posey, (who you'll know from Christopher Guest's films and Superman Returns). But the majority of the cast is made up of youngsters, but Waters' regulars, Mink Stole and Patricia Hearst will also make appearances...
Here's something Christmas related that John Waters did, a CD entitled
A John Waters Christmas 
Buy his films here!!
It'll be interesting to see what Baltimore's finest does with a kid's film, he's already proven he can do it with the likes of Hairspray and Cry-Baby. Even Pecker could have been a kids film, had it not been for the 'tea-bagging', and the main character in this has an odd name, just like Pecker, who used to peck at his food as a baby.
Plus, Waters hasn't done a Christmas film before, but whenever it's Christmas, you must have a traditional, seasonal family film. Knowing Waters, it won't be traditional, it'll as close in tone to the likes of Bad Santa (2003), but without the swearing and sex.
However, Fruitcake will make a nice contrast to his last film, A Dirty Shame, which was one of his funniest films yet, but this is a man who gave us the most disgusting films ever made in the 1970's, he won't return to his former glory with Fruitcake, but it'll be another feather in the cap for him. More news as it comes...
