Muérete, bonita

This is a semi-hilarious mock documentary about a teen beauty contest in Minnesota. Anywhere from hilarious to ridiculous and all points in between. The only thing redeeming is Kirsten Dunst. She knows how to get your pity, concern and loyalty. Ellen Barkin is hardly recognized as Kirsten's drunken mother. Kirstie Alley is pretty darn good as the dirty dealing former beauty queen and mother of the obvious next winner(Denise Richards). Miss Richards' character is beautiful; but spoiled, pampered and a bitch. Not exactly an expose, because the behind the scenes back stabbing is assumed to be part of a beauty pageant. Tongue-in-cheek humor. Nevertheless another vehicle for the talented Miss Dunst.

I never expected to enjoy this movie. In fact, I thought I was going to hate it. "Beauty pageant themed, chick-flick comedy", right? Stupid jokes about hair, dresses, and stuff I couldn't care less about, right? Wrong. It's presented in that faux-documentary (or mockumentary) style that Christopher Guest has perfected. It pokes fun at middle America, small towns, that sort of "redneckish patriotism" we see so often, and of course the way these contestants (and their parents) take themselves WAY too seriously. It also shines as a mostly female comedic sandbox where Allison Janney, Ellen Barkin, Kirsten Dunst, Brittany Murphy, and Kirstie Allie can show off their comedic skills (I had no idea that some of them had it in them). All I can say is that it's hilarious. Will Sasso is the greatest "handi-capable" character ever put on film. His "cheerleading" as Kirsten Dunst spells every state in alphabetical order is comedy gold. If you don't laugh...you're dead inside.

This is a seriously funny film, deeply subversive and a great piece of work. What it's not is a satire on the vacuousness of beauty pageants.

DDG aims at the emptiness of our whole materialistic culture and the way we have traded in the more valuable things in life for the pursuit of a perfect self image and will even cash in that perverted, limited objective for a few minutes of fame on TV. Life is a house of cards with hidden truths under every shiny surface.

The humour is so dense and the jokes are so profligately thrown around that it occasionally feels like an incarnation of The Simpsons, 54 episodes of which benefited from the efforts of DDG scriptwriter Lona Williams. She may have written your favourite. The performances are no less praiseworthy with outstanding leads and fabulous and memorable minor characters. Look out for the Sheriff. Amongst them all, I'll single out two which I think are pitch perfect, Sam McMurray as the ruthless father in thrall to his wife and daughter and Nora Dunn as the drunken 'has it come to this?' State Pageant organiser. There are lots of others to choose from.

Every you time you watch you get something new, enabling you to rejoice further in the fact that half the people who watch it don't get any of it at all. In fact it's so sharp that even people who like this type of thing can get cut to pieces by it. We are, after all, watching ourselves. Mind your fingers . . .

Most smartest and funniest American film since The Producers? Yes, it's THAT good.

Being from Minne-sohtah, I couldn't have asked for a better parody of the state, the people, and the whole beauty pageant thing. It's a great dark comedy with wonderful acting and accents(minus Denise Richards who can seemingly act only one way...badly). It's fun and light-hearted, taking even touchy subjects and making them goofy enough to laugh at. I recommend this movie as a 9 out of 10. And for anyone who hasn't ever eaten bars and hotdish in a church basement or community center in small town Minnesota, this movie makes you feel like you are really there... Lucky you.

Beauty contests are of all times and for people of all ages. There are all kinds of contests, but they don't always have a very good status (just to give you a few examples: We have Miss Belgium, but also Miss Egg, Miss Grape, Miss Strawberry...) But one thing they all have in common. The girls that participate in it all believe that they are the only ones that deserve to win and their supporters, with their parents on top, are convinced that their girl is the next miracle on two legs. And there aren't too many differences between the different countries. This movie was clearly intended to make fun of the American beauty contests, but it all felt very familiar.

"Drop Dead Gorgeous" isn't exactly what I would call a subtle satire. They use some standard situations, magnify them by a factor of 1000 and then aim at them with a large cannon so they certainly will not miss their target. Does that mean that the humor isn't any good? No, certainly not. It's sometimes so over-the-top that you will almost certainly have to laugh with it, but it's just not the kind of movie for the people who only like very 'intelligent' comedies. And even though the idea of a 'mockumentary' isn't new, it is done quite well in this movie and in a more or less original way. They make fun of the contestants and their fans in this movie, but don't really spare the TV-crews either. They make for instance fun of their eternal drift to sensation and spectacular news items.

In the end this is a nice comedy that may perhaps not be liked by everybody, but that certainly offered some good performances by all the actors. They made the many funny characters look even more ridiculous as what they are in real life (and that's certainly not always easy). The story was good and the entire movie really could have been a lot worse. I liked what I saw and I give this movie a 7/10, maybe even a 7.5/10.