Pecker

"Pecker" is a young, unknown photographer from Baltimore who becomes a big star in the public, the media and the local art scene with his pictures showing the dirty reality of all-day life just as dirty underwear or human excrements. It's a typical topic of John Waters Baltimore-based independent comedies to show the weird sides of the American way of life between political correctness fashion and conservative backlashes by exploring the backgrounds of the middle class society of his hometown.

Edward Furlong of "Terminator 2" fame plays Pecker, supported by Christina Ricchi, photographer Cindy Sherman, legendary Patricia Hearst and Water's long-time actress Mink Stole. Although the pacing of the plot becomes a big flaw sometimes and can't compete with the fast and furious joke attacks of Water's brilliant "Serial Mom", it's still has some good laughs in it and some unforgettable scenes like a former junkie-girl who became a vegetarian by sniffing peas from a vegetable dish... "Pecker" is a great comedy about the arrogance of the art scene, media hypes, middle-class sex angst and the strange ways of how to become a pop star without realizing it. Recommended!

The best thing about this movie is that it is fun. It is full of humorous characters and interesting situations, starting with the blithe, innocent Pecker (played appealingly by Edward Furlong) who likes to photograph almost everything he sees in every day life. Other great characters include Pecker's friend Matt ("he's a thief, but he's really a nice guy"), Pecker's sister Chrissy (who is addicted to sugar), and Pecker's Catholic grandmother who discovers life in a statuette of the Virgin Mary in her room.

The movie gently makes a point about how every day life has many riches to offer, and it succeeds in making this point without being too heavy-handed about it. There is always a risk, when making messages about the value and dignity of "common people", of sliding into a kind of reverse "holier than thou" - but "Pecker" avoids these traps, allowing the audience to get the point while allowing enough breathing room for viewers to compare this message to their own thoughts on the subject.

I recommend the movie mostly because it is a lot of fun.

John Waters does what he does best, creating comedies that hang on

that line between normal and strange. In this time around, Waters directs PECKER, about how the seemingly normal photographs taken by an average small-town kid named Pecker (Eddie Furlong) become over- night successes by different art moguls. Of course, many misadventures abound as Pecker encounters many people with different opinions about his "works of art."

The performances are basically the main highlight of the film. Furlong does a good portrayal of the snapshot-taking teen, while Christina

Ricci also shines as Pecker's alienated girlfriend. Low-key teen actor Brendan Sexton III steals the film as Pecker's best friend Matt, a go-go-dancing klepto, just the right kind of character found in a John Waters' flick!

I thought this was an utterly charming film. The story seems to be a thinly veiled autobiography of John Waters: Pecker's greatest gift is his ability to find beauty in unexpected places. Edward Furlong does well in the lead, but the best performances are by his grandmother, Mink Stole (a hilarious cameo) and, of all people, Patty Hearst. I think the reviewers are way off base on this one. They seem to be taking Pecker's worst valuation of his work as gospel, when I think the film pretty clearly states that he is indeed a promising artist.

Pecker is another John Waters tribute to the less fashionable side of his native city of Baltimore. Unlike previous films Pecker is set in modern Baltimore of 1998.

And it's centered around a young man named Pecker. Lest you think it describes him anatomically or behaviorally, what it really does describe is his way of eating as a child, sort of pecking at his food. Of course it wouldn't be John Waters without the double entendre.

Pecker as played by Edward Furlong was given a camera as a kid and it's become an obsession with him, to photograph life and find art in it. Art's everywhere, in his girlfriend's laundromat, in the sandwich shop where he works, in his grandmother's obsession with her talking Virgin Mary icon, even in the garbage where two rats are mating.

Soon his pictures attract attention from the art world. But when that happens Pecker's own world starts to crumble around him. How and will he get it back is the story of Pecker.

John Waters surrounds Furlong with a nice cast of supporting players with the usual Dickensian names for their characters. Best are Christina Ricci as Pecker's girl friend, Baltimore's laundromat Queen, and Brendan Sexton as his best friend and professional kleptomaniac.

Pecker is another of John Waters's lighthearted look at life and some of the strange things we find in it. I think only the most hidebound of rightwing people will not find something amusing in Pecker.