Bella da morire

This is a great film for anyone who hates beauty pageants, and enjoys dark humor. The "mockumentary" aspect was done greatly, and the performances were also great, especially by (the very hot) Kirsten Dunst. I really like films that poke fun at serious topics (like death and mourning), and this one did a great job of it without being completely tasteless.

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.

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.

Drop Dead Gorgeous is a film about a teenage beauty pageant. As you might expect; it features plenty of young girls in skimpy outfits, dancing, singing and all that crap. However, unlike a lot of films of the same ilk; here, hidden behind a facade of teen beauty and all the other trademarks of the teen comedy genre, is an intelligently written, witty and very dark satire on the consumer society.

Drop Dead Gorgeous is a filmed in the style of a documentary, a la 'This is Spinal Tap' and follows the escapades of a group of contenders in the annual beauty pageant. The contenders are introduced via a very amusing sequence, which sees them tell the audience about themselves. It's very MTV in the way it's done, with all the girls introducing themselves as shallow, fussy, typical teenage girls. After that, the film starts to set its dark tone, with one of the girls being blown up, and is the tone that will be carried throughout the rest of the movie. Some of the humour in this movie is so dark that even I, a fan of very black comedy, couldn't decide whether to laugh at or not; a woman that gets a beer can melted to her hand, an anorexic previous winner, and the pageant winner being blown up on a huge float are all included in this movie. It's lighter and more tongue in cheek moments are also done very well, such as the part in which one of the judge's brothers gets caught in the car door, or a hilarious 'home video' of an explosion.

The characters in Drop Dead Gorgeous are all, with the exception of Amber Atkins, disagreeable, shallow and overblown stereotypes. This is one of this movie's main assets; it has the parodying of stereotypical people spot on; we've got an "I'm not a pervert" pervert judge, an insensitive, egotistical head of the richest family in town, the overenthusiastic boyfriend and many other colourful and amusing characters. Some of the lines said by these characters are priceless; stupid, but not overly stupid and you really could imagine people like these saying things like the characters in this film do.

The entire cast of this movie excels; it features a lot of small characters and each one plays their part to perfection. The main acting plaudits come for Kirsten Dunst in the starring role of Amber Atkins. Kirsten has the ability to act, and act well and she's also extremely good looking. Many actresses look good and can't act, or vice versa but Kirsten has both abilities, which makes her a very good lady to have in your film. With a few more hits under her belt; Kirsten may well be remembered as the finest actress of her generation. Two other stand out performances come from Kirstie Alley as the former winner of the pageant and mother of one of the contestants; and Ellen Barkin, who brings the characters of Amber's mother to life brilliantly.

Drop Dead Gorgeous is a film that will be overlooked by many because it's a teen comedy. This is a great injustice; here we have a film that is extremely funny, well acted and actually has something to say.

I wasn't expecting this. With an amazing cast and funny scenes, this satire surprised me greatly.

The movie is about this pageant competition in a small town. Everyone is weird and that is What makes this film really fun.