Steve Yeager Movies

A documentary profile of filmmaker John Waters, Divine Trash focuses on the bad-taste pioneer's early years, especially his 1972 breakthrough Pink Flamingos, which turned the director of Mondo Trasho and Multiple Maniacs into the king of midnight movies thanks to word of mouth about the film's gleeful taboo-bashing -- and a distribution deal with the fledgling New Line Cinema. Interviews with filmmakers who both influenced Waters (Paul Morrissey, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Mike Kuchar, George Kuchar) and were influenced by him (Steve Buscemi, Jim Jarmusch, David O. Russell, Hal Hartley) are interspersed with copious behind-the-scenes footage from the making of Pink Flamingos, including the infamous doggy-doo scene. Through it all, the witty Waters provides commentary, recollections, and one-line quips. Pete Garey, owner of the film lab where Waters learned the technical side of moviemaking, recalls his first meetings with the youthful auteur. Mink Stole and other Dreamland Studios superstars reminisce about growing up in suburban Baltimore with Waters, who as a youngster loved car crashes, puppets, and clowns. The director's strait-laced parents reminisce about the financial support they provided for Pink Flamingos, which they have never seen. Neither has Frances Milstead, who looks back on the career of her late son, drag terrorist and Waters muse Divine. Divine and late "egg lady" Edith Massey crop up in various archival interviews and film clips. The man who played the "talking asshole" in Pink Flamingos also appears, albeit anonymously and disguised. Various film theorists and critics debate the merits and meaning of the Waters oeuvre, while Baltimore critic Don Walls and former Maryland film censor Mary Avara express their incredulity about the director's success. Divine Trash won the Filmmakers Trophy for Best Documentary at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. Director Steve Yeager, a longtime friend of Waters, would go on to direct In Bad Taste: The John Waters Story and help Milstead write a book about her son. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

This follow-up to 1989's unexpected comedy hit Major League continues the broadly humorous adventures of the misfit Cleveland Indians. No longer the scrappy survivors who pulled off an upset championship victory, the Indians have let success go to their heads, accepting movie roles and hefty endorsement deals. Unfortunately, with success comes complacency, and the Indians soon wind up back in last place. When this poor performance winds up threatening the franchise, the team rediscovers its roots and again achieves unlikely success. Original director David S. Ward brings back most of the first film's memorable characters, including unconventional pitcher Rick "Wild Thing" Vaughn (Charlie Sheen), voodoo practitioner-turned-Buddhist Pedro Cerrano (Dennis Haysbert), and base stealer-turned-movie star Willie Mays Hayes (Omar Epps, replacing Wesley Snipes). ~ Judd Blaise, Rovi

Inheriting the Cleveland Indians baseball team from her late husband, covetous ex-showgirl Rachel Phelps (Margaret Whitton) wants to move the franchise to Miami, primarily to take advantage of the many personal perks she's been promised by that city. But Cleveland won't yield its lease on the Indians unless the year's attendance falls below 800,000. Figuring that chances for this are already good given Cleveland's inability to win a pennant, Phelps tries to make doubly certain that the fans won't turn out by ordering the club manager to put together the worst team possible. The new players include has-been Jake Taylor (Tom Berenger), blind-as-a-bat pitcher Ricky Vaughn (Charlie Sheen), self-protective free agent Roger Dorn (Corbin Bernsen), and Willie Mays Hayes (Wesley Snipes), who is constitutionally incapable of hitting straight. Surprisingly, this band of misfits begins winning games, so Whitton decides to break their spirit by forcing them to fly from game to game in a World War II prop plane, assigning them a rickety old bus for road games, and divesting them of their precious whirlpool.

Still, the team's talent and esprit de corps grows, especially after "Wild Thing" Ricky Vaughn dons a pair of glasses and is able to see where he's lobbing his 100-mile-an-hour pitches. Once the players are told that Phelps plans to dump them all whether they win the pennant or not, the team defiantly adopts an "us against the you-know-what" attitude. In a nailbiting 20-minute climax, the Indians face down their hated Yankee rivals in the pennant playoff game. The film's conclusion ties up several loose plot ends, notably the off-and-on romance between the irresponsible Berenger and his "ex" Lynn Wells (Rene Russo). Though set in Cleveland, Major League was filmed virtually in its entirety in Milwaukee, with the Brewers' play-by-play announcer Bob Uecker giving a terrific performance as the Indians' drink-besotted color commentator. The film represented not only the fictional comeback of the Cleveland Indians, but the actual comeback of producer/director David S. Ward, who'd been in a professional slump for several years. Though containing few surprises, Major League was a box-office smash, inspiring a 1994 sequel, inventively titled Major League II. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

After making a name for himself with such underground gross-out epics as Pink Flamingos and Desperate Living, director John Waters made a bid for somewhat wider acceptance with this black comedy, which is sedate only by the standards of his previous work. Francine Fishpaw (Divine) is a housewife whose life has become a living hell. Her husband Elmer (David Samson) runs a porno theater (currently showing the classic My Burning Bush) and is having an affair with secretary Sandra (Mink Stole), a vision of sleaze in Bo Derek-style cornrow braids who informs Elmer, "Children would only get in the way of our erotic lifestyle!" Francine has two teenage children, Dexter (Ken King), who likes to sniff glue and stomp on women's feet, and Lulu (Mary Garlington), a brazen slut who hangs out with overage juvenile delinquent Bobo (Stiv Bators) and gleefully anticipates her next abortion. Francine's best friend, Cuddles (Edith Massey), is a slightly insane heiress who is somehow convinced she's a debutante. Francine's life has become so miserable that her dog commits suicide rather than witness it, but a light appears on the horizon -- Todd Tomorrow (Tab Hunter), the handsome and dashing owner of a local drive-in specializing in art films (their current bill is a Margurerite Duras triple feature), with whom Dawn enters into a torrid affair. Subversive on all fronts, Polyester was originally shown in "Odorama" (patrons were given a card with ten scratch-and-sniff patches, to be smelled at key points in the action) and featured a romantic theme song sung by that new hitmaking duo, Deborah Harry and Bill Murray. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi