A Dirty Shame - DVD Review

“Who’ll give us a dollar to make this one?” That’s what one member of John Waters’ geriatric ‘Dreamlander’ production team thought when reading the script for his “cunnilingus concussion comedy”. And you may feel the same way after enduring a bizarre mishmash of broad satire and Three Stooges farce that will test the most ardent fans of Baltimore’s legendary “Pope of Trash”.

Tracey Ullman is the suburban prude whose inner carnal demons are unleashed by a bump on the noggin, to the delight of Johnny Knoxville’s leering sex guru and the dismay of her phenomenally jugged porn-star daughter, Selma Blair. All the above are present and correct in a feature-length Making Of that manages to be both hugely entertaining and, with its helpful explanations of such sexual delights as ‘sploshing’ and ‘felching’, highly educational. But even with two commentaries and a ditched Knoxville scene thrown in, there’s a feeling that Waters is not so much firing on all cylinders as shooting blanks.