"No, she's a scrape - part square, part drape. I think she's pretty."Johnny Depp was on his way to becoming typecast as a teen idol when in 1990 he was given the opportunity to play two odd roles. One was his first collaboration with Tim Burton in Edward Scissorhands which remains one of his most iconic characters to date, and the other an often forgotten and overlooked musical comedy directed by the eccentric John Waters. This was my introduction to his particular brand of filmmaking and I had a fun time with it. Clocking in at under 75 minutes the film knows when the humor is running out of steam and manages to end before the novelty begins to wear down. The movie is a parody of 50's teen rebel films and it spoofs musicals like Grease. The only thing I knew about Waters before going into this film was the remake I had seen of his original musical, Hairspray. I now can see why he has a cult following since his style isn't conventional and the experience is a unique one. It's Johnny Depp who carries the film with his charm and good looks making fun of our conception of the cool rebel character, which in a way is the way audiences conceive the actor in real life. The characters in this film seem to be having so much fun that the ridiculous and over the top parody is simply contagious. It's so energetic and playful that it's hard not to watch it with a smile on your face. Johnny Depp plays the titular character, Cry-Baby, who is called that because of his capability of shedding a single tear from his left eye that drives the girls crazy. He's a bad boy who loves fast paced cars and hangs around the cool group known as the Drapes. The sweet girl in his school who falls for him is Allison Vernon (Amy Locane). She's a square because she belongs to the traditional side of town who are very much against the drape lifestyle and culture. Allison is tired of being the good girl and she eventually wins Cry-Baby's heart who introduces her to his circle of friends: Wanda (Traci Lords), Pepper (Ricki Lake) who already has two children and is pregnant with the third, Hatchet-Face (Kim McGuire) and her boyfriend Milton (Darren E. Burrows). Even though Cry-Baby is part of the drape culture he is more polite than the rest of his gang and eventually they all accept Allison as one of their own. Her boyfriend, Baldwin (Stephen Mailer), however isn't too happy that Allison is hanging out with these bad boys and decides to give them a lesson. Meanwhile, one of Cry-Baby's many admirers is Lenora (Kim Webb), who isn't happy Allison is hanging around the man she loves, and she too will do what it takes to keep them apart even if it means making up a story that she's pregnant with his baby. The musical is very energetic and a lot of fun. There are several memorable scenes including a jailbreak attempt that is hilarious. Locane and Depp have irresistible charm together and they seem to have had a fun time working together with this offbeat comedy written by Waters himself. There are also some catchy songs with decent choreography including Doin' Time For Bein' Young, Please, Mr. Jailer, and Teardrops Are Falling. The 50's soundtrack is just so much fun and enhances the musical's energy even more. John Waters also included a hilarious orphanage scene where the children were displayed like animals in a zoo. The character of Hatchet Face probably evoked the most laughs with her crazy look and there's a hilarious scene in which she pops out of a movie screen while the prisoners were watching a 3D horror movie and they all jumped out of their seats horrified by her look. There is also a cameo from Willem Dafoe as a prison guard that evoked some chuckles as well. The predictable premise of the film could've turned this into a familiar bore, but Waters knows how to come up with innovative and fresh ideas with his unique brand of humor. http://estebueno10.blogspot.com/

At this point in time (1990), after John Waters has now been a film director for 20 years, I still find his overall approach to film-making to be that of a childish amateur.Cry-Baby's story was so annoyingly erratic, frenzied and hyper-active throughout, that I swear it was directed by someone who didn't have a helluva clue as to what they were doing.With its story set in Waters' own hometown of Baltimore (in 1954) - Here Waters seemed to gleefully portray all of this town's citizens as being thoroughly unlikable (be they from the wrong side of the tracks, or not). And, with that, I'm quite convinced that he must totally loathe Baltimore (where he grew up) with a venomous passion.Waters' obvious distaste for women was also quite apparent in this film, as well. I got the clear impression (through Waters' depictions of women) that the only female worth anything was your standardized, boy-toy slut.Even "good girl" Allison was inevitably reduced to this slutty level, before long.Far from being a fond, nostalgic look back at the early 1950s, Cry-Baby's mean-minded story was chock full of malice, spite and vicious mockery (all in the name of amusement, of course).From what I gathered by the very limited personality-types who prevailed in the story, Waters was making it crystal-clear to me that he thought the only real "cool" people were stark-raving arseholes (like himself, I guess).With its completely unfunny, white-trash mentality, its non-stop over-acting, and its uninspired & badly-staged musical numbers, I was quite pleased to read that upon its initial, 1990 release, Cry-Baby flopped at the box-office, big-time. (Hooray for that!) And, finally - When it came down to Depp's tiresome, pretty-boy role as this film's title character (yawn!), in my opinion, it was a blah sort of performance that wasn't even worth any special notice.

In 1950s Baltimore, a bad-boy with a heart of gold (Johnny Depp) wins the love of a good-girl (Amy Locane), whose grandmother (Polly Bergen) smells like moth balls and turkey grease.I like the quirkiness of John Waters and he really has assembled an impressive cast here (catching Depp before he became even bigger). But I just did not get all that attached to the film, primarily because of the singing. I am sure the music that turned me off is the same reason many people love the film, but I just could not get into it.I still think it is worth seeing, especially if you are a fan of Waters, Depp or Ricki Lake. Seeing Amy Locane in a prominent role was cool, and it is a shame she never quite made it to A-list star level (though she made it further than Jill Schoelen).

When I see a film like John Waters' Cry-Baby it almost whispers to me that there should be no such thing as a "parody movie." There should only be homages to clichés, genres, and eras. Cry-Baby is an homage to the era of the fifties where greasy hair, tight jeans, leather jackets, and rock 'n' roll was the norm. While not being alive in the fifties but knowing a lot about the lifestyle, culture, and politics of the era, I can say that from my own knowledge it seems like it knows what it's doing.John Waters is a provocative film director, which makes him the perfect, yet unexpected director for a film of this magnitude. It's an odd, yet delightful film that would be misunderstood by a mainstream audience, but a scrumptious bowl of delight to his cult following. For that reason is why it most likely didn't do well at the box office. Like all of Waters' films, it developed a cult following years later, but has always been unfairly compared to his more successful musical Hairspray.Cry-Baby and Hairspray are two different films. Hairspray follows a chubby teenage girl who wants to become a dancer in a town divided by racial segregation. It wasn't trying to pay homage to anything, but was trying to be a fun and energetic musical with a message. Cry-Baby is the exact opposite. It's a film that follows the rebellious rocker Wade "Cry-Baby" Walker, played fantastically by Johnny Depp, who occupies a strange ability to cry one single tear from his left eye.This ability woos all the girls, including Alison Vernon-Williams (Locane), a good girl who finally wants to cut loose and shy away from her cutesy image. She wants to join Cry-Baby and his gang of Drapes (a pun on the name "greaser)." She herself is a square, taken in by her grandparents after her parents' death. The problem is that she can't totally rely on Cry-Baby because his rebellious lifestyle tends to get him in a lot of trouble.Like a lot of good campy films, there is no real plot. Just very interesting characters. What Cry-Baby is too is a delightful social commentary on new generation trends and the old ones' response on them. Every decade comes with trends; the sixties for their peace, the seventies for their rebellion, the eighties for their wackiness, and the nineties for their laid back style. Each trend receives shocked looks from adults and natural ones from the teens involved in them. Cry-Baby shows how different lifestyles are taken by each generation and then bashed by people who went through that same rebellious state when they were younger. It's hypocritical, sure, but it's natural. After all, we all want the best for our youngins. So we want them to stay away from the rebellious lifestyles. But we also want them to be unique. What a paradox.I'm making the film sound too serious, when in fact, it's subtle in its commentary. It's a high-energy film all around. The musical numbers are catchy and addicting, and the actors do a great job with the material that has been handed to them. Especially Depp who basically tells us "whatever I act in you'll have to accept." Cry-Baby floats in a sea of innocence and isn't at all cocky with its material like some films are in the same genre. It simply wants to show us the paradox of generations, a well done character study on multiple different people, a mixture of Elvis films, Grease, and others of the leather jacket-generation, and just a fun musical as well. Its campy style will be disliked by some, questioned by many, but loved by the true cult-cravers.Starring: Johnny Depp, Amy Locane, Susan Tyrrell, Polly Bergen, Iggy Pop, Ricki Lake, Traci Lords, Kim McGuire, Darren E. Burrows, Stephen Mailer, Troy Donahue, Patricia Hearst, and Joey Heatherton. Directed by: John Waters.