What a fun movie!! So campy, so snappy, yet so... human. Charles Busch is delightful, as a writer and actor, not to mention an expert lip-sync-er. Busch seems to channel every golden screen diva from Garland to Garbo, even as recent as Faye Dunaway playing Joan Crawford. The movie is full of witty one- liners, pop culture references, and juicy double entendres. The actors all eat up this killer material, and Rucker's direction makes the most of an apparently limited budget. But that hardly matters when there's a true love of the medium by all involved, which is the case with "Die Mommie Die!" Too bad Busch doesn't write for "Will & Grace" nowadays. But I'm sure he has much better things to do.

I had been looking forward to seeing "Die Mommie Die". Everything about it bodes well for a great time at the movies. The title is filled with campy promise, the casting fairly intriguing and the reviews pretty favorable too.But despite all this, "Die Mommie Die" is not only remarkably flat and unfunny, it's actually boring.While Charles Busch may be a truly talented stage performer, his on screen presence is surprisingly bland, not what one would expect from a reputable drag queen. It's rare for parody to be able to sustain itself for the entire length of a movie; but this one barely gets off the ground.

I pretty much expected some 'La Cage Aux Folles/Bird Cage' type deal. I hadn't noticed it was a stage to screen translation, not a French to English translation. Second, the writer and the translator spoke the same language. Third, the leading lady was the creator of the character... (I could go on, but I won't...) Busch couldn't have chosen a better translator than first-time director Mark Rucker.Excellent scenes, excellent assortment of lighting techniques, excellent casting: I was enchanted not only by Busch's performance, but the those of the entire ensemble cast. This hypnotic study/parody of mid-century soap culture.Jason Priestley, whose performance I questioned throughout until his character admitted he was an actor (like an alien from the future), but also a cop. THAT was so good.Stark Sands, as the gay son, whose work I was unfamiliar work, was simply mesmerizing.Philip Baker Hall, as the dad, I have loved all my life. I remember seeing him on TV shows as a kid.Natasha Lyonne. Her agent has an excellent eye for parts for her. She mesmerizes me in just about every role. I'm sorry to say I felt her character slip into the future too often to completely immerse me in her performance here. Sometimes though, she really had me.I knew I would be spellbound just by the spectacle of the movie and Rucker's encompassing direction was quite a bonus.

In spite of all the references to various Hollywood "women's films," I thought that the most inspired in-joke was having Angela (Charles Busch) and Lance (StarkSands) speak to each other in a secret language, much to the annoyance ofEdith (Natasha Lyonne). Lyonne fans will recall that her character in SLUMSOF BEVERLY HILLS had a secret language that she shared with MarisaTomei's character.Overall, I thought this was an okay film. As a fan of the kinds of films that provided the inspiration, I enjoyed the various in-jokes and references. However, I felt that the cinematography could have been more stylized, withdeeply saturated colors. Oddly enough, a deleted scene that appears on theDVD looks more like a 1950s Technicolor melodrama than the film itself. As for Charles Busch, he looked too much like a man in drag for my tastes. While his masculine appearance did add to the humor (particularly when anothercharacter commented on Angela's beauty), at the same time, I found itdistracting, especially in his close-ups. Perhaps the cinematographer couldhave used soft-focus for the close-ups, thus mimicking the techniques of those who photographed all those aging actress horror films of the 1960s, not tomention the Lucille Ball version of MAME.In any event, this was a fun film for those who understand the genre, although I would not go so far as to call it a classic, camp or otherwise.