Pecker
Pecker
R | 25 September 1998 (USA)
Pecker Trailers

A Baltimore teenager who picks up a second-hand camera starts snapping his way to stardom, soon turning into a nationwide sensation, with a fateful choice between his life and his art.

Reviews
Gordon-11

This film is about a young man from a village who suddenly shoots himself to fame with his camera."Pecker" has a charming story. It is an ordinary story about a young man who cannot handle the fame, but all the characters are extraordinary. The character development is excellent, every character has distinctive personality and a well defined role in the film. The resultant chemistry is warm, vibrant and uplifting. I am particularly impressed by the sugar-obsessed little girl's performance, who would have thought that she can play normal and a spoiled kid so convincingly? I am surprised that she has not been in more films."Pecker" is fun, warm and vibrant. Life through the lens is so mysteriously attractive!

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jimmyjack342000

This may very well be the worst movie I'll see if I live to be 100. I think a group of first-graders could have come up with better plot lines as a class project than this. I'm dumber for having watched it, and God have mercy on the souls who were paid to produce this film.And after I finally turned it off, I actually had the urge to vomit.No one had a clue about photography when made this. No one had a clue about acting. No one had a clue about just about anything.I can't believe F/X shows this crap on occasion. The only time I had seen it was on one of the Starz! channels - not even the main one. And it was on at about 3 a.m. at that.

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Philip Van der Veken

After "A Dirty Shame", I never thought that I was going to see another John Waters movie. That movie was really so bad, that I was convinced that all his movies would be like that. But when the DVD of this movie was reviewed in a popular magazine and they said that this was an excellent movie, I decided to give it a try anyway. Only a couple of days later it was shown on television. I taped it out of curiosity and now that I've seen it, I can tell you that this "Pecker" sure is a lot better than "A Dirty Shame".In this movie we see how a young 'nobody' from Baltimore becomes an overnight sensation in the art world of New York. He's a sandwich shop employee who photographs his weird family or things that he sees on the street as a hobby. When he keeps his very first 'exhibition' in the shop where he works, his pictures are noticed by a gallery owner who loves the pictures full of misery and weirdness. His photographs are sold for enormous prices, but when he sees how his family, friends and strangers react to his success he decides that he will no longer go to New York, they will have to come to him if they want to see more of him. And they do, but what they get to see there, is a bigger shock than they could ever imagine...It's not difficult to see why I loved this movie a lot more than "A Dirty Shame". The first reason is that this movie has an actual story. This movie really has something to say and isn't just intended to shock as many people as possible. The fact that they make fun of the art world who considers everything out of the ordinary as art because they don't know what the reality is like, isn't just funny, it's not that far from the truth either. I guess there are many people who feel about modern art that way. Nobody understands why they are making such a fuss about it, but apparently we are all supposed to like it. The second reason why I liked this movie is because this one had much better acting performances to offer. I'm not saying that everything that you will see is great, but at least the characters have some meaning thanks to the performances of the different actors like Edward Furlong, Christina Ricci,...Overall this isn't a great movie, but thanks to its criticism and some good jokes - which never really go too far - this is an enjoyable movie. It certainly isn't the best comedy ever, but I liked it a lot more than "A Dirty Shame". I give this movie a 6.5/10.

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Coventry

John Waters became a cult-cinema hero in the 70's instantly after delivering the bad-taste milestone "Pink Flamingos" and he continued pleasing his trash-horny fans (including me) with extraordinary and incomparable movies like "Female Trouble", "Desperate Living" and "Polyester". True, Waters' movies were offensive, shocking and often repulsive but they simultaneously were unique outsiders in an overall politically correct American film industry. Nearly twenty years later, there's very few ingeniousness left inside Water's mind and it also looks like he has developed morality and grew a consciousness. He still pretends to be controversial by portraying his beloved Baltimore as an antipathetic wasteland where the people are shameless and eccentric, but he sure ain't provoking anybody. The plot of "Pecker" is very ordinary and basically just a reworking of two of the oldest 'lessons' in storytelling. 1) success and wealth do not equal happiness and 2) home sweet home... even if it is Baltimore! Pecker works in a snack bar but he merely is obsessed by photography and spends his days stalking friends, family and neighbors with a camera as the extension of his eyes. During a local presentation, he's discovered by a fancy New York art dealer and, all of a sudden, every eminent art critic is interested in Pecker's portrayal of the 'culturally challenged' (like described beautifully in the film) models. The dialogs are dull, the script is unoriginal and most gags are so tasteless that they seem to come straight out of a Farrelly-brothers movie (sex in a cubicle?). The acting isn't very good neither and especially Christina Ricci was a bad choice to play the neurotic laundry-shrew. Thank God there also are some positive things to mention! The little Chrissy character, for example, Pecker's hyperactive and sugar-addicted kid sister. Or the "shopping for others" game, which really looks like fun.

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