Diagonaldi Very well executed

Protraph Lack of good storyline.

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Michael_Elliott Cecil B. DeMented (2000)* 1/2 (out of 4) John Waters has a very clear message here but it's the perfect example of a director having something to say but not a good way of saying it. In the film, the twisted, underground director Cecil B. DeMented (Stephen Dorff) and he teenage filmmakers kidnap A-list actress Honey Whitlock (Melanie Griffith) and force her to appear in their film. What's the subject of their film? That Hollywood is pure evil and the only good cinema is the independent movie. If Waters' wanted to give people a message that independent cinema is better than Hollywood then he really should have came up with a better screenplay because as it stands there really aren't too many Hollywood comedies that are worse than this low-budget movie. Again, I understand what Waters was going for but the film is a complete disaster that doesn't have a single laugh in it. There are a couple good things with one of them being Griffith who gives it her all even when the screenplay isn't giving her much to do. The second thing the film has going for it is the fact that it never really gets boring no matter how unfunny it is. With that said, for the most part the film is a complete misfire with one unfunny sequence after another. This "terrorist" group basically go out and film themselves mistreating those things they most object to. This includes malls that show movies, family friendly groups and of course the evil big-budget sequels. Again, the message is clear but the way it's presented is just so poorly done that you can't help but roll your eyes at everything being done. Even worse is the fact that I never could understand why these anti-Hollywood people would want an A-list actress in their film. Waters clearly has a talent but it's certainly not on display here.

Benedict_Cumberbatch After the bloody awful "Pecker", John Waters made this hilarious satire about a radical independent director, Cecil B. DeMented (Stephen Dorff) and his wild crew (Maggie Gyllenhaal, Adrian Grenier and Alicia Witt, among others) who kidnap a spoiled Hollywood starlet (Melanie Griffith, self-parodying her career of once successful turned B-list name) and force her to star in an underground film. In a world where the spoofs are made for the teenage audience and with the only purpose of recreating blockbusters' popular scenes (the "Scary Movie" series and its lame imitators - even the work of "cult" names like Kevin Smith - "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" - jumped on the same bandwagon), it's refreshing to watch a satire that's really funny and kitsch, but also very witty. DeMented's crew worships directors like Sam Peckinpah, Kenneth Anger, Pedro Almodóvar, Samuel Fuller, David Lynch and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and not everybody will realize the irony in the end, but for film buffs who like these tidbits, "Cecil B. DeMented" is an absolute riot. 9/10.

yolt13-1 John Waters has a wonderful way of poking fun at just about everyone with equal love and ferocity in his films. This hilarious movie is often labeled as a darkly comedic arrow through the cold heart of the Hollywood system, but that's only half of the story. With typical accuracy and aplomb, Baltimore's favorite son here deftly skewers underground and indie filmmakers as well. As always, though we are meant to root for Cecil and his Sprocket Holes, we are also meant to find them absurd, irrational, ridiculous, somewhat hypocritical, and just a bit scary - just like the tens of thousands of would-be cinematic revolutionaries out there shooting pointless nonsense and proclaiming Hollywood the Devil's backyard while secretly waiting for that call from their agent saying they've finally sold their Sci-Fi Channel original series spec script. Just as A DIRTY SHAME would later take on both the sexually repressed and the criminally uninhibited, CECIL B. DEMENTED delights in reminding us of just how crazy we all are.The cast here has an absolute ball with the razor-sharp material. Of particular note are Maggie Gyllenhaal as a Satan-worshiping make-up artist and Adrian Grenier as an actor who has solved all of his other problems by exchanging them for just one, a world-class drug addiction. Melanie Griffith and Stephen Dorff are fun in the lead roles, but it's Alicia Witt who steals the show as pornstar-turned-perpetually horny film terrorist Cherish. In a film full of show-stopping moments (from a projectile vomiting patron at a screening of the director's cut of PATCH ADAMS to a candy fight in front of a theater showing all "family" films), none is more hilarious or memorable than when our idealistic heroes duck into a porno theater having an all night Cherish anal marathon. The group struggles to blend into a crowd of increasingly aroused raincoaters as they watch the on-screen Cherish become intimately familiar with a very adventurous gerbil. Though nothing explicit is shown, this is about as close to classic Waters as a contemporary studio movie could ever hope to get. Not even the water bottle scene in A DIRTY SHAME can touch it for its sheer absurdity and faux-erotic silliness. To her credit, Miss Witt plays this over-the-top scene with the same relish she brings to the role throughout the entire feature.CECIL B. DEMENTED is a hoot. Snooty as this may sound, if you don't like it, it's because you don't get it. And if you don't get it, maybe John Waters is a name you should avoid when perusing Netflix.

Neil Doyle At the start of CECIL B. DeMENTED, we see a cluster of close-ups showing teens posing as ushers, doormen and whatever, getting ready to celebrate the premiere of a new film starring Honey Whitlock (MELANIE GRIFFITH), an overage Hollywood diva making a personal appearance to promote her new flick. All of them are treating the premiere as a countdown to some sort of disastrous event because they're all in on the kidnapping plan.Well, the disastrous event does happen--but it's this John Waters film that scores big in that department! Just awful. All the dialog, all the sight gags, all the performances are just short of amateurish, so painfully bad that I forced myself to pay attention until the final out of control ending, by which time director Waters seemed to have lost all control of his project, his cast and his story.Ironically, the theme of this "comedy" is supposed to be "down with mainstream film-making" as the insane Cecil B. DeMented intends to kidnap movie star Griffith so that he can use her as the drawing card on his own underground film where only the first take is ever used because he's a seeker of "the truth" and pure vision. But Water's film, while making fun of mainstream trash (and sometimes rightfully so), is itself an example of less than mediocre craftsmanship, crude, tasteless, and full of puerile humor, the kind that grosses some people out, as well as an unhealthy dose of vulgarity.It's when director DeMented (played by STEPHEN DORFF) takes his film-making crew on the road into the real world that all hell breaks loose. None of the cast has anything more than paper thin characterizations to worry about so they appear to be having a good time as they wreak havoc everywhere. The laughs are scant and the film itself just keeps getting worse as it wobbles on and on toward what is supposed to be an exciting finale.Summing up: Lots of R-rated stuff. Keep the kiddies home for this one.Strictly amateur night material which had me wondering whether MELANIE GRIFFITH was so hard up that she had to take part in such an enormous mess. She fully deserved her "Razzie" Award for Worst Actress of the Year. Too bad someone didn't do her a favor and really kidnap her to prevent her from showing up at the studio!I felt like I was watching an Ed Wood film, except it wasn't in glorious B&W!