The shenanigans have been pared into 84 minutes of transgressive, potty-minded farce, that is often Waters at his most cheerful and most thematically focused.

A fast, furious and funny fusillade of a movie.

DeMented is Waters the way we like him--spiked with laughs and served with a twist.

Cecil B. proves how a dose of smart bad taste can be jolly good fun.

Not to be missed, one of the year's best, a whole lotta laughs, and 4-stars all rolled into one.

If this movie does anything to rally crowds against cinema's mass distribution of mediocrity then it has served a noble purse.

For good and ill, there is only one John Waters.

For movie fans who despair of the state of American cinema, the in-jokes are hilarious.

It's Waters' way of saying: It's only a movie.

The comedy is frantic and tasteless in the usual Waters mode, but it takes telling potshots at the Hollywood establishment, which isn't nearly so open about the tackiness of its products.

It's an audacious little comedy with bursts of hilarity and a certain giddy energy.

This is a sweet-spirited movie about a nice bunch of kids having good clean fun.

A small, scruffy, but agreeably energized comedy.

Neither Waters' funniest film nor, by a long chalk, his most radical. But it is, as promised, a passing of the torch and an article of suitably perverse faith in the next generation of nutso cinéastes.