Capital Celluloid 2016 - Day 112: Thu Apr 21

Drop Dead Gorgeous (Jann, 1999): Prince Charles Cinema, 9pm


Here is the Prince Charles Cinema introduction to the film:
Bring your tiaras and don your beauty queen sashes as Bechdel Test Fest team with LoCo film festival to present the hilarious all-female comedy Drop Dead Gorgeous in 35mm. Preambling this rare screening of the cult classic written by Lona Williams will be a special guest panel intro: The Last Laugh: Why do female-led comedies do better than other genres? With Trainwreck pulling in over $110m at the box office, Ghostbusters proving one of the most anticipated films of the summer and Pitch Perfect due its second sequel in 2017, funny women are making a bigger mark on the industry than ever before. So why is comedy the only genre that seems to accommodate leading women, especially an ensemble cast, and could other genres learn to do the same?
You can read more on the Facebook page for the event here.

Chicago Reader review:
Kirstie Alley, Ellen Barkin, Kirsten Dunst, and Denise Richards star in this uniquely mean-spirited skewering of teen beauty pageants (1999). An intermittently enjoyable bad movie that never knows when to stop, this heaps scorn not only on every aspect of (and participant in) the pageant but also on mental defectives, signing for the deaf, and Japanese-Americans eager to assimilate. All the leads play their roles like strident amateurs (only Allison Janney, as Barkin's best friend, emerges relatively unscathed), and the film's so aggressive about its bad-taste agenda that the early John Waters seems a pussycat by comparison. There's something bracing about the unleashing of so much unbridled negativity, especially for anyone who's ever suffered through small-town pettiness and mediocrity, but this 1999 release eventually outstays its welcome. Still, if you come to it in a sufficiently foul mood, it might cheer you up. Michael Patrick Jann directed.
Jonathan Rosenabum

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