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Review

Writer-director Waters returns to his subversive comedic grabbag for Pecker, a restrained though amusing comedy which combines the director's penchant for shock comedy and a more accessible filmmaking style he honed after Hairspray. Set in Baltimore (where else?), the story follows the rise of young Pecker (Furlong), a fledgling photographer whose pictures of his slightly dysfunctional family and working-class neighborhood capture the attention of the New York art scene. It's trash vs. flash when these worlds collide, and Waters milks some good laughs at the expense of one and all involved. As the complaisant hero, Furlong has an agreeable comic air about him, though it's up to everyone else around him to offer the titillating laughs. These include Plimpton as Pecker's fag-hag older sister, Hulsey as his sugar-addicted younger sister, and Schertler as his grandmother with a talking Virgin Mary statue. The comedy in Pecker may not always shoot from the hip; but, then, that's not from where Waters is aiming with this omnisexual spoof -- we've seen John down and dirtier, but then he's in an awfully good mood.