San Luis Obispo International Film Festival 2009

Thanks to the success of Hairspray, John Waters was a hot property for the first time in his career. Everyone wanted to make his next movie, but it was Universal Studios' Imagine Entertainment who ponied up to make this over-the-top movie musical. The story centers around juvenile delinquent Wade "Cry Baby" Walker, played by 80s teen heart throb Johnny Depp, and his unexpected love interest, Allison. See, Wade is a Drape. Allison is a Square. And Drapes and Squares don't mix. But Allison is tired of being good. The cast of Cry Baby is absolutely outrageous. Featuring former teenage porn star Traci Lords, punk progenitor Iggy Pop, a very large Ricki Lake, a rough and raunchy Susan Tyrell, prim and proper Polly Bergen and Kim McGuire, as well as Patty Hearst, David Nelson, Mink Stole, Troy Donohue, Joey Heatherton, Joe Dallesandro and Willem Dafoe as a perverse prison guard. Packed with musical numbers and plenty of tawdry jokes, this film was produced as a Broadway musical last year.

After train engineer and wanna-be author Paul (Mackenzie Crook) suffers two people falling under his train, he learns that three accidents qualify him for early retirement with 10 years' salary in a lump sum! Longing to move to the country to write, Paul rescues a furious would-be jumper (Colm Meany) who reluctantly agrees to hold off his death in favor of splitting Paul's reward with the wife (Imelda Staunton) and daughter (Gemma Arterton) he abandoned long before. Over the course of Tommy's celebratory last weekend of life, an odd friendship develops through shared experiences that change both men. Eventually Monday comes and both are confronted with the reality of the honor of a man's word vs. the ethical choice of the deal they struck.