Speaking of Pink Flamingos, its now-somewhat-respectable auteur has a new picture, one in which he seems to be, well, bemoaning his respectability. John Waters's Cecil B. Demented is a cri de coeur for a brand of guerrilla cinema that seems inconceivable today. Cheekily taking its cue from the Patricia Hearst saga (rather extra-cheekily, in fact, since Hearst is in the movie), Demented sees pampered, bitchy Hollywood megastar Honey Whitlock (Melanie Griffith, in a role she was born to play, although no one could have envisioned that back when she appeared in Night Moves) kidnapped from a Baltimore movie premiere by a cadre of young cinema terrorists led by the title character (Stephen Dorff, appropriately charismatic and crazed). Each member of this motley crew has the name of a firebrand filmmaker tattooed on his or her body (talk about daring — these days it takes real moxie to drop names such as Sam Fuller without appending the words film director in front of them) and some of the movie's funniest-creepiest scenes involve Demented imploring this hormonally charged bunch to abjure sex until they complete their mission, which is to rid the world of mass-manufactured, made-in-L.A. cinematic dreck.

As the picture progresses, Griffith's character comes to sympathize with, and finally embrace, said mission. As someone who is regularly asked to hold forth on movies so entirely content-free that it would be a waste of time to even begin to form an opinion of them (Gone in Sixty Seconds, anyone?), I have considerable sympathy for Demented's mission (and Waters's statement). But I wonder if many others will. Demented's deliberately drab and ugly look harks back to the notorious anti-mise-en-scène of the early Waters works Multiple Maniacs and Female Trouble (a notable exception is the picture's final point-of-view shot, a quietly tragic meditation on Honey's ultimate fate, and perhaps Waters's as well), and probably will irritate viewers who reflexively demand slickness from their cinematic confections. The admittedly absurdist scenario's refusal to flinch from the consequences of Demented and Co.'s actions (they are bona fide terrorists, with real guns and everything) — not to mention what seems to be (but is not) a fairly uncritical homage to Jim Jones and other cult leaders — is kind of squirm-worthy. I think that's a good thing, and the fact that there are fewer and fewer moviemakers and fans around who share that view is precisely what Waters is mourning here.