A Dirty Shame

Director John Waters makes a film that is very funny out of the gate but loses steam before the final visual gag of semen spouting out of Johnny Knoxville’s head and splattering the camera (don’t ask). Tracey Ullman plays a mousy housewife who gets hit on the head and becomes a sex addict. Knoxville plays some sort of sex prophet who leads a group of addicts on a quest for a new sex act. The movie makes little sense and winds up being nothing more than a setup for dirty jokes, some of them great but many of them tired. Waters wants to shock you, and his movie eventually gives off the sensation of a profanely rude partygoer who has taken a few too many dips into the punch bowl and doesn’t know how to shut up.