(This, of course, is just about the only time the film's hot-blooded delinquents show up at school.) He gets another memorable image out of teen-age couples necking on blankets across an expanse of lawn, with so many of them gathered there that the shot almost looks like science fiction of the pod-person era.
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Waters ekes a ghoulishly effective opening sequence out of polio vaccination day. ''Cry-Baby'' is best when unabashedly magnifying vintage trivia into crazily overblown little triumphs, when making bona fide mountains out of molehills. Waters's screenplay has particularly heartfelt fun with lines like ''You sure are pretty in them tight clothes, all dressed up like trash!'' Sandman,'' but the real enjoyment here comes from watching the story's overly well-bred characters learn to recognize the error of their ways. Sure, he likes a good bunny hop or a dizzyingly silly rendition of ''Mr.
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There is never any question as to where Mr. (''What a sad and silly name for a young man!'' exclaims the judge who finally throws Cry-Baby in the slammer, so that the film can devote a musical segment to jailhouse rock.) It surrounds him with a large and lively supporting cast illustrative of the cultural polarities of its time, from the bad (Traci Lords, highly effective as a hissing, sneering sexpot named Wanda) to the boringly good (sweet-faced Amy Locane, perfectly cast as a nice girl named Allison who's just dying to turn naughty). ''Cry-Baby'' casts the television heartthrob Johnny Depp as the bad boy of the title. The latter part of the film is devoted almost entirely to empty posturing. Patricia Hearst as a crossing guard) has worn thin. Unlike his sunnier and more spontaneous ''Hairspray,'' ''Cry-Baby'' has its brittle side, especially after the fun of initially encountering its ringer-filled cast (e.g. But in his case, that manifests itself as a deep and enduring affection for the grotesque, an affection that renders the forced innocence of ''Cry-Baby'' very precarious indeed.
![cry-baby movie cry-baby movie](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/00/46/df/0046dfa91066525afef4c9c7e027aae4.jpg)
Waters shares with others like David Lynch a profoundly ironic view of picket-fence, middle-American platitudes. What it doesn't have, unfortunately, is enough true conviction to rise above novelty status. It also has droll costumes, elaborate musical numbers and a cast that's less a dramatic ensemble than a collection of found art. Waters's epic vision of mid-1950's high-school Americana, has a sweeping scale not usually associated with so dopey a subject, and for a while, almost enough exuberance to make that scale seem right. Not content to watch old Presley movies on television, John Waters has made a brand new one, and made it in the manner of a teen-crazed Cecil B.