Cry-Baby (1990)

From my favorite movies..

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

I absolutely loved the actors and the idea of the movie. Everything was exaggerated and made to emphasize so many flawed different personalities. It is an illustration of what is wrong with people in general. it is the perfect combination of love comedy and drama and also a very original idea that is somehow defined by clichés.At first i was expecting a Friday-night movie like a romantic comedy of the 90's but really it is nothing like that in the best way possible.It is a little short for a movie but i don't think there was anything left out it is a very beautiful work. I definitely recommend it, a truly enjoyable movie that has a lot to teach.

In 1950s Baltimore, a bad-boy with a heart of gold (Johnny Depp) wins the love of a good-girl (Amy Locane), whose grandmother (Polly Bergen) smells like moth balls and turkey grease.I like the quirkiness of John Waters and he really has assembled an impressive cast here (catching Depp before he became even bigger). But I just did not get all that attached to the film, primarily because of the singing. I am sure the music that turned me off is the same reason many people love the film, but I just could not get into it.I still think it is worth seeing, especially if you are a fan of Waters, Depp or Ricki Lake. Seeing Amy Locane in a prominent role was cool, and it is a shame she never quite made it to A-list star level (though she made it further than Jill Schoelen).

In 1954 Baltimore bad boy Cry Baby (Johnny Depp) falls for sweet and innocent Allison Vernon-Williams (Amy Locane). She also falls for him to the horror of her mother (Polly Bergen perfectly cast) and her boyfriend who will do anything to get her back.This movie was obviously made to recreate the success of John Waters' earlier film "Hairspray" which was a huge hit. It didn't even come close and it's easy to see why. It's not a bad movie at all. It has a great soundtrack and the song and dance numbers are incredible (especially the ones in the prison). The cast is all good. Depp is fun in his first movie; Locane is very sexy; Ricki Lake is having a great time; Traci Lords wisely kids her porn star image. The problem is the script. It's very scattershot and rambles all over the place. It moves around so much I was lost at a few points. The movie never pulls itself together. There are tons of great moment's but it never works as a whole. So--it's worth seeing just for the music numbers alone but it's no "Hairspray".

'Cry-Baby' is good film, up there with 'Grease', 'American Graffiti' and other films which depict teenage high-school life, cliques and the pop culture, fashions and music of the 1950s. 'Cry-Baby' is a good attempt to parody the romance of good girls and greasers as seen in 'Grease' and films with a similar focus. However, I do use the word 'attempt' strongly here. The film suffers from a lack of well developed satirical jokes and parody of 50s high school movies and if more time and thought had been put into it, it could have so much better. The other main failing of the film in my opinion is that the plot is too awkward and rushed: I don't think Alison's grandmother could have let her hang out with greasers so easily and the sequence of the prison sentences and the conclusion goes way to quickly to make the film satisfying. The characters are also somewhat one dimensional and more scenes to let us get acquainted with them and show the tensions i.e. Alison and her grandmother and Alison and her square singer boyfriend would have made the film so much more enjoyable and believable. If more scenes had been filmed to cover these elements and the final release was about 2 hours, the whole movie would have been so much better. However, aside from that, I do re-watch this frequently and it is still very entertaining.