Female Trouble

We watched Female Trouble last night. Although it's easily one of my top ten movies ever, it does wear me down after the first hour. Still, there's Divine's trampoline act to look forward to in the last third of the flick.

I think my favourite throwaway moment in the movie is in the scene where Dawn invites The Dashers, her new patrons, over for dinner. When she asks the Dashers if they would like their spaghetti "with or without cheese," Donna Dasher replies, "I'll have two chicken breasts, please," as though she's ordering in a restaurant. I've always wanted to try that line at a dinner party, but no one would get it, and I'd feel awkward and ashamed.

Female Trouble is over 30 years old now, and though a lot of its political and criminal references have been obscured by subsequent decades of headlines and horrors, the whole idea of "crime is beauty" is still completely relevant. Why do you think The Province puts that horrid little scag Kelly Ellard on its cover whenever it gets the chance? The Province looooves Kelly Ellard and her ratlike face...almost as much as it loves her crime.