Cinema: Pecker

In his Baltimore neighborhood Pecker (Edward Furlong), who takes pictures of its benignly weird denizens, is regarded as a sweetly beamy pest. In the New York art world, however, he comes to be regarded as a divine primitive. You can probably imagine the clash when Waters brings Pecker’s blue-collar subjects together with his chic discoverers. Much more fun–as always in Waters’ genially transgressive movies–are the rich portrayals of his fellow Baltimoreans, among them Christina Ricci’s Laundromat Nazi, Mary Kay Place’s fashion-forward thrift-shop owner and Jean Schertler’s goofy grandma using a statue of the Virgin Mary to practice some pious ventriloquism. Check ’em out.

–By Richard Schickel