John Waters' Iconic "Pink Flamingos" Gets Criterion Collection Release For 50th Anniversary
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Baltimore director John Waters is adding another film to his Criterion Collection roster.
To honor its 50th year, The Criterion Collection on Thursday confirmed a re-release of Waters' cult classic "Pink Flamingos," a self-described "exercise in poor taste." Thursday marks the 50th anniversary of the film's debut.
The release date for the restored film is June 28, but a pre-order option is available and the cost is $31.96.
Hampden-based Atomic Books -- where Waters often appears for events, and where he picks up his fan mail -- has signed copies of the film available for pre-order for $39.95.
The new Blu-Ray also comes with a new cover design by Eric Skillman, which looks like a brown paper package addressed to Babs Johnson, the alias of protagonist and Water's muse, drag queen Divine, in the film.
"John Waters made bad taste perversely transcendent with the forever shocking counterculture sensation Pink Flamingos, his most infamous and daring cinematic transgression." reads Criterion's description of the film."...Incest, cannibalism, shrimping, and film history's most legendary gross-out ending—Waters and his merry band of Dreamlanders leave no taboo unsmashed in this gleefully subversive ode to outsiderhood, in which camp spectacle and pitch-black satire are wielded in an all-out assault on respectability."
The director-approved Blu-Ray special edition features:
- New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director John Waters, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Two audio commentaries featuring Waters, from the 1997 Criterion laserdisc and the 2001 DVD release
- New conversation between Waters and filmmaker Jim Jarmusch
- Tour of the film's Baltimore locations, led by Waters
- Deleted scenes, alternate takes, and on-set footage
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic Howard Hampton and a piece by actor and author Cookie Mueller about the making of the film, from her 1990 book Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black
