Pecker is another John Waters tribute to the less fashionable side of his native city of Baltimore. Unlike previous films Pecker is set in modern Baltimore of 1998.
And it's centered around a young man named Pecker. Lest you think it describes him anatomically or behaviorally, what it really does describe is his way of eating as a child, sort of pecking at his food. Of course it wouldn't be John Waters without the double entendre.
Pecker as played by Edward Furlong was given a camera as a kid and it's become an obsession with him, to photograph life and find art in it. Art's everywhere, in his girlfriend's laundromat, in the sandwich shop where he works, in his grandmother's obsession with her talking Virgin Mary icon, even in the garbage where two rats are mating.
Soon his pictures attract attention from the art world. But when that happens Pecker's own world starts to crumble around him. How and will he get it back is the story of Pecker.
John Waters surrounds Furlong with a nice cast of supporting players with the usual Dickensian names for their characters. Best are Christina Ricci as Pecker's girl friend, Baltimore's laundromat Queen, and Brendan Sexton as his best friend and professional kleptomaniac.
Pecker is another of John Waters's lighthearted look at life and some of the strange things we find in it. I think only the most hidebound of rightwing people will not find something amusing in Pecker.
