John Waters

John Waters always bases his films in Baltimore, has already made a film about a teen dance show, is hardly the kind of guy who'd stage a press conference at Planet Hollywood and has never met a would-be screenwriter named Ben Castro.So what was Castro doing at the New Orleans Planet Hollywood last month, announcing that his screenplay, "Electric Carousel: The Movie," about the rise and fall of a New Orleans dance show, would be made into a film starring Judd Nelson and directed by Baltimore's favorite cult film director?

Flashback is the kind of store where odd things seem to congregate as a matter of course. It's full of used LPs, kitschy knickknacks, ancient curios and exactly the sort of movie memorabilia you'd expect in a shop that was once co-owned by Edith Massey.It's a perfect place, in other words, to show off the quirkier side of Baltimore's character. That's why John Waters took MTV News anchorman Kurt Loder and a camera crew to the Fells Point store yesterday.This weekend, Baltimore will be the backdrop for "The Week in Rock," MTV's half-hour news show (it airs tonight at 7:30, at 12:30 and 6 p.m. tomorrow, and at 8:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Sunday)

They've smeared themselves with molasses, spent days searching for iron lungs and pulled all-nighters with 5,000 flies.When you belong to John Waters' cinematic inner circle, this is what's asked of you -- and more.In a business where friendships often fade with the final credits, Baltimore's bad boy of film has cultivated a group of like-minded cohorts who have helped translate his oddball vision onto the big screen for nearly three decades.They were there when the budgets were thin, the acting questionable and the audience nonexistent.

We're sitting in our office the other day when an e-mail arrives from the New Museum in New York informing us of an upcoming exhibit of still photographs by Baltimore's own filmmaker, John Waters. The message informs us that the exhibition opens Feb. 7 - today - coinciding with John Waters Day in Baltimore. Hmmm, we think, it's gratifying to share the work of a favorite son with the rest of the world, but what's this about a John Waters Day? We have one of those? Just as we begin pulling out our calendars to see if we've overlooked a chance to celebrate something, another e-mail arrives.

Tickets for the Hollywood-style opening of John Waters' new film, "Cecil B. Demented," scheduled for Aug. 2 at the Senator, go on sale today. Filmed in Baltimore last year, "Cecil B. Demented" stars Stephen Dorff as the title character, a guerrilla filmmaker determined to make movies on his own terms, movies that not only buck the Hollywood system, but will lead to the destruction of Hollywood as we know it. Melanie Griffith plays a big-time star who...

Pink flamingos peer down from the dining room walls of Mink Stole's apartment -- playful reminders of the notorious 1972 film that helped launch Stole's career as an actress, alongside Divine, John Waters and the rest of the Dreamlanders. While Stole says she has a copy of "Pink Flamingos" "somewhere," she hasn't seen the film -- or many of the other Waters' productions she co-starred in -- for some time. The past few years, Stole has been focusing on her budding career as a singer.

With school kids peeking from their classrooms, actress Kathleen Turner repeatedly ran her car over a Towson High School math teacher in the school's parking lot.But what sounds like a tabloid newspaper's dream story was a bit of movie madness: The teacher was a dummy, and the scene part of two days of filming at Towson High last week for director John Waters' latest movie, "Serial Mom."In another scene, according to Principal Louis J. Sergi, the filming moved indoors to a ground-floor classroom, where Ms. Turner was to confront the teacher during a parent conference.

Oh, what you missed, when Baltimore's "bad boy" filmmaker John Waters sat down for a chat with students at Baltimore School for the Arts! Waters was this year's guest as the Colgate Salsbury Visiting Artist series celebrated its fifth anniversary. And he proved, once again, he is as entertaining as his movies. A sampling of the Waters' wisdom that day: "It helps to be what you make fun of." "Why would you watch reality television when you've got Baltimore?" "Baltimore is a town where everyone thinks they're normal, but they're totally insane.

Christine Mason didn't just do hairdos. She created "characters" on actors' and actresses' heads.Ms. Mason, whose behemoth beehives and other outrageous coiffeurs were comic highlights in five of Baltimore director John Waters' most popular films, died Monday of cervical cancer at home in Oliver Beach in eastern Baltimore County. She was 49.Friends recalled Ms. Mason as a woman of multiple talents whose varied career included stints as a French-style chef, performance artist, costume designer and concert promoter.

Born in 1946, John Waters has lived much of his life in Baltimore, site of most of his films. He wrote and directed his first movie, Hag in a Black Leather Jacket, in 1964 while he was still in high school. By the time he was 27, he had put out eight films, including Pink Flamingos (1972) and Female Trouble (1974) and was a considerable camp celebrity -- dubbed by William Burroughs as "The Pope of Trash." He is still making films, productive for 40 years. The latest, A Dirty Shame, will be released this summer.