Buy from eBay Hairspray Release Date: 26 February, 1988 Director: John Waters Staring: Sonny Bono, Ruth Brown, Divine Studio: Warner Home Video Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested) Buy this film on eBay Amazon.com Customer Reviews   Rated 5 out of 5! THE MUSICAL! Awesome! The musical is coming to Toronto too. They gave it eight Tony Awards! I hear there’’s going to be a look-a-like contest and $19.00 tickets on December 1st at 6am at the Theater there...I think it’’s the Princess of Wales Theater. I’’ll be first in line cool cats!   Rated 5 out of 5! A really funny comedy bursting with talent. I loved it! I saw this film when it first came out in 1988. I loved it then. I recently saw it on the small screen. I loved it even more. Maybe its because I’’ve followed the career of its star, Ricki Lake, and have seen her transformed from a chubby teenager into a slim talk show host. Maybe its because I can appreciate the comic genius of director John Waters who is willing to push the envelope over the top on every scene. Maybe its because I really enjoyed watching the double role played by the transvestite called Divine. Maybe its because of the outrageous clothes worn by all the characters. Most of all though, I know its because this film made me laugh out loud. Hairspray is set in the early sixties, when teen age dance programs were all the rage. And its about a fat girl who doesn’’t fit in, but yet is a terrific dancer. She becomes a teenage idol though and the whole city loves her. She’’s smart and sassy and also wants to force the dance show to racially integrate. And she manages to do this with just the right degree of gumption, comedy and romance. The casting includes Sonny Bono and Deborah Harry as the parents of a teenager who is Ricki’’s competition, Colleen Fitzpatrick. And the singer Ruth Brown not only has a role of the mother of a teenager who is trying to integrate the show, she sings too. Divine plays the role of Ricki’’s mother as well as the male owner of the TV show. And Jerry Stiller is cast as Ricki’’s father. All in all, the film is bursting with talent. I sat there, relaxed, and laughed my head off. This is truly a funny comedy. Highly recommended.   Rated 5 out of 5! Hey-diddly BOP! (Continental, Continental...) John Waters purists may argue that HAIRSPRAY, his great crossover hit, is nowhere near as lowdown dirty and outrageously sidesplitting as his earlier guerilla films, but there’’s no denying that this is his smoothest piece of work, with by far the best performances. Everyone by this point knows that the film concerns the attempts of Tracy Turnblad, "an upper lower-class" overweight white girl from inner-city 1962 Baltimore, to get onto a popular local television dance show and then to integrate it successfully. The entire cast (even the supporting throwaway parts: catch the facial expressions of Amber’’s friends when she’’s dissing Tracy in class) is just about perfect, and is led by three magnificent teenage performances: Ricki Lake as the supremely confident Tracy; Divine, as her charmingly pushing mother; and the scene-stealer Colleen Fitzpatrick as Tracy’’s rival, the abominable blonde Amber. One thing that really helps the film is the superb soundtrack from the early 60s, which keeps things hopping, and the marvelous dancing (particularly on the part of Lake and Fitzpatrick) to accompany it. The DVD version is really a treat, offering one of the finest and funniest director’’s commentators ever from John Waters: it’’s amazing to hear how much background was behind the film, which chronicles his real-life obsession with a similar Baltimore early 60’’s dance show. There are also some comments from Lake, who unsurprisingly reveals what a diva she really is (she’’s STILL upset with Waters for making her dye her hair for the film!). But the Waters’’s comments are laugh-out-loud funny, and there are far more of them than Lake’’s, which is a blessing.     Related Films: Serial Mom