Terry Zwigoff directs Max Minghella, Sophia Myles and John Malkovich in this campus comedy where an art student finds themselves enrolled in a ghetto of an art college.

This wants to be a satire but I’m not sure it really has the right concentration at what it wants to lampoon. Firstly, John Water’s Pecker did this all far more jollily, with dirty affection. Secondly, the serial killer subplot distracts from what we bought a ticket for, a key sign that Clowes / Zigoff didn’t think there was enough here as a one-of-a-kind experience. Thirdly, as a quasi sequel to Ghost World (same source author, humour, attitude, style) this just proves what lightning in a bottle casting Thora, Scarlett and Steve all were. If Zwigoff just stuck to his preset objectives there is a better film here. Malkovich and Myles understand the assignment.

5

Perfect Double Bill: Pecker (1998)

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