www.plaguesandpleasures.com/

JOHN WATERS - LEGENDARY COUNTERCULTURE FILMMAKER AND “KING OF TRASH” NARRATES “PLAGUES & PLEASURES ON THE SALTON SEA.”

Already a hit at festivals across the USA, the unconventional and often humorous PLAGUES AND PLEASURES further defies expectations with the addition of John Waters as the film’s narrator. The new version of the film premiered in June 2005 at the Provincetown Film Festival, in Provincetown, Massachusetts, hosted by Mr. Waters himself.

Once known as the “California Riviera”, the Salton Sea is called one of America’s worst ecological disasters: a fetid, stagnant, salty lake, coughing up dead fish and birds by the thousands. Yet a few hardy eccentrics hang on to hope, including a roadside nudist waving at passing European tourists, a man building a religious mountain out of mud and paint, beer-loving Hungarian Revolutionary Hunky Daddy, and the real-estate “Ronald McDonald” known simply as The Landman. Through their perceptions and misperceptions, the strange history and unexpected beauty of the Salton Sea is revealed.

“Accidentally” created by an engineering error in 1905, reworked in the 50’s as a world class vacation destination for the rich and famous, and then suddenly abandoned after a series of hurricanes, floods, and fish die-offs, the Salton Sea has a bittersweet past. Congressman Sonny Bono himself was once dedicated to saving the lake, until he went skiing one day…

Now amongst the ruins of this man-made mistake, these few remaining people struggle to keep a remodelled version of the dream alive. However, this most unique community is now threatened by the nearby megalopolises of Los Angeles and San Diego, as they attempt to take the agricultural run-off that barely sustains the sea. The fate of this so-called ecological time bomb and the community that surrounds it remain uncertain, as the Salton Sea might just dry up.

While PLAGUES & PLEASURES covers the historical, economic, political, and environmental issues that face the sea, it more importantly offers up an offbeat portrait of the eccentric and individualistic people who populate its shores. It is an epic western tale of fantastic real estate ventures and failed boomtowns, inner-city gangs fleeing to white small town America, and the subjective notion of success and failure amidst the ruins of the past. Hair-raising and hilarious, part history lesson, part cautionary tale and part portrait of one of the strangest communities you’ve ever seen, this is the American Dream gone as stinky as a dead carp.

CHRIS METZLER – CO-DIRECTOR:

After graduating from USC with a degree in business and cinema, Chris’ film career has taken him from the depths of agency work, to coordinating post-production for awful American movies seen late at night in Belgium.

His film directing and producing work has resulted in frequent partnerships with Jeff Springer, where together they've criss-crossed the country with the aid of caffeinated beverages and made their way in the Nashville country and Christian music video industries, before finally forsaking their souls to commercial LA rock n’ roll. These misadventures eventually culminated in them winning a Billboard Magazine Music Video Award. Chris now finds himself pursuing docs featuring gay truck drivers and Australian opal miners.

JEFF SPRINGER – CO-DIRECTOR

Jeff Springer was born in a virtually abandoned town in the California desert, raised in Hawaii, and educated at USC Film School. After living for a winter in Russia, he returned to Los Angeles to begin directing music videos, shorts, and editing for UPN, Fox, Geffen Records, and Lucasfilm. Burned out and hung over, he eventually fled to San Francisco to start work on PLAGUES & PLEASURES, while still driving to Los Angeles to edit WWF and Moesha promos to pay the bills. He now lives somewhere between San Francisco, London, and Berlin.

JOHN WATERS – NARRATOR

Growing up in Baltimore in the 1950’s Waters was not like other children; he was obsessed by violence and gore, both real and on the screen. With his weird counter-culture friends acting, he began making silent 8mm and 16mm films in the mid 1960’s; he screened these in rented Baltimore church halls to underground audiences drawn by word-of-mouth and street leafleting campaigns. As his filmmaking grew more polished and his subject matter more shocking, his audiences grew bigger, and his write-ups in the Baltimore papers more outraged. By the early 1970’s he was making features which he managed to get shown in midnight screenings in art cinemas by sheer perseverance. Success came when Pink Flamingos, a deliberate exercise in ultra-bad taste, took off in 1973; helped no doubt by lead actor 'Divine' infamous dog-shit eating scene.

He continued to make low-budget shocking movies with his Dreamland repertory company, until Hollywood crossover success came in 1988 with Hairspray, and although his movies might now appear cleaned-up and professional, they retain Waters’ playfulness, and reflect his life-long obsessions.

“Jaunty and fun… with a cast of colorful locals who make the residents of Vernon, Florida seem normal.”

- Variety

“It’s a winner. This odd, but accessible documentary is reminiscent of Errol Morris’ early work… Metzler & Springer are no less talented.”

- Pitch Weekly

“A lot of laughs. A funny and poignant new documentary.”

- San Francisco Chronicle

“Apart from simply filming – often quite beautifully… the wistful Plagues & Pleasures connects with the viewer on multiple levels, coaxing equal parts affection and revulsion while illuminating a little corner of California most folks deliberately give the widest possible berth.”

- San Francisco Bay Guardian

“The human heart is found in the oddball locals, as Metzler and Springer eschew the role of muckraking filmmakers, training their lens on the lake and letting it tell its calamitous and complicated tale.”

- Albuquerque Tribune

“Beautiful… the filmmakers have found some wonderful people to turn the camera on.”

- Salt Lake City Tribune

“I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. A must see.”

- Kansas City Star

“A haunting, fascinating cinematic experience.”

- Urban Tulsa Weekly

“Four stars! Offering you a vacation like you’ve never had before… in this charming, yet sad documentary.”

- Film Threat