Fantastic!

Absolutely Fantastic

Blistering performances.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Reviewers who complain that Charles Busch is not believable as a woman - comparing him unfavorably with Divine, et al - miss the point. Busch is in a class all his own, and comparing him to ANYBODY else limits the viewer's ability to enjoy what he offers.He's not SUPPOSED to be a believable woman. He's like a precocious kid who loves to dress up and act like glamorous movie stars from the long-gone days when EVERYBODY overacted, when ALL stars were hams, before Marlon Brando changed the nature of screen acting forever.Unless you can enter Busch's unique world on HIS terms, you won't like his movies. He's letting us watch him act out his glamorous fantasies, the same delightful fantasies he's been acting out since he was a child.He's not a drag queen, he's not a female impersonator, he's not a cross-dresser or a transvestite. He is a MAN - but with the sweet, innocent, wide-eyed, starstruck heart of a little boy - who has a whole lot of fun dressing up like and acting like Bette Davis or Joan Crawford or Olivia de Havilland. He invites us to join in the game.It's fun, unless you're trying to fit it into some mold it doesn't belong in.

i really don't think you have to be queer to like this comedy. i mean you do have to be "queer", but in the oddball sense not in the gay sense. i mostly have known more straight people in my life than gay people, and i definitely know that a lot of those straight persons had a sense of irony and liked off the wall things.and this film is pretty off the wall. and it's also pretty gay. unlike his more repugnant counter part John Waters, Charles Busch definitely promotes gay lifestyle and a gay agenda. as long as you're cool with it, you probably won't mind. although a lot of this movie feels imitative of John Waters, John Waters films are not necessarily openly gay. movies like 'Crybaby' and 'Hairspray' actually center around straight characters and heterosexual lifestyle and relationships. no John Waters films are actually gay thinking or about being gay. John waters is actually more perverse than gay, and i'm sure a good many in the gay community wouldn't necessarily want perversity associated with being gay. Charles Busch's brand of filmmaking seems almost tailored for the Logo channel (which is incidentally, for those who don't know, literally a network aimed at a gay audience).even though Charles Busch aims at a mostly gay audience with gay themes, he's so incredibly funny and imaginative that it crosses over into mainstream comedy and entertainment. what adult couldn't appreciate the mature audacity of Busch's humour.Busch is also not just a funny actor, but seriously a good actor in general. it's pretty good drag too. i find myself willing to suspend a certain amount of disbelief for Busch's attire and appearance as a woman. even Busch's voice sounds like a woman who's chords have been tarnished by years of cigarette abuse. Charles Busch's women are convincing enough and oddly a little attractive. he also carries out his performance with a interesting amount of conviction and sincerity. well after all he is representing his own material.this film is also efficient and competent in all departments. acting, writing, costume and production design as well as photography. and it's very adept at humour. especially where "mommie" sings a round of songs at the piano during a funeral reception.even if you're homophobic (who isn't these days), you should probably lighten up enough to appreciate good comedy. comics from Uncle Milty to the guys from 'Saturday Night Live' have often dressed in drag. this is a really funny film and shouldn't be discriminated against for it's outrageousness.do i think drag dressing is outrageous weirdness? well i'd be lying if i said i didn't think so. it kinda freaks me out and gets me uptight and kinda strung out. but that's part of the fun. outrageous ideas are often adventurous, daring and often take precedent. and there's nothing here too hard to handle except maybe a "doggie style" sex scene with "mommie" and two twins. which actually just made me laugh.like 'Rocky Horror', this movie requires you too relax your mores somewhat to accept it. and that's a good thing. i don't think that there is really anyone out there that really wants to be a uptight prude, and Charles Busch and his devious imagination can help.

I had been looking forward to seeing "Die Mommie Die". Everything about it bodes well for a great time at the movies. The title is filled with campy promise, the casting fairly intriguing and the reviews pretty favorable too.But despite all this, "Die Mommie Die" is not only remarkably flat and unfunny, it's actually boring.While Charles Busch may be a truly talented stage performer, his on screen presence is surprisingly bland, not what one would expect from a reputable drag queen. It's rare for parody to be able to sustain itself for the entire length of a movie; but this one barely gets off the ground.

Screenwriter Charles Busch has adapted 'Die Mommie Die' from his own stage play. A transvestite, Busch also plays the lead role of Angela Arden, a washed-up torch singer in the late 1960's who murders her movie producer husband by giving him an arsenic-laced suppository. Other characters include her incest-oriented virgin daughter, her gay teen son and her bisexual stud boyfriend who manages to run through her, her son and her daughter before he's through with the family.'Die Mommie Die' has all the makings of a nifty little satire in the style of John Waters. Alas, Busch, who is clearly in the bush leagues when it comes to film-making, spends so much time trying to be arch that he forgets to be funny. The story, which is a cross between 'Mommie Dearest' and 'What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?,' is rife with campy possibilities, but the film never catches fire, maintaining far too subdued and restrained a tone for this kind of material. Under Mark Rucker's lagging direction, the pacing turns deadly, with the jokes coming a full beat and a half behind where they ought to. Moreover, the deliberately stilted writing and acting are too cute by half, calling so much attention to themselves that they wind up diluting their effectiveness in the process. It's a shame that what should have been a rollicking, manic good time at the movies turns instead into a funereal misfire. Rarely have ninety minutes passed so slowly.