Bam Bam and Celeste

September. 13,2005      
Rating:
5.2
Trailer Synopsis Cast

Celeste and Bam Bam escape their Midwest hometown for New York, and take on their high-school nemeses - the dictators of the world-famous Salon Mirage - while discovering that true beauty lies within.

Margaret Cho as  Celeste / Mommy
John Cho as  Stephan
Bruce Daniels as  Bam Bam
Jane Lynch as  Darlene
Alan Cumming as  Eugene
Elaine Hendrix as  Jackie
Butch Klein as  Ryan
Kathy Najimy as  Legba
Wayne Federman as  Redneck
Katy Selverstone as  Allegra

Similar titles

Hi, Are You Alone?
Hi, Are You Alone?
Nina is a 20 years old girl from Valladolid who lives with her divorced father, an autoritarian and conservative man. Trini is of the same age and has lost her mother. For both Valladolid and their families have nothing to offer and therefore they go on a risky voyage to the Costa del Sol at the south of Spain.
Hi, Are You Alone? 1995
Maid to Order
Maid to Order
Spoiled Jessie Montgomery, whose wild behavior and spending excesses cause her well-meaning but exasperated millionaire father Charles to wish he never had her, is visited by fairy godmother Stella. In an effort to save Jessie, Stella casts a spell which causes Charles to no longer have a daughter. Jessie, now penniless and without a friend, must take a maid's job to earn a living, and hopefully to learn her lesson.
Maid to Order 1987
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Paramount+
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
An irritable marketing executive, Neal Page, is heading home to Chicago for Thanksgiving when a number of delays force him to travel with a well meaning but overbearing shower curtain ring salesman, Del Griffith.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles 1987
Return to Me
Prime Video
Return to Me
It took a lot of cajoling to get Bob, a recently widowed architect, to go on a blind date at a quirky Irish-Italian eatery. Once there, he's smitten instantly not with his date but with the sharp-witted waitress. Everything seems to be going great until an unbelievable truth is revealed, one that could easily break both of their hearts for good.
Return to Me 2000
Bastards
Bastards
At 14 Rabha El Haimer was an illiterate child bride, beaten, raped and then rejected. Ten years later, she is a single mother, fighting to legalise her sham marriage and secure a future for her illegitimate daughter. With unprecedented access to the Moroccan justice system, “Bastards” follows Rabha’s fight from the Casablanca slums to the high courts.
Bastards 2014
Galathea
Galathea
Pioneer of silhouette animation, Lotte Reiniger, uses this technique in a retelling of the Greek legend in which the sculptor, Pygmalion, brings a statue to life.
Galathea 1935
Stranded
Prime Video
Stranded
A team of astronauts on the first mission to Mars crashes onto the surface, losing contact with Earth. With no other recourse, and help millions of miles away, the crew is forced to make desperate choices in order to stay alive. Will they be able to survive as the minutes slip away?
Stranded 2001
Right Under My Eyes
Right Under My Eyes
Young computer enthusiast Liam runs a website streaming video of his every action captured on a webcam. He lives a reclusive life, temporarily staying in a friend’s apartment in Paris until waitress Alison and her British husband, James, move in.
Right Under My Eyes 2002
Paris Je T'aime
AMC+
Paris Je T'aime
Olivier Assayas, Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven and Alfonso Cuaron are among the 20 distinguished directors who contribute to this collection of 18 stories, each exploring a different aspect of Parisian life. The colourful characters in this drama include a pair of mimes, a husband trying to chose between his wife and his lover, and a married man who turns to a prostitute for advice.
Paris Je T'aime 2007
Big
Starz
Big
When a young boy makes a wish at a carnival machine to be big—he wakes up the following morning to find that it has been granted and his body has grown older overnight. But he is still the same 13-year-old boy inside. Now he must learn how to cope with the unfamiliar world of grown-ups including getting a job and having his first romantic encounter with a woman.
Big 1988

Reviews

Hellen
2005/09/13

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

... more
SpuffyWeb
2005/09/14

Sadly Over-hyped

... more
Stevecorp
2005/09/15

Don't listen to the negative reviews

... more
Intcatinfo
2005/09/16

A Masterpiece!

... more
Ruadhan McElroy
2005/09/17

Maybe I'm just too strange myself to really need Cho's constant message of self-love and self-empowerment, but I tired of it quickly as an adult, yet still harbour this quasi-nostalgic fondness that I had for Cho in my teens, even though I now find her incredibly boring, at best and, as an effete gay man of FTM history, I more often find her disgustingly offensive and hackneyed in her potential for appeal. She's best when she's lampooning the "child of immigrants" experience, even as one who was raised by non-assimilating English immigrant/Blitz-refugee grandparents, on some level I can relate to the ineffable strangeness of being reared in such close proximity with "the old country" and find it funny when it is; even so, she's been telling that joke, and all her others, for twenty years, and she seldom expands on it any more than she ever has.I can see what Cho was trying to do here. At the heart of this film, she's clearly attempting to unite her message of self-love with the low-budget camp and highly exaggerated character of a classic John Waters film from the 1970s. In that sense, I can respect her goals, but the Waters classics had something, likely many things that this film seriously lacks. One of those things is the on-screen sincerity of the characters and the chemistry they have with other characters. For as ridiculous as Waters characters like dawn Davenport, Aunt Ida, Crackers, Connie & Raymond Marbles and all the others are, every single actor in those films managed to put every fibre of their essence into those characters to make you believe them, and you simply don't get that in BAM-BAM & CELESTE, except perhaps with Hendrix. Furthermore, your classic John Waters character is less a one-sided stereotype and more something so bizarre its out of a fairy-tale. Cho's goth-punk Celeste is pretty much the stereotype of the self-hating fat girl who falls into that scene to distract from her own self-perceived ugliness. Daniels' effete and promiscuous gay boy is the same vapid, shallow caricature that you'd expect. The stereotyped "Midwesterners" they encounter on the road-trip are less like any "Midwesterner stereotypes" I've actually met (what with living here for twenty years) and more like what somebody from one of the coasts might imagine, making it possibly the most offensive aspect of the entire thing.Furthermore, Cho's message of self-love and implications of freak solidarity is completely lost when the once punky girl who justifiably hated everybody in that tiny town doesn't decide she's beautiful until she's transformed into something worlds more normal. The message that becomes clear is "you can't believe you're beautiful until everybody else believes you are".I really wanted to like this, really wanted to believe that there was something else decent to come out of Cho since Notorious and before she decided to stop being an ally to the TS/TG in the GBLT community, but I guess my nostalgia is either simply doomed to be disappointed, or simply was unfounded in the first place. This isn't the worst film ever, but it's certainly unfunny and generally forgettable if not for every offense to the community she so desperately wants to stand in solidarity with.

... more
Marian_typepad_com
2005/09/18

I LOVE this edgy flick and I'm here to tell you Celeste & Bambam is gonna be a CULT Classic. YOU HAVEN'T SEEN A FILM LIKE THIS BEFORE! The kinda wild combo of a funky Korean-American girl, Celeste Chun (MARGARET CHO) and hip, gay Black American guy, Bambam (BRUCE DANIELS) teams up to escape "in your face" white racism in the U.S. Midwest. While they work their way cross-country to overcome their past, Celeste tells Bambam "Someday people are gonna wanna hear what WE have to say!" Right on, Celeste! Then there's Margaret's spot-on interpretation of a goofy yet loving Mom, also played by HERSELF. "Who is this?" Mommy asks Celeste on the phone, "I'm sorry, I have to ask everyone for security reasons." There's so much going on in this film and there are more memorable lines & quirky characters. Brit actor ALAN CUMMING plays nice guy Eugene: "High school is the natural habitat of dictators," while JOHN CHO (Harold of "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle") plays the host of a TV show called "TRADING FACES." I love JANE LYNCH, too, as "Darlene Dawson" - "Just a leeettle bit'a in-breedin'. Just-a touch." And later to Celeste: "I think you're even more beautiful-er in the mornin'." Darlene's the white "lesbian Lone Ranger" with a sweet heart of gold. Later Celeste has a run-in at a gas station where she tells off a racist store attendant calling her ALL kinds of names. "If you're gonna be racist, get a 'neo-Nazi to English' dictionary!" You go, Celeste! I'm not giving away anymore, but mark my words: CELESTE & BAMBAM IS a whole new Cult Classic. If you can handle it check out this flick. Thanks Margaret and Bruce!!

... more
Jim Burt
2005/09/19

Anyone who hates this just doesn't get the concept of camp and parody. Like hello ... it's comedy, not Henry VIII, OK? Good grins all around. Good comedy often gets its message across though exaggeration. This movie is a good example of that. The homophobes and bigots are caricatures, not characters, and it works. Likewise, the romantic interest is exaggerated through its apparent superficiality. That's the point. This isn't about character development. It's about focusing the viewer on how they perceive the people around them, and pointing out the superficiality of their perceptions of others. In that, it succeeds. Though the ending was almost trite, they saved it in the end. Definitely worth a watch, and good messages all around.

... more
laboy00000
2005/09/20

I had the chance to catch Bam Bam and Celeste at the Toronto Festival. C'MON!! This is a campy feel good hit and it should be. Whose expecting this to be an English Art film?!?!?!? Margaret Cho is beyond amazing playing her mother. WOW. Alan Cumming is completely endearing. Elaine Hendrix is so evil it's delicious. Butch Klein is ridiculously hot and crazy funny. And Jane Lynch makes me want to BE a lesbian. In fact even the one line cameos are worth a laugh. The movie moves at a quick pace and everyone walked out having a great time....and quoting lines the next day. Sure, there were things that some people didn't get, but that's why people rent cult movies over and over....so they finally get it.....I, for one, was happy to get away from the heavy overwrought drama's in the festival...(and the world, for that matter) and spend two hours with people who made me laugh. Thanks!

... more