Vomit, hairspray, and the consumption of dog excrement are all to be expected when viewing the movies of writer-director John Waters. Raised by "normal" Catholic parents, at an early age Waters was inexplicably drawn to tacky, sleazy and trashy movies playing far from his suburban Baltimore neighborhood. After being kicked out of college on a drug bust, Waters returned home to his parents and, with their blessing, began making sleazy movies. He reached what many consider to be his peak of underground "trash" filmmaking with the 1972 release Pink Flamingos--a work that continues to play on midnight movie circuits. He turned slightly more mainstream with the comedies Polyester and Hairspray in the 1980s. Still, Waters's mainstream hits are farther out than most other movie-house hits, because his main goal, he told William Geist in People, is to "leave them gagging in the aisles."

Early in his life, Waters...