"Director: Mink Stole"

• But I'm A Cheerleader | DVD | (02/06/2003) from £12.90   |  Saving you £-10.91 (N/A%)   |  RRP £1.99

  Director Jamie Babbit's assured first feature But I'm a Cheerleader is subversive, smart and extremely funny, but not entirely original. Megan Williams (Natasha Lyonne) is a good Christian cheerleading girl. She doesn't think it at all strange that she can't get the image of tumbling cheerleaders out of her mind while her football player boy friend is trying to French kiss her. But her parents, played respectively by Bud Cort (Brewster McCloud) and John Water' s regular Mink Stole, have noticed Megan's odd behaviour and arrange an intervention. They send her off to New Directions, a sexual rehabilitation camp run by a straight-laced school madam, Mary (Cathy Moriarty), where she is forced to come to terms with her lesbian tendencies. But while on a strict regime of corrective therapy, Megan falls head over heels f or surly dyke, Graham--played by Clea DuVall (The Astronaut's Wife)--and is forced to reassess whether straight really is great. The zany script and over-the-top characterisations have the feel of a John Waters comedy; The day-glo sets and costumes give the film a surreal Pee Wee's Playhouse feel and Lyonne is charmingly dizzy and bewildered throughout. RuPaul excels as Mike, a former gay exercise trainer, and Moriarty out-camps them all. On the DVD: The main feature is presented in letterboxed widescreen with Dolby Digital sound. Extra features are limited to a theatrical trailer and a 10-minute behind-the-scenes look at the film in which director Jamie Babbit explains the genesis of the film followed by hastily assembled footage of random scenes being shot. --Chris Campion