While the doc flounders as a coherent story of human folly, it’s a cheeky travelmercial guaranteed to get the curious to make the road trip to this near-abandoned resort.
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09/13/09
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Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea (2007)
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Reviews Counted:46
Fresh:44
Rotten:2
Average Rating:7.3/10
Consensus: Plagues And Pleasures is a thoroughly engrossing account, both humorous and disheartening, of a once bustling community ravaged by ecological change and human greed.
Theatrical Release:2006
Synopsis: Fabulously offbeat and refreshingly upbeat, this lovable film gets friendly with the natives of the Salton Sea, an inland ocean of massive fish kills, rotting resorts, and 120 degree nights located... [More]
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Reviews for Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea
Humorously narrated by cult filmmaker John Waters, Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea evokes both laughter and tears.
08/22/07
Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer found a strange place -- in California, of all places -- and made a video postcard about its colorful denizens and ecological calamity.
06/01/07
Both a history lesson on the birth and death of an American city and a portrait of people who refuse to give up on a dream. It is also a grass-roots ecological tract made up of equal parts science, folklore and kitschy nostalgia.
05/22/07
It's an absorbing, frightening witness to nature's final hours, filled with strangely enlightening accounts of life on a lifeless terrain.
09/06/07
Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea is an engaging, entertaining snapshot of a long, tragicomic moment in American history.
11/28/07
Even if the Salton Sea itself stinks, Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer’s documentary about the improbable body of water where, the witty Waters deadpans, 'utopia and the apocalypse unite to dance a dirty tango' certainly does not.
04/20/07
The documentary is informative and entertaining and gives you both sides of the great debate. You may not want to take a vacation to the Salton Sea, but you'll enjoy the visit there.
11/04/07
we've seen movies about eccentrics before, but few of them have much to do with anything actually important.
09/22/07
Narrated with morbid relish by John Waters, this witty doc chronicles the rise and ruination of the Salton Sea, a tiny inland ocean once promoted as 'California’s Riviera' but now a festering, apocalyptically hideous ecological disaster zone.
07/12/07
Funny, tragic, and informative Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea is an unforgettable portrait of a desert town turned into a sewer.
11/28/07
Plagues and Pleasures of the Salton Sea can best be described as An Inconvenient Truth with a stronger sense of humor, a keen sense of the cost of neglect and with a cast of characters who'd make the residents of Twin Peaks seem mundane.
10/08/07
[A] charming, yet sad documentary.
11/30/05
[An] occasionally lighthearted but always affecting cautionary tale.
06/01/07
Narrated by John Waters, Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea is an odd bird -- wacky and poignant, funny and sobering, but this portrait of a forgotten paradise is a must-see.
09/13/09
Takes a light-and-lively approach to the local population, consisting of transplanted oddballs and stubborn survivors drawn to the Sea's calm, sunny environs and isolated, crime-free lifestyle.
05/22/07
Although the lake may be slowly dying, it is still beloved by a motley bunch of eccentrics who are profiled in the highly entertaining documentary Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea.
02/28/06
Top CriticPlagues and Pleasures is simultaneously fun and creepy, best appreciated by those who enjoy similar profiles of Detroit's crumbling grandeur.
10/26/07
A sad but interesting sociological study of a not completely abandoned desert outpost that seems to be saying, "where there's water there will be humanity."
09/16/07
[Provides] a funny, poignant tribute to a most unusual place and the people who somehow call it home.
05/11/07
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