Pecker

(New Line)

The title character (Edward Furlong) is an 18-year-old Baltimore neighborhood kid whose photos catch the attention of New York gallery owner Rorey (Lili Taylor), and whose Manhattan success stirs up the usual issues of art's exploiting its subject and the corruption of success. Or rather, clumsy platitudes about the same -- John Waters's outrageousness conceals a fundamentally middle-class heart, and his sloppy filmmaking now looks like not so much style as ineptitude.