John Waters' filthy-fun war between the lusty and the rustyIn 'Dirty Shame' Waters is up to his old dirty tricks

A shag-carpet ride through a screwball community of shaggers and prudes, John Waters' raunchily entertaining farce A Dirty Shame divides the population of Baltimore into sexaholics and neuters.

As the two camps suit up for battle over the heart and nether regions of Charm City, Sylvia Stickles (Tracey Ullman) doesn't know which side she's on.

Before breakfast she's a frowzy matron who shudders at the idea of conjugal relations with her husband, Vaughn (Chris Isaak). But by lunchtime a concussion has transformed the stick-in-the-mud into a superfreak.

Sylvia's conversion encourages Ray-Ray (Johnny Knoxville), Sexual Deliverer and Healer, who recruits Sylvia as one of his apostles of lust.

As the uninhibited Ullman plays her, Sylvia puts the lib and the id into libido. Knoxville, the face of TV's Jackass, has big-screen charisma.

Told in the style of '50s exploitation movies - right down to the rampant phallic symbolism and the flashing subliminal messages - Waters' smutfest lampoons the American habit of making pleasures into addictions.

Understand that the movie, which is rated NC-17, is not for the faint of heart or the refined of sensibility. For example, Sylvia's daughter, Caprice (played by an unrecognizable Selma Blair), has breast augmentations so grotesque that by comparison Pamela Anderson looks flat-chested.

Those unfamiliar with the director's more extreme work (and this one is more like Pink Flamingos than the family-friendly Hairspray) should be forewarned. Waters pollutes his film with explications of fetishisms of which many might prefer to remain ignorant.

That this is done with the unrestrained glee of a 10-year-old uttering his first naughty word makes for an irrepressible delivery of a gross-out package.

Contact movie critic Carrie Rickey

at 215-854-5402 or crickey@phillynews.com.

Read her recent work at http://go.philly.com/carrierickey.

A Dirty Shame

** 1/2 (out of four stars)

Produced by Christine Vachon and Ted Hope, written and directed by John Waters, photography by Steve Gainer, music by George S. Clinton, distributed by Fine Line Features.

Running time: 1 hour, 29 mins.

Sylvia Stickles. . . Tracey Ullman

Ray-Ray Perkins. . . Johnny Knoxville

Caprice Stickles. . . Selma Blair

Vaughn Stickles. . . Chris Isaak

Marge. . . Mink Stole

Parent's guide: NC-17 (nudity, sex, profanity)

Playing at: Ritz at the Bourse