Fresh
It makes for a strange, but somewhat endearing, melange of the grim and comic.
Mark Feeney, Boston Globe
Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea
Once “California’s Riviera”, the Salton Sea is now America’s worst ecological disaster.
2006 · 57m · Not Rated
Documentary
Directed by
Chris Metzler
,
Jeff Springer
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Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea
Overview
The Salton Sea: An inland ocean of massive fish kills, rotting resorts, and 120 degree nights located just minutes from urban Southern California. This film details the rise and fall of the Salton Sea, from its heyday as the "California Riviera" where boaters and Beach Boys mingled in paradise to its present state of decaying, forgotten ecological disaster.
Director and cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
94%
Tomatometer
Fresh
The movie is engaging for the way it documents the rise and fall of a semi-natural landmark, and especially for the way it shows how people still come to California to remake themselves.
Noel Murray, AV Club
Fresh
Plagues and Pleasures is simultaneously fun and creepy, best appreciated by those who enjoy similar profiles of Detroit's crumbling grandeur.
John Monaghan, Detroit Free Press
Fresh
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.
Cliff Doerksen, Time Out New York
Fresh
As documentary subjects go, the Salton Sea was ripe for the plucking: This man-made phenomenon is one of the weirdest stories of the West.
Robert Horton, Film.com
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