used in the talent portion by contestants. Mary lip-syncs "Don't Cry Out Loud", while Jenelle sings and signs "Through the Eyes of Love". Fanfare for the Common Man is played to introduce the parade for the rigged competition and the plight of Hank. "Are we on Cops again?" is used throughout the movie when the "mockumentary" film crew is spotted. Richard Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra", inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche, is played when the Minnesota state pageant is interrupted by the violent illness of the contestants who ate shellfish (all except Amber). Reception Critical response The film received mostly negative reviews. Many critics liked the modern interpretation of the pageant world although just as many people disliked the film as a whole. Allison Janney and Denise Richards in particular received praise for their performances from a number of critics. Dennis Harvey of Variety called the film "a fitfully amusing satire that would have gained a lot of mileage from just a tad more subtlety." Harvey says the writing is not sophisticated enough to pull off the some of the jokes without being condescending. Otherwise he praises the pacing, the performances, and the clever visual casting. Roger Ebert liked the idea of the film, but wrote that the script failed to translate into screenplay and is never quite funny enough, due to subtle miscalculations of production and performance. Jeff Vice of the Deseret News criticized the film for being derivative, comparing it to the 1975 pageant comedy Smile, and also Fargo and the mockumentary Waiting for Guffman. Entertainment Weekly gave the film a D grade, and compared the film unfavorably to Smile, and The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom. Box office Drop Dead Gorgeous grossed $10.6 million in the United States and Canada, against a budget of $15 million. Cult status The film has gained new fans with time and is regarded as a cult film. In 2011, Allison Janney stated that she is approached by more fans of this film than for her Emmy-winning tenure on The West Wing. In July 2019, coinciding with the 20th anniversary of its release, Drop Dead Gorgeous was released for streaming for the first time on Hulu, which was "met with a host of celebratory tweets, particularly among women and queer people, who have long recognized it as a cult classic", according to The Independent's Adam White. It attracted retrospective praise