A hilarious and uplifting Broadway classic has returned to the Al Hirschfeld Theater, with a cast that's almost too good to be true and a timeless message that is surprisingly relevant in 2011. As a Pulitzer prize winner which has been revived twice in 15 years, "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" is something of an American theater war horse. The music is sometimes romantic, sometimes comedic, and always fun. The book is fast-paced, clever, and witty. And the performances are just as charming, spirited, and silly as they ought to be for a sixties-era socially satirical musical comedy—and then some. A crowd-pleaser with something for everyone, this production of How to Succeed may be the best bet on Broadway right now for all those out-of-town friends and relatives. Moreover, it is definitely a must-see if you're a fan of any of the lead actors—and with the extraordinary celebrity heft of this cast,...
- 4/2/2011
- by Kevin Mulcahy Jr.
- We Love Soaps
Cannes Film Festival, Un Certain Regard
Screenwriter Liu Fengdou has created the flip side of his directorial debut "Green Hat". While the former is a controversial black comedy about the crisis of impotence, the latter shows the risks of virility. As if to illustrate the Chinese saying that "if guys aren't bad, women don't love them," Liu makes his violent and libidinous protagonist take his girlfriend, his friends, enemies, and ultimately the audience to a threshold of unbearable pain, while occasionally teasing them with a devastating tenderness.
The supercharged machismo and caveman eroticism characteristic of Liu are sure to provoke strong reactions. Some Will Love it, most will hate it, but his self-proclaimed auteur's voice rings out loud and clear. LA's Katapult Film Sales has picked up non-Southeast Asian world rights of the film but one wonders whether it can be marketed as art or entertainment.
As the Chinese title ("One Half Sea Water, One Half Flame") connotes, "Ocean Flame" explores contradictions -- yin and yang, love and hate, lust for life and obsession with death. Wang Yao (Liao Fan), the leader of a gang that blackmails patrons of prostitutes, cannot stop testing the love of girlfriend Lichuan (Monica Mok). As if physical and verbal abuse is not enough, he pimps her, two-times her and taunts her to slit her wrist. He also cannot stop hurting himself. Neither one can stop desiring the other.
Liu seems to philosophize on suffering as the inherent nature of love (as evidenced by the lyrics of the Taiwanese song at closing credits ("I keep all sorrow to myself and give all of myself to you"), but often, the scenes only test audience tolerance for sadomasochism. His expression of sexuality – full of unrepressed vigor – won't raise any eyebrows in a western theater, but the mental cruelty of the central character will. Kim Ki-duk's "Bad Guy" comes to mind. Liao Fan's psychotic, overblown performance makes his role seem less a real person than an irrational force of nature, or a personification of a raging hormone. The characterization wavers between smirking parody of male insecurity and an idiosyncratic vision of masculinity.
The story is set in Hong Kong but parts of it are filmed in China and it shows. Liu, a mainland native, has little feel for the pulse and locality of Hong Kong, and doesn't notice the awkwardness of having his main characters speak Mandarin while supporting cast speaks Cantonese (even Lichuan and her mother speak different dialects.) His visuals are strongest when he sets his many stagey, roman-porno lookalike scenes against the soothing azure of the sea. The unhurried tempo, the mournful cello score, and the aestheticized sets all affect a European, possibly Latino mood.
Production company: Filmko Entertainment Ltd
Cast: Liao Fan, Monica Mok, Hai Yi Tian, Sukie Shek, Lam Suet, Simon Yam.
Writer-director: Liu Fengdou.
Screenwriter: Bobo Au.
Presented by: Harvey Wong
Executive producers: Stanley Tong, Liu Xiao Dian
Producer: Simon Yam
Director of photography: Chen Ying, Chan Chor Keung
Art director: Li Yang, Raymond Kwok.
Music: Ronald Ng.
Costume designer: Chau Cheuk Wai Kitty
Editor: Kwong Chi Leung.
Sales Agent: Filmko Entertainment Ltd (Asia), Katapult Film Sales (International)
No rating, 115 minutes.
Screenwriter Liu Fengdou has created the flip side of his directorial debut "Green Hat". While the former is a controversial black comedy about the crisis of impotence, the latter shows the risks of virility. As if to illustrate the Chinese saying that "if guys aren't bad, women don't love them," Liu makes his violent and libidinous protagonist take his girlfriend, his friends, enemies, and ultimately the audience to a threshold of unbearable pain, while occasionally teasing them with a devastating tenderness.
The supercharged machismo and caveman eroticism characteristic of Liu are sure to provoke strong reactions. Some Will Love it, most will hate it, but his self-proclaimed auteur's voice rings out loud and clear. LA's Katapult Film Sales has picked up non-Southeast Asian world rights of the film but one wonders whether it can be marketed as art or entertainment.
As the Chinese title ("One Half Sea Water, One Half Flame") connotes, "Ocean Flame" explores contradictions -- yin and yang, love and hate, lust for life and obsession with death. Wang Yao (Liao Fan), the leader of a gang that blackmails patrons of prostitutes, cannot stop testing the love of girlfriend Lichuan (Monica Mok). As if physical and verbal abuse is not enough, he pimps her, two-times her and taunts her to slit her wrist. He also cannot stop hurting himself. Neither one can stop desiring the other.
Liu seems to philosophize on suffering as the inherent nature of love (as evidenced by the lyrics of the Taiwanese song at closing credits ("I keep all sorrow to myself and give all of myself to you"), but often, the scenes only test audience tolerance for sadomasochism. His expression of sexuality – full of unrepressed vigor – won't raise any eyebrows in a western theater, but the mental cruelty of the central character will. Kim Ki-duk's "Bad Guy" comes to mind. Liao Fan's psychotic, overblown performance makes his role seem less a real person than an irrational force of nature, or a personification of a raging hormone. The characterization wavers between smirking parody of male insecurity and an idiosyncratic vision of masculinity.
The story is set in Hong Kong but parts of it are filmed in China and it shows. Liu, a mainland native, has little feel for the pulse and locality of Hong Kong, and doesn't notice the awkwardness of having his main characters speak Mandarin while supporting cast speaks Cantonese (even Lichuan and her mother speak different dialects.) His visuals are strongest when he sets his many stagey, roman-porno lookalike scenes against the soothing azure of the sea. The unhurried tempo, the mournful cello score, and the aestheticized sets all affect a European, possibly Latino mood.
Production company: Filmko Entertainment Ltd
Cast: Liao Fan, Monica Mok, Hai Yi Tian, Sukie Shek, Lam Suet, Simon Yam.
Writer-director: Liu Fengdou.
Screenwriter: Bobo Au.
Presented by: Harvey Wong
Executive producers: Stanley Tong, Liu Xiao Dian
Producer: Simon Yam
Director of photography: Chen Ying, Chan Chor Keung
Art director: Li Yang, Raymond Kwok.
Music: Ronald Ng.
Costume designer: Chau Cheuk Wai Kitty
Editor: Kwong Chi Leung.
Sales Agent: Filmko Entertainment Ltd (Asia), Katapult Film Sales (International)
No rating, 115 minutes.
- 5/23/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Forum
PARIS -- With its minimalist plot, witty dialogue and young characters in search for love, Just Anybody represents the very essence of Jacques Doillon's cinema. Which means fans of the French director Will Love this deep dive into his obsessions, while those who resist his style can only be exasperated. The film looks likely to tour festivals and art houses around the globe.
Sprawling across four days, Anybody brings its characters to a small resort on the northwest coast of France. Camille, in her 20s, instinctively jumps on a train from Paris to follow her one-night stand, Costa, a small hoodlum who thinks he doesn't need love. Revolving around the periphery are Cyril, the local cop who's also Costa's longtime friend, and Gwendoline, Costa's ex-wife.
The plot is thin, and dialogue (a landmark of the filmmaker's style) is often the only motor of the action. While the film veers toward stage drama rather than filmic expression, Doillon shoots the interaction between his youngsters and the unexpected situations that arise from their confrontations in intriguing ways. In a brilliant use of space, the characters move in desolated landscapes (the film was shot in winter, when the coastal resort is most bleak), and the director's taste for garish camera movements as an expression of the characters' inner torments skillfully balance the theatrical impression.
The actors are amateurs or newcomers -- another hallmark of Doillon's style. Young Clementine Beaugrand is amazing as Camille, a romantic girl discovering the bitter reality of human relations, lies and sexual instincts. The most dazzling performance comes from Gerald Thomassin, who Doillon introduced 18 years ago in The Little Gangster. This hoodlum role might finally see the realization of that Cesar he received in 1991 as best upcoming talent.
A bit unsophisticated, Gwendoline Godquin, as the ex-wife, is apparently a genuine worker girl from the region. But she doesn't act with the same style as the other actors, creating an odd imbalance to some sequences.
JUST ANYBODY
A Liaison Cinematographique/Artemis Production
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Jacques Doillon
Producer: Patrick Quinet
Director of photography: Helene Louvart
Costume designer: Anne Fournier
Editor: Marie Da Costa
Cast:
Camille: Clementine Beaugrand
Costa: Gerald Thomassin
Cyril: Guillaume Saurrel
Gwendoline: Gwendoline Godquin
Father: Jany Garachana
Running time -- 123 minutes
No MPAA rating...
PARIS -- With its minimalist plot, witty dialogue and young characters in search for love, Just Anybody represents the very essence of Jacques Doillon's cinema. Which means fans of the French director Will Love this deep dive into his obsessions, while those who resist his style can only be exasperated. The film looks likely to tour festivals and art houses around the globe.
Sprawling across four days, Anybody brings its characters to a small resort on the northwest coast of France. Camille, in her 20s, instinctively jumps on a train from Paris to follow her one-night stand, Costa, a small hoodlum who thinks he doesn't need love. Revolving around the periphery are Cyril, the local cop who's also Costa's longtime friend, and Gwendoline, Costa's ex-wife.
The plot is thin, and dialogue (a landmark of the filmmaker's style) is often the only motor of the action. While the film veers toward stage drama rather than filmic expression, Doillon shoots the interaction between his youngsters and the unexpected situations that arise from their confrontations in intriguing ways. In a brilliant use of space, the characters move in desolated landscapes (the film was shot in winter, when the coastal resort is most bleak), and the director's taste for garish camera movements as an expression of the characters' inner torments skillfully balance the theatrical impression.
The actors are amateurs or newcomers -- another hallmark of Doillon's style. Young Clementine Beaugrand is amazing as Camille, a romantic girl discovering the bitter reality of human relations, lies and sexual instincts. The most dazzling performance comes from Gerald Thomassin, who Doillon introduced 18 years ago in The Little Gangster. This hoodlum role might finally see the realization of that Cesar he received in 1991 as best upcoming talent.
A bit unsophisticated, Gwendoline Godquin, as the ex-wife, is apparently a genuine worker girl from the region. But she doesn't act with the same style as the other actors, creating an odd imbalance to some sequences.
JUST ANYBODY
A Liaison Cinematographique/Artemis Production
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Jacques Doillon
Producer: Patrick Quinet
Director of photography: Helene Louvart
Costume designer: Anne Fournier
Editor: Marie Da Costa
Cast:
Camille: Clementine Beaugrand
Costa: Gerald Thomassin
Cyril: Guillaume Saurrel
Gwendoline: Gwendoline Godquin
Father: Jany Garachana
Running time -- 123 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 2/11/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Tokyo International Film Festival
TOKYO -- Stripping naked, shooting the sheriff, trafficking drugs, humping in the cornfield, spouting conspiracy theories or blowing a giant mecha-robot off the galaxy... there's nothing these famished femmes wouldn't do to get a free bite in "Eat and Run -- 6 Beautiful Grifters," this easy-to-swallow food-themed omnibus cooked up by Japanese animation guru Mamoru Oshii and four other up-and-coming directors.
This is the sequel to the tour de force animation "Tachigui -- the Amazing Lives of the Fast Food Grifters," which was in turn an expanded riff from his TV anime series Urusei Yatsura. In that film, Oshii (Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor, Avalon) charted the socio-political changes in post-war Japan through the culinary compass of her evolving tachigui (stand-and-eat) culture. With only one fully animated segment, this sequel has no unified style, nor the incisive sociological angle and the sullen poetry of its predecessor's Edward Hopperesque image texture. Eat and Run is more of a digestible TV dinner for mass consumption. As a result, it is less academic or idiosyncratic, and has more chance for limited theatrical release abroad. Festivals Will Love to have this on their list, and Oshii's fans will still acquire the DVD for collection purposes.
Eat and Run comprises six stand-alone segments featuring legendary women who perfected the art of fly-by-night dining. The first, Princess Goldfish, directed by Oshii, is the most sensuous. Recreating nostalgic streets and furnishings of Showa-era Japan, it uses gorgeous CGI and exhibits a woman's seductive tattoo with tantalizing cinematography.
The Drunk and the Dead features John Woo-like gun-slinging choreography and a pesky sharp-shooting heroine with a weakness for vintage bourbon. But it's just another pastiche of Spaghetti Westerns that's all sauce and no meat. Dandelion makes some mockumentary analysis of the economic context of the Japanese "family restaurant" (chain diners) and its rise to become flagship of the food industry, but the story is weak and handling amateurish.
Whispers in the Grass is luscious to look at, but the heroine Kumi's seduction of men just to get her lips on kakigoi (strawberry frappe) is the skimpiest pretext for vacuous soft porn. Closest in kindred spirit to Tachigui is The Pop Music Angel, which spins an incredible yarn about the government's conspiracy to turn the nation into morons by TV mind-control and promoting idols. Last segment, Assault Girl, directed by Oshii, is a VFX fantasy that sends up sexy female space warriors in sci-fi films while making a cheeky homage to KFC. Keeping it short and fast, the effects are finger-licking good.
EAT AND RUN -- 6 BEAUTIFUL GRIFTERS
Geneon Entertainment Inc/Deiz Co Ltd
Credits:
Directors: Mamoru Oshii (Supervisor), Makoto Kamiya, Kenji Kamiyama, Takanori Tsujimoto, Hiroaki Yuasa
Based on an original concept by: Mamoru Oshii
Producer: Atsushi Kubo
Executive producer: Yuki Mori
VFX Supervisors: Nobuki Sato, Makoto Kamiya
Music: Kenji Kawai
Cast:
Bekko-Candy Yuri: Yuriko Hishimi
Quickdraw Miki: Mizuno Miki
Cafeteria Mabu: Mabuki Ando
Kumi the Strawberry Frappe: Yoko Fujita
Mami the Crepe Mania: Yuko Ogura
Hinako the Kentucky: Saeki Hinako
Running time -- 123 minutes
No MPAA rating...
TOKYO -- Stripping naked, shooting the sheriff, trafficking drugs, humping in the cornfield, spouting conspiracy theories or blowing a giant mecha-robot off the galaxy... there's nothing these famished femmes wouldn't do to get a free bite in "Eat and Run -- 6 Beautiful Grifters," this easy-to-swallow food-themed omnibus cooked up by Japanese animation guru Mamoru Oshii and four other up-and-coming directors.
This is the sequel to the tour de force animation "Tachigui -- the Amazing Lives of the Fast Food Grifters," which was in turn an expanded riff from his TV anime series Urusei Yatsura. In that film, Oshii (Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor, Avalon) charted the socio-political changes in post-war Japan through the culinary compass of her evolving tachigui (stand-and-eat) culture. With only one fully animated segment, this sequel has no unified style, nor the incisive sociological angle and the sullen poetry of its predecessor's Edward Hopperesque image texture. Eat and Run is more of a digestible TV dinner for mass consumption. As a result, it is less academic or idiosyncratic, and has more chance for limited theatrical release abroad. Festivals Will Love to have this on their list, and Oshii's fans will still acquire the DVD for collection purposes.
Eat and Run comprises six stand-alone segments featuring legendary women who perfected the art of fly-by-night dining. The first, Princess Goldfish, directed by Oshii, is the most sensuous. Recreating nostalgic streets and furnishings of Showa-era Japan, it uses gorgeous CGI and exhibits a woman's seductive tattoo with tantalizing cinematography.
The Drunk and the Dead features John Woo-like gun-slinging choreography and a pesky sharp-shooting heroine with a weakness for vintage bourbon. But it's just another pastiche of Spaghetti Westerns that's all sauce and no meat. Dandelion makes some mockumentary analysis of the economic context of the Japanese "family restaurant" (chain diners) and its rise to become flagship of the food industry, but the story is weak and handling amateurish.
Whispers in the Grass is luscious to look at, but the heroine Kumi's seduction of men just to get her lips on kakigoi (strawberry frappe) is the skimpiest pretext for vacuous soft porn. Closest in kindred spirit to Tachigui is The Pop Music Angel, which spins an incredible yarn about the government's conspiracy to turn the nation into morons by TV mind-control and promoting idols. Last segment, Assault Girl, directed by Oshii, is a VFX fantasy that sends up sexy female space warriors in sci-fi films while making a cheeky homage to KFC. Keeping it short and fast, the effects are finger-licking good.
EAT AND RUN -- 6 BEAUTIFUL GRIFTERS
Geneon Entertainment Inc/Deiz Co Ltd
Credits:
Directors: Mamoru Oshii (Supervisor), Makoto Kamiya, Kenji Kamiyama, Takanori Tsujimoto, Hiroaki Yuasa
Based on an original concept by: Mamoru Oshii
Producer: Atsushi Kubo
Executive producer: Yuki Mori
VFX Supervisors: Nobuki Sato, Makoto Kamiya
Music: Kenji Kawai
Cast:
Bekko-Candy Yuri: Yuriko Hishimi
Quickdraw Miki: Mizuno Miki
Cafeteria Mabu: Mabuki Ando
Kumi the Strawberry Frappe: Yoko Fujita
Mami the Crepe Mania: Yuko Ogura
Hinako the Kentucky: Saeki Hinako
Running time -- 123 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 12/11/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Locarno International Film Festival
LOCARNO, Switzerland -- Wry, nostalgic and wonderfully nutty, Samuel Benchetrit's comedy I Always Wanted to be a Gangster is a warm if cockeyed homage to old-time crime movies.
Masterfully shot in the Academy aspect ratio and vivid black-and-white of Bogie and Cagney pictures, it relates the earnest but ham-fisted attempts by a group of unrelated characters to turn their hands to crime. It might be a hard sell, but lovers of old movies and those who relish screen comedy that is written, staged and performed smartly Will Love this.
The only link between each of the stories is a functional cafeteria on the outskirts of Paris, where conurbation is cementing over both greenery and the illusory recollection of better times. But Benchetrit weaves his yarns together so cleverly that the film does not feel episodic. He succeeds in switching from goofball slapstick to screwball banter to the driest observational wit -- and back again -- without missing a beat.
The film begins and ends with two would-be villains who seem made for each other. Franck (Edouard Baer) is a witless hoodlum whose stab at robbing the cafeteria at gunpoint is hampered by the absence of a gun and the fact that he's locked his keys inside his getaway car. Susie (Anna Mouglalis) is the sassy waitress who laughs at his feeble hold-up technique largely because she has his gun. The backstory to this, and to the other chapters, is told in silent-movie style complete with title cards.
Meanwhile, a pair of bumbling and essentially decent kidnappers, played by Bouli Lanners and Serge Lariviere, have broken into a rich man's home and grabbed his daughter Selma El Mouissi) for ransom. They couldn't know that, though she is spoiled and nubile, she is also suicidal, and her father is happy to be rid of her.
Still, they leave a message on dad's phone to arrange an exchange meeting at the cafeteria, where, by chance, two groups of touring musicians arrive with vocalists Alain Bashung and the single-named Arno playing versions of themselves. One is successful, the other not so much, and when temptation is offered, it's too hard to resist.
Then there's the gang of retired criminals who have come together at what used to be their hideout because one of them is mortally ill and they want to fulfill youthful pledges to one another. These old reprobates are played by a wonderful array of character actors: Jean Rochefort, Laurent Terzieff, Jean-Pierre Kalfon, Venantino Venantini and Roger Dumas. Being together again makes them long for one more heist, but the bank they robbed in their last job 25 years ago isn't what it used to be.
The finest compliment to the filmmakers and splendid cast is that you wish the movie wouldn't end. These are marvelously rendered characters, and it would be great to spend more time in their misguided but endearing company.
LOCARNO, Switzerland -- Wry, nostalgic and wonderfully nutty, Samuel Benchetrit's comedy I Always Wanted to be a Gangster is a warm if cockeyed homage to old-time crime movies.
Masterfully shot in the Academy aspect ratio and vivid black-and-white of Bogie and Cagney pictures, it relates the earnest but ham-fisted attempts by a group of unrelated characters to turn their hands to crime. It might be a hard sell, but lovers of old movies and those who relish screen comedy that is written, staged and performed smartly Will Love this.
The only link between each of the stories is a functional cafeteria on the outskirts of Paris, where conurbation is cementing over both greenery and the illusory recollection of better times. But Benchetrit weaves his yarns together so cleverly that the film does not feel episodic. He succeeds in switching from goofball slapstick to screwball banter to the driest observational wit -- and back again -- without missing a beat.
The film begins and ends with two would-be villains who seem made for each other. Franck (Edouard Baer) is a witless hoodlum whose stab at robbing the cafeteria at gunpoint is hampered by the absence of a gun and the fact that he's locked his keys inside his getaway car. Susie (Anna Mouglalis) is the sassy waitress who laughs at his feeble hold-up technique largely because she has his gun. The backstory to this, and to the other chapters, is told in silent-movie style complete with title cards.
Meanwhile, a pair of bumbling and essentially decent kidnappers, played by Bouli Lanners and Serge Lariviere, have broken into a rich man's home and grabbed his daughter Selma El Mouissi) for ransom. They couldn't know that, though she is spoiled and nubile, she is also suicidal, and her father is happy to be rid of her.
Still, they leave a message on dad's phone to arrange an exchange meeting at the cafeteria, where, by chance, two groups of touring musicians arrive with vocalists Alain Bashung and the single-named Arno playing versions of themselves. One is successful, the other not so much, and when temptation is offered, it's too hard to resist.
Then there's the gang of retired criminals who have come together at what used to be their hideout because one of them is mortally ill and they want to fulfill youthful pledges to one another. These old reprobates are played by a wonderful array of character actors: Jean Rochefort, Laurent Terzieff, Jean-Pierre Kalfon, Venantino Venantini and Roger Dumas. Being together again makes them long for one more heist, but the bank they robbed in their last job 25 years ago isn't what it used to be.
The finest compliment to the filmmakers and splendid cast is that you wish the movie wouldn't end. These are marvelously rendered characters, and it would be great to spend more time in their misguided but endearing company.
Wellspring Media
Comedian Margaret Cho returns in her second concert film, "Notorious C.H.O.", with jokes about dicks, menstruation, colonic procedures, video porn, dicks, S&M clubs, oral sex, dicks, the G-spot, Scotland and more dicks. It's not so much that Cho is obsessed with male genitalia as that she recognizes a source of endless humor when she sees it.
Filmed with eight DV cameras in Seattle, one of the first stops on her 37-city North American tour in the fall and winter, the movie captures the raw comic energy of one of our most flamboyant female comics. And it sometimes captures her in highly unflattering angles, which makes you wonder why the writer/performer/exec producer didn't clean things up in the editing room. Still, fans -- and even a few non-fans -- Will Love the film.
Less a joke teller -- though she can tell 'em -- than a performer, Cho acts out scenes and characters and accents so you get a pretty good picture of often absurd situations. She will go to a well once too often -- for instance, every "straight man" sounds like a redneck cracker. But she more than makes up for this with a hilarious rendition of her heavily Korean-accented mother.
Cho sees her stand-up comedy as being in the tradition of Richard Pryor and George Carlin. Yet her almost exclusive concentration on sexual matters deprives her work of the wide-ranging social outlook of those pioneering comics. Cho is more of a "minority" comic, meaning a comic who takes up the case of those marginalized by American society, owing less to ethnicity -- though there is that, too -- than to an "outlaw" lifestyle or sexual preferences.
The recording of her show, directed by veteran Lorene Machado, gets the job done but without much flair or imagination. The 95-minute film is padded with unnecessary and self-congratulatory glimpses of a fawning audience coming in and a backstage interview with Cho and her parents that could easily have been saved for a DVD version.
Comedian Margaret Cho returns in her second concert film, "Notorious C.H.O.", with jokes about dicks, menstruation, colonic procedures, video porn, dicks, S&M clubs, oral sex, dicks, the G-spot, Scotland and more dicks. It's not so much that Cho is obsessed with male genitalia as that she recognizes a source of endless humor when she sees it.
Filmed with eight DV cameras in Seattle, one of the first stops on her 37-city North American tour in the fall and winter, the movie captures the raw comic energy of one of our most flamboyant female comics. And it sometimes captures her in highly unflattering angles, which makes you wonder why the writer/performer/exec producer didn't clean things up in the editing room. Still, fans -- and even a few non-fans -- Will Love the film.
Less a joke teller -- though she can tell 'em -- than a performer, Cho acts out scenes and characters and accents so you get a pretty good picture of often absurd situations. She will go to a well once too often -- for instance, every "straight man" sounds like a redneck cracker. But she more than makes up for this with a hilarious rendition of her heavily Korean-accented mother.
Cho sees her stand-up comedy as being in the tradition of Richard Pryor and George Carlin. Yet her almost exclusive concentration on sexual matters deprives her work of the wide-ranging social outlook of those pioneering comics. Cho is more of a "minority" comic, meaning a comic who takes up the case of those marginalized by American society, owing less to ethnicity -- though there is that, too -- than to an "outlaw" lifestyle or sexual preferences.
The recording of her show, directed by veteran Lorene Machado, gets the job done but without much flair or imagination. The 95-minute film is padded with unnecessary and self-congratulatory glimpses of a fawning audience coming in and a backstage interview with Cho and her parents that could easily have been saved for a DVD version.
- 6/24/2002
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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