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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 2, 2002)
FILM Notoriously overage Margaret Cho fails to live up to her own previously set golden mean N otorious C.H.O. which belongs in her personal video scrapbook, not on the big screen for an audience to f you go into Margaret wade through patiently. She does wring a few laughs C h o’s new concert film, out of conventional standup subjects like colon hydrother Notorious C .H .O ., expect apy and menstruation, and ing it to live up to the she parlays an S/M bit into a brilliance of I'm the One That perceptive, hilarious screed on 1 Want, you’re bound to be our culture’s contradictory, disappointed. patronizing messages about This latest show simply women’s sexuality. She also doesn’t compare to the 2000 has well-considered things to hit, which amply demonstrat say about the billion-dollar Cho contemplates fisting ed that she is rivaled perhaps beauty industry’s manipula only by Chris Rock as the tion of women and gay men with images of Woody Allen, the Lenny unrealistic physical perfection. Bruce, the Richard Pryor for a modem, post But even these pearls of wisdom feel inserted, feminist, post-gay, post-P.C. audience. It was an like afterthoughts; they’re not integrated into authentically towering achievement, represent the scheme of things nearly so seamlessly as they ing a cathartic, triumphant comeback for Cho, were in her previous act. The prevailing tone is who was returning to an official standup career choppy, episodic, merely amusing in a topical after a failed T V sitcom and a floundering stint way where the more risky, personally invested as an actress and screenwriter. I’m the One was engaging on every level. To be fair, it would be an unenviable project The frequently hearty but largely empty for anyone to live up to such an accomplished laughs in Notorious feel distancing when one piece of work. In Notorious Cho seems to have knows the star is quite capable of more. taken it down a notch, lowered the bar and settled The laughs, however, are definitely there, for telling a handful of raunchy, somewhat discon which is why, despite its flaws and deficiencies, nected stories, most of which work on a comedic missing Notorious C .H .O . would not be recom level, though nothing resonating quite like the mended. It’s enjoyable even if a bit far-reaching previous show’s rich, often profound material. and even though artistic wholeness is missed. Even the visual presentation—digital-video Notorious is half successful; you’ll laugh, but taped at Seattle’s Paramount Theatre, whereas you won’t cry. I’m the One had a textured, filmic quality— — Christopher M cQuain betrays the comparative creative laxity. There’s also a dispensable montage of fan tributes to Cho, Cinema 21, Aug. 2 to 8 I Danny Glover Honorary Chairman Saturday, September 21 T he N ight L arry K ramer K issed M e Regence BlueCross BlueShield o f Oregon Washington Mutual A l > l J Kitchen Kaboodle fizumono in so many ways in the past decade that it’s difficult at times to grasp what exactly TLA Releasing he’s talking about. he 2000 film version of The For instance, in the late Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me, ’80s Drake was a member of recently released on V H S and A C T UP, which did, DVD, is really a flashily shot and indeed, play a vital and fas edited 1999 revival stage perfor cinating part in the commu mance of the show originally pro nity’s response to AIDS and duced off-Broadway in 1992. in gay history as a whole. As Written and performed by he relates it, though, we David Drake, it ran for more than don’t learn much about the a year, making it the longest-run Best watched cheaply at home controversial activist organi ning New York one-man show zation; the experience ever. Its topical, George (no W.) Bush-era comes across as some sort of sexy, all-boy slum themes must have seemed compelling and rele ber party with “avant-garde” erotic interludes vant at its cultural moment, in the wake of an and a sappy melancholic undertone counteract AIDS crisis that had decimated an entire gener ed by Bette Midler mix tapes and the future ation of gay men. It was enthusiastically, even hope for a Ben Affleck/Matt Damon queer ecstatically, received. remake of The Way We Were (apparently signify In retrospect, though, Kramer plays like an ing final and complete gay liberation). unironic anthropological snapshot of the way Paradoxically, the actual value of Kramer — gay men (specifically young, N YC gay men in what makes it required viewing for anyone the theater) saw themselves and their commu interested in an artistically vibrant and viable nity circa 1985-91. queer culture— is as an example of how a fairly Its issues— including AIDS, queer lib and shallow, pseudo-provocative work can, through the physical and spiritual state of gay men spin (the accompanying press kit is full of the (which here means the old amalgam of body exclamatory acclaim that surrounded the issues and narcissistic sexual neuroses that fre show’s original run), be made to seem like an quently distorts, on stage and screen, the actual Important Part of Our Cultural Heritage. ly much more diverse and interesting gay male The vigilant viewer will appreciate the population)— are too complex, too slippery, to option of renting Kramer; this is something best be captured and conveyed effectively through studied cheaply, in the hype-free comfort of Drake’s autobiographically reminiscent narra one’s own home. tive and sentimentalized tone. They’ve changed — CM J H T WILLAMETTE WEEK C areO regon lu strm 1 WH&LE FOODS ^HISPANIC NEWS i ! PG&E OUT ON VIDEO * diamced PIONEER rniSDTunncc COURTHOUSE cniiADc SQUARE • Corporation • s c m fr « n th i * r « i u r r * KinderCare
