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
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