Margaret Cho: Beautiful
July. 03,2009 NR
Learning to love her luscious self over the past forty years, comedian Margaret Cho realized that the eye of the beholder doesn't hold all the power when it comes to beauty. Our tastes may be groomed by the media, but how we feel about how we look brings our self-image into focus. Armed with something more potent than lip gloss - a mouth so shocking and raunchy it should be stamped with a warning - Cho toured America with her manifesto: "This show is really about how we should feel beautiful," says Cho. "When you feel beautiful, you're going to have more of a willingness to use your voice to speak." Shot at the Long Beach Terrace Theater, Cho's latest stand-up concert film, Beautiful, explores the good, bad, and downright ugly in beauty, and the unattractive politicians and marketers who shape our world.
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Reviews
Absolutely Brilliant!
At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.
The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.
It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film
Comedienne Margaret Cho's most verbally-explicit filmed concert, a non-stop comedic barrage of oral, vaginal, and anal sex comparisons which isn't for the faint of heart. Taped in 2008 before a live audience in Long Beach, CA, just prior to the Obama-McCain Presidential election, Cho's political musings (and internet jokes) sounded surprisingly dated once the special finally arrived on the Showtime network in the summer of 2009; however, her tales of sexual conquest (not with whom but with what) are predictably funny, as is the X-rated ballad which closes the show. A self-described 'queer' who loves getting down and dirty with both men and women, Cho drops a small bombshell early on by admitting she's been married for several years--and is a former Sunday School teacher whose grandfather was a minister! Looking lovely with a feathered mane of brunette hair and bare, inked shoulders, Cho often gets her biggest laughs by pausing in the correct places during a joke, and her facial expressions in the midst of a story can be priceless. Unfortunately, the political slings and arrows seem to leave the movie audience non-plussed--they are a low-energy lot, anyway--and brief stories about Cho's world travels and a reality show merely serve as set-ups for gags on other topics. Margaret's ultimate message of self-love (for herself and everybody else) never skirts narcissism or camp; she believes what she's telling you. But in retrospect, what with a reportedly conservative marriage happening behind-the-scenes, Cho's bedtime stories come off as slightly gruesome. One wonders how much of a put-on this Cho-version actually is. ** from ****
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