Have you ever lain in bed at night and thought to yourself, "I'm so drunk right now that I could either pee in the bed or get up and go to the toilet," and then weighed the pros and cons of each decision? If you're able to relate to the aforementioned experience, then you're one of many who relate to Margaret Cho, a standup comedian known for her ability to break down boundaries of ethnicity, gender and sexuality to appeal to a common populace.
Cho's new movie, "Notorious C.H.O.," touches on the taboo, the lewd and the downright inappropriate in an honest (though exaggerated) portrayal of Cho's life. Social boundaries not only are challenged in her new movie, but stomped into the ground. Colon treatments gain new depth, menstruation is referred to as a "bloodbath" and detailed descriptions of sexual intimacy are as commonplace as a trip to the grocery store.
The film certainly is not for the faint of heart -- go in expecting a 10-point registry on the shock scale and frequent reactions of disgust, and this Cho will deliver.
The film opens with a cartoon of a black man and an Asian woman who vow to stop hating each other so that they can "spend more time hating white people." If her film has a central theme, she capitalizes upon it here -- an Asian-American woman, she jokes about her own ethnicity and the ethnicity of others, encompassing any and all beliefs by her humor. In truth, the film is the antithesis of racism.
"Notorious C.H.O." is far more sexually explicit than Cho's last film, "I'm the One That I Want." But the one pun that remains true to both films is her passionately hilarious portrayal of her Korean mother.
Perhaps Cho's talent is best showcased in her narrative of her mother's latest vacation to Israel, in which she is forced to ride a camel up a mountain.
"This is worse vacation I ever been on," Cho cries, impersonating her heavily accented mother. "How can this happen to mommy? I cannot ride camel, I want take taxi. And they force mommy, they say, 'If you do not ride camel, you cannot go to buffet lunch
and I fall off camel!"
Cho's original dialogue is backed up by her spirited facial expressions, creating a comical package that will entice a chuckle from even the most conservative of viewers.
The biggest problem with "Notorious C.H.O." is its lack of consistency. Cho spends 45 minutes ripping on her colorful sex life, only to wrap her show up with preachy and, at times, melancholy stories of her past battles with anorexia and low self-esteem.
"How much time would I save if I didn't constantly look in the mirror to tell myself what a fat f-- I am?" Cho asks her audience. "Ninety-seven minutes a week -- I could take a pottery class."
While her tales of dieting woe provide decent templates for her blunt humor, they're also slightly unsettling.
"In these times of terror," Cho wraps up, "love each other without restraint
unless you're into leather." A little bit of life advice and a lot of sex advice, Cho speaks to anyone who can stomach her outrageously vulgar humor.
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