By Bob Strauss, Friday, June 28, 2002
Three Stars
 

Margaret Cho’s latest comedy concert film, “Notorious C.H.O.,” once again shows the comedian at her successfully crafted, socially conscious and shocking best. Honing sharp points and thematic legitimacy out of her multiple-minority status (Korean-American, overweight, gay-friendly, female), Cho also never misses a chance to make candid gags about sexual misadventures that would make a merchant marine blush. She delivers it, mostly, in a sweet girlish voice (when she’s not imitating her much-mined and -maligned immigrant mother, anyway), with expert facial expressions that, um, share the feeling about as much as most viewers would care to partake of it. Part of the fun for viewers who don’t view Cho as a lifestyle model is the hilariously natural way she has of guiding us through the pitfalls of inadvisable relationships and erotic variations. Of course, those who regard her as a diva to emulate – which would be most of the live audience we’re introduced to at this Seattle show, which director Lorene Machado recorded on high-def video – will be even more convulsively enraptured. As the rap-referencing title indicates, Cho is taking some inspiration from no-holds-barred female singers like Lil’ Kim here. But there’s something so naturally sweet about Cho that, even when she’s demanding satisfaction or describing the most disgusting male behavior, there’s often a winning, Alice-in-Wonderland awe in the delivery. Bizarre and sophisticated as her interests are, Cho refuses to give up her optimistic naivete. Early in the film, a quick interview gives us Mom and Pop Cho’s perspective. The father admits that many of the things his daughter says for a living are pretty embarrassing, but it helps to keep him likably open-minded. Mommy, while coming off more elegant and intelligent than she does in some of Margaret’s monologues, proves as eccentric as we expected. Footage of her thanking patrons in the ladies’ room for coming to her child’s show is a bit of self-absorbed wackiness even someone as inventive as Margaret Cho couldn’t possibly make up.