Margaret Cho: I'm the One That I Want

Once Margaret Cho, the self-proclaimed "trash talker," stops with the "fag-hag" jokes and gets real in chronicling her ill-fated sitcom and its devastating effects on her mental and physical well-being, this concert film becomes compellingly dishy, profoundly moving, and triumphantly funny. In the spirit of Richard Pryor talking about his infamous freebasing accident in Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip, Cho's account of her ill-conceived 1994 ABC sitcom All American Girl is a victorious, "you go, girl" call to empowerment. Cho's initial happiness at the prospect of finding mainstream acceptance on prime time television was short lived. The network expressed concerns about her weight, and the desperately insecure Cho proceeded to lose 30 pounds in a month, eventually winding up in a hospital with kidney failure. More humiliations were to come, such as the hiring of a special consultant to make her appear "more Asian." Cho recalls receiving a phone call following the show's premiere broadcast from Quentin Tarantino, her then-boyfriend, who screamed at her, "they took your voice!" The capper was when her show was cancelled to make room on the schedule for The Drew Carey Show ("because he's so thin," Cho asides). Drink, drugs, and promiscuous sex followed, until Cho had herself a wake-up call. "I'm not going to die because I failed as someone else," she proclaims. "I'm going to succeed as myself." Essential viewing for Cho's devoted fans (and more sensitive viewers are advised to fast-forward through some extremely raunchy routines lustily cheered on by the receptive hometown San Francisco crowd), this is definitely recommended. Aud: P. (K. Lee Benson)