Word: stand-up
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...portrait (a lewd grandmother talking forever of "relations"; Sherman's babying mother who believes a baby's first step unimportant compared to his first roof-rumbling belch). Soon Klump's post-transformation celebration turns idiotic and offensive; it's as if "Eddie Murphy Raw" took over and started telling stand-up jokes about women's exercise...
Ironically, one of the finest parts of the film involves Murphy attacking a mean stand-up comedian. Buddy Love returns with his date to the Def Comedy Jamtype comic (Dave Chapelle) who before had made public mockery of him as Sherman Klump. Turning heckler, Buddy begins by sarcastically praising the comic for his ability to pick out and pick on people for their weaknesses. Thereafter, things turn ugly for the poor guy: in a sequence owing a lot to Steve Martin's nose-joke routine in a bar in "Roxanne," Buddy proceeds to roast the comic to a crisp. Where...
Credit is due the makeup and special-effects people for brilliantly hiding the seams in these scenes. But more is due Murphy for mixing and matching five terrific stand-up routines, while he's sitting down--and eating. For this he more than earns our forbearance as he works his way through the rest of the movie's routine business. Not to mention our hopes for a full recovery from his long career swoon. It's good to see him sitting up and--shall we say?--taking nourishment...
...show, however, is not without flaws. For a sharp stand-up comic, O'Donnell makes some disconcertingly lame gags. Whenever she mispronounces anything, she comes back with a Wheel of Fortune joke: "I'd like to buy a vowel!" This was tired after just four days. And the formatted topical comedy, as it turns out, is too predictable. A joke about Julie Andrews declining a Tony nomination ended with Rosie claiming she'd turn down the Nobel Peace Prize. That's the sort of one-liner that people who have never even appeared on Star Search have been using around...
...finished announcing their prime-time fall lineups last week, appear to be turning away from minority programming. CBS will have only one black-themed show next fall, a new Bill Cosby sitcom. ABC will have only the aging sitcom Family Matters and the new sitcom Common Law, with Latino stand-up Greg Giraldo. Fox, once a bastion of black comedy, is down to Martin, Living Single and the multiracial drama New York Undercover. All told, that's six minority-themed shows on the Big Four networks. Three years ago, there were...