What did you think of "I'm the One that I Want"?   Good - very funny 71%   Bad 29%

Verdict: A straightforward and raunchily funny look at stardom and self-image in the West Coast's cultural melting pot.

Details: Starring Margaret Cho. Unrated, but contains strong profanity and sexual subject matter. 1 hour, 36 minutes.

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Review: Margaret Cho is the cheerful, chubby Alice in the Left Coast looking-glass world of "I'm the One That I Want." The stand-up comic's filmed concert takes us through her upside-down experiences as the star of the very first Asian-American sitcom on TV ("All-American Girl").

For the ABC show, she was coerced to drop 30 pounds in two weeks and behave more "Asian" in order to successfully portray herself on the airwaves. Surreal enough for you? The crash weight loss caused her kidneys to fail, and the eventual cancellation of her series inspired her to drink herself into oblivion, choose the wrong boyfriends and finally struggle back to sobriety.

Did I mention that Cho turns some of her worst traumas into hilarious riffs?

Raised by Korean immigrant parents in San Francisco, the comic grew up with a secondary family of Haight-Ashbury potheads, bohemians and drag queens. Before launching into her tales of sitcom hell, Cho proclaims her solidarity with gay men, naming herself a "fag hag" and admitting that, though straight herself, "I'm heterophobic."

Cho is preaching to the choir in "I'm the One," filmed over two nights in her hometown in a theater largely filled with a gay audience, roaring approval of her often raunchy act.

Some memorable bits include comparisons of straight and gay porn, discussing the etiquette of visiting a gay bar with on-the-prowl male friends, and recalling her one sexual experience with a woman.

The last bit introduces us to the routine's most reliable comic source: Cho's mother, purveyor of often inscrutable answering-machine messages, quizzing her daughter on her sexuality, or urging her not to marry a Caucasian.

It's one of the movie's ironies that, amid its exploration of ethnic and cultural presumptions, one of the funniest characters is a bit of a stereotype: the thickly accented, traditional Asian mama.

When Cho gets around to retelling her bizarre Hollywood experiences, "I'm the One" loses a little of its comic steam. Several times it verges on a banal recitation of the idiocies of TV executives. Been there, done that. Luckily, when Cho transits into accounts of her alcohol abuse, she moves through it without self-congratulatory talks about the recovery process. Her attitude is refreshingly straightforward: This happened, I took care of it, I'm back. She keeps the laughter going, and charms us till she seems like the best best friend you wish you had.

Maybe it's for the best that Lionel Coleman directs the show in a straightforward, even flat, fashion. He doesn't get in the way of Cho's routine.

On the other hand, her comic sensibility might have been heightened by a more playful kind of camerawork. And since we learn at the start that Cho's parents are in the audience, seeing their daughter perform live for the first time, it's a real disappointment that we never get to see their reaction--which must have been a mix of family pride and personal embarrassment.

— Steve Murray, Cox News Service

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