Ellen DeGeneres: The Beginning

Ellen DeGeneres seems like a very nice person. She may remind you of the most helpful woman at the food co-op or an extremely affable first-grade teacher. She is not, however, what we call real funny. Nor is she a very good joke-teller (her funny parenthetical asides are given GIANT CAPITAL LETTERS). Nor is she what we call especially interesting--her routine here resembles the attempts of a pleasant but not particularly bright person to make chitchatty conversation. Crunchy (but not gnarly) lesbians will have a warm smile. For everyone else, it's kind of like watching someone else's massage.

She has the conviction of Don Rickles, strength of Lily Tomlin, wit of Robin Williams and diction of Jane Fonda.

It's Ellen DeGeneres, live, at the Beacon Theater--a real treat for those in the provinces who weren't able to make it to the Big Apple that fun night in 2000.

Obviously the result of many years in the comic and talk show business, DeGeneres has the pulse of both the sophisticated and general public at bay. She delivers her humor with a kind of sincerity and unpretentiousness that really communicates. The Beacon audience obviously loves her, and responds with great enthusiasm. Ellen has the courage to touch on "touchy subjects" and "get away" with it through her ingratiating personality.

This, her fifth comedy special, may be termed her best, and credit must be extended to fine, unobtrusive direction by Joel Gallen. As no one's credited as writer, it must be DeGeneres wrote her own material, as well as executive produced this fun filled event.

Ellen makes a great comeback in this stand-up comedian movie. She is funny throughout and talks a little bit about her personal life. If this comes back on, I suggest you watch it because I know you will like it.

I know I'm probably gonna get a lot of negative votes on this comment, but this was honestly one of the least enjoyable stand-up routines I've ever seen...and I've seen many! So on to my personal reason why I was barely able to watch this till the end:

Ellen to me is like a person in a wheelchair who everybody feels sorry for. Because she got treated badly after she "came out" there's now almost this unwritten obligation and sense of right to applaud to everything she says and does. It's pathetic! I condemn the spiteful reactions towards her coming out & everything, but empathy stops at a certain point. What's happened in Ellen's case is that now her loving and devoted fans are mostly people who've been hurt themselves. So they gobble her every word as if it came from high above...Ellen is to her fans what the AMWAY director is to his devoted fanatical ant workers.

The most she made me was smile on a couple of occasions, but the crowd seemed to want to eat her up. Everything was to-die hysterical to them and I couldn't fathom it. Her material wasn't really bad, but her delivery and timing were painful to watch. She was waaaaay too predictable and what's even worse, she went for the cheapest laughs: "God...is a She" (and the mostly female crowd bursts into applause)

Somewhere towards the end she even steals stuff from other comedians, but by that time I had already begun writing this woeful comment. Why I bothered to watch this till the end I honestly don't know. Maybe it was the empathy in me, trying to want to approve of this woman's comedic skills. She has none!

Ellen Degeneres: The New Beginning is the comedy special the comedian/future talk show host did a few months after coming out as a lesbian and opening herself to lethal criticism. If you can't recall the headlines she spawned and responses she garnered from her audacious movie, she proudly does a wordless, musical reenactment of one of the most important moments in her life. In addition, she goes into detail about how insects and other creatures have relationships akin to the ones humans have, the depression the person on the other end of the shampoo hotline must have, and more in the special. Degeneres is hilariously inspired because of the way she analyzes things in life that would likely go unnoticed by a large majority of people. Her ability to make humor and a sustainable monologue on something so ridiculous is precisely her strongest talent. It must also be said that the ending of the special touches a sentimental, emotional note that few comedy specials even come close to reaching.

Starring: Ellen Degeneres. Directed by: Joel Gallen.