kinskimonkey

I thought this was the greatest show ever when it was on, but then again I was only 15 at the time and spent most of my free time riding my bike to the mall, playing video games with my dorky friends, and crying to REM's Green Album. This was a talk show in the early days of Comedy Central, before it was even called Comedy Central, when the channel was still called "HA!" The great Denis Leary co-hosted with a guy named Billy Kimball, who himself was the host of "Clash", another "HA!" show on at the time. As I seem to recall each show had a theme. One was about monkeys, specifically about how much Leary hated them. In it Leary told a great joke that went something like: If you take a hundred monkeys and put them in a room with a hundred typewriters, after a few weeks you know what you'll get?-- A hundred typewriters with monkey crap all over them. That one had me rolling for days. I'm serious. Good work guys. I still remember it fondly after all these years.

This show was on in Los Angeles late on Saturday nights during the fall of 1992. I remember it being very consistently funny. It had a predominantly African-American cast, but there were a couple of white performers, notably Jim Breuer.

On each episode they'd have a "your mama's so..." contest. I remember hearing such great lines as "your mama's so black, when I look at her I think I'm asleep", and "your mama's so fat, she went outside wearing an "X" jacket and a helicopter landed on her back". That one still makes me laugh.

I hope the performers all went on to do bigger and better things, they certainly deserved to.

I suppose objectively, this is no more than an average, or perhaps slightly above average film. But there's something about it that just gets under my skin, and I would consider "Beautiful Girls" to be one of my favorite movies. I know I'm not alone in feeling this way. I've met many others who share my sentiments towards it.

There's little plot, very little story. The film is all characters and atmosphere. It's greatest strength is in its casting. Each actor seems tailor-made for his or her role. There's a coziness and feeling of being at ease, and of being right at home while watching this movie. The ending finds just the right tone.

I can't argue with others who've found fault with specific instances of dialogue and certain character motivations. Yes, it does seem a little strange that a woman would be told she looks like Kathy Bates and not be upset by it. As I stated before, this movie is far from perfect, but who cares? You can love a movie like this for its faults, as well as for its strengths.

I would recommend this movie to just about anyone. I can't imagine very many people who wouldn't like it.