Fat Actress

[memyselfI]

Does anyone think that a comedy about a woman going from this:



to this:


will actually be funny. I can't imagine it will be. This reviewer says it's gross. I guess I'll wait to see the episode before I judge but I think the entire premise is just really sad.

http://metromix.chicagotribune.com/t...elevision_heds

Shock and guffaw `Fat Actress' not groundbreaking, just gross
By Sid Smith
Tribune arts critic


Talk about fearless to a fault: "Fat Actress" (9 p.m. Monday, Showtime) opens with Kirstie Alley writhing on her bathroom floor, bewailing and bemoaning her latest weight gain, unflatteringly clad in a nightgown and housecoat.

In the same attire, she later motors to a drive-in to wolf down a gargantuan sirloin burger, bits of meat spilling into her cleavage. She notices they forgot her order of french fries. "Can't you people," she shouts, "ever learn English?"

Nice. Later, during a visit to NBC honcho Jeff Zucker (playing himself), she sashays down the office aisle, blissfully unaware of the gapes of workers rubbernecking from their cubicles, gaping aghast at her sizable behind. The camera dutifully dotes on her swishing, oversize hips, just to be sure we don't miss the point.

The idea, of course, is to be anything but subtle. The unapologetic goal of "Fat Actress," a combination of scripted sitcom and true-life travails, is shock and guffaw. There's something of the cheeky chaos of "Arrested Development" taken to new lows, good taste eschewed in favor of a crude, irredeemable honesty. "Fat Actress" often plays as one of John Waters' freewheeling, scatological experiments from the '70s, with Alley as latter-day Divine.

To wit: In Episode 2, Alley lunches with a director, after she takes a mega-laxative to help trim pounds. She gets the call during lunch, and two scenes follow set in the ladies room, including one in which Alley borrows a diaper when all of the stalls prove occupied. Something like a third of the episode is about excrement. Trouble is, the '70s are long gone, and the intentional crassness of "Fat Actress" isn't groundbreaking, just gross.

There are funny moments in "Fat Actress," and Alley's physical clowning is pushed to astonishing limits. Some of the banter, including that involving Hollywood cameos (Zucker, John Travolta, Melissa Gilbert, Kid Rock), is amusing. And your heart goes out to Alley for attempting to turn the tables on all those skeptical producers. When she laments the double standard, insisting James Gandolfini and John Goodman aren't hounded about their weight, she wins the debate.

But obesity is also an epidemic and health hazard today, children increasingly included. That and the shameless, lowbrow, ceaselessly over-the-top approach combine to undercut the laughs here and make you wish this particular Veronica would head back into her closet.

[Barret]

Originally Posted by chiefs4me

but she has guts

HEHEHEHE, thus the title of the show

[ChiTown]

I'd hit it.....................