Comedian Ralphie May is a big man. According to his latest comedy special out on DVD/Blu-ray today, he's Too Big to Ignore. May's fans will enjoy the new bits in his routine, many of which come from his growing family. One especially on-target bit is about cartoon character Dora the Explorer. May, who has a four-year-old daughter named April June May, and a two-year-old son named August May, sat down to watch the show with his kids. He was a little inebriated at the time (a rarity, he says), so his reaction might have been a little over the top, but when you think about it, not really.
"It's about a five-year-old little Mexican girl that's always lost. It should be called Dora the Amber Alert, it should be called," he quips in the show. "They've got this little girl walking by herself in the woods. As a parent, I'm watching and saying, 'Oh my God! Where's that baby's parents? Who lets their baby walk out in the goddamned woods? That baby's got a monkey with her! Jesus Christ, get that baby away from that monkey! That monkey will eat that baby's face off!"
A former Houstonian, May includes a bit about Chaz Bono in his special -- "Do anybody think that maybe, if Chaz Bono knew that she was gonna turn into a dude, she was gonna look like me, you think that bitch would've gone through with it?"
W.E. stars Andrea Riseborough and James D'Arcy, Madonna directs.
"I have found it impossible to discharge my duties as king without the help and support of the woman I love." With those few words, King Edward VIII changed the course of history, his own and that of his nation. Unable to marry the divorced American commoner Wallis Simpson, he stepped down from the British throne and went off to live what many considered the greatest love story ever told. Madonna directs W.E., which stands for Wallis and Edward (played by Andrea Riseborough and James D'Arcy). It's 1998 and a New York woman finds a cache of secret letters between the two lovers some 50 years before. She discovers they shared a tender, sometimes desperate romance.
Madonna directs the film with a distinct favoritism towards the royals. The scenes are lavish and lush, but the audience's admiration of Wallis and Edward doesn't match that of Madonna. He's a cold fish and a bit of a nitwit, she cheats on her husband and yet is a bit of a social-climbing snob. There's the feeling that he just didn't want to be bothered with all that being king business and so took the easy way out by declaring his love for a woman his family -- and his country -- would never approve of.
There are no major mistakes in W.E. The acting is adequate, the writing is fair, the pace is acceptable. But it's not quite enough. All in all, W.E. is missing something, heart. Just like Wallis and Edward's glamorized, shoddy relationship.
