Ellen DeGeneres: The Beginning (2000)

Don't Believe the Hype

Best movie ever!

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

This performance marks 3 years after the "come-out" of Ellen Degeneres. FYI, Ellen was raised in a strict Christian Science environment, and although she no longer goes to that church, she believes in God and her belief is evidently shown in this performance. As she always has been funny and witty style, Ellen also shows her love and passion for people and animals. My favorite part is how Ellen chooses to end the show with such impressive story of her meeting with God. It makes us laugh for the moment, but then when we find "the silence", we can see how incredible and sophisticated this woman is. If you are a fan of Ellen DeGeneres, you cannot miss this.

You can read what some nay sayers post or you can read a professional critique, without a slant that one much question if homophobia played a role instead of fair and balanced review. Ellen doesn't have a top rated TV show AGAIN by mistake, read below..............This post-coming-out performance fully acknowledges Ellen DeGeneres's status as America's most famous lesbian, but it is nevertheless imbued with a sense of fun. For instance, rather than describe the experience of closet-exiting on her self-titled situation comedy in the late 1990s, she performs an amusing "interpretive dance." She uses her trademark goofiness to ruminate on the necessity of directions on shampoo bottles, ant road rage, and the possible nightmarish consequences of buying cheese. While the performance is not orientation-specific, the comedienne spends a fair amount of time on sex-related issues, including jokes about blow-up dolls and people who videotape their relations. She does venture into the political with an appeal for same-sex marriage and a monologue on meeting God, who turns out to be a middle-aged black woman. None of this fazes her clearly supportive audience at New York's Beacon Theatre who get to ask her questions at the end à la Carol Burnett. The best moment of the 65-minute performance for HBO comes at the end, when DeGeneres accidentally exhibits some gender confusion with a young audience member, who then pays her moving tribute as a role model. --Kimberly Heinrichs

Ellen Degeneres is one of my fave actresses and I admire her honesty and her ability to babble to an audience for over an hour without stopping! I live in England and you can only get this on video here, I watched it with 4 of my friends (all aged 16) and only me and one of my male friends enjoyed it. No-one else quite understood Ellen's quirks and rambling habits. Still, I give this one an 8 or 9. Nice work Ellen, keep it up. :)

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.