It is a performances centric movie

Fantastic!

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

The Ellen Show was an obscure show which premiered in September 2001, when few people were interested in laughing, and quickly failed. I watched the show for the first time, years after its cancellation, for no other reason than that it was co-created by Mitchell Hurwitz, the brains behind Arrested Development, and partially written by Hurwitz and Chuck Martin, who also wrote for AD. Besides Ellen DeGeneres, the show stars Martin Mull, who appeared on AD. The Ellen Show had some promise with Hurwitz on board, but it never fully realizes its potential and stays an average sitcom with mostly uninteresting characters, sometimes predictable humour, sometimes mediocre acting and no deep meaning. Not to mention an annoying laugh track.The two best episodes are the Pilot, co-written by Hurwitz, and "Joe", the seventh episode which is also written by Hurwitz. These have Hurwitz playing with awkward situations, double meanings, wit, occasional physical humour, and the basic idea of losing a fortune- all of which became bigger on AD. But the rest of The Ellen Show's episodes barely feel Hurwitz's presence, even when he's a credited writer, and Martin's episodes don't achieve much either with such two-dimensional characters.In short, I had hoped I found a gem no one knew about but discovered the show is obscure for a reason, and it probably deserved to go.

If you could manage to catch the Ellen Show on TV it was really funny. Ellen always makes us laugh and Cloris Leachman is still a hoot decades after Mary Tyler Moore.The reason this show failed is because A) the networks never promoted it and B) they could never decide on a day and time to broadcast it.It was so damn annoying to try and figure out what day and time it was on! All my friends and family love Ellen and WANTED to watch this show but someone much more powerful obviously had other ideas. Sometimes it was aired twice a week on different days at different times and then it would disappear for a few weeks and magically reappear for 30 minutes and then just fade away again. If I were Ellen I'd be pretty darn angry about how my talent was treated...I hope this comes out on DVD soon. I know several buyers. I noticed on Ebay that someone in England is selling all 18 eps on video. But I don't want video. Of course, what I really want is to know if her Mom really did have a cat... :)

This was a great show, and no matter how much I tried to get people to watch it, I guess my grass roots campaign wasn't quite enough. Canceled. I think that the network really missed the boat on this one. Ellen Degeneres is hands down one of the funniest people alive, and if CBS had promoted this show it would have been a huge success.What ever happened to giving shows a chance to obtain an audience? Remember that Seinfeld had no audience when it started! Plus, what's with moving the shows around? Even when somebody likes a show they never know when it might be on (I couldn't find the show Norm if my life had depended on it... even with a TVGuide).The networks have decided to pump up the worthless <garbage> so much to get people to watch them and then they leave good shows to fend for themselves. Something has got to change, or the network shows are going to continue spiraling downward.

It's not that Ellen isn't funny. She is! It isn't that she's "that way." She is. And I couldn't even tell you if the show was well written or well directed. Why? Because the laughtrack drove me away. This has got to be the most obnoxious laughtrack since those used on Bewitched and its ilk where stirring coffee, combing one's hair, or raising an eyebrow were met with ROARS of laughter. Ellen! Stop. Fire whoever is responsible! The wife and I tried going back to the show a few times but didn't last but a minute before the toxic laughtrack drove us back like a smell that would not go away. Ellen, please visit Shepherd of the Hills church. Our pastor is FUNNY. No laughtrack. Listen in to me and my buddy. We're FUNNY. No laugh track (and when we'er not, there's no laughter). Or you just might remember being on stage. You're funny, the audience (a REAL audience) laughs. When you're not, silence.