Carrie Fisher: Wishful Drinking

source: Carrie Fisher: Wishful Drinking

Quite entertaining. The woman was the closest thing we had to the great wit Dorothy Parker. Carrie wasn't crazy, she was just too darn smart and sensitive for this stinking world. Rest in peace brilliant princess.

The HBO taped production based on Carrie Fisher's memoir of the same name. Wow, what a life. Makes me want to read the book to see what didn't make the documentary. Eddie Fisher passed shortly after the taping and is dedicated to him. On the DVD version there is an hour long interview with her mother, Debbie Reynolds that was fascinating! Now Carrie is a star in the galaxy, interesting documentary for certain!

The 1-2 punch of Carrie Fisher's and Debbie Reynolds' deaths was a fitting, but tragic, end to a year unprecedented in the number of famous/recognizable people who passed on. And for nerds, Carrie's death cut especially deep. As is the case when a celebrity dies, interest in their work surges for a time as people re-explore (or discover for the first time) why we fell in love with these people in the first place. Like most people, I'm familiar with Carrie Fisher through her work as Princess Leia in the Star Wars franchise, but only recently did I realize that she was a prolific writer. WISHFUL DRINKING was her first directly autobiographical work, based on a life which many people might envy if it weren't for all of the mental illness, drug addiction, etc. And based on this stand-up special, she was also a brilliant comedienne. Essentially a chronological overview of her life, it was filled with hilarious anecdotes and delivered with her trademark self-deprecation. Rarely have laughter and sadness coexisted so closely. And now that she's gone, the ending takes on a new poignancy. If you're a Carrie Fisher fan, I highly recommend checking this out if you haven't already (and her books, too).

For some odd reason I never was aware of Carrie's "Wishful Drinking" show before after her untimely passing. So when I did happen to find it, I jumped at the chance to watch this. And I was sort of thrilled, because I have never seen her perform in something like this, much less did I actually know that she also did this kind of work. It turned out that "Wishful Drinking" was a nice show on a couple of different levels. First and foremost, it was nice and open view into Carrie's life, past and struggles, and she didn't really wrap much in bubble wrap. And it was also a fun show, with a good amount of laughs and enjoyment. I was genuinely surprised to see Carrie do this, and must admit that she excelled at it, and she felt very much at home on the stage. Watching "Wishful Drinking" does offer a good look into the real Carrie Fisher, especially if you haven't read her autobiographies beforehand. There are some very personal issues being aired, and they are delivered with honesty and often an approach that is spiced up with a pinch of comedy. Now, this is not a stand-up comedy routine, so you should not expect that kind of show if you sit down to watch this without knowing what it is about. "Wishful Drinking" is a very honest show, and one that all fans of Carrie Fisher should take the time to watch.

I just watched this hugely entertaining tell-all, a rental from Netflix. If I weren't in the habit of sending the discs back immediately, I'd have watched it again. Carrie Fisher is clearly a highly intelligent -- if deeply neurotic --woman, but her frankness and wit even out the score. She skewers everyone in her path, but with such humor and self-deprecation that she has the audience with her all the way. She strikes me as someone who would be fun to know. But.... Perhaps at a slight distance. As others have written, the best part of the show is the Hollywood Genealogy Chart, and boy, does she have fun with it! So do we. Eddie Fisher, her father, receives most of the poisoned darts, but he clearly deserved them. But she must have forgiven him long ago; the show is dedicated to him.

Carrie Fisher's one-woman Broadway show is a laid back treatise on life as a celebrity and a celebrity spawn. Fisher dishes on her famous parents but doesn't dig too deeply into her own battles with drugs, alcohol and celebrity. The highlight is a giant chalkboard of her famous family tree with which she tries to discern whether her daughter should date a man that may or may not be a relative. And yes, she dons the famous braids to remind us of the opportunity that allowed her to step out of her famous parents' shadow and into cultural iconography. All in all, Fisher is honest, blunt, and a bit too relaxed at times to add anything but kick-back giggles, but to ask more may be just wishful thinking.

Carrie Fisher's one woman show is, in a word, hilarious. Fisher tells it all, growing up in Hollywood, having Eddie Fisher for a father, the Liz-Debbie-Eddie triangle, Princess Leia, her drug addiction, and her "invitation to a mental hospital." She gives us a look via a big board of Hollywood Genealogy 101 ("but don't worry, Eddie wasn't alone for long...") filled with pictures and arrows of her parents, their spouses, their children, and her own two marriages and daughter, trying to find out if her daughter and another young man on the board could date, or were they, in fact, related? Due to his retention of the Star Wars licensing, Fisher advises us that George Lucas owns her image and likeness so that "every time I look in the mirror, I have to pay him a few bucks." And she tells the audience, "If you have a chance to be a Pez dispenser, DO IT." All in all, a fun evening, obviously from the mind that brought us the entertaining "Postcards from the Edge." Fisher sees the irony in life and mines it up and down roller coaster ride for all the humor there is. She is, after all, the daughter of Debbie Reynolds, who was nominated for an Oscar for "The Unsinkable Molly Brown"..."but lost to Julie Andrews for her multilayered, emotional, deep performance of Mary Poppins."

Carrie Fisher does an one-woman show in front of an adoring crowd. She starts with a story of finding a friend dead in her bed five years ago. Somehow, she makes it funny. Then she brings out a big board trying to decipher the relationship of her parents Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds with their connection to Elizabeth Taylor and their various marriages. This is probably the highlight for me. She also brings in her own failed marriage, her family, her addiction, and her mental struggles. Her father Eddie Fisher would die 3 months after the taping. Her raspy dry wit works for the most part especially when she's interacting with the audience. Her monotone voice does grate as the show keeps going. Overall, Carrie is very sassy, charismatic, and scary honest about her life.

Carrie Fisher's one woman show "Wishful Drinking" is one of the most devastatingly frank pieces of theater in recent memory. At heart, this monologue was a sort of catharsis for a woman that has lived most of her life in show business. Coming from that rarefied environment, Ms. Fisher does not mince words in telling her audiences aspects of a life she has lived, most of it in the public eye. She bares her soul in an account that is hilarious, as well as sad. One can feel her pain as she goes on to tell the story of her life. Ms. Fisher, an intelligent woman, has put together a fun show in which she interacts with her audiences in ways that endears her to the people that come to see her. She recalls her golden childhood lived in that make believe world where her famous parents, Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds created, only to see it come to a complete stop when her father left home to pursue a glamorous star that happened to be a close friend. Her illustration of the people in her life on a big board, and how everyone is related, is one of the best segments in the show. Her own experience with the man she loved, Paul Simon, is also examined for the pain it caused her. Her claim to fame, as Princess Leia is another hysterical chapter of her life. The relationship with George Lucas is examined by bringing aspects one never knew. We get to know funny details about that chapter of her life with her disarming delivery of the way it really was. The show was directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato as Ms. Fisher performed in front of a live audience in South Orange, New Jersey.