httpss://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYOwRqMRTn8
Ms. Handler, a comedian whose long-running talk show on E!, “Chelsea Lately,” elevated her to the status of household name, takes a wandering look at love, especially her own ambivalence about the M word.
Ms. Handler occasionally gets off some funny lines – when she learns that the matchmakers call their service Stellar Hitch, she says, “That sounds like a towing company.” But mostly this installment is just bland, unless you’re a big Chelsea Handler fan, of which t are many.
“Chelsea Does Racism” is considerably better, doing what Ms. Handler was always good at on “Chelsea Lately”: going places w Jay Leno-type hosts never would.
Celebrity visitors like the comedian Margaret Cho get things started with some funny and blunt talk, and then Ms. Handler has a bracing round table with representatives of various groups that work on race issues.
Less successfully, Ms. Handler travels to the South and interviews some white people who are clueless about how racist they sound, a technique that has already been run into the ground by “The Daily Show.” Still, t’s an edge to this installment that’s lacking in “Marriage,” a quality one hopes Ms. Chandler will bring to the talk show she is scheduled to introduce on Netflix later this year.
“Chelsea Does Silicon Valley” has some droll moments as Ms. Handler, professing to be perpetually frustrated by technology, sets out to educate herself.
Several times in these documentaries we see Ms. Chandler’s lavish house, and it doesn’t appear as if she needs more money, but her app idea could make her rich if she weren’t already.
Over all, Ms. Handler’s attempt to reinvent the form doesn’t quite succeed, but the best moments of these films at least are more fun than most documentaries.