So I was excited to find myself in watching a solo figure going at it on screen. In I'm The One That I Want, Margaret Cho gives new meaning to the oft-noted similarity between stand-up comedy and masturbation. In Cho's case, the comparison is more like stand-up and that masturbation scene from The Exorcist. What a woman: a Korean-American, trash-talking, starfucker fag-hag beloved of the US gay community, and just about anyone else with a mother. You can get an idea of her act from www.margaretcho.com, as the movie's unlikely to make it to the UK. Although you guys are in desperate need of a big-mouthed bitch since Margaret Thatcher morphed into William Hague.

Stand-up comedy on film, I hear you cry, what's the point? Good question. For the audience, it's a chance to catch a stage show some had seen five times, and others had missed but heard about, an opportunity to recreate the atmosphere of the live performance by heading out on a Friday night with a group of friends to laugh themselves stupid. For Cho, it's a harder proposition. Sure, there's that fame and fortune thing, but doesn't a stand-up need the feedback of a live audience to galvanise her? So why were we laughing ourselves sick at the Carlton that night?

It's a community thing. If you laugh, you get the joke. If you get the joke, you’re one of us. She riffs on the unacceptable (fat people on TV, white male homoeroticism, mothers who read gay porn) and we laugh because we 'idennify'. We feel accepted. The gay couples (male and female, old and young), the Korean-Canadian teenagers with multicoloured hair, the too-cool-for-school media students with notepads to the fore, that group of women friends with gut-buster laughs: these are the people who don't usually find that much to laugh at in Hollywood films. At least, not to laugh like this, on the thin edge of crying.

Remember that sketch from The Mary Whitehouse Experience, the one that unfailingly had me in stitches, the one we all did in the school cafeteria, or on the Tube, that puerile exercise in pointing the finger. "See that smelly old man over there?" Pause. Everyone looks. "That’s you that is." And that is the essence not only of comedy, but of cinema. Cho turns it back on us: we think she's saying "That's me, that is," but we're laughing because we're saying it along with her. As for finding someone who understands me, did I have an Oprah epiphany during her diatribe? Sure thing. "I had a crisis," she says, telling the story of her time as the entertainment on a lesbian cruise ship, and having her first relationship with a woman. Crisisville. The little light on my Gaydar goes on. She shvitzes over it. "Am I gay? Am I straight? And then I realized: I'm just slutty. When’s my fucking parade? Slut Pride!" Thanks, honey. Affirmation. That's the point of stand-up on screen. Spread the Slut Pride word! I’m feeling good.

Ah, the morning after... The sweet secret feeling in your chest of having seen a movie no-one else you know has seen. Or is going to see. That way, surely, madness lies. The perfect antidote? A night out with the girls. Tuesday nights have been dedicated to Buffy and my best friend since I hit these snowy shores. The sun comes out and welcome to rerun season. So BF and I get our asses off the couch and hit the multiplex in search of being scared. Bridget Jones' Diary was frightening but we were looking for more. On the other hand, BF hides behind her David Boreanaz standee when the Buffy monster goes "Grr. Argh." And with Buffy dead, it was time to find a cool new teen heroine to identify with.

No sooner was I getting down with my slut self than indie cinema dropped another bombshell my way. She's the star of Ginger Snaps, she goes by the name of Katharine Isabelle, but watch out: she bites. I mean really. Ginger (Isabelle) is a perfectly normal teenage girl who spends her afternoon rehearsing suicides with her sister Bridget (Emily Perkins), until she gets attacked by an actor covered in impressive prosthetics on the night of her first period. Sex, drugs, rock and roll, teeny black outfits and biting dialogue follow. Before you can say silver bullet, Ginger's sunk her teeth into delinquency. And her guidance counsellor. You've got to love a woman who could literally bite your head off. The days are gone when we chicks had to identify with the Jamie Lee Curtises of the horror world. Who wouldn't rather be Freddy? Those fabulous nails... 60 different types of screen blood later, I picked BF's equally impressive fingernails out of my bicep and waited for her rictus of terror to subside.

That was way cool, she stuttered through her shivers. Yeah, I agreed, as was the arctic airconditioning. That's why I'm shivering, she said, and I decided not to remind her that she nearly broke my wrist during The Gift, Hannibal, Valentine, But I'm A Cheerleader... The pleasure of being very afraid is unmatched. After all that stand-up, it's a relief to sit down. Especially with a sexy chick on screen chewing the scenery, and a sexy chick beside you chewing your shoulder. As for going solo? I'll settle for a community of two. Finding someone who understands your desire to be a werewolf? That's better than an Oprah epiphany. In the words of Ginger and B, "Out by sixteen or dead in this scene. But together forever." We're thinking about marriage. We've already got the matching Lara Croft outfits.

Sophie Levy