Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
 

Just saw "Borat" last night.

Funniest movie film I have seen in a long, long time.

A must see. Go now and see it.

I laughed 'til I cried.

:)

Funny as it may be ... I HATE, HATE, HATE people being punk'd for entertainment. It bugs me something awful. Ashton Kucher can die for all I care, and so can this Sasha Cohen dude.


The filmmakers are, in fact, being sued by two frat boys from Dixie for getting them sh!tfaced drunk, then having them sign releases that they claim they didn't understand, and then filming them making asses of themselves by revealing to approximately 2 million people so far that they are mysogenistic racist pigs.


I'm not real supportive of racist pigs, but I'm less so about those who play "gotcha" with them for the purpose of making millions of dollars while humiliating them.

Well, farty pants, I loved it. It's a funny movie. And I actually saw it and therefore my comments about the film are more valid.
:D

Gotta go with the Space Man on this one. Nothing good has come out if this genre since the original candid camera.

Any movie that GC would vociferously defend by using the "farty pants" arrow from his quiver must have some merit.

Maybe they're just jumping on the bandwagon, or whatever kind of wagon those Gypsy's use ... but an entire poverty-striken village in rural Romania is suing the makers of Borat for exploiting them and lying to them about their appearances in the film.

There's plenty of other funny stuff in the world. I can skip this one with ease.

And I'm not making any judgment on people who see it or find it funny. It just rubs me the wrong way.

I could have sworn I'd posted about seeing it but I guess not.

Anyway, to recap what I thought I had posted:

1) I laughed a lot.

2) Like iSm, I'm not big on punk'd and practical joke type humor. But most of the laughs were in the scripted parts of the movie.

3) I was surprised that in most of the "unstaged" encounters, it is only Borat that comes off looking like a moron. For the most post people respond appropriately, patiently, and have to be pushed very hard before they start to respond negatively to him. If anything, it shows how far most of us will go to avoid conflict.

4) I was disappointed to learn that the scenes filmed in Romania were not staged (as I had assumed).

5) So I laughed a lot but feel like something of a **** for doing so.

Did anyone see the actor on Leno? He was in full character. It was funny but then it was getting old {I'd hoped he come out of character}.

The patience you speak of, Alex, is what I saw with Martha Stewart {another guest on the show}. She treated him like a child. She kept on with what she was supposed to do, patiently answering his questions.

Since I haven't seen the movie, I wouldn't know that, Alex, so thanks for adding that. Nice to hear people aren't all bad, ya know?

Wait, I READ that post. I know I did. Huh?

I haven't seen the movie.

There was an interesting article in Time magazine this month, written by Joel Stein (who I have loved since his days at the Stanford Daily). Link.

I believe it was originally in the random movie musings thread. Looks like someone split the first two posts here out of that thread an missed Alex's.

Actually, the Cricket started this separate thread about Borat, and I moved it from the Lounge to Beatnik when I made the second post.

Alex afterwards posted about the movie in the Musings thread in the Lounge, and the rest is typical confusing history when you have a forum for talking about movies (among other things) and also a popular, ongoing thread in a different forum - for talking about movies.



Life's messy sometimes .... but who would have it any other way?


.

Another thing I liked about this film was how it put a mirror up in the face of people he talked to. Yes, they were drunk but people when they're drunk become uninhibited and say what they really think. ie. Mel Gibson. Yeah, I feel really sorry for those drunk, racist, misogynistic bastards...

In one scene, he spoke with a gentleman in a southern rodeo who actually said that he was working on seeing gays hang from trees. The 'innocent' Borat brought that out of him. No alcohol there. I'm glad that film immortalized that man's hate for all to see. Yeah, I feel really sorry for that bastard.

A lot of the humiliation was brought to the character himself.

The one thing I will agree with is that the village was grossly underpaid. That is sad. But in the end I'm sure they will be compensated. They should sue.

I don't understand how people can judge the film without seeing it. I totally disagree with that. Even I dragged my ass to my friend's DVD player and watched Gibson's "Passion" snuff film after agreeing with the idea that I shouldn't judge it until I saw it...

Ugh, I think 'snuff' film is a perfect description. People insisted I watch it and I couldn't stomach it. People say video games and horror movies desensitize you. I don't think so because I've seen plenty and this movie, had to turn it off.

Hmm, I call Shenanigans on the musings thread. :p

Everyone get thier broom's! It's Shenanigans!!!

I like Borat. I liked Passion. I don't think either are films I could see over and over again but both rate pretty high on the Bornieo scale.

I call shenanigans, too.
:D

I don't find people getting punk'd funny for any reason. OK, so it brings out their inner feelings. So they are racist deep down. Yes, sucky. But if they don't act on it and treat everyone as equals in their everyday dealings, don't go burning crosses, etc... do they really deserve to be humiliated in a movie?

Would you (general you, not to be confused with General You or general ewe) like to have your rantings about the crazy religious fanatics shown all over the world after you were duped into thinking you were speaking about something that wasn't a major motion picture?

When I saw the commerical I thought it looked stupid. I still think it looks stupid. And this was before I heard of the issues that have come with the movie.

Wouldn't the participants have to have signed some sort of waiver to appear in the film? Meaning they knew they acted stupidly and let it be shown anyway?

Yes. The frat boys are claiming the producers got the loaded before handing them the papers.

Which is probably not the first time hollywood producers have done that!

Who got loaded? The frat boys or the producers? :D

Didn't the Girls Gone Wild peeps have similiar suits brought against them?

But I'm not judging the film. I haven't said, for instance, it's not funny or Sasha's performance is lame. I'm judging whether it's something I would like to see. I have to go by something. Usually, it's friend's recommendations. Sometimes it's reviews that I feel sympatico with. Other times, a film becomes notorious and things about it enter the public sphere ... as in this case.


I have no judgment about the film. It may be very good. My judgment is on the filmmakers, and whether I want to support their tactics, and - based on the type of humor - whether I would enjoy it, or - if I did - whether I would enjoy myself for having enjoyed it.


From what further stuff I've heard, it seems most of the punking is self-inflicted ... in that the intended humiliation victims, for the most part, remain patient and polite with Sasha until he pulls out all the stops and forces people to react. Other than being funny, there's nothing about this movie that sounds appealing to me. Since I find lots of things funny, I don't feel any comedy shortage via missing this one.


.

Todd Phillips' first movie as a director was a documentary called Frat House which took a look into frat pledging. He's since directed Old School and School for Scoundrels.

He and his co-director thought they were being clever by waiting until everybody was well lubed before getting them to sign the releases. But they learned their lesson when HBO Films (which had commissioned the documentary) refused to air it because of this.

There is actually a fair amount of latitude for documentaries in their ability to present people against their wills (though most distribution companies want the releases as a CYA measure) but the problem with Borat is that it is a work of fiction, even if it contains unscripted elements.

Saw it at our cheapie second-run theater. Laughed and cringed a lot. In the end it's funnier than I thought it would be because the people that looked the worst were those that deserved it the most. I enjoyed all of it, including the obviously staged bits, because they were hilarious too.

Have I ever mentioned that I hate frat boys? Stupid, drunken frat boys. The fact that they are the most socially accepted form of COLLEGE STUDENT is just absurd. After showing the impoverished village at the beginning, the sight of these brats is just grotesque. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy that part - I did. Much the same way I enjoyed all the other idiots in the movie. :D

Hey, let's hope nm doesn't see this post...sorry babe, but frats are not my bag.

Mazel Tov to Mr. Cohen for a job well done. Please excuse me, I have a Jew egg to care for. :tiki:

I cringed at the rodeo part where the cowboy was talking about working on getting rid of gay people...
eek...

Everything he said was horrific but predictable.

Well, it's nominated for a Golden Globe, which are being awarded Monday.






Where's my screener?

I liked the "Once we've blown all them a-rabs off the planet you'll have proven yourself and can wear your mustache again" line.

Is that an announcement?

I got Borat from Todd and Norm for my birthday and I watched it again today. It made me laugh super hard again. Truly one of the funniest films I have seen in a long, long time.

The best part about the DVD is that it's designed to look like it is a bootleg made in Kazakhstan. The cover looks like it was printed on someone's home computer and the disc itself looks like a DVD-R that someone wrote on with a black sharpie.

Very niiice, Mr. Cohen.
:)

The movie has further annoyed me by engaging in a practice that bugs the heck out of me: using foreign letters in place of Latin letters that they coincidentally resemble. Since I frequently know what those foreign letters mean it results in nonsense.

Toys Я Us is automatically read as "Toys Ya Us" and similarly seeing the DVD posters displaying the title of Borat as Borдt has me grumbling "what is this movie Bordt I keep reading about?"

Though I do wonder if the Moscow Toys я Us (should there be one) is named Игрушки R Мы (even if Russian doesn't use the verb "are" in present tense).



Incredibly minor thing to find annoying, but nonetheless I do.

We finally watched Borat and I thought it was very funny. Nearly everyone who came across in a negative manner really did so on their own, without really much instigation from Cohen. It would be interesting to see a follow-up on some of the people in this film, just to see how their participation (not to mention horrid behavior on the part of some) might have impacted their lives. I wonder if any of those frat boys are getting any sexy-time these days?:rolleyes:

The extras are worth watching, too.
There's a video short called Kazakwatch or something like that. It's awesome.

After seeing Cohen at the Golden Globes and hearing him talk, I want to have sexy-time with him.
:D

I dunno. Upon reflection, I think I actually feel sorry for some of the people who were so negatively portrayed in this film.................



Not!

:D