Borat

[kaytodd]

Sonic, you expressed my feelings about Borat. Some parts are genuinely very funny but it is mostly just outrageous and offensive and part of the audience's reaction is probably shock. It is just a bunch of set pieces tied together with the theme of Cohen's character traveling through the US. Not much of a film story.

I am having a harder time dealing with the recognition Choen is receiving for his performance. Maybe one of you can help me out but it just doesn't seem right, perhaps for the same reason as I do not see the film itself as being award worthy. But Borat is certainly a fully realized character and he does not just play one note throughout the film. Cohen does a good job and is funny but I just do not see his portrayal of the Borat character as award worthy, or even nom worthy. Someone very deserving will be left off the nomination list if Cohen makes the top five.

Am I being a snob in not seeing Cohen's performance as being award worthy? More than one group has given him recognition. Or is there something missing from Cohen's performance that should rule it out for an Oscar nom and I am just having a hard time expressing it (other than there being five performances clearly more deserving)?

I am happy for Cohen. I did not have high hopes for the film but it has become not only a huge box office hit but a hit with the critics. My friends and co-workers are telling people how much they liked the film. I was a big fan of Da Ali G Show. I am looking forward to Cohen's next project, whether it is on TV or the big screen.

[Sonic Youth]

And can we stop with calling him a sketch character, in whatever thread that was in? I know it's picky of me, but what Sasha Baron Cohen does is not sketch comedy, and they are not sketch comedy characters.

[Sonic Youth]

Okay, yes, it's funny. But it's not much of a movie, now is it? It establishes its premise, strings some set-pieces together, and then kind of ends.

That said, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of American Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" is utterly appalling. Ay gevalt! I laughed, but I think out of astonishment as a defense mechanism. What an assault on all things holy and civilized! If only it wasn't so slipshod. If the thing had just a little narrative momentum and something other than the concept to tie the set pieces together, this would have been fantastic. But for now, I find Borat is best enjoyed in 5-10 minute segments on YouTube, which is probably how I will watch this film should I ever revisit it. In fact, if I were to "shuffle" the DVD chapters, it probably wouldn't make much of a difference.

By the way, that scene in the hotel room. Did you all get the black rectangles hiding Borat's and his 400 pound manager's penises? I'd ordinarily protest, but in this case words can't express how grateful I am to be spared that viewing. Blech!

[anonymous1980]

I doubt they'll be lodging complaints if the film was a critically panned flop.

[Sonic Youth]

Here's an idea. Why don't all these traumatized people get together and start an organization? The can call themselves the Victims of Borat (V.O.B.), and hold weekly meetings until they've finally recovered.

[Penelope]

Woman in 'Borat' Seeks Investigation
By PETER PRENGAMAN
Associated Press Writer

4:38 AM PST, November 17, 2006

LOS ANGELES — The owner of an etiquette business who was handed a plastic bag supposedly containing feces in the hit movie "Borat" says she was told the filming would be used for a documentary in Belarus.

Cindy Streit said she filed a complaint Thursday with California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, requesting an investigation into possible violations of the California Unfair Trade Practices Act.

Streit said a representative from a Los Angeles-based company called Springland Films contacted her Birmingham, Ala.-based company, Etiquette Training Services, about arranging an etiquette session for an "international guest from Belarus Television."

Attempts to find a contact for Springland were not successful. The company had no phone listing and Streit's lawyers declined to provide copies of the contracts allegedly signed.

The attorney general's office had not received a copy of the complaint, spokesman Nathan Barankin said late Thursday.

Streit said she arranged in Alabama both a sit-down session with Borat, played by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, and a dinner party with some of her friends. Clips of both appear in the movie "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit of Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."

Though awkward at times, the dinner went well until Borat asked to use the bathroom, Streit said.

"I had taught him to excuse himself. He did that correctly and went upstairs," Streit told The Associated Press. "The next thing that happened is that he came down the stairs holding this plastic bag with whatever was in it."

"My horror was that he had brought a bag of feces to my dinner table," she said.

Springland put in writing that the second of two scheduled sessions "will be filmed as part of a documentary for Belarus Television and for those purposes only," said Gloria Allred, Streit's lawyer.

A spokesman for 20th Century Fox, which distributed the film, called Allred's contentions "nonsense."

"Cindy Streit signed written agreements with the production, which clearly stated that a movie was being filmed and that the movie could be distributed worldwide. Her fee was negotiated and paid," said studio spokesman Gregg Brilliant.

Several weeks after filming completed, Brilliant said, Streit asked for and received additional payment for her etiquette training service and she signed an additional release. He said he didn't have details on how much she received.

Streit, 59, said she requested an investigation by the attorney general instead of filing a lawsuit in hopes of setting a precedent that will make movie studios think twice before using other ordinary citizens for "reality movies." However, she said she wouldn't rule out a lawsuit.

Streit's demand follows complaints by others shown in the film, including a lawsuit filed by two fraternity members from a South Carolina university who appear in the film drunk.

[Sonic Youth]

It's a Borat world! The rest of us just live in it.

He sounds quite intelligent. And I bet he's read Primo Levi.


Baron Cohen comes out of character to defend Borat
By Arifa Akbar
Published: 17 November 2006
The Independent

He is a comedian whose alter ego - a racist, sexist homophobe - has delighted many, appalled some and is selling out cinemas across Britain and America.

Now, after staying resolutely in boorish persona during previous interviews, Sacha Baron Cohen has spoken in depth about his motives in creating his comical anti-hero Borat. The journalist from Kazakhstan who sings anti-Semitic songs and refers to women as prostitutes was created "as a tool" to expose people's prejudices, he said.

The 35-year-old Jewish comedian from London has maintained a long silence over the controversy raised by Borat, whose extreme anti-Semitic remarks have earned censure both from the Kazakh government and from the Jewish community.

In one sketch from Baron Cohen's film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, which premiered this month in London, Borat performs a song called "Throw the Jew Down the Well" in a country and western bar in Arizona.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, the comedian revealed he was a devout Jew, observing Sabbath and eating kosher foods, and he referred to the singing scene to defend his inflammatory comedy.

"Borat essentially works as a tool. By himself being anti-Semitic, he lets people lower their guard and expose their own prejudices, whether it's anti-Semitism or an acceptance of anti-Semitism. 'Throw the Jew Down the Well' was a very controversial sketch, and some members of the Jewish community thought it was actually going to encourage anti-Semitism.

"But to me it revealed something about that bar in Tuscon. And the question is: did it reveal that they were anti-Semitic? Perhaps. But maybe it just revealed that they were indifferent to anti-Semitism," he said.

Baron Cohen said the concept of "indifference towards anti-Semitism" had been informed by his study of the Holocaust while at Cambridge University, where he read history. "I remember, when I was in university, and there was this one major historian of the Third Reich, Ian Kershaw. And his quote was, 'The path to Auschwitz was paved with indifference.'

"I know it's not very funny being a comedian talking about the Holocaust, but I think it's an interesting idea that not everyone in Germany had to be a raving anti-Semite. They just had to be apathetic," he said.

He also talked of his astonishment at hearing that the Kazakh government was thinking of suing him over the offence caused by his comic alter ego, and stressed that the "joke is not on Kazakhstan".

"I was surprised, because I always had faith in the audience that they would realise that this was a fictitious country and the mere purpose of it was to allow people to bring out their own prejudices. And the reason we chose Kazakhstan was because it was a country that no one had heard anything about, so we could essentially play on stereotypes they might have about this ex-Soviet backwater. The joke is not on Kazakhstan. I think the joke is on people who can believe that the Kazakhstan that I describe can exist - who believe that there's a country where homosexuals wear blue hats and the women live in cages and they drink fermented horse urine and the age of consent has been raised to nine years old...

"I've been in a bizarre situation, where a country has declared me as its number one enemy. It's inherently a comic situation," he said.

While Borat has drawn much criticism from Kazakh ministers - the government took out a full page ad in The New York Times to promote their country at one stage - Erlan Idrissov, the Kazakhstan ambassador to Britain, admitted to finding some humour in the film.

Baron Cohen, who was born in Hammersmith to an affluent Orthodox Jewish family, is the second of three sons. He went to an independent school in Elstree, and Christ's College, Cambridge, and worked for the investment bank Goldman Sachs before starting his career in television.

[Sabin]

Funny movie. I think intellectualizing what Baron Cohen does in this movie misses the point. Yes, he's a raging liberal lashing out against conservative dipshits across America, but first and foremost it's "FUNNY ACCENT MAN MAKE A STUPID OUT OF STUPIDS!" or someting like that. I laughed consistently.

But let's not lose our heads about this movie. I hate this intellectualizing of what Baron Cohen's really doing. He's using an accent to get away with making people look stupid. He's amazing at it, but any further digging is beside the point, and while Americans are a grossly ignorant people, making fun of the hugely uneducated is like shooting fish in a barrel. Overall, I think I enjoyed him walking around with that one Republican candidate on 'Da Ali G Show' more. It was pointd. This really isn't. It's just a comedian making romance explosion on the stomach of America, which is very funny but outside of its staggering widespread appeal it's nothing new or exceptional.

I laughed a lot. It's a pretty good movie.

[Sonic Youth]

Fame's a bitch.

Borat Backlash: Now Romanians Say 'Borat' Misled Them

Nov 14, 9:08 AM (ET)

By WILLIAM J. KOLE


GLOD, Romania (AP) - The name of this remote Romanian village means "mud," and that's exactly what angry locals are throwing at comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.

Cohen used Glod's Gypsies as stand-ins for Kazakhs in his runaway hit movie, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan." Now offended villagers are threatening to sue the film's producers for paying them a pittance to put farm animals in their homes and perform other crude antics.

Residents and local officials in the hardscrabble hamlet 85 miles northwest of Bucharest said Tuesday they were horrified and humiliated to learn their abject poverty and simple ways were ridiculed for a movie now raking in millions at box offices worldwide.

"We thought they came here to help us - not mock us," said Dana Luca, 40, sweeping a manure-stained street lined with shabby homes of crumbling brick and corrugated iron sheeting.

"We haven't got anything here. We haven't got running water. We can't even bathe," she said. "We are poor people, but we are still people."

Nicolae Staicu, leader of the 1,670 Gypsies, or Roma, who eke out a living in one of the most impoverished corners of Romania, said he and other officials would meet with a public ombudsman on Wednesday to map out a legal strategy against Cohen and "Borat" distributor 20th Century Fox.

Staicu accused the producers of paying locals just $3.30-$5.50, misleading the village into thinking the movie would be a documentary, refusing to sign proper filming contracts and enticing easily exploited peasants into performing crass acts.

Only five villagers have jobs at a nearby sanatorium and a stone quarry, Staicu said. The rest weave baskets, grow apples, pears and plums, gather mushrooms in the dense Carpathian Mountain forests rising above the town, or raise a few scrawny chickens.

With no gas heating or indoor plumbing, most keep warm with wood stoves and drink from wells. Horse-drawn carts far outnumber automobiles on unpaved, badly potholed roads, and mangy stray dogs growl and snap at strangers. Acrid fires smolder in trash piles on the outskirts of the village, and children - their clothing worn and torn - play in yards littered with stumps, scrap metal and other bric-a-brac.

"These people are poor and they were tricked by people more intelligent than us," he said. "They took one of our 75-year-old ladies, put huge silicone breasts on her and said she was 47. Another man they filmed to look like the poorest person in the world, and one of our men who is missing an arm had a plastic sex toy taped to his stump."

"We are suing because they were not truthful," added Staicu, who said he saw parts of "Borat" and was disgusted.

"They did not film reality," he said. "We've really had enough of this."

Neither Cohen's agent in London nor 20th Century Fox's offices in Los Angeles immediately returned phone messages Tuesday from The Associated Press.

The mood in Glod, meanwhile, was tense and volatile, with crowds of angry, shouting villagers repeatedly gathering around reporters.

One man was seen slapping his sister, who had appeared in the film, and slamming the gate to his ramshackle home shut to keep her from being interviewed. At another point, a resident threatened news photographers with a stick, and another pelted their car with rocks.

People in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan, where the mustachioed Cohen's character hails from as a TV journalist on an adventure across America, also have decried how they are depicted in the film, whose opening scenes were shot in Glod.

Two members of a fraternity at a South Carolina university who appear making drunken, insulting comments about women and minorities also are suing 20th Century Fox and three production companies, claiming the crew liquored them up in a bar before filming and told them the movie would not be shown in the United States.

Not everyone in Glod is upset. Sorina Luca, 25, excitedly described how she was given $3.30 to bring a pig into her home and let the producers put a toy rifle into the hands of her 5-year-old daughter for one scene.

"I really liked it," she said. "We are poor and miserable. Nothing ever happens here."

But a 23-year-old woman who gave her name only as Irina said she felt bewildered and dismayed that Glod's poverty was reduced to a parody.

The smash success of "Borat," she said, just rubbed salt in Glod's collective wounds.

The film remained the No. 1 weekend draw at U.S. movie theaters for a second week, grossing $28.3 million, according to the latest figures released Monday.

"They made us put a cow in our living room, and they made it defecate and urinate in the house. Everyone's angry because they didn't pay them the way they should have," she said.

"They're making a lot of money - but they've made us a laughing stock."

[Damien]

LOL! I laughed hard at the "This is another fine mess" joke. No one else in my audience did, but I laughed extra loud to make up for it.

I bust a gut. And then topping it, a few minutes later when Borat thinks it was Hitler he was dressed up.

[The Original BJ]

And you get my man Oliver Hardy, too!

LOL! I laughed hard at the "This is another fine mess" joke. No one else in my audience did, but I laughed extra loud to make up for it.

[Damien]

I have not laughed so much at a movie since I saw Eight On The Lam in 1967. Borat is also an incredibly smart film, and so incisive in skewering George Bush's America. And you get my man Oliver Hardy, too!

[Franz Ferdinand]

They might have saved face if the frat boy actually played the Tiny Mouse and Cheese game.

[Sonic Youth]

You know, this film is part-documentary. That would be Sasha's out... assuming he needed one, since I can't imagine any judge seriously considering this lawsuit.

[Penelope]

The Frat Boys sue Borat! This is funny to me, since this was one of the sequences I thought most likely to have been staged (I'm still pretty certain the Pam Anderson sequence was staged). And I wonder if all those hurt feelings by duped individuals will have a negative effect on the slim chance (promoted elsewhere) of an Oscar nod for Cohen.

From TMZ:

Two anonymous plaintiffs are suing 20th Century Fox and One America Productions, claiming members of their college fraternity were interviewed to become part of the smash "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" film.

The plaintiffs -- listed as John Doe 1 and John Doe 2 -- were allegedly assured the film would not be shown in the U.S. and their identities would not be revealed.

They were both selected to appear in the movie and, according to the suit, taken "to a drinking establishment 'to loosen up' and provided alcoholic beverages." They claim they signed the movie releases after "heavy drinking."

The suit claims both men were then taken to a motor home where they were filmed, all the while "encouraged to continue drinking."

The movie features a scene in a motor home where Cohen gets drunk with three frat boys and the group watches the Pamela Anderson/Tommy Lee sex tape while inebriated.

The plaintiffs claim they suffered "humiliation, mental anguish, and emotional and physical distress, loss of reputation, goodwill and standing in the community..." because the movie was indeed released in the U.S. [Actually, because they come off as bigoted, entitled jerks.]

The suit asks for unspecified damages.