Larry Charles to direct Borat movie

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Although I will say this -- not only do I know exactly where the Virgin Megastore is near the end of the film, and have been there for a signing session (Sparks, in that case), there was also a strong chance that we were going to go to the theatre elsewhere in that mall to see it this evening. If only.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 4 November 2006 08:25 (nineteen years ago)

I even felt bad for the Pentecostals, and I didn't think that was possible. Leave the poor snake-handlers to do their shit in private, please.

Considering two of the speakers were a member of Congress and a state Supreme Court justice, I'd have thought you'd be at least a little concerned over that.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 4 November 2006 08:46 (nineteen years ago)

so far, so good

Based on the anecdotal evidence pouring in to me about long lines at the box office, sold-out screenings, and fans driving more than an hour to find a theater showing the pic, I believe Borat was standing room only inside those screenings.

this was true of the late show in Portland i attended.

also, i liked that we saw trailers for both the Reno 911 movie(FINALLY) and Casino Royale(for the Sellers connection).

― kingfish prætor (kingfish 2.0), Saturday, 4 November 2006 17:45 (nineteen years ago)

On the whole I was quite disappointed with the film. I didn't like the fact that it was so obvious that it was a film and it had a story, it made it feel less "real" to me. If that makes any sense. And the jokes weren't as funny. The part with the jocks and the prostotitute were so boring, just like the one where he ends up in a ghetto in Atalanta. I think I would have enjoyed this film much more if I had never seen anything by Borat before cause a lot of the jokes felt so old.

But the scenes at the bed and breakfast place and the one where he is fighting with his producer are as funny as things can get.

― Lovelace (Lovelace), Saturday, 4 November 2006 18:09 (nineteen years ago)

Atlanta*

― Lovelace (Lovelace), Saturday, 4 November 2006 18:10 (nineteen years ago)

I think I would have enjoyed this film much more if I had never seen anything by Borat before

This was actually my situation, FWIW -- I'd seen a couple of bits but no more. Therefore, everything felt v. fresh.

AND SPEAKING OF THE TRAILERS. Yeah, the Reno 911 and Bond ones were cool. Everything else made me want to kill.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 4 November 2006 18:13 (nineteen years ago)

the bear in the ice cream truck. i would watch a whole hour of that.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Saturday, 4 November 2006 18:15 (nineteen years ago)

anybody have somebody show up to the screening in full costume? we had a guy show up in Borat's gem-bag swimsuit thing.

― kingfish prætor (kingfish 2.0), Saturday, 4 November 2006 18:21 (nineteen years ago)

Considering two of the speakers were a member of Congress and a state Supreme Court justice, I'd have thought you'd be at least a little concerned over that.
Conservative evangelicals in GOP shockah!

But the scenes at the bed and breakfast place
I thought that sequence was dull and uncomfortable. Once you've had The Running of the Jew and the Jewchick, you've pretty much mined anti-anti-Semitic humor as far as you can.

― milo z (mlp), Saturday, 4 November 2006 18:24 (nineteen years ago)

horseshit. the only thing that disappointed me about the "throwing money at cockroaches to make them go away" scene was that i knew about it going in.

― kingfish prætor (kingfish 2.0), Saturday, 4 November 2006 18:27 (nineteen years ago)

also, the bit in the megachurch/warehouse, where he's on the mic and asking who jesus likes, has a straight Groucho-type punchline.

― kingfish prætor (kingfish 2.0), Saturday, 4 November 2006 18:27 (nineteen years ago)

and did anyone notice that he took approx the same route thru the U.S. that the sex pistols did?

― kingfish prætor (kingfish 2.0), Saturday, 4 November 2006 18:32 (nineteen years ago)

Milo: Alright, maybe. But I didn't enjoy those two scenes very much.

But come on, even you were laughing so hard your stomach hurt when Borat threw the money at the cochroadches.

― Lovelace (Lovelace), Saturday, 4 November 2006 18:35 (nineteen years ago)

I do love the details of this chart:

1 BORAT: CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF AMERICA FOR MAKE BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN
Fox

837 theatres $9,050,000
$10,812 per screen.

2 THE SANTA CLAUSE 3: THE ESCAPE CLAUSE
Buena Vista

3,458 theatres $5,200,000
$1,504 per screen.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 4 November 2006 18:37 (nineteen years ago)

Another thing i noticed, the last picture after the credits is a portrait of Ilham Aliyev, president of Azerbaijan.

― Jena (JenaP), Saturday, 4 November 2006 18:37 (nineteen years ago)

haha god those numbers - fox fucked up bad

― j blount (papa la bas), Saturday, 4 November 2006 19:06 (nineteen years ago)

I like how Armond White unfavorably compares Borat to fucking JIMINY GLICK

-- deej.. (clublonel...), November 3rd, 2006 12:36 PM. (deej..) (later) (link)

also: according to him, Kazakhstan is in Eastern Europe. UH.

― gbx (skowly), Saturday, 4 November 2006 19:35 (nineteen years ago)

I went to the showing in downtown Berkeley last night and it was complete bedlam. It took me about 15 minutes just to exit the theater, as there were probably 300 people, completely disorganized, waiting to push their way into the lobby. The film, of course, was outstanding. I had never seen much of Borat before (just some clips on the internet), but I enjoyed it much more than I anticipated.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Saturday, 4 November 2006 20:05 (nineteen years ago)

NOT ON A SINGLE SCREEN IN THE STATE OF HAWAII.

― researching ur life (grady), Saturday, 4 November 2006 20:11 (nineteen years ago)

Clearly the Uzbeki mafia is at work.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 4 November 2006 20:17 (nineteen years ago)

NOT ON A SINGLE SCREEN IN THE STATE OF HAWAII.

enh, if the numbers hold up, that should change w/in two weeks, unless you don't just break down and torrent the thing.

which would be lamentable, tho, since this is a prime flick for a packed movie house.

― kingfish prætor (kingfish 2.0), Saturday, 4 November 2006 20:33 (nineteen years ago)

fox fucked up bad

― cousin larry bundgee (bundgee), Saturday, 4 November 2006 20:34 (nineteen years ago)

2.30pm show nearly sold out here in Montana. some of the jokes were weird in context (smallish town in MT), because I had a sneaking suspicion that people were missing the point at times.

also: watching frat dudes/cowboys squirm during the nude wrestling scene -- priceless

― gbx (skowly), Saturday, 4 November 2006 23:45 (nineteen years ago)

i laughed a good amount but left disappointed. deciding what was real and what was acted was a distraction i didn't need. the society dinner and national anthem gags were better the first time round, too

― W i l l (common_person), Sunday, 5 November 2006 05:46 (nineteen years ago)

Saw it last night. Lovelace otm.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Sunday, 5 November 2006 14:49 (nineteen years ago)

those frat boys need to die.

― i've dreamt of rubies! (Mandee), Sunday, 5 November 2006 15:13 (nineteen years ago)

> haha god those numbers - fox fucked up bad

is this a joke or something? fox slashed the screens for insta-buzz and i can't imagine it going any better...

― natedey (ndeyoung), Sunday, 5 November 2006 23:28 (nineteen years ago)

the chubby but not fat frat boy was kind of a hero. "I'M PUTTING THIS SHIT ON RIGHT FUCKING NOW" etc.

― milo z (mlp), Sunday, 5 November 2006 23:31 (nineteen years ago)

at any rate, AP article sez they're expanding them to 2,500 this week.

$31,511 per screen, which i assume is good.

― kingfish prætor (kingfish 2.0), Sunday, 5 November 2006 23:33 (nineteen years ago)

The film disappointed me. I always saw the TV show as one helmed by a guy who posed as an ethnic to deliberately fuck with people. Inventing a back story was redundant, despite some pretty good sight gags.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Sunday, 5 November 2006 23:35 (nineteen years ago)

Well, at least one of the frat boys is regretting what he said.

― reddening (reddening), Monday, 6 November 2006 00:01 (nineteen years ago)

i'm watching that bruno/frat guy sketch right now.... holy shit. it's uncomfortable to watch

― gbx (skowly), Monday, 6 November 2006 01:12 (nineteen years ago)

theater i saw it in was packed, the audience loved it

― latebloomer: none of th movies make scence but they r good. (latebloomer), Monday, 6 November 2006 01:46 (nineteen years ago)

i saw it with a room full of tons of college aged frat christian types... so both the frat bus and pentecostal scenes were at times a bit on the uncomfortably quiet side. not to mention the frat dudes were just pretty disturbing. that was one of those scenes that i was talking about upthread... where real americans just about out do borat's exaggerated cariacature.

i wish alan keyes would've said something crazy.

i knew absolutely nothing of this movie other than recognizing cohen when i saw it. i could only think of i kiss you murat at first, but got over the similarity pretty quickly.
m.

― msp (mspa), Monday, 6 November 2006 02:13 (nineteen years ago)

we thought the fratboy stuff was fake when we saw it! it was just... too perfect.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 6 November 2006 04:06 (nineteen years ago)

well it was obviously staged to some degree (because of coverage/camera angles), but some of those comments were probably "impromptu."

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Monday, 6 November 2006 04:13 (nineteen years ago)

yeah that fratboy scene, even if it was real (and i've seen no evidence it wasn't), was shot or edited in a way that made me question whether it was acted as i watched it. (after the hooker and the random baywatch book at a yard sale, everything became suspect.) maybe it's rose-colored glasses, but i don't remember questioning the scenes on the HBO show, and i didn't really enjoy doing so as i watched the movie.

― W i l l (common_person), Monday, 6 November 2006 06:47 (nineteen years ago)

wahh

― cousin larry bundgee (bundgee), Monday, 6 November 2006 06:51 (nineteen years ago)

Saw this last night. Yeah, it was filled with incredibly funny scenes, but I don't think it was as clever as some maybe woudl've expected it to be. A lot of the humour stems strictly from stereotypes of backwards Eastern European / Middle Asian folks, not from ridiculing Westerners (for example, the cheese-eating scene, where the humour had little to do with the politician in question). Don't get me wrong, it was still funny as hell, but not particularly subversive. Also, the fact that you didn't know which scenes were "real" and which were scripted (unlike in the TV series) took away some of the "oh my god, these are real people" factor. For example, the guys in the frat boy scene might've been genuine, but surely the "chance encounter" with them was scripted, and their comments heavily edited (which doesn't mean their comments weren't still scary).

In my opinion, the whole anti-semitism thing, as funny as it was, was too heavy-handed to be an effective social commentary. Also, even if Pamela Anderson was in on the joke (which I suspect she was), the scene with her was too close to a sexual attack to make me laugh. Borat getting people to agree (or disagree) with his sexist comments can be funny, but playing a sexual attack for jokes is a bit too much. In comparison, I don't think people would've laughed if he would've started to hurl anti-semitic rants to the Jewish couple who's house he was staying in (which would've been in character). It's only funny when the joke's on the bigot/sexist.

I really liked the main story in the film, and I don't think I've laughed so hard at the cinema for ages, but I think the film was too much in between a social satire and a politically incorrect comedy to be effective as either. A totally enjoyable film, but less than the sum of it's parts.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 6 November 2006 09:16 (nineteen years ago)

To be frank, in countries like Finland the film is less likely to reinforce any stereotypes on Central Asians rather than the stereotype that all Americans are dumb and ignorant.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 6 November 2006 09:21 (nineteen years ago)

I saw it last night. I laughed a lot.

― C J (C J), Monday, 6 November 2006 09:27 (nineteen years ago)

^^^hippy x-post

― If you fuck with Jimmy Mod, you call down the thunder (The Famous Jimmy Mod), Monday, 6 November 2006 10:48 (nineteen years ago)

???

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 6 November 2006 10:53 (nineteen years ago)

>> To be frank, in countries like Finland the film is less likely to reinforce any stereotypes on Central Asians rather than the stereotype that all Americans are dumb and ignorant.

That's the point though isn't it??

― Colonel Poo (Colonel Poo), Monday, 6 November 2006 11:42 (nineteen years ago)

I guess so, that was just an observation. But since a lot of people here already think that way, it's hardly a subversive stance. It would be more effective to try to reveal the hypocricies all Westerners share, but I guess that'd be too difficult even for someone like Cohen.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 6 November 2006 11:47 (nineteen years ago)

reveal the hypocricies all Westerners share

What hypocrisies do "all" Westerners share?

― ONIMO's losing the plot (GerryNemo), Monday, 6 November 2006 11:51 (nineteen years ago)

Well, I don't think it'd be too hard to get similarly racist or homophobic comments out of, say, Finns. But my comment was merely an observation, I don't think the film would've been improved by having Borat travel to every Western nation. It's just that the "American's are bigoted and don't know anything about the world outside US" joke is a bit played out, even if it's partly true.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 6 November 2006 11:55 (nineteen years ago)

How is racism or homophobia hypocritical?

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Monday, 6 November 2006 11:58 (nineteen years ago)

Perhaps that was a bad choice of words. Though I do think most Westerners would say they believe in equal rights in principle, even if in practice things aren't quite that way.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 6 November 2006 12:03 (nineteen years ago)

Here's a new pitch for Cohen: dress up as an ignorant redneck American and come to, say, Helsinki or Paris, observe the snug comments you'll get.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 6 November 2006 12:05 (nineteen years ago)

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