Larry Charles to direct Borat movie

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Yes, that's why I wrote "understandably so". However, him being Jewish doesn't stop him from exposing other types of racism. I'm not saying Borat is a bad film for not doing this, but it's not exactly the scathing social satire some folks (including me) might've expected it to be.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Wednesday, 8 November 2006 14:02 (nineteen years ago)

goddam Tuomas go do some fucking heroin

― am0n (am0n), Wednesday, 8 November 2006 14:13 (nineteen years ago)

yes he should have exposed all forms of prejudice equally, I totally agree. and while he was at it he should have found some cinematic cure for cancer and aids...but only if both were as effective as each other.

jesus christ save us from this moronic bullshit

― Ronan (Ronan), Wednesday, 8 November 2006 15:20 (nineteen years ago)

Saw it again last night (not really out of choice). Laughed louder at certain points. But I gotta say that within a couple of days, many in the theatres will be seeing it for a second time, and anticipating certain scenes --- less enjoyable for first time viewers.

― peepee (peepee), Wednesday, 8 November 2006 15:45 (nineteen years ago)

Well, excuse me for saying that a comedian who's lauded exactly for exposing the bigotry of ordinary Americans didn't, in my opinion, really reach that goal in this film. I really liked the film, but based on what I've read about it (and the few episodes of the TV series I've seen), it wasn't quite what I expected, more like your typical anti-PC comedy. Which is perfectly fine.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Wednesday, 8 November 2006 15:49 (nineteen years ago)

the fact that this thread is not purely celebrating the transcendent rofflez of borat is tragic.

i shall lead the way

http://scoopsnoodle.com/lix/yay.gif
http://scoopsnoodle.com/lix/yay.gif
http://scoopsnoodle.com/lix/yay.gif

― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Wednesday, 8 November 2006 15:58 (nineteen years ago)

http://scoopsnoodle.com/lix/yay.gif http://scoopsnoodle.com/lix/yay.gif

― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Wednesday, 8 November 2006 15:59 (nineteen years ago)

One of the people I went to see this with last night laughed and laugh and laughed through the whole thing, and came out being nothing but critical.

I mean, c'mon!!....Its intent was to be funny AND IT WAS! How many "comedies" achieve that???

― peepee (peepee), Wednesday, 8 November 2006 17:05 (nineteen years ago)

the naked fighting was the craziest thing i've ever seen in a movie - i had to look away i was laughing so hard.

― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Wednesday, 8 November 2006 17:13 (nineteen years ago)

Here's a Guardian article with reviews of/comments on the film from a Jewish writer, a Kazakh, a human rights campaigner, a black journalist, an academic and a donkey expert (via Metafilter):

http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,1931712,00.html

― peepee (peepee), Wednesday, 8 November 2006 17:29 (nineteen years ago)

Scoopsnoodle & peepee OTM, and during the naked fight scene, I had already reached the point of pain w/ laughing when ass-to-face occurred, I seriously almost fainted from lack of oxygen by the time they made it downstairs.

― diebold with a vengeance (nickalicious), Wednesday, 8 November 2006 18:14 (nineteen years ago)

'you make hand party with CJ'

― beeble (beeble), Wednesday, 8 November 2006 18:40 (nineteen years ago)

the producer's fat all flopping around covering up his dick omg

― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Wednesday, 8 November 2006 19:01 (nineteen years ago)

Well I thought it was pretty damn funny. In fact I don't think I've ever heard such uproarious laughter from a cinema audience before.

The Jewish b&b=staged, no?

― chap who would dare to welcome our new stingray masters (chap), Thursday, 9 November 2006 15:36 (nineteen years ago)

I like Borat, and I am quite glad that his film has done well. And yet - I don't think it's as good as has been made out. The whole schtick originally was about talking to unsuspecting people - confronting them with this character. I don't think that there are very many such people in this film. I think that if you totted up the minutes of that kind of vox-pop, Borat meets genuine American, stuff, it would come to about ... 15% of the film? The rest is linking shots of the van, Borat and Azamat, and Borat interacting with people who have been set up. In that category, I think, come eg: the B&B Jews; the prostitute (of course); the hotel porter who tells him his wife's dead; all the Kazakhstanis (of course - and I liked that sequence, up to a point); the children who run from the bear; the frat-boys; perhaps the 'Gypsy' and the black youths... people who have been primed, are in on the act - or even (if not) who have seen Borat before on TV. Very little of the film consists of what Borat is best at. When he goes to DC and interviews two politicians, each of them speaks c. one line before he's cutting to the next scene. Seems to me that the possibility of encounters with the unsuspecting had run down, and he had to make it up with staged scenes; and these are not really that funny.

I don't feel very troubled by most of the things that people find 'offensive', but maybe I would if I was in a minority that was mocked; maybe I even should on their behalf. What I don't like is what this shares with most comedy nowadays: a quick recourse to sexuality, obscenity and scatology in place of wit. First lines of the film: 'Hello - I Borat - I like sex! Is nice!'. Would he say that? Isn't the point, the interesting aspect of this character here, his innocence, his attempt to well-meaning to a foreign audience ...? etc. SBCohen, like many others (Gervais among them), reaches for smut like a nervous tic, when he can't do any better; and he thus brings his talent down into the general mediocre ruck of bad filthy comedy.

― the pinefox (the pinefox), Thursday, 9 November 2006 18:40 (nineteen years ago)

those frat boys were too real - black guys and gypsy too.

also stfu

― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Thursday, 9 November 2006 18:48 (nineteen years ago)

One of the duped weighs in:

http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_179/howiwasduped.html

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Thursday, 9 November 2006 18:49 (nineteen years ago)

I was gonna say, how could the frat boys be anything other than real???

― deej.. (deej..), Thursday, 9 November 2006 18:50 (nineteen years ago)

So the feminists weren't staged either. I don't see why the hotel porter would have to be staged - his response seemed pretty 'real' and un-acted.

― deej.. (deej..), Thursday, 9 November 2006 18:51 (nineteen years ago)

It didn't seem real at all to me: seemed like he was a real hotel porter who'd been paid to play that scene. Same with the frat-boys.

― the pinefox (the pinefox), Thursday, 9 November 2006 18:55 (nineteen years ago)

Members of the producing team have worked on productions about women war correspondents and female boxers, she reported.

In humor or art theory, you could argue that his statement is so ridiculous that the very utterance of it proves the reverse, and therefore is an unmasking of his character’s small mindedness. Some of Borat’s most famous segments do just that, such as when the comic, who is Jewish, cajoles patrons in a country-western bar to sing “Throw the Jew down the well” to expose covert anti-Semitism. But what exactly is he trying to unmask when he ridicules women?

My art confronts fears and overcomes them with symbols of empowerment. I don’t know what motivates Borat/Cohen to use his considerable talents to deceive and manipulate: maybe it’s his way of gaining power over the childhood sting of religious animosity or the feelings of inferiority from a woman’s beating him at Scrabble. I only know that afterward, I am left feeling confused and sad.

― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Thursday, 9 November 2006 18:55 (nineteen years ago)

BTW, I never thought the feminists were staged at all. Some of what she says in that link is good sense, but I don't like the sound of her Art.

― the pinefox (the pinefox), Thursday, 9 November 2006 18:59 (nineteen years ago)

They were paid to appear, they just weren't aware that this wasn't actually a foreign television program.

― deej.. (deej..), Thursday, 9 November 2006 19:07 (nineteen years ago)

she might be taking herself a little too seriously

― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Thursday, 9 November 2006 19:07 (nineteen years ago)

Armond White kind of goes off the deep end like he usually does, but I thought this was a much better negative review of the movie:
http://www.citypaper.com/film/review.asp?rid=11009

I'm not even gonna try to argue about it here because I know I'd probably end up looking like some humorless fun-hating PC police type, but really, fuck this shit, I can't wait until people stop talking about it.

― Alex in Baltimore (Alex in Baltimore), Thursday, 9 November 2006 19:50 (nineteen years ago)

i dont know why people keep thinking that's a negative review!

― bo janglin (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 9 November 2006 19:54 (nineteen years ago)

maybe it's just because i sat next to the reviewer and we both rofflehaused the whole time.

― bo janglin (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 9 November 2006 19:56 (nineteen years ago)

well the sense i got from it was that he saw through the formal comedy cliches at work but still thought they were done effectively. i mean i'm not gonna go line for line but you have to admit there are some pretty negative parts in there. me, I just fail to see how this is all just a slightly more explicit/'edgy' version of Latka Gravas/Balki Bartokomous as played by a much less entertaining performer.

― Alex in Baltimore (Alex in Baltimore), Thursday, 9 November 2006 20:10 (nineteen years ago)

did you see the movie?

― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Thursday, 9 November 2006 20:12 (nineteen years ago)

no, and i'm not going to just for the sake of argument/fairness, so i'll leave it at that.

― Alex in Baltimore (Alex in Baltimore), Thursday, 9 November 2006 20:13 (nineteen years ago)

lol

― gear (gear), Thursday, 9 November 2006 20:14 (nineteen years ago)

the slightly more explicit/edgy part was the tip off

― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Thursday, 9 November 2006 20:15 (nineteen years ago)

i saw perfect strangers the other day and balky had cousin larry's junk all in his face - it was slightly more explicit/edgy than yr typical episode, pretty funny.

― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Thursday, 9 November 2006 20:17 (nineteen years ago)

the one where cousin larry turns into a cockroach is k-classic

― cousin larry bundgee (not a cockroach) (bundgee), Thursday, 9 November 2006 20:22 (nineteen years ago)

http://files.goyk.com/files0729/flash/borat_soundboard.swf

― manute lol (sanskrit), Thursday, 9 November 2006 21:21 (nineteen years ago)

version of Latka Gravas/Balki Bartokomous as played by a much less entertaining performer.

Wtf, who said this... a Bronson Pinchot fan club president? I mean, I can understand the Latka/Borat thing (although I don't agree with it at all), but fucking Balki?

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Thursday, 9 November 2006 21:31 (nineteen years ago)

i can verify that al shipley is president of the bronson pinchot fan club, and was in fact rocking a meego t-shirt when he posted that

― and what (ooo), Thursday, 9 November 2006 22:03 (nineteen years ago)

Balki/Yakov Smirnoff/Latka/Chico Marx, take yr pick - the Eastern European weirdo routine is oooooooooooooooooooooooold.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 9 November 2006 22:06 (nineteen years ago)

(hmm perhaps replace "weirdo" with "bozo" there)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 9 November 2006 22:07 (nineteen years ago)

Haha there was this rap freestyle battle i went to a couple years ago in chicago where someone had a simile about "Balki from Perfect Strangers!"

― deej.. (deej..), Thursday, 9 November 2006 22:11 (nineteen years ago)

(and I see I already said that on this very thread - broken record indeed)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 9 November 2006 22:12 (nineteen years ago)

x-post!

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 9 November 2006 22:12 (nineteen years ago)

tell us what's funny, shakey

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 9 November 2006 22:15 (nineteen years ago)

a fat man in a little jacket is always funny

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 9 November 2006 22:17 (nineteen years ago)

A dog running away with a woman's bikini top is always funny

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 9 November 2006 22:18 (nineteen years ago)

funnier than a bag of hammers?

OH YEAH I WENT THERE

― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 9 November 2006 22:18 (nineteen years ago)

an old white lady rapping is always funny

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 9 November 2006 22:18 (nineteen years ago)

"funnier than a bag of hammers?"

I'm saddened that I am apparently the only fan of Foghorn Leghorn/Dan Ratherisms on this board

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 9 November 2006 22:19 (nineteen years ago)

parrotting Sam Henderson is always funny

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 9 November 2006 22:20 (nineteen years ago)

i really liked this. there's something kind of angry about SBC. breaking all the stuff in the antique store seemed like it was done out of pure malice because of the confederate flag.

the funniest bit, for me anyway, was actually one of the obviously staged ones: the kids discovering a bear in the ice cream truck. that's just perfectly silly and will never not be funny.

― ryan (ryan), Thursday, 9 November 2006 22:22 (nineteen years ago)

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