I say they probably had a lot that was cut from the film, so the college kid scene had to be real. It's obvious to anyone that it's either fake, or they're playing up their idiocy, through alcohol or just plain ... idiocy. Hmm...

I really shouldn't try making points.

B

It's a funny movie, nowhere NEAR one of the funniest ever.

Loved the anthem though.

Finally saw Borat.

Me liking.

7 out of 5.

Interestingly, the language Borat speaks in the movie is not Kazakh, nor gibberish, but rather good old-fashioned Hebrew...

Now that's funny!

I thought Shack was just joking at first, but -- Yow, scary!!!

What a hateful thread this is. "Your generation sucks!"... "No, YOUR generation sucks!"

Geesh.

I guess it fits with this movie, which I thought was awfully disappointing. I didn't laugh very much. There were a lot of great things exposing the true thoughts of Americans, but nothing that really made me laugh out loud. And the nude wrestling scene was atrocious and went on for way too long.

The best scene was the Pamela Anderson scene. Someone please tell me that was staged? lmao. I have an inkling Pamela Anderson had planned it with Sacha, because she just ran around. I think if that was truly real and unexpected, Pamela wouldn't have been so kind. These kinds of scenes were the best, but too few in the film. Too much filler that just kinda left me bored.

And really, that was the main problem with the film. I wasn't offended by anything, and loved the fact that Sacha did all those crazy things, but ultimately, the film just wasn't that funny and I was bored too often. It just wasn't entertaining enough.

C+

Peace,
Mike.

Yep, Pamela has admitted she was in on the joke.

The more I think about this movie, the less I like it. It's basically slapstick, a lot of the comedy in the film is kind of lazy in my opinion. I mean, Borat slipping on a truck and smashing up an antique store... ok. Naked guys fighting... a giant bear... It's decent watching, but I don't see how the comedy in this film is any more intelligent than say, Jackass 2. It lacks the wit of Holy Grail, Airplane, Team America, those are some of the funniest comedies ever, Borat is not, or at least in my mind. I know for one I laughed 10x harder in Jackass 2, at least those guys could relish they are doing crazy slapstic comedy, and were creative in their skits and jokes(Taxi thing, the devil, etc.) And yeah, I thought it was a lot funnier of a film. In fact, I'd say that Jackass 2, Little Miss Sunshine, Clerks 2, and Talledega Nights were all funnier comedies than this film this year.

I enjoyed the slapstick stuff myself, but I think the one thing that sets Borat apart from the other comedies you mentioned was the way it revealed American prejudices, particularily anti-semitism. Which in itself is especially ironic, given that when Borat was supposedly speaking in Khazakhstani, he's actually speaking "impeccable Hebrew"...



{Edit: Hey, I just mentioned that Hebrew part a couple posts back -- I must be slipping. Nonetheless, the social observation from an outsider point of view was the differentiator.}

Wow. Jackass 2 a more intelligent film then Borat? Please tell me you are joking.

Borat is a satire. Cohen took fundamental prejudices, issues and feelings of Americans and pointed them out in such obvious fashion as to both point fun and in some ways shock. Tell me you weren't shocked by some of the things people said? If you weren't then you probably just aren't old/mature enough to understand the content of the satire that was produced. I'll admit I didn't even get it all, and I'm several years your senior.

Well, I actually think Borat held back on the revealing of prejudice thing. If he spend at the very least the majority of the movie talking to racist people, yeah, it could qualify as a full satire on Americans. But as it stands... 80% of the movie is Borat scripting his own jokes, making comedy that doesn't really have much to do with the reactions of the people he's tricking. The naked fight is funny, but the reactions have nothing to do with that, it's all Borat. Same with the jew parade, Pam Anderson, all his storyline scenes. The only thing I found kind of shocking in the movie, was the redneck guy at the stadium saying homosexuals should be hanged. Otherwise, a guy says fuck you on the street, well some people are dicks. A feminist tells him to leave, well he came into a feminist meeting and said women have small brains... it's expected. At the dinner table, he carries a bag of shit to the table... real witty. When he brings a prostitute, they tell him to leave, they're high class people. Yeah, some people are rednecks in the US. Wow, so surprising. I would've liked it if they showed the reaction as he's getting thrown out when he sang his anthem, maybe that would've been golden enough to be called brilliant.

Want to see some real exposing of ignorant Americans? Here:

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Hell, Borat himself on his show has been much much more vicious with his satire. The movie and all of his scripted, storyline jokes, was mostly slapstick. IMO, it's a decent film, but not much more.

Personally I thought Borat showed how patient and understanding American's can be with demented loons in their midst. If he tried those skits in Europe he'd be lynched almost straight away. I a weird perverse way America comes out of the movie looking better (ok i'll allow the Rodeo homophobe and the Frat Boys). If one was to judge the movie the way Shack does I could easily say Jackass 2 is an F compared to lets say Dirty Sanchez The Movie. Simply relishing a moviemaking experience does not make it a good one if that was the case Cannonball Run 2 would be the greatest movie ever made. The difference between Jackass and Borat is the highly nausiating level of smugness that prevades from everyone involved with the MTV production and the fact that it illuminates nothing about modern american society an effect Borat has by default due to its road-trip structure.

However it must be said there is no genre more personal then Comedy. Its probably the only genre where even if i strongly disagree with someone's interpretation of a movie I feel its impossible to show it up as absurd/insane due to comedies high subjective nature.

I agree.

Cough, cough... overanalysis... cough, cough...

You're right... Americans are da bomb!

man. i finally noticed this thread.

all this A.D.D. and the 'fiilm won't be remembered in 4 years'.

Considering I'm someone whose followed Ali G for years now, and a third of the jokes he took straight out of his show and still managed to make everyone I know whose seen the show for as long as i have LAUGH OUT LOUD, i fail to see any rationality in that argument.

I found the film fairly funny, but also quite depressing - it made America look really horrible.

I think there's a myth that Cohen's creations (pretty much all of them) expose the stupidity of people. I think it's more a case that, typically, they make us laugh by showing us what ridiculous behaviour politeness and goodwill will make people resort to.

An example that many people do is the "yeah, and" lie. Most of us do it for the sake of politeness. Imagine that you explain something to a guy, and he completely misses the main point. Instead of going, "No, no, this is the main point," a lot of us (for the sake of politeness) will go, "Oh - er - yeah - and there's this, too" - then repeat what we said in the first place, but in a different way - e.g.:

"I really dig his use of chiaroscuro."

"Hm? Oh, yeah, I love Italian language in a film."

"What? Er - oh - yeah, yeah, the Italian - and I really like the dramatic lighting..."

The fact is, not many people like to be confrontational or critical for the sake of it. Much of the time, Borat and Ali G play on that, rather than actual stupidity - highlighting the extraordinary lengths that polite people will go to, in order to avoid saying, "What the hell is wrong with you?!"

But the thing is (and I'm sure the film was cut to create this impression - I hope it's not a genuine national trait), lots of the people in the American movie were quite happy to say, "f*ck off", or even threaten him, rather than play along for even a short period of time.

There were bits of classic Cohen humour - e.g., the impeccably patient humour coach (doubly funny because the coach himself was so hilarious... NOT!!!), dinner with the posh guys ("I think he's a wonderful, wonderful man...") and the driving instructor just giving up ("Yeah, yeah, I'll be your boyfriend... why not... boyfriend, that's fine").

It was also a bit too cringeworthy for my liking. There were parts where I just couldn't watch.

I'd say a B, maybe sinking to a B-.

For the record, I think something like the Brass Eye "Cake" episode was an exposé of stupidity - getting MPs to actually stand up in the Commons, and argue that "Cake" was doubly dangerous because, instead of occurring in nature, it's actually a "made up drug". Deary me...

I think that looking at movies is a very narrow way to judge intelligence. Sure, we want more sophisticated movies (or some of us do), but is that really the measure of intelligence? Kids of yesteryear may have been more familiar with great works of literature, have classical languages, and be better at mental arithmetic. No doubt, they'd be inferior to us in some ways too.

The 20th Century was a great time to be young. Bear in mind that a lot of old fuddy duddies were once on civil rights demos, black power or gay rights marches, disrupting Nazi rallies, smoking pot at Woodstock, shooting fascists with the International Brigade, etc., etc., etc.. If anything, I'd say that our current generation is letting the side down a tad!

I saw it twice in theatres and it was equally funny both times...

I really wish I would have caught this one in the theater, because by the time I saw the DVD I think I'd seen everything in the film about 50 times over (through commercials, clips, etc...) and was perhaps a touch tired of the Borat character. Also, I couldn't get over the feeling that it felt like one long Jamie Kennedy Experiment show.

Even with all that, it was an enjoyable movie with a lot of funny parts, and there were a couple parts that I never saw in the clips (like the naked fight).

As for the DVD, it's probably got the funniest disc... when you open the package it looks exactly like a CD-R with BORAT written on it with a black magic marker. I had to do a double take as I thought I got screwed for a minute. The menus and presentation are equally amusing.

I'll give the movie a B.

Heh, I'm with Tony there, the DVD is great (even though the bonus material could have been more extensive...I smell a double dip). The menu presentation is great.

While Maverick, you are totally right about the whole arrogance thing (which ironic because you are flowing with arrogance yourself) Shack makes a valid point, and this is coming from a guy who thinks youth now-a-days is stupid, or used to be, until recently after stopping and actually observing how family members say they behaved in the past and realizing they were just the same as us, and youth today is probably more intelligent, simply because we are the first generation to have toe power of vast knowledge at our finger tips. In your generation for example, yes you did have equally as intelligent people, but as you said they read books and kids today have the computer which is laziness, but one loaw of nature is all things will take the path of least resistance unless for an outside force, therefore fewer people ion your generation went the extra mile to obtain that knowledge, while in our generation it is put smack dab in front of us, therefore we are more active in our knowledge. Now I will say that this generation is much more arrogant (as you stated) and is more lazy and is lacking both moral values (although that is not our fault, but the due to the whole city vs country struggle birthed in the roaring twenties) and culture (music for one).

And to get back on topic:

I totally impersonated Borat at my last Comedy Sportz match and the audience for the most part ate me, especially our couch who loves Borat (although not from my old fashioned Theatre directer who finds Borat a disgrace to America).

BORAT - 8/10 (A-)

While The Devil Wears Prada is the best comedy of the year, this is easily the funniest. My friend Kelley and I could not stop laughing. I thought I was going to die of laughter at times. Seriously, it was hard to catch my breath. Unfortunately it won't be as hilarious on repeat viewings, but the first time was a riot and I haven't laughed so hard and so often during a movie all year.

Never seen the TV show, i knew of this character for the first time when everyone here went crazy over the movie.
It was... OK, i didnt find it hilarious, a few laughs here and there, i actually was more annoyed than entertained. Im not really a fan of stupid comedies.

C+

Funniest movie of 2006

A-.

"You telling me the man who try to put a rubber fist in my anus was a homosexual?"