Saw "Borat"...nearly peed myself

JoshK · « **on:** 6 Nov 2006, 09:14 pm »

I saw Borat this weekend. I haven't been to the movies in ages, but I went with my wife and some friends. It was opening night and the theater was packed. It was a racous crowd. I was in tears laughing so hard.

It does get somewhat questionable and some might find it offensive. But if you have a sick sense of humor like I do, it is about the funniest movie I've seen in years.

I had never seen the Ali G show, so I didn't know what to expect. Actually going into the movie, I had zero clue what it was about.

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #1 on:** 6 Nov 2006, 09:31 pm »

The only time I've seen him is a short segment of Ali G Show (you-tubed) where he interviewed astronaut Buzz Aldrin. It was pretty funny. Driving back from Sioux Falls a week or so ago I listened to an MPR segment about Borat, so I have some idea what the character is about, although the segment was more about the reactions to Borat in Kozackstan.

mjosef · « **Reply #2 on:** 6 Nov 2006, 09:36 pm »

sometimes thats the best way to go, unprepared. I have seen his series on HBO, and its 'stupidly' funny, I love his sense of humor. I like the fact that he is so believable in the personas he portrays, that even the people he meets have no idea that he is pretending/acting a role

Hell the government of Kazakhstan(where Borat hails from) almost threatened him with legal action for libel.

And to top it off, he is Jewish...which makes the Jewish jokes even funnier.
I will probably see the movie later this week.

HBO is rerunning the complete two seasons this week, not sure which day.

gooberdude · « **Reply #3 on:** 6 Nov 2006, 09:49 pm »

Definitely go see Borat, just saw the late viewing last night....still in stitches today.

a few weeks back i read an interview with the cameramen...they had to fire the orig guys for not
keeping it together during filming, so they hired pro's from Seinfeld & other comedy sitcoms. The article was an interview with those guys, and they all claimed Borat was the best comedic performance they'd ever seen...one guy filmed multiple seasons of Seinfeld & that speaks volumes.

to make the movies irony all the better...the kazakh language they speak is actually Hebrew & jibberish.

Borat's town's annual celebration (like the running of the Bulls) was probably the funniest - yet most offensive - thing i've ever seen on the big screen.... that, and the shapeshifting scene.

whether or not you're familiar with Ali G makes no diff...you'll catch on in about 2 minutes.

GD

gary · « **Reply #4 on:** 7 Nov 2006, 02:28 pm »

To someone who hasn't seen it the movie might seem like nothing more than crude humor, but that's far from the whole story. Cohen's brilliance is his conman-like ability to coax real people into letting their true colors show when otherwise they might not be so open. So, it's not that he's anti-semitic (he's jewish btw), it's that he's able to get advice from a gun salesman on which gun is best to shoot a jew with without the guy so much as batting an eye (he recommended some kind of 9mm I think). Or getting a lunatic old cowboy to go into a seemingly endless homophobic rant. Or getting a bunch of fratboys to complain about the power all the minorities have, and how our society would be better off if we still kept them as slaves. The joke in this movie isn't on Kazakhstan, it's on Americans and the prejudices that are so prevalent in this country. It's funny, but more so scary at the same time.

Gary

95bcwh · « **Reply #5 on:** 7 Nov 2006, 03:15 pm »

I watched Ali G when he first got on the 11 O'clock show in Britain almost a decade ago, people liked him because of his outrageouly perverted humor, he became so famous that he started his own Ali G show, during which he first invented the character "Borat". Then he moved to America and the rest is history.

Yes, the jokes are very offensive to some people, it's important for the audience to realize that nothing he said in the film is what he really intended. British humor can be very crude, people make fun of almost everything and people has learned not to take such jokes too seriously. The culture in the US is quite different, partly thanks to the smart lawyers who're able to sue anything out of nothing.

You can watch a lot of Borat on youtube.com, here's my favourite clip, when he visited my university and took the piss out of the students and professors. This is also the university "Borat" graduated from.

Borat visited Cambridge

Note that people laughed when he mentioned Kenny Daglish, that's because Kenny Daglish is a soccer coach and former top soccer player at Liverpool FC, and he never studied at the university.

byteme · « **Reply #6 on:** 7 Nov 2006, 03:52 pm »

I'm really looking forward to seeing it. Big fan of da Ali G show. It is one of the only movies in memory that doubled it's price on Hollywood Stock Exchange (hsx.com) and then CONTINUED to go up in value over the next couple days. This is going to be one of those movies that gets bigger the 2nd week of release.

The word of mouth buzz on this is unreal.

hmen · « **Reply #7 on:** 7 Nov 2006, 04:14 pm »

I'm Jewish and the anti-Semitic humor had me rolling on the floor.

gooberdude · « **Reply #8 on:** 7 Nov 2006, 05:42 pm »

Did anyone catch Borat on the Daily Show the other night? he's been making the talk show rounds, this was the funniest I'd seen. he spit in his drink and walked off stage when he found out J. Stewart was Jewish. there may be a clip at www.comedycentral.com

So true that his humor is making fun of us Americans, moreso than the folk from Borat's homeland.

Too bad now his cover is gonna be blown - he may not be able to elicit similar reactions with Americans in the future.

I've always wondered how Ali G gets so many interviews with famous people, especially politicians...figure Andy Rooney or someone would shoot out an e-mail warning all the 'geezers'.

GD

mjosef · « **Reply #9 on:** 7 Nov 2006, 10:01 pm »

Quote from: gooberdude on 7 Nov 2006, 05:42 pm

Did anyone catch Borat on the Daily Show the other night? he's been making the talk show rounds, this was the funniest I'd seen. he spit in his drink and walked off stage when he found out J. Stewart was Jewish. there may be a clip at www.comedycentral.com

So true that his humor is making fun of us Americans, moreso than the folk from Borat's homeland.

Too bad now his cover is gonna be blown - he may not be able to elicit similar reactions with Americans in the future.

I've always wondered how Ali G gets so many interviews with famous people, especially politicians...figure Andy Rooney or someone would shoot out an e-mail warning all the 'geezers'.

GD

Yeap, after this movie, the games up...he will have to retire Borat...well, he still got AliG, the wanna be gangster and Bruno, the gay Swedish model/reporter...

ajzepp · « **Reply #10 on:** 8 Nov 2006, 12:00 am »

I saw the movie at 1:45 on opening Friday. I laughed so damn hard that I had to go to the ER had have my nose drained of cherry coke. I'm usually a pretty reserved person in the theater, but I literally was uncomfortable becasue I could NOT HELP but laugh aloud. Thankfully there were about 50 other folks in the theater who had the same problem.

Sacha Baron Cohen is friggin brilliant. I've been watching the Ali G reruns the past couple of days and I am very impressed. Sure, at first glance it seems like a bunch of crude jokes and such...but it's SO much more than that. The guy sets people up to get a reaction out of them, but he's always two steps ahead. It's almost as if the "victims" are on a script without realizing it....the script is in Cohen's head, lol.

This is a film that I'll want to revisit every so often for years to come....it's hilariously brilliant

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #11 on:** 8 Nov 2006, 05:35 am »

I was going to see it yesterday at the Century, but they weren't playing it!

bubba966 · « **Reply #12 on:** 8 Nov 2006, 06:08 am »

Quote from: Rob Babcock on 8 Nov 2006, 05:35 am

I was going to see it yesterday at the Century, but they weren't playing it!

It is only playing at 837 theaters in the country. And most of those theaters are on the coasts. It was supposed to play on about 35% more screens than it did, but a couple of weeks ago the screen count was cut back greatly because the studio figued that most of the mid-west wouldn't get the humor.

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #13 on:** 8 Nov 2006, 06:15 am »

I hate ignorant fucking executives.

bubba966 · « **Reply #14 on:** 8 Nov 2006, 06:23 am »

Yup, it's sad that The Marine is playing at nearly 200 more theaters than Borat is. The Marine was hilarious, but that was because it's so bad that you can't help but laugh your ass off at virtually everything in it.

mjosef · « **Reply #15 on:** 8 Nov 2006, 06:26 am »

I read that Fox cut the 2000 opening screens to the 800+ because they 'thought' that the American public was not familiar with Sacha Cohen(aka Borat) and was unsure just how Borat would be received...plus they hoped that word of mouth would fuel interest...this 2nd weekend it will be on 2000+ screens. THis might be the first film to ever make more on its second weekend that its first. It sure ain't no snakes on a plane.

lonewolfny42 · « **Reply #16 on:** 8 Nov 2006, 06:54 am »

Seems someone is not a happy camper.......

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #17 on:** 8 Nov 2006, 07:01 am »

The resemblances are uncanny...

fredgarvin · « **Reply #18 on:** 11 Nov 2006, 10:03 pm »

Hilarious! But I can't help but wonder if it isn't the fact that its so non-PC that makes it so funny. I mean we are all SO tired of PC hall monitors at work and in the media and seemingly everywhere that the pure abandon of freedom of speech makes it a little more than it is. I never laughed as much at anything as I did Team World Police because of the same reason. and the fact that puppets are just funny. Even, so I wonder if Borat is maybe a bit over the top in exploiting the theme and I wonder how far, or low will I go to get a good laugh?

hmen · « **Reply #19 on:** 11 Nov 2006, 11:35 pm »

Quote from: Rob Babcock on 8 Nov 2006, 07:01 am

The resemblances are uncanny...

There are about 3 billion guys in that part of the world that look like that.