Last night we finally saw "Borat"—or, more accurately, "Borat, Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan." This was one of the funniest movies I've seen in a very long time. Several times I had to press the "pause" button because I needed to wipe tears of laughter from my eyes. Yes, it's offensive—of course it's offensive—but it's so smart, so funny, so biting that it just works. Some of the scenes that involved real people unknowingly becoming part of the satire made me feel a little bad ... but not that bad, as it turned out. For the most part, those scenes were more successful than the set-up gags. Honestly, there were a few lines in particular that still have me giggling today. I think Sacha Baron Cohen must be something of a genius. He managed to skewer all of this country's worst kind of bigots while pretending to be one.
To add to the fun are all the cheesy effects and poorly translated subtitles, and even the DVD itself looks like this:
How great is that? A mock-pirated DVD. (Oh, and for the record: Taking photos of a DVD? Not so easy.)
I have wanted to see that movie--but heard such mixed reviews.
Posted by: Margaret | March 24, 2007 at 12:06 AM
We just saw it last night -- and yes, I noticed the same thing about the disc. Iz life? No, Demorez.
I found it a mixed bag, but the naked wrestling scene - excuse me, the extended naked wrestling scene - was brilliant. As was the society dinner... the hostess' momentary loss of words when the prostitute arrived was one of the greatest things I've seen.
Posted by: TwoBusy | March 26, 2007 at 10:11 AM