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Cinematic Learnings for Make Benefit of Glorious Blogosphere

November 4th, 2006 · 1 Comment

Quick first thoughts on the Borat movie: I laughed a whole lot, but I’m not sure how funny it actually was. That is to say, while plenty of scenes were just straightforwardly hilarious, I think a fair amount of the laughter was more of the nervous-awkward sort, because so much of the humor involves exploiting the stunned reactions of basically well-intentioned people who’ve been conned. (Well, at least somewhat well-intentioned. I’d be more sympathetic to the rodeo manager who gets duped into letting Borat show his “support” for America’s “war of terror” in front of a packed house if he hadn’t, in a previous scene, responded to Borat’s comment about how homosexuals in his country are thrown in jail with: “Yeah, we’re trying to do that here too.”) A lot of the targets of satire here are pretty low-hanging fruit: You’ll be shocked to learn that some southern frat boys have un-PC attitudes about women and minorities. Still, worth seeing at least once: You’ll be laughing hard enough that you probably won’t mind wincing in equal measure.

Tags: Art & Culture


       

 

1 response so far ↓

  • 1 michael farris // Nov 6, 2006 at 5:31 pm

    Not since the mid 80’s glory days of Vanna White has such a one-trick pony gotten so much media attention. And like White, Cohen’s trick isn’t even that good or original.

    Ali G or Borat have funny accents and say boorish things to people who aren’t in on the joke so that the audience can laugh at their discomfort.

    His next creation is apparently Bruno the gay Austrian fashionista. In a radical departure from everything Cohen’s done before, this character apparently has a funny accent and says boorish things to people who aren’t let in on the joke so that the audience can laugh at their discomfort.

    It’s almost as funny as making faces at blind people.