The Dictator

[RegularKarate]

From Badass Digest:

But here's the rub: according to Deadline Hollywood, Tom Sherak - the president of AMPAS - is a paid marketing consultant for Paramount, the studio releasing The Dictator. Now all of the 'banned/not banned' stuff becomes clearer, as you realize that Sherak was using the Academy Awards as a platform to promote his client. And suddenly this stunt gets less funny

So anyway, it's even possible that Seacrest was in on it.  Though he looks pretty legit upset at first.

[Sleepless]

It wasn't even funny in the first place. The whole thing (even the whole ticket debacle) seemed very staged and forced all week. Even all the media coverage seems to be arbitrary and generally uninterested. Did Sherak conspire to make the entire Oscars so boring that this would be one of the few things of slight interest for everyone to talk about after all was said and done?

[MacGuffin]

New Trailer

[pete]

wow, that's a funny kick.

[MacGuffin]

Red Band Trailer

[MacGuffin]

The Dictator tortures Scorsese

[Jeremy Blackman]

Hmm... I'm suddenly more open to this movie.

[Ravi]

I thought this was pretty damn funny. At 83 minutes it doesn't overstay its welcome. The romance was perfunctory but the film is consistently funny, and SBC's performance is always fun to watch. SBC and Jason Mantzoukas have some great scenes together. Roger Ebert mentioned in his review that this film is about as dedicated to plot as a Marx Brothers film, which is an apt comparison and not necessarily a bad thing.

[Alexandro]

Had some good jokes, but overall it was painfully unfunny, just like Bruno.
The music was horrible. Then I saw in the credits the guy is Sacha's brother or something. that figures.

[socketlevel]

Had some good jokes, but overall it was painfully unfunny, just like Bruno.
The music was horrible. Then I saw in the credits the guy is Sacha's brother or something. that figures.

I agree with everything except the Bruno comparison. I think he does mockumentary style so much better than classic written comedy. I'd say this was a better than the Ali G film, but very similar in that a lot of jokes fell flat. the 30 or so minutes when he goes to Brooklyn and meets all the hipsters is hands down the best part of the film.

[Alexandro]

Maybe, I would say part of the problem is that the routines are edited not too different from the way a mockumentary like Borat was, and the film it's full of dead moments when jokes don't work.

What bothered me the most is that by now everything Cohen does is expected, he says the first line of a joke and you can see exactly where he's going. There's no surprise, and also, he's not really saying anything of wit about dictatorships or preconception of dictatorships, the seduction of power...nothing...By naming the film "The Dictator" and playing two roles and pretty much following the same storyline in many ways, the film invites comparisons to "The Great Dictator". I saw that one recently, and even though a lot of it is dated and there are a lot of jokes that feel flat for today's comedic tempo, Chaplin really was exploring different subjects about the nature of power and the attractiveness of fascism during hard times. This gives the film a substance that persists even today, and is in many ways what of course makes it a classic. in The dictator, it's all shock value (or more like attempted shock value).