The Borat Movie

[Pubrick]

Borat interview

superbowl story was a highlight.

[MacGuffin]

"Borat" satire turns to farce at Toronto festival

It was the kind of scenario that comedian Sacha Baron Cohen himself might have scripted, although the setting would have been a fictional run-down Kazakh movie theater, and not a posh 1,000-seat auditorium on the opening night of the Toronto film festival.

The midnight screening Cohen's film, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," had been getting raucous screams of laughter before the projector suddenly cut out 20 minutes into the film, turning merriment into dismay and prompting Cohen to do some quick improvising.

"I will apology on behalf of Kazakhstan for this little mistake," Cohen told the crowd in the voice of his alter ego, Borat Sagdiyev, the satirical Kazakh journalist who is the subject of the film.

Earlier on Thursday evening, a screening of "The Journals of Knud Rasmussen" officially opened the festival, which will show 352 films from 61 countries before closing on September 16.

That film, a look at Canada's frozen north and the cultural destruction wrought on native people by European Christians, drew praise as an inventive choice to start the festival.

But it was Cohen who stole the show, wringing every last laugh from the character he developed as part of his TV hit "Da Ali G Show." The comedian has ruffled more than a few feathers this year with Borat, a naive journalist he unleashes upon unsuspecting real-life subjects unprepared for the character's overt sexism and anti-Semitism.

Cohen, who is Jewish, was threatened with a lawsuit earlier this year by Kazakh officials upset with his portrayal of the country as a nation of drunks, racists and sexists.

FRIEND OF DONKEY

He arrived on the red carpet on Thursday on a wagon pulled by four women dressed as peasants. A donkey rode in the carriage with Cohen as the crowd chanted "Borat! Borat!."

"There were two more of them," he deadpanned, when asked about the women. "But they escaped in Bulgaria."

Cohen typically unleashes Borat's slurs and inappropriate remarks while interviewing unsuspecting subjects, with the punch line provided by the subject's reaction, which is often uncomfortable agreement. He has said the segments are "dramatic demonstration of how racism feeds on dumb conformity, as much as rabid bigotry."

The opening minutes of his film had the audience in stitches as Borat leaves his home town in Kazakhstan on a quest to learn about American life.

His early scenes in the United States have a slapstick hilarity to them as he accidentally lets a chicken out of his suitcase on a crowded New York subway and then walks up to men on the street to kiss them hello. In one scene, he mistakes a hotel elevator as his room, and startles the porter by beginning to unpack his belongings in the cramped space.

After the projector malfunction, the real-life scene got even more surreal as U.S. filmmaker Michael Moore, a close friend of "Borat" director Larry Charles, rose from his seat in the audience and went up to the projection booth to try to help fix the equipment. "I used to do this for a living," Moore quipped.

Moore and Charles took light-hearted questions from the audience before Cohen came back on stage. After about an hour of waiting, the audience was told the projector would not be fixed.

[Pubrick]

He arrived on the red carpet on Thursday on a wagon pulled by four women dressed as peasants. A donkey rode in the carriage with Cohen

fuck copperfield's fountain of youth, sacha baron cohen has discovered the fountain of pure hilarity with this character.

[MacGuffin]

He arrived on the red carpet on Thursday on a wagon pulled by four women dressed as peasants. A donkey rode in the carriage with Cohen

fuck copperfield's fountain of youth, sacha baron cohen has discovered the fountain of pure hilarity with this character.

[Chest Rockwell]

You sure?

[last days of gerry the elephant]

He arrived on the red carpet on Thursday on a wagon pulled by four women dressed as peasants. A donkey rode in the carriage with Cohen

fuck copperfield's fountain of youth, sacha baron cohen has discovered the fountain of pure hilarity with this character.

That was a funny scene that night.

[MacGuffin]

The midnight screening Cohen's film, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," had been getting raucous screams of laughter before the projector suddenly cut out 20 minutes into the film, turning merriment into dismay and prompting Cohen to do some quick improvising.

[Ravi]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=404852&in_page_id=1770

Bush to hold talks on Ali G creator after diplomatic row


Making waves: Sacha Baron Cohen's creation Kazakh tv presenter Borat

US President George Bush is to host White House talks on British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.

Cohen, 35, creator of Ali G, has infuriated the Kazakhstan government with his portrayal of Borat, a bumbling Kazakh TV presenter.

And now a movie of Borat's adventures in the US has caused a diplomatic incident.

The opening scene, which shows Borat lustily kissing his sister goodbye and setting off for America in a car pulled by a horse, had audiences in stitches when it was first shown last week.

But the film, which has just premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, has prompted a swift reaction from the Kazakhstan government, which is launching a PR blitz in the States.

Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev is to fly to the US to meet President Bush in the coming weeks and on the agenda will be his country's image.

President Nazarbayev has confirmed his government will buy "educational" TV spots and print advertisements about the "real Kazakhstan" in a bid to save the country's reputation before the film is released in the US in November.

President Nazarbayev will visit the White House and the Bush family compound in Maine when he flies in for talks that will include the fictional character Borat.

But a spokesman for the Kazakhstan Embassy says it is unlikely that President Nazarbayev will find the film funny.

Roman Vassilenko said: "The Government has expressed its displeasure about Borat's representation of our country.

"Our opinion of the character has not changed.

"We understand that the film exposes the hypocrisy that exists both here in the USA and in the UK and understand that Mr Cohen has a right to freedom of speech.

"Nursultan Nazarbayev has taken Mr Bush up on an invitation to visit this country to help build our relationship with the USA.

"I cannot speak for the president himself, only for the government, but I certainly don't think President Nazarbayev and Mr Bush will share a joke about the film.

"The bottom line is we want people to know that he does not represent the true people of Kazakhstan."

The Kazakh government has previously threatened Baron-Cohen with legal action, for allowing Borat to, among other things, make fun of his homeland, demean women, slander gypsies and urge listeners to "Throw the Jew Down the Well."

Anti-Borat hard-liners have pulled the plug on borat.kz, Borat's Kazakhstan-based Website after his frequent displays of anti-Semitism and his portrayal of Kazakh culture.

Nurlan Isin, President of the Association of Kazakh IT Companies took the action after complaints.

He said: "We've done this so he can't badmouth Kazakhstan under the .kz domain name.

"He can go and do whatever he wants at other domains."

The row originally erupted in November 2005, following Borat's hosting of the MTV Europe Music Awards in Lisbon.

The Kazakh Foreign Ministry was furious over Cohen's bad taste representation of the nation.

'No such thing as bad publicity'

Foreign Ministry spokesman Yerzhan Ashykbayev told a news conference: "We view Mr. Cohen's behaviour at the MTV Europe Music Awards as utterly unacceptable, being a concoction of bad taste and ill manners which is completely incompatible with the ethics and civilized behaviour of Kazakhstan's people.

"We reserve the right to any legal action to prevent new pranks of the kind."

Baron Cohen responded to Ashykbayev in character by posting a video on the Official Borat website.

In the video, Borat said, "In response to Mr. Ashykbayev's comments, I'd like to state I have no connection with Mr. Cohen and fully support my Government's decision to sue this Jew.

"Since the 2003 Tuleyakiv reforms, Kazakhstan is as civilized as any other country in the world.

"Women can now travel on inside of bus, homosexuals no longer have to wear blue hats, and age of consent has been raised to eight years old."

His blatant outpouring then prompted the Kazakh government to hire two public relations firms to counter the claims, and ran a four-page advertisement in The New York Times.

The ad carried testimonials about the nation's democracy, education system and the power and influence enjoyed by women. News of President Nazarbayev's upcoming visit has prompted experts to study the character's impact on US culture.

Sean R. Roberts, Central Asian Affairs Fellow at Georgetown University, has been studying the phenomenon.

He said: "I have found that more Americans are aware of Kazakhstan than four years ago when I last lived in the United States.

"The increased knowledge of Kazakhstan, however, is not due to the country's economic successes or its role as a U.S. ally in the war on terror.

"Instead, most Americans who have heard of Kazakhstan have heard of it through a satire of a Kazakh journalist named Borat.

"Borat certainly does not promote an image of Kazakhstan that is in sync with that which the government and its leader would like to promote abroad.

"As the old adage goes, however, 'there is no such thing as bad publicity.'

"If that is true, Borat is bringing much more publicity to Kazakhstan."

Cohen's representatives refused to allow him or his alter ego to respond to the controversy because it's not close enough to the film's release date.

[RegularKarate]

I haven't laughed as consistantly and as hard as I laughed tonight when I saw this movie.

This thing is not going to be for everyone, but jesus, the people who can get into it are going to love it.
I'm glad it's not very long because comedies that are so full of funny are hard to take for extended periods of time.

There's no deep analysis to make here, it's incredibly funny.

I really want to see it again just to find out if it can hold up... all I know is that it's going to put any other straight comedy that comes out within the next year or so to shame.

[modage]

i attempted to see this last night as well.  went 2 hours before doors open.   the line went already around the block twice.  suffice to say we did not get in, nor were we even close, but we did manage to waste 1 1/2 hours in line where i had my first experience with the odious white castle.  jagshemash!

[meatwad]

i attempted to see this last night as well.  went 2 hours before doors open.   the line went already around the block twice.  suffice to say we did not get in, nor were we even close, but we did manage to waste 1 1/2 hours in line where i had my first experience with the odious white castle.  jagshemash!

i was there too. when i saw the line, i just left.

[modage]

i wouldnt have stayed either but i met friends who had gotten there first and wanted to stick it out.  i will never again try to go to a screening at that times square theatre.

[RegularKarate]

I was in line for two hours and almost didn't get in.

I've had time to let this thing sink in and I've decided not to say how funny this film really is because it's going to be overhyped as it is.  See it though.. especially P (like I needed to tell you to).

[MacGuffin]

Kazakhstan fights back ahead of Borat film release
Source: The Guardian

Kazakhstan: land of superstition, religious intolerance, political suppression and goats. Wrong. Kazakhstan is actually a country of metals and machinery, an outward-looking, modern nation with a stable economy that attracts foreign investors to its cosmopolitan capital.

The Kazakh government took the unusual step yesterday of publishing a four-page colour supplement in the New York Times in what appeared to be in part an attempt to head off the fallout from a satirical film due out in November. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is the latest work from Ali G creator Sacha Baron Cohen. The film lampoons the central Asian nation through Borat Sagdiyev, a Kazakh journalist who travels to the US to report on local customs.

Before leaving he introduces the audience to his sister, "number four prostitute in whole of Kazakhstan", and shows the village tradition of "the running of the Jew", a variation on Pamplona's bull running. Once in the US he releases chickens on the New York subway, mangles the Star Spangled Banner before a rodeo audience and abandons his pursuit of local tradition for a quest to meet Pamela Anderson.

Festival audiences have found the film hilarious, raising expectations that it will be a hit. But the Kazakh government is not amused. Since the Borat character first appeared it has protested and threatened legal action against the depiction of Kazakhstan as a backward haven for anti-Semites. To counter the image of its country in the film - which was shot in the US and Romania - the government has funded a $50m tribal epic called Nomad.

The Kazakh president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, was due to arrive in the US yesterday for a trip that will include a meeting with President George Bush.

[MacGuffin]

White House turns away "Kazakh reporter" Borat

Borat, the fictional TV reporter from Kazakhstan, may have gotten under the skin of Kazakh officials but on Thursday he couldn't get past the gates of the White House.

Secret Service agents turned away British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, in character as the boorish, anti-Semitic journalist, when he tried to invite "Premier George Walter Bush" to a screening of his upcoming movie, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."

Also invited to the screening: O.J. Simpson, "Mel Gibsons" and other "American dignitaries."

Cohen's stunt was timed to coincide with an official visit by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who is scheduled to meet with Bush on Friday.

Nazarbayev and other Kazakh officials have sought to raise the profile of the oil-rich former Soviet republic and assure the West that, contrary to Borat's claims, theirs is not a nation of drunken anti-Semites who treat their women worse than their donkeys.

Kazakhstan is expected to become one of the top 10 oil producers within a decade. A U.S. ally with troops in Iraq, the country has drawn criticism for its deteriorating civil liberties and flawed elections.

Shortly after Nazarbayev dedicated a statue in front of the Kazakh embassy, Borat denounced an official Kazakh publicity campaign running in U.S. magazines as "disgusting fabrications" orchestrated by neighboring Uzbekistan.

"If there is one more item of Uzbek propaganda claiming that we do not drink fermented horse urine, give death penalty for baking bagels, or export over 300 tonnes of human pubis per year, then we will be left with no alternative but to commence bombardment of their cities with our catapults," Borat said.

Cohen, 35, who is Jewish, recently co-starred in the recent U.S. box office hit "Talladega Nights" and has appeared in TV comedy series "Da Ali G Show" on U.S. cable channel HBO and Britain's Channel 4.

Cohen's "Borat" comedy routine has drawn legal threats from the Kazakh government, which keeps a tight lid on criticism in its news media.

Kazakh press secretary Roman Vasilenko said he was worried that some may take the Borat routine seriously.

"He is not a Kazakh. What he represents is a country of Boratastan, a country of one," Vasilenko told Reuters.