ok, this may be the only time i’ll talk about that borat movie. because i figure by now everyone’s seen it already. or you won’t ever. or you’re waiting for it on video, in which case you should come back in six months.
no, it’s not the funniest movie ever. it may possibly not be even very close to the funniest movie ever. it wasn’t terrible, but it certainly was surprisingly average for something frequently reviewed as “the funniest movie ever”.
i mean, really, that’s some big knutz to throw around. that means it would be funnier than blazing saddles? funnier than pee wee’s big adventure? funnier than what may be my favorite movie of all time, tampopo? is a fake doc about a fake foreigner exposing the buffoonery of american culture funnier than an absurd spaghetti ramen western about the search for the perfect bowl of noodles?
“HELL NO”, i say.
possibly the problem with borat is that it’s comprised primarily of one-shot concept jokes, which is mostly the shock that ‘he actually did this or that’ or ‘had the gall to try and pull that over on someone’. which is fine, unless you already watched the trailer which is the first five minutes of the movie and has most of the best jokes, and it’s not quite as funny the second time in the theatre. or if you read reviews or commentaries (uh, like this one) ahead of time about how funny this part is, and then when you actually watch it, the shock is already gone (or expected) and it’s no longer so so funny.
i read an interview with seth rogen (40-year-old virgin, freaks and geeks), who has written for sasha baron cohen on da ali g show, and he said that while a lot of sasha’s stick looks very extemporaneous and improvised, it’s actually quite meticulously scripted. they obviously want to get the mark to say and react a certain way, but of course you can’t script what they’re going to say, since they’re not really in on the joke. however, he said it was amazing to what degree you actually can script what they’re going to say, just by writing borat/ali g’s lines to drive the bit a certain way and make the joke end up as planned. which all of a sudden makes what they’re doing more impressive.
but not necessarily funnier.
(next up: the fountain, or how to shoot your film on the cheap by replaying every scene two times)
Posted at December 5, 2006 8:19 AMagreed. i actually found quite a bit of the film genuinely un-funny and i think i’ve figured out why. when i watch da ali g show, and borat’s segements on it, there’s never any break in character. borat is always borat.
in the movie, as soon as he goes ape for pamela anderson, i stop believing in the conceit that borat is real. am i to believe that even in kazhakstan he has never seen tv? i dont. so his quest is stupid. and the things he does? they aren’t comical any more but malicious. sometimes they’re still funny, but it’s a mean spirited humor.
people don’t get mad at borat for being foreign and/or stupid. they get mad at him for being an asshole. he really scared pamela anderson and it disturbs me that i laughed while he was doing it. she may be a bimbo but she’s still a person. and as malcolm gladwell points out; since when is it okay to mock someone’s religious beliefs during their ceremonies?
i vote pee wee’s big adventure. followed closely by raising arizona.
Posted by: xz at December 5, 2006 3:09 PMi read somewhere that pam claimed that she really was in on it and that part was fake, at least on her part. not like parts of her are usually fake, though.
then again i think i read that she was saying this in response to kid rock critizing her for being so stupid as to be stuffed into a sack by borat. fwiw.
ooh, raising arizona. word.
finally, borat’s not even the funniest film this *year*. little miss sunshine, methinks.
Posted by: e at December 5, 2006 3:50 PMComments are now closed for this entry. Thank you for playing.