Quickie Reviews

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

I'm probably one of twelve people who didn't see this in its original theatrical release. I assumed it was juvenile bathroom type humour, so wasn't much interested in seeing it. However, it was nominated for a Best Comedy or Musical Golden Globe and is nominated for a Best Writing-Adapted Screenplay Academy Award, so I thought there must be more to it. It is hilarious and embarrassing to watch at the same time. Sascha Baron Cohen writes and stars as Borat, a character he created for his Da Ali G Show.

The premise is Borat is Kazakhstan's representative to discover and document America's culture to bring back to Kazakhstan to civilize their culture. While Borat is in America, meeting with various cultural experts (humour coaches, etiquette experts), he discovers Baywatch and falls in love with Pamela Anderson. He decides to travel across the country from New York City to California to marry Pamela. Along the way Borat meets many people like angry New Yorkers, southern sophisticates, drunken frat boys, rodeo cowboys, and many more. It is embarrassing to watch because Borat is able to draw out the ignorance in people and make it funny. There are some lawsuits because of it, because apparently, those people don't like their ignorance shown to the rest of the world. The trivia section of this movie on IMDB says that the police were called 91 times on Sascha Baron Cohen during the filming of this movie. Funny stuff.

Stranger than Fiction

I got a chance to see this at a matinee last week. I usually love Will Ferrell's work. He was good and so was Emma Thompson, as well as Dustin Hoffman. However, I just couldn't get lost in it, which should have been easy considering there was only one other person in the theater. Ferrell stars as Harold Crick who begins to hear a woman's voice (Thompson) in his head narrating his life. He panics after he hears her say he would die and tries to find the author to convince her not to kill him. Harold is an IRS auditor who meets and falls for one of his auditees, Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal). It's a cute story with some funny moments, but it was just okay. Ever see a movie where it was alright, but it just didn't quite click for you, but you can't put your finger on what didn't work? This is one of those.

More ramblings to come.....