3 Thoughts After Re-Watching ‘Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan’:
Still equally uncomfortable and absolutely hysterical to this day.
The scene — THAT one — is still absolutely nauseating to this day.
SO excited for the sequel this month! But the bar has been set pretty damn high.
"Offensive in the funniest possible way."
It was amateurish and immature - more like a high school project than an actual movie. I laugh louder at your average Budweiser commercial than I laughed at 60 minutes of Borat. It was so unfunny and bad that I just got tired of it and closed the player - just stopped. I do not know if it was top 10 worst movie material, but it was close.
Combine that with the fact that my expectations were high, since everyone was raving about how hilarious it was - I heard many people saying things like "funniest movie of all time". To me, it was so unfunny, I do not even understand how someone could think it was funny. Possibly, I laughed out loud once, and chuckled a couple times, but mostly, I just sat there waiting for it to get funny instead of stupid.
Again, for some reason, people vote for a "trendy" movie that was really, really bad.
Hugely successful at the time, Borat still holds up today as a lot of the things being mocked still apply 15 years later, maybe even more so. It had a huge cultural impact, how many times have you heard someone in a generically Slavic accent say “it’s nice, I like”? Even people that have never seen the movie attempt to use that catchphrase. Borat was brilliant in that it pushed the bounds of what was acceptable, by going after things that are unacceptable. Racism, sexism, classism, anti-semitism, and more - they’re all here and all being exposed for the ridiculousness that they are.
I think I was too tolerant on the rating
A funny movie but most of the laughs were caused by disbelief of some of the lengths gone to get them. There's lots of crude humor here including a fight between Borat and another naked man that ends up going very public. There is also a scene with some drunk frat boys that evolves into something I believe the film makers may have not even considered. Nothing in "Borat" really feels very cinematic. Many will find this extremely offensive and definitely not politically correct. Most of the laughs are uncomfortable ones.
Guerilla improv often has a very short shelf life, but this one's still funny even after you know where it's going. In Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen has a character that's perfect for dragging hilarious material out of his unsuspecting subjects: naïve and disarming on the surface, vulgar and profane beneath.
He gets some really ripe material from the act this time around, with the lowlights of his American tour including a homophobic cowboy, a troupe of bigoted etiquette experts and an RV full of misogynist frat boys. The short, storyline-advancing scenes in between each unscripted segment are generally thin and bland, but Cohen's ad-libbed torments of the unprepared masses are clearly the movie's meat and potatoes and it wisely never strays far from that core. Brightly orchestrated, hilarious anarchy with a sharp edge and no sense of self-control.
"He is my neighbor Nursultan Tuliagby. He is pain in my assholes. I get a window from a glass, he must get a window from a glass. I get a step, he must get a step. I get a clock radio, he cannot afford. Great success!"
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America of Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is still a brilliant, brilliant movie. It is one of the funniest movies out there and one that will always make me laugh. I must have seen it 10 times by now? I can quote this movie all day long. From the opening scenes in his home country to his exploits in New York, King in the Castle, Pamela Andersons, very nice, Sacha Baron Cohen and Ken Davitian running naked through the broker conference, the ice cream truck, those stupid frat boys, the national anthem scene, the chicken in the subway, the driving instructor, 40 miles an hour in a Hummer should do the trick, where is the chick magnet? So many brilliant scenes.
But with every rewatch I like it less and less.....pause......NOT.
Borat is still a brilliant character and a gem of a movie.
Annoying, stupid film! I can't understand its phenomenon. It just should be forbidden. Jokes of Jews? Racism, hatred, etc etc. Terrible!
There are funny and very funny parts, but If you are a person with a reasonable amount of empathy it's hard not to pity and have a hard time seeing how they treat some of the people "forced" to be involved in this...
Breaching experiment: the movie.
This was such a much needed mirror to the Western (and particularly American) society.
There are still so many bits in this movie that are still every bit as funny, shocking and relevant today as they were in 2006 (e.g. the rhodeo champion, the college students, the dinner scene).
Having said that, a few minor scenes feel like exces, and they don’t really serve a point.
Like, what was the point of the scene with the feminists?
There’s no commentary in it, and I already know that the main character is a sexist and a homophobe.
But all in all, this is a great film.
8/10
I went into this movie with high hopes having been a fan of Da Ali G Show for several years now, including the Borat sketches. But I was a little disappointed when this movie showed a few of the same shortcomings as Ali G in Da House--it is very difficult to make a full length film out of an 8 minute sketch(see Superstar or most of the other SNL attempts at feature films) Don't get me wrong, this movie is entertaining and a riot at points. I especially liked his interaction with the gang on the streets of Atlanta and his subsequent attempt to check in to the hotel where he calls the receptionist "vanilla face". The scenes where he learns about etiquette and then goes to a formal southern dinner were a complete retread of bits from the TV show, kind of a same but different approach. Then the end. It was horrible. It was like they had more planned and ran out of money so the movie ended in the middle of nothing. It needed a lot more.
I love Sacha Baron Cohen's works, and even though I'm truly amazed by the things he dares to do, Borat was a little uncomfortable to watch. At times it was simply disgusting, and I don't see how those scenes add any humor or meaning to the movie.
Borat, is one of the smartest comedies of all-time. This is mainly due to Sacha Baron Cohen's performance. The character was beyond impressionable. Who here remembers all the Borat Halloween costumes? It was a movie that appealed to nearly everybody. Like how racists can enjoy this movie for its racism, but other people who are smarter than that know that the movie is not actually racist, but is making fun of racism, can enjoy it for that. it's intelligent on a satirical level. But at the same time, you don't necessarily have to understand the satire and social-political commentary to be able to enjoy this movie.
Take away all the intelligent humor and you still have a "Bad Grandpa"-esque film filled with crude humor and funny reactions. But even if that's all that this movie was, it would still be eons above "Bad Grandpa" because this movie took it to the fucking extreme. In movies like "Bad Grandpa," all they had to do to get people to sign the release to show their face, was to appear from behind a curtain after the gag and be like: "'Sup. It's actually Johnny Knoxville and Jeff Tremaine. You guys are in a movie. Sign this thing, right? You wanna be famous, right?"
But there is no way that that would fly for a movie like Borat. With the majority of people that had major roles in the film, they got them to sign the release while pretending as if the movie that they were filming was actually a real small documentary and that Borat was a real person. You didn't always need hidden cameras to film the shot because the cameraman himself was a character. And I, for one, think that's clever as fuck. Not only was Sasha Baron Cohen so convincing to his victims because he never broke character, but his genius sense of improv allowed him to create hilarious material independent of what was scripted.
And what I love about the writing is that it wasn't just: "Here's a bunch of scripted scenes that we're going to call the story" and "Here's all the pranks in-between." They made an extra effort to make sure that the scripted parts and unscripted parts meshed together perfectly. Like they knew that he needed to find Pamela Anderson on television as the initial incident, but instead of doing just that, they decided that they could prank someone to get to that place. Hell, a lot of the reincorporated jokes are products of unscripted scenes.
Overall, this is a great film! Check it out! But most likely you already have.
Overrated, not worth watching
There are some good parts, but I enjoyed the movie a lot more by watching these 15 second extracts on youtube. Watching the full movie was too uncomfortable for me and I left midway.
I did not find it neither funny nor satirical, very offensive and gratuitous indeed.
I don't have a lot to say on this one. Very funny in parts and not at all in others, not bad at all
don't watch it please, it's one of the worst movies i've ever seen in my life... NOT!
IT'S GREAT SUCCESS!!!!!
Okay movie, but could've used some more polish
I hadn't seen the original when the second came out. I assumed it wasn't going to hold up in 2020 but honestly it did somehow. As long as you recognize that he's always trying to spoof America, it's still a funny and enjoyable film. Now onto the controversy filled subsequent moviefilm!
What kind of homo movie is this:joy::gun::joy::gun:
I found several of the Borat gags to be really funny, but for everyone that makes you laugh out loud there is one that misses the mark. Sacha Baron Cohen obviously creates a very humorous character but there are sometimes when I feel a little unfulfilled. I would still say its worth a watch for some genuinely funny moments.
The most outrageous film I think I've ever watched. Some of the film was shot in my home town.
To enjoy to its fullest, watch it with your friends....
Watching alone may bore you...
I'm going to US and A
Shout by SeanMSUBlockedParent2015-05-11T00:41:06Z
One of the funniest films of all time. It's completely outrageous and uncomfortable but almost every scene is absolutely hilarious. Very unique brand of comedy