In this sequel to the original Madagascar all the animal characters are back: light-footed Alex the lion (voice: Ben Stiller), over-sensitive Melman the giraffe (voice: David Schwimmer), loud-mouthed Marty the zebra (voice: Chris Rock), big Mama Gloria the hippo (voice: Jada Pinkett Smith), zany King Julien (voice: Sacha Baron Cohen), his sidekick Maurice (voice: Cedric the Entertainer) and the penguins.

In “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa” there are some new characters, including a zesty old grandmother from New York who does karate. The film’s colors are ever more. Conversations are mostly loud and clear. There’s also some real life-like funny stuff, like having to negotiate with the monkey union for health benefits. Images are catchy and bright. And the music is just fantastic and special.

The story: these New Yorkers from the concrete and steel zoo had been on the island of Madagascar located off the East African coast. The crashed plane was “fixed” by the penguins to make it capable of flight. Unfortunately, the plane was not strong enough to take them to the desired destination and crashed into Africa instead. From there, they encounter conflicts and surprises. You will have to see the rest of the story yourself.

The themes of self-esteem and learning your identity and independence are portrayed in the animated movie. Overall, it is a fun watch and worth a good laugh.

Author: Laurel Booth
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Benefits of electric pressure cooker

We were waiting for Godot, but you sensed what we really needed and instead sent us Borat! And Borat is if nothing else a moveable feast and a gift that keeps on giving. You managed simultaneously to offend Kazakhs, frighten Jewish anti-defamation groups, outrage the orientalism monitors, tee off hypocritically thin-skinned Americans, provoke laughter across the Beavis and Butthead, Southpark, and Archie Bunker generations, and last–but certainly not least–provide glorious opportunity for Western intellectuals for criticize and debate merit, meaning, and interpretation of celluloid masterpiece. Finally, thanks to you, we can now confirm that rumors of Yakov Smirnov’s death were greatly exaggerated. It turns out he is fine and doing well, having found gainful employment in great American city called Branson, Missouri (“Hours great…auditorium, career, and pockets less filling…but what a country!”…ok, bad example)! Slamma dunk, emission accomplished, and hiyya-fiyva, to you Sacha!

Talk about a movie that led to theatergoers being bombarded–even before they checked cinema times–with conflicting cues and instructions from cultural elites, trendsetters, and peers:

1) Go the movie. Laugh, have fun!

2) If you go to the movie, don’t laugh!

3) Go the movie, laugh, but later feign outrage!

4) Don’t go the movie–in part because you might laugh!

5) If you do go, there’s something wrong with you.

6) If you don’t go, there’s something wrong with you.

Borat!: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan can’t help but leave the impression that we may have become an over-scripted, over-programmed culture.

This article attempts to address some of the controversies and larger ramifications resulting from Borat the character and Borat! the movie (hereafter Borat!). It does so by tapping some of the wide-ranging film criticism, op-eds, and Internet postings that the film has spawned. An admission and disclaimer of sorts about the film seems in order before I begin: I went…I laughed…I wept …(but because I was laughing, not because I went).

Is for make fun of Kazakh peoples!…NOT!!!

Let us begin with a question that has consumed so many keystrokes in recent months. In part we can do so because Sacha Baron Cohen’s intent (i.e. production/supply side) is so much more straightforward than is the question of how the movie is or has been interpreted and used by audiences (i.e. consumption/demand side).

Shortly after the American release of Borat! an interview with Sacha Baron Cohen appeared in the 14 November 2006 edition of Rolling Stone. Clearly, a lot of people don’t know about the interview, haven’t read it, or don’t wish to, because on the Internet the debate about who Baron Cohen satirizes in the film rages on. While there can be, are, and will be many interpretations of who gets hurt as a result of Borat! (more on this below), Baron Cohen’s comments to the interviewer Neil Strauss really eliminate much of the speculation about what Baron Cohen intends the film to do. That Baron Cohen may have realized too late that there was real value and power in keeping mum about his intentions with Borat is possible when you consider that, according to Strauss, Baron Cohen was bothered enough by the encounter that he called Strauss back a week after the interview to discuss it.

Here is what Baron Cohen said that should–although probably won’t–once and for all dampen speculation about his motivations in making Borat!. Baron Cohen was reacting to news that the Kazakh government was thinking of suing him and placing a full-page ad promoting the country in The New York Times (they eventually did the latter):

I was surprised, because I always had faith in the audience that they would realize that this was a fictitious country and the mere purpose of it was to allow people to bring out their own prejudices. And the reason we chose Kazakhstan was because it was a country that no one had heard anything about, so we could essentially play on stereotypes they might have about this ex-Soviet backwater. The joke is not on Kazakhstan. I think the joke is on people who can believe that the Kazakhstan that I describe can exist–who believe that there’s a country where homosexuals wear blue hats and the women live in cages and they drink fermented horse urine and the age of consent has been raised to nine years old.

Thus can end much of the debate about Cohen’s intentions. It’s about the people Borat interviews–in the film, Americans–not about Kazakhstan and Kazakhs. The film is designed to be about Americans.

Certainly, this was what Ryan Gilbey of London’s leftist weekly, New Statesman, took away from the film. An article introduced as “Sacha Baron Cohen’s exposure of crass Americana” and “The Kazakh ace reporter uncovers uncomfortable truths about the US” summarized the film as follows:

The violence that Borat encounters on the New York subway after trying to greet male strangers with kisses is frighteningly real….There’s an aging cowpoke who requires only the mildest of prompts to endorse the murder of gays and Muslims. Others indict themselves as much by what they don’t say as what they do. A redneck rodeo crowd shows no compunction about cheering Borat’s gung-ho speech about Iraq, clearly not realizing that what he actually said was: “We support your war of terror!” And it’s shocking to witness the tacit acceptance with which Borat’s ghoulish requests are greeted. Trying to find the ideal car for mowing down gypsies, or seeking the best gun for killing Jews, he encounters only compliance among America’s salespeople. The customer, it seems, is always right, even when he’s far right.

An April 2003 article by Lucy Kelaart in the British daily The Guardian, suggests that some Kazakhs–at least those with some exposure to the West–understood this about Borat even back then (based on his British television show visits to the US). Most of Kelaart’s interview subjects on the streets of Almaty were unamused, rather than really offended, and thought Borat was just plain stupid:

Ainura, 25, recently spent a year living in the US. Does she think Borat is giving Kazakhstan a bad name. “Borat’s not making fun of Kazakhs, he’s making fun of Americans,” she says. “They are gullible. Not one of them said, ‘No way – that can’t be true.’ The show describes a US stereotype, not a Kazakh one. It lays bare the American attitude towards foreigners: strong accents, loud voices, stupidity, male chauvinism.”

Of course, as I stated earlier and we shall see, were Baron Cohen’s intentions the be-all and end-all of the criticism this article would be far shorter than it is. Particularly in the age of post-modern criticism, the audience and any real or potential sub-audiences take center-stage.

The “Full” Sacha Baron Cohen: Beyond Borat

Lest Americans who see Borat! think in ethnocentric terms that we are Baron Cohen’s principal target in his work, it is instructive to look at the “Full” Sacha Baron Cohen, or at latest a broader array of the characters he has played on television and in film.

In Baron Cohen’s other signature role in Hollywood films in 2006, he played Will Ferrell’s foil and antagonist in the movie Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Baron Cohen’s character, Jean Girard, is a French “Formula Un” driver who takes the NASCAR circuit by storm. He is a walking embodiment some might say of the “freedom fries,” “red(neck) state” American stereotype of the French–a snobbish, effete, espresso-sipping, opera-listening, L’Etranger-reading (adding insult to injury all while he drives!), Perrier-sponsored homosexual (his longtime partner played by Conan O’Brien’s one-time latenight sidekick Andy Richter).

It is hard to see this as a role in which Baron Cohen is somehow exploiting the American audience, other than that by playing a stereotype intended to be maximally offensive he is in a sense condescending that audience and its intelligence. Rather, his role as Jean Girard seems quintessentially English (a la Benny Hill), and in that sense sheds light back on Borat, as we learn from his Rolling Stone interview that Baron Cohen grew up idolizing Peters Sellers and loved Sellers’ infamous French stereotype, Inspector Jacques Clouseau:

Baron Cohen’s future was set when he was roughly eight years old by two significant events. The first was seeing one of Peter Sellers’ Pink Panther movies at a friend’s ninth birthday party–setting off a lifelong admiration of the British comic actor’s work. The other was when his older brothers snuck him into a theater to see Monty Python’s Life of Brian.

Certainly, Baron Cohen’s most famous character–and the one whose success probably was responsible for Borat getting a chance over the long-run–is the faux “gangsta” rapper Ali G.. Indeed, it is instructive to note that in Ali G.’s first full-length feature film in 2001, Ali G. Indahouse, instead of an epic quest for Pamela Anderson, Ali G. is in pursuit of the supermodel Naomi Campbell. Much of the criticism of “Ali G.” sounds in fact remarkably familiar when we see allegations about Baron Cohen’s insensitivity to Kazakhs. Within the UK, Ali G. precipitated comments like the following from Felix Dexter, a comedian on a British television series. Substitute “Kazakhs” for “black street culture” and one could get a characterization similar to what we see in the wake of Borat!: “But a lot of the humor is laughing at black street culture and it is being celebrated because it allows the liberal middle classes to laugh at that culture in a context where they can retain their sense of political correctness.”

Tell It to the Kazakhs!…Nevertheless, Why Exactly Kazakhstan?

The forefather and prototype for Borat was the character of a Moldovan television reporter, named Alexi Krickler, who Cohen played in the mid-1990s on British television. According to Cohen that character was based on a doctor he met at a free beach getaway in Astrakhan, southern Russia: “…there was a guy there who was a doctor, and the moment I met him, I started laughing…He had some elements of Borat, but he had none of the racism or the misogyny or the anti-Semitism. He was Jewish, actually.”

This is revealing inasmuch as that the personal characteristics are separated from the views he ascribes to his artistic creation, which some might complain is the essence of stereotyping.

It was as Alexi Krickler that Baron Cohen hit upon what Strauss terms “a tiny epiphany that would eventually fuel Baron Cohen’s career”:

For example, when interviewing someone about the rugby team British Lions, he’d go back and forth with the interviewee for ten minutes, seemingly unable to comprehend that they don’t have actual lions playing rugby. “I was struck by the patience of some of these members of the upper class, who were so keen to appear polite–particularly on camera–that they would never walk away,” Baron Cohen says.
Of course, there was a difference that may have petered out over the years…at least in Borat!: originally, Baron Cohen heavily concentrated on the genuinely powerful, whether celebrities or those with money and power, but in Borat! he clearly started sliding toward “taking the piss out of” more average citizens. Perhaps this is where he “crossed the line.”

Greetings from “Post(card)-Commiestan”

The Borat of Borat! was still to have several incarnations from Alexi Krickler to the Borat Sagdiyev of today. After Alexi Krickler came an Albanian television reporter named Kristo. Only later did Baron Cohen’s “Borat” become Kazakh: first as Borat Karabzhanov, then as Borat Dutbayev, and finally in 2003 as Borat Sagdiyev. This is perhaps important for it suggests that although Sacha Baron Cohen and Kazakhstan have become inseparably intertwined, Borat’s “Kazakhness” was almost incidental. One is inevitably reminded here of mistaken intention sometimes conveniently read into retrospective analyses: Bram Stoker’s Dracula is today inextricably associated with Romania, yet Dracula apparently started out in Stoker’s imagination as “Count Wampyr” from Styria (Austria) and only later (like Borat) migrated eastward to Transylvania.

Still, Moldova, Albania, and Kazakhstan have a clear common theme–they are all part of the post-communist world of the former Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union. And it is worth recalling here Baron Cohen’s own comments mentioned earlier: “And the reason we chose Kazakhstan was because it was a country that no one had heard anything about, so we could essentially play on stereotypes they might have about this ex-Soviet backwater.” In other words, a generic post(card)-Commiestan of sorts.

Baron Cohen has not commented specifically on why Krickler had to leave Moldova and change his name and why his television reporter is always from the post-communist world, but we can speculate. In this way not much has changed from Bram Stoker’s time: the need to find a setting that is simultaneously exotic and yet familiar, that acts as a prop but not distraction from the underlying goal of the artform. One wonders to what extent Borat’s migration from Moldova to Albania to Kazakhstan was dictated directly or indirectly by real world events–Albania certainly losing some of the “unknown” character that is key to this plot device, because of heavier news coverage surrounding Kosovo in the late 1990s (witness perhaps, the film Wag the Dog). Distance of course makes parody easier (witness the infamous Weird Al Yankovic song and video parody “Amish Paradise”–talk about a disenfranchised community who was unlikely to get upset!) But only up to a point: Go eastward young man!…but not too far east because then you become unrecognizable and your audience can’t relate and the power of the satire is lost!

Molvania, Romanovia, and Kreplakistan…Oh My!

This still leaves a key question unanswered: why has Baron Cohen sought to have his mock reporter come from real places…however fictionally-described? If, as Baron Cohen suggests, Borat is not from the real Kazakhstan, but from a fictional Kazakhstan so absurd that “the joke is on people who can believe that the Kazakhstan that I describe can exist,” why choose a real country name to begin with? Mirroring the separation, reclamation of independence, and micro-state phenomena of the region itself during the post-communist era, recent years have seen an explosion of “really imagined communities” in the form of fictional countries placed in the post-communist space.

As John Tierney opined in a New York Times op-ed,”I wish Cohen had instead invented a country like Molvania,” rather than have Borat come from Kazakhstan. Molvania is, of course, the well-known fictional land of the Jetlag Travel Guide series [Molvania: A Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry], described as “somewhere north of Bulgaria and downwind of Chernobyl.” (Despite the fictitious country’s name, stipulated location, and characteristics, its three Australian authors maintain it was not modeled on Moldova or even Romania, but was inspired by travels in Portugal. ) Among many other things, Molvania is home to Europe’s oldest nuclear reactor, and as one of its authors relates: “It’s a very beautiful country now that radiation levels have dropped to acceptable standards.”

Unsafe nuclear power plants, environmental degradation, and genetic mutation are also the punchline in Ben Stiller’s 2004 comedy Dodgeball, in which we are introduced to Fran Stalinofskivichdavidovitchsky of Romanovia: “In her home country of Romanovia, dodgeball is the national sport and her nuclear power plant’s team won the championship five years running, which makes her the deadliest woman on earth with a dodgeball.”

Then there is Mike Myers’ creation of Kreplakistan in the Austin Powers series: Kreplakistan is a former Soviet republic apparently unable to protect its nuclear warheads and in a state of perpetual chaos (as mock CNN clips of people running pell-mell convey to us). There is speculation on the Wikipedia that Kreplakistan is “likely based on the real Karakalpak Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, now the Republic of Karakalpakstan.” More convincing, however, is the idea that “kreplak” is inspired by “kreplach, an Eastern European Jewish dish consisting of meat-filled dumplings.”

But is inventing a country the solution to the problems of negative stereotyping and prejudice? If the Internet is any indication: apparently not. Molvania comes in for sharp criticism from those who view it as yet another variation on the (neo-)orientalist theme. There are angry denunciations particularly of the photos the authors use in the book and on the Molvania website–for while they play the role of fictional, mockworthy Molvanians, they are indeed real people. Nor have criticisms of Molvania been consigned merely to the orientalism monitors. In comments similar to those of Kazakh officials about Borat, in 2004 former UK minister for Europe Keith Vaz criticized the book because “it does reflect some of the prejudices which are taking root [in Europe]…The sad thing is, some people might actually believe that this country exists.” Ironically, too, the choice of a fictional “everycountry” can in fact be interpreted as even more insulting because it treats the people of an entire region or group as an essentially undifferentiated “them”–”I can’t tell ‘em apart, they all look alike…”

Borat, Class, and Urbanity

The parallel drawn by John Tierney between Borat! and Molvania is arguably a natural one, and thus one that many, especially on the Internet, have made. Particularly as stories began to come out about how Borat’s mock “Kazakh” home village in the movie was filmed in a poor Roma (gypsy) village in Romania–where the villagers received as payment for their work the feast of “a pig” and while Sacha Baron Cohen reportedly spent the night in the swanky mountain retreat of Sinaia –the issue of class entered the discussion about Borat!. It is difficult not to conclude that the issue of class can become funny in the film precisely because it is portrayed by a “safe cultural environment.” That is: poverty becomes broadly funny when it is portrayed by the comparatively unknown or culturally unprotected…be it Kazakhs or “trailer trash” in “red(neck) state” America.

The Polish author of the blog “Beatroot” captured this well in a post on the Molvania guidebook entitled: “Why is it that the only people ‘liberals’ think it’s OK to laugh at these days are the white working class and Central and Eastern Europeans?”

Europe’s ‘white trash’

…There is something a bit strange happening in the West. If this sort of book had been written about, say, African people, then, quite rightly, there would have been uproar and outrage. Words like ‘racism’ would have been used by lefty-liberal reviewers. But it seems that Political Correctness extends to all groups these days except poor whites from urban, rural or semi-rural areas in America and Europe.

Indeed, I would venture to speculate that had the villagers in Borat! been presented as Roma or “gypsies,” rather than as fictional Kazakhs, there might have been greater outrage about this, precisely because of the hierarchy of officially-recognized discrimination that prevails in cultural and political circles in the West. By being presented as the comparatively-unknown Kazakhs, however, it made it “easier” to laugh freely. And had the English tabloid press not taken an interest in the village of Glod (meaning “mud”!) and shown clips of the movie to the villagers, it is possible that these fictional Kazakhs would have been every bit as disenfranchised as the Amish relative to Weird Al Yankovic: according to the journalists, “not a single villager we spoke to had ever been able to afford a trip to the nearest cinema, 20 miles away”!

Sun-Baked Mud or When Things Get All Bollixed Up: The Uses of Borat

That finished cultural products can become intermediary inputs or be reprocessed for things their creators never could have dreamed of and might not even agree with is well-known. A few years back I remember seeing a television report in a major US metropolitan area where real estate agents were being investigated for using the shorthand “Archie Bunker” to describe clients with ‘discriminating tastes,’ thinking that by using such language they were somehow remaining within the bounds of equal opportunity regulations. Similarly, US troops in Iraq have described their incorporation of the satirical jingoistic ballad “America, **ck yeah!” from Team America: World Police on their missions. So it has been with Borat. This is undoubtedly the complaint of Jewish anti-defamation groups: that it doesn’t matter that Baron Cohen is Jewish and seeks to highlight anti-Semitic prejudice, if his audience laughs with, rather than at, Borat’s anti-Semitism.

The London tabloid The Sun, well-known for its “misgivings” over immigration and some would argue pandering to racist and xenophobic attitudes, searched for its pitchfork to make hay out of Borat! in the context of the looming immigration debate connected with Romania and Bulgaria’s entry into the European Union on 1 January 2007. The paper delighted in quoting Gheorghiu Pascu, 46, as saying “Borat is a son-of-a-bitch who made us look like savages. This is Transylvania, home of Dracula. If he ever returns we will stick a stake in his backside and impale him. Then I would cut his b***s off.” Two weeks later, under a headline blaring “We’re leaving Romania” was a picture of villagers in horse-drawn carts with the caption “Horse and cart … Romanians are heading our way for a better life; slowly.” The article quotes a villager saying “people will simply get around the restrictions by working in the black market or being self-employed,” and ends with another pledging, “Borat should watch out. He might bump into some of us in London soon.”

America the Stereotype…Now Coming to a Theater Near You:
Getting America’s Wrongs Right, its Rights Wrong, and its Right Wrong

Borat! is replete with what might be called “nesting occidentalisms” or “nesting anti-Americanisms”: that is, it creates and plays on foreign and domestic hierarchies of Americans, good, bad, and ugly. Chris Jones hits on the triteness and tawdriness of Baron Cohen’s itinerary in the film as follows:

…Borat starts his American trek in New York, land of the cold and the distant, where the only communication is by epithet. Then he heads to the South, land of the obsequiously and idiotically polite, where the local gothics haven’t changed their outlook since the days of Scarlett O’Hara. He takes a turn for Texas–where outsize nuts in cowboy hats chew their cuds on every corner. And after a brief sojourn in the ghetto–where every street is named “Martin Luther King Blvd.”–he ends up in Southern California, where surgically enhanced breasts heave in every swimsuit.

In other words, Baron Cohen took the road so-frequently-travelled through the European’s amusement park of American stereotypes (and some would have us believe only Americans view the world as an extension of Disneyland!) “Othering,” it turns out, does not acknowledge the class struggle or political correctness.

Baron Cohen certainly takes–or at least wishes to portray–himself seriously. It should thus come to no one’s surprise that those Americans who come off best in the film are a religiously-observant elderly Jewish couple who run a bed-and-breakfast and an African-American callgirl (variously claimed on the Internet to be an actress):

I think part of the movie shows the absurdity of holding any form of racial prejudice, whether it’s hatred of African-Americans or of Jews…Borat essentially works as a tool. By himself being anti-Semitic, he lets people lower their guard and expose their own prejudice, whether it’s anti-Semitism or an acceptance of anti-Semitism….I remember, when I was in university I studied history, and there was this one major historian of the Third Reich, Ian Kershaw. And his quote was, “The path to Auschwitz was paved with indifference.” I know it’s not very funny being a comedian talking about the Holocaust, but I think it’s an interesting idea that not everyone in Germany had to be a raving anti-Semite. They just had to be apathetic.

But is that really what we are talking about with the ugly Americans Baron Cohen meets in Borat!? For one thing, Chris Jones poses a good question: did Baron Cohen really have to “cross the pond” to find such disturbing stereotypes?

Because Cohen is now reportedly the highest paid comic in Britain–and because he styles himself as a radical–here’s the movie he should now make. Let’s see his Borat make some Cultural Learnings of his own smug world. It wouldn’t be hard for him to chat up a racist in a London pub. He could go to any British soccer game and find a cacophony of anti-gay slurs. Get an Irishman on the street chattering about Eastern European immigrants and someone will put a foot in it. Borat could spend time with French gothics from the Dordogne. He could teach us about the way Europe has integrated (or not) its Muslim citizens. Don’t they have hookers in Hamburg? Let’s see if they’re welcome at your better class of German party.

As Andrew Mueller notes about the movie: “What astonishes about every American he encounters is not their naivete, but their politeness, hospitality, and the extraordinary degree to which Borat has to inflame situations to provoke reaction. Had he attempted these antics in many other countries–bringing a hooker to dinner, desecrating the national anthem in front of a rodeo audience–he’d have conducted the publicity campaign in traction.”

I would argue that Baron Cohen to some extent misinterprets the reactions of those he “exposes.” Is what he sees with most of the Americans he captures on tape the same as what he claims of the “upper-class Englishmen…so keen to appear polite for the camera”? I don’t think so. The reserve, the failure to act, the consensual behavior of the Americans Baron Cohen meets, I would argue, is born of a desire not to offend the guest, no matter how odd he is, not to speak or ask questions lest one show one’s ignorance. After all, the biggest faux pas one can make in today’s globalized day and age, we are told, is to mock or express ignorance of our interlocutor’s culture. Don’t be judgmental, just play along, go along to get along…

This is American socio-cultural laissez-faire -also known as American self-centeredness–at its best and worst, a world where individual privacy can reach absurd proportions, whether it be not asking a neighbor about his salary or the worth of her house, or not interfering with the neighbor next door even though you might question the noises you hear at night as indicating physical or mental abuse. Indeed, the very American counter to Borat! can be seen in the final episode of the long-running comedy series Seinfeld, where the four main characters are hauled into court for failing to fulfill a newly-passed “Good Samaritan” law and helping a man in distress, whom they instead made fun of because of his weight–an homage, intended or not, to American self-centeredness.

Is it safe?…Is it safe?

“Is it safe?…Is it safe?” is no longer just something you hear at the dentist anymore. It is the thought that crosses people’s minds before, while, or after they laugh in our post-modern world. Perhaps the lesson here, however, is to not to take all this overly-seriously.

Americans should actually be thankful for such a movie: it holds a mirror up and tells us how some in the rest of the world view us. As has frequently been said, in the past many who disliked the United States had a compartmentalized view that separated U.S. foreign policy from the American people; increasingly surveys of foreign public opinion suggest that foreigners are no longer drawing this distinction (although it may indeed be that the perceptions of the former are negatively affecting the latter). Like it or not, Baron Cohen has tapped in effectively to foreign perceptions of the United States and he found enough Americans to play the ugly stereotypes he expected of them brilliantly.

On the other hand, yes, Virginia, it is safe to laugh at Borat. Andrew Mueller explains why:

The reason that Borat is such a liberating hoot is Baron-Cohen’s understanding that nothing is funnier than what we’re not supposed to laugh at–and, in the early 21st century, the pressure upon us not to laugh at the backwardness and stupidity of foreigners has been considerable. We are expected to take seriously people who want to execute cartoonists for drawing, and stone women for having sex–neither of which, as ideas, are dafter than the Kazakh custom, described by Borat, of compelling gay people to wear blue hats.

Nor should we cry too much for Kazakhstan (Moscow certainly doesn’t). As one poster on a website debating whether Borat is good or bad publicity for Kazakhstan stated: “Without Borat, Kazakhstan is just another obscure Central Asian republic.” Another pointed out, Borat is portrayed as “naïve, but he is not cruel or bad.” Others suggest, the Kazakhs could pull off a real coup if they were now to use the Borat character in a film to market “the real Kazakhstan.” Professor Sean Roberts notes that, according to GoogleTrends, Borat more than doubled Kazakhstan’s usual google hits during the lead up and height of the Borat film’s PR campaign.

All that remains then is the final plot device for Baron Cohen to kill off Borat, so that nobody is upset anymore. A modest proposal: How about a “Dallas”-like plot twister with “Who shot Borat?” Was it the Americans, the Kazakhs, the villagers of Glod?… Why it was the Baron Cohen himself

Author: Richard Andrew Hall
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Programmable Pressure Cooker

Part music video, part comedy, the story begins with a young JB (Jack Black) belting out the profane lyrics to “Kickapoo,” (a song written specifically for the movie) while his ultra-conservative family tries to eat dinner. After a lecture, a beating, and the removal of his prized rock star posters, ten-year-old JB leaves for Hollywood to pursue his dream of becoming a rock singer. After a circuitous route, he finally arrives years later at his destination and meets poser KG (Kyle Gass) playing his guitar for spare change on Venice Beach.

The two hook up to work on The Kyle Gass Project, what KG promises will be the best rock band on earth. In their quest for fame — which includes a big win at a talent show in a dive bar — they decide to steal a magical green guitar pick housed in the Rock and Roll History Museum. Along the way, they take lots of mind-altering drugs, watch television, indulge their fantasies, and solicit the help of star-struck Lee (JR Reed), a clingy pizza delivery man with a serviceable car, but no discernible backbone, and must fight off a mysterious stranger (Tim Robbins) who also has plans for The Pick of Destiny.

In addition to Robbins, other notable stars make brief appearances including Ben Stiller (who also served as an executive producer), singer Meat Loaf, and Fred Armisen and Amy Poehler, both of “Saturday Night Live.” The film is a New Line Cinema presentation of a Red Hour Films Production written by Black, Gass, and Liam Lynch, who also directed. Raunchy, irreverent, and relentlessly funny, “Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny” is destined to delight Jack Black fans in the theater and attract new devotees once the film hits DVD.

Copyright 2006 Leslie Halpern

Author: Leslie Halpern
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Programmable pressure cooker

From Justin to Kelly: How Miami outbid every other city in America for rites to this film is beyond me. Seriously, the bidding war for this must have been up there with bidding on the Olympics or the Super Bowl. A movie featuring American Idol’s first winner and runner-up, From Justin to Kelly was enough to make anyone go from nausea to vomiting. Yes, it was seriously that bad. I would provide a lengthy discussion of the plot, but there really wasn’t one. Suffice it to say that the story line involved little more than singing, and flapping of limbs to the same choreographed routine….though, in one scene, they did dance with towels. That, in a word, was magical.

There’s Something About Mary: One of the funniest movies to ever hit the screen, this film featured Cameron Diaz as Mary, a girl who men were willing to go to great lengths to impress. These great lengths included stalking, spying, impersonating and donning a fake British accent. Ben Stiller plays Ted, a clumsy but likeable man in love with Mary; a man who wants to impress her but comes across as a little less psychotic than the rest of the fellows. A definite sleeper hit, this movie had unforgettable scenes, with laugh out loud moments. It also made us look forever differently at hair gel.

Scarface: At one time during the 1980s, nearly every teenage boy had a poster of this movie on their bedroom wall. It is a tale about Tony Montana, played by Al Pacino, who comes to Florida as a Cuban refugee. After becoming a gangster, as a result of the 1980s cocaine boom, he rises to the top of Miami’s organized crime world, only to fall back down. Originally released to little enthusiasm, Scarface has since become a cult classic and one of the most recognized movies ever made; it has forever left movie fans considering it one of their little friends.

Bad Boyz: The movie that left us all wondering what “you gonna do when they come for you,” Bad Boyz features Martin Lawrence and Will Smith as two detectives on the Miami police force. After 120 million dollars in drugs are stolen, the two detectives are given the option of getting the drugs back or losing their jobs. They fight and squabble with each other, but their mutual love is also genuine, leading this duo to be compared to those of Lethal Weapon and Starsky and Hutch. Though this movie is far fetched – as police dramas often are – it is entertaining, fast-paced, and the action is hard to pass up. This movie led to a sequel, which was also shot in Miami.

Any Given Sunday: One of the more action-packed football films, Any Given Sunday includes a star-studded cast of both actors and professional athletes. With a portion of the movie filmed in Miami, the Orange Bowl Stadium was disguised as home turf for a fictitious football team, the Miami Sharks. Al Pacino plays an intense coach while Cameron Diaz plays an owner, and a not very nice one at that. The football movie greatly differs from heartwarming ones like Rudy or The Replacements. Instead, it shows the inner workings and politics involved with running a professional team.

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Filmed in a real life hospital (North Hollywood Medical Center), Scrubs follows the bungling day-to-day experiences of medical intern Dr. John “J.D.” Dorian (Zach Braff). Along with his college buddy Dr. Christopher Turk (Donald Faison), the two newcomers must learn the ropes of daily life in an actual hospital setting. But Sacred Heart, their new stomping ground, is the epitome of a dysfunctional work environment. One might easily believe that everyone’s job is to dump on J.D. In getting his feet wet, the young intern butts heads with numerous characters such as fellow intern and potential love interest Dr. Elliot Reid (Sarah Chalke), cranky Chief of Medicine Dr. Bob Kelso (Ken Jenkins), the ever-abrasive Dr. Perry Cox (John C. McGinley), pessimistic nurse Carla Espinosa (Judy Reyes), and a sarcastic janitor (Neil Flynn).

Scrubs is a character-driven show that’s exceptionally well-written, and the acting is superb. John C. McGinley is fantastic in the role of Dr. Cox, a performance almost as memorable as his portrayal of consultant Bob Slydell in Office Space. His delivery is almost as perfect as that of Ken Jenkins who often resembles Lloyd Bridges from Airplane with his uncanny ability to deliver ridiculous one-liners with a straight face. Veteran talents Sarah Chalke (Becky from Roseanne) and Donald Faison (Murray from Clueless) round out an excellent supporting cast for Zach Braff who makes his mark with this very likeable character. In the end, Scrubs is a situation comedy built on the strength of biting sarcasm and clever humor. And although it’s already enjoyed a successful five-year run, it’s probably one of the most underappreciated comedies on network TV. If you haven’t yet seen it, do yourself a favor and check it out. You won’t be disappointed.

Below is a list of episodes included on the Scrubs (Season 1) DVD:

Episode 1 (My First Day) Air Date: 10-02-2001

Episode 2 (My Mentor) Air Date: 10-04-2001

Episode 3 (My Best Friend’s Mistake) Air Date: 10-09-2001

Episode 4 (My Old Lady) Air Date: 10-16-2001

Episode 5 (My Two Dads) Air Date: 10-23-2001

Episode 6 (My Bad) Air Date: 10-30-2001

Episode 7 (My Super Ego) Air Date: 11-06-2001

Episode 8 (My Fifteen Minutes) Air Date: 11-15-2001

Episode 9 (My Day Off) Air Date: 11-20-2001

Episode 10 (My Nickname) Air Date: 11-27-2001

Episode 11 (My Own Personal Jesus) Air Date: 12-11-2001

Episode 12 (My Blind Date) Air Date: 01-08-2002

Episode 13 (My Balancing Act) Air Date: 01-15-2002

Episode 14 (My Drug Buddy) Air Date: 01-22-2002

Episode 15 (My Bed Banter and Beyond) Air Date: 02-05-2002

Episode 16 (My Heavy Meddle) Air Date: 02-26-2002

Episode 17 (My Student) Air Date: 03-05-2002

Episode 18 (My Tuscaloosa Heart) Air Date: 03-12-2002

Episode 19 (My Old Man) Air Date: 04-09-2002

Episode 20 (My Way or the Highway) Air Date: 04-16-2002

Episode 21 (My Sacrificial Clam) Air Date: 04-30-2002

Episode 22 (My Occurrence) Air Date: 05-07-2002

Episode 23 (My Hero) Air Date: 05-14-2002

Episode 24 (My Last Day) Air Date: 05-21-2002

Author: Britt Gillette
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There’s Something About Mary follows the life of 30-year-old writer Ted Stroehmann (Ben Stiller). While in therapy, Ted realizes he can’t go on with life until he finds out what happened to his old high school flame Mary Jensen (Cameron Diaz). Taking to the advice of his friend Dom Woganowski (Chris Elliott), Ted hires a private investigator to track her down. But the investigator, a shady guy named Pat Healy (Matt Dillon), lies to Ted and tells him Mary is a fat pig in wheelchair with several illegitimate children. Meanwhile, he packs his own bags to move down to Miami, where she really lives, so he can get close to the real Mary Jensen who is a sexy, intelligent, sports-loving doctor. But when Ted decides he still wants to see Mary, even though she may not be everything he remembers, the plot takes a sudden twist.

Ted soon discovers the truth about Pat Healy, and the truth about numerous admirers who all want to be with Mary. In fact, one such admirer has been stalking Mary for over a decade. Reunited with Mary and her disabled brother Warren (W. Earl Brown), the couple picks up where they left off. But the jealous Pat Healy and his fellow stalkers aren’t going to give up easily, and when Mary’s ex-fiance the Packman resurfaces, it looks like it might be the end for Mary and Ted…

This film is rich with some of the funniest scenes you’ll ever see in a movie. In one such scene, Ted picks up a hitchhiker on his way to Miami, and the hitchhiker turns out to be a serial killer. At first, the police think Ted is the killer, and the result is a hilarious exchange of dialogue that will have you rolling on the floor in laughter.

But when Mary starts seeing more of Ted and less of Healy, Healy teams up with Mary’s supposed architect friend, Tucker (Lee Evans), who’s really a pizza delivery boy who fell in love with Mary while delivering a pie one night. The two concoct a series of ploys to sabotage both Ted and each other in the quest to win over Mary. Matt Dillon turns in a brilliant performance as the loathsome private investigator, and his initial approach of Mary and pathetic attempts at sensitive dialogue by themselves make this movie a winner.

Overall, There’s Something About Mary is a witty and downright hilarious comedy that will leave you in a perpetual state of laughter. Ben Stiller is at his best in this one. If you loved Zoolander or Meet The Parents, you’ll fall in love with There’s Something About Mary…

Author: Britt Gillette
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The Curb Your Enthusiasm (Season 4) DVD features a number of hilarious episodes including the season premiere “Mel’s Offer” in which Larry goes to a karaoke bar where Mel Brooks is hanging out. When Larry sings, Mel is so thoroughly impressed that he asks Larry to star in his next Broadway musical production… Other notable episodes from Season 4 include “Ben’s Birthday Party” in which Larry gets into a fight with Ben Stiller when he refuses to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to him, and “Opening Night” in which Larry and the show travel to New York City for his opening night as the star of The Producers…

Below is a list of episodes included on the Curb Your Enthusiasm (Season 4) DVD:

Episode 31 (Mel’s Offer) Air Date: 01-04-2004

Episode 32 (Ben’s Birthday Party) Air Date: 01-11-2004

Episode 33 (The Blind Date) Air Date: 01-18-2004

Episode 34 (The Weatherman) Air Date: 01-25-2004

Episode 35 (The Five Wood) Air Date: 02-01-2004

Episode 36 (The Car Pool Lane) Air Date: 02-08-2004

Episode 37 (The Surrogate) Air Date: 02-22-2004

Episode 38 (Wandering Bear) Air Date: 02-29-2004

Episode 39 (The Survivor) Air Date: 03-07-2004

Episode 40 (Opening Night) Air Date: 03-14-2004

Author: Britt Gillette
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Ben Stiller plays the role of Reuben Feffer, an insurance man who avoids risk in every aspect of his life. Measuring everything from the probability of falling through a sidewalk grate to the odds of a piano falling on one’s head, he calculates every decision he makes. Following his wedding to Lisa Kramer (Debra Messing), Reuben is devastated when (avoiding the risk of scuba diving), he catches his new bride having an affair with a scuba instructor on their honeymoon. Forced to reevaluate his life, Reuben determines that he needs to take on more risk in his life.

With the help of his friend Sandy, Reuben gets out into the public arena once again, where he runs into former junior high school classmate Polly Prince (Jennifer Aniston). Polly is the exact opposite of Reuben in almost every way, and he decides to pursue her so as to have more fun in his life. Everything goes well until Lisa returns hoping to win Reuben back, and Polly discovers that Reuben ran a risk analysis on their relationship, determining that Polly was a good risk to take. Now Reuben must decide what to do with his life

Jennifer Aniston, in her role as Polly Prince, turns in another great performance as a leading character’s girlfriend (Office Space and Bruce Almighty). Playing a character whose attitude, demeanor, and life are the total opposite of Stiller’s, the two Hollywood mainstays are able to save an otherwise adequately written screenplay. Some of the more hilarious scenes involve Reuben’s has-been actor friend Sandy Lyle (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who continues to live off of his short-lived fame as “the kid with the bagpipes” in a 1980′s movie similar to The Breakfast Club. In one scene, Sandy also “sharts” (a fart that’s a little bit more than a fart), forcing Reuben to leave a party prematurely.

Overall, Along Came Polly is a fun and entertaining film that’s well worth the time spent. Although Ben Stiller and Jennifer Aniston have both made better films, it does have its high points. Movie-goers will find this to be a good, light-hearted romantic comedy with Jennifer Aniston and Ben Stiller stealing the show. Because of its headline talent and some good one-liners, Along Came Polly makes the cut as a highly recommended, must-see movie

Author: Britt Gillette
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Billy Crystal plays the role of Dr. Ben Sobel, an eminent psychiatrist unchallenged by his patients who is seeking to branch out into more difficult case work. But at the moment, his life is filled with wedding plans (for his impending marriage to a TV reporter), the eavesdropping of his adolescent son (Sobel sees patients in his home), and the reluctance of his parents to attend his own wedding. All of this confusion is further compounded when Ben rams into the back of a black sedan driven by a man named Jelly (Joe Viterelli). The trunk pops open and almost reveals a man inside. Ben gives his card to Jelly who later hands it to his boss Paul Vitti (Robert De Niro).

It turns out Vitti is a notorious mafia boss recently suffering from anxiety attacks, crying bouts, and impotence (screenplay most likely written prior to Viagra hitting the market). Vitti arranges a meeting with Ben, making it clear that he will be his newest patient. Believing Ben can work wonders and is a genius, Vitti forces him to be on call at all times – refusing to recognize his obligation to other patients or his impending wedding. With a meeting of the mafia bosses just two weeks away, Vitti fears that his problems will become known, and he believes Ben can cure him. Meanwhile, Ben’s problems are further complicated by the FBI’s insistence that he wear a wire Will Vitti discover the wire? Will he kill Ben? Will the mafia bosses kill them both? Analyze This is home to some funny scenes in which we find out all the answers.

The multi-talented Billy Crystal (who has starred in his share of cinema busts) makes one of the high marks of his career with Analyze This. The general chemistry between De Niro and Crystal when their two characters are in a session is onscreen magic. The two work well together, and hopefully they’ll appear as colleagues in future films. Analyze This is one of those movies you don’t expect to enjoy until you’re watching it. But some of the scenes in this film are unsurpassed in their hilarity. As a farce, Analyze This is a funny sequence of events, and that’s why the film ranks as a definite must-see

Author: Britt Gillette
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Stiller, son of comedian Jerry Stiller (Seinfeld & King Of Queens), is a comic genius in his own right and has recently dominated the Hollywood box office with a string of smash spoof comedies such as There’s Something About Mary (1998), Meet The Parents (2000), Zoolander (2001), Along Came Polly (2004), and Dodgeball (2004). De Niro, on the other hand, moves from the less serious roles of his early career into the comedy genre with an ease fully indicative of his enormous talent. Earlier comic roles in Wag The Dog (1997), Analyze This (1999), and Meet The Parents (2000) prepared movie-goers for the veteran actor’s zinging one-liners. Throw Dustin Hoffman (who’s also surprisingly funny) into the mix, and Meet The Fockers becomes one of those rare comedies that movie aficionados will want to see over and over again…

Meet The Fockers follows the continuing hardship of Gaylord “Greg” Focker (Ben Stiller), a male nurse whose future father-in-law, Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro), is a never-ending source of torment. A retired CIA operative, Jack is paranoid and controlling, and Greg’s previous attempts to win over Jack’s affections have always come up short. Now, Greg’s life problems are multiplied by the imminent first meeting between his in-laws-to-be and his “birth parents”.

Traveling by RV, Greg, his fiance Pam (Teri Polo) and the rest of Byrnes family arrive in Florida where Bernie (Dustin Hoffman) and Roz Fockers’ (Barbra Streisand) free-love, hippie lifestyle stands in stark contrast to Jack’s serious faade. Throughout the visit, Greg works overtime to avoid having Jack learn of his mother’s thriving sex therapy business, his own youthful indiscretion with the family maid, and his inability to supervise Jack Jr. for even a single afternoon. When Jack gets the idea that Greg fathered a child back in high school, he administers truth serum to Greg, sparking a series of events that is sure to make even the most ardent critic of ridiculous and juvenile movies (and this is one of them) burst forth in laughter…

Meet The Fockers is a rarity in that it’s a sequel to a fairly successful film that manages to live up to the reputation of the original. Although Meet The Parents is probably the better film, Meet The Fockers is a truly hilarious comedy in its own right. Directed by Jay Roach (director of the Austin Powers franchise), Meet The Fockers is a highly entertaining comedy, deploying all the tricks of the trade – slap-stick, bathroom humor, zinging one-liners, classic “fish-out-of-water” sequences, and situation humor. By no means is it a cinema classic worthy of artistic awards and praise from sophisticated critics. But it delivers on its promise. It promises to make you laugh, and it performs that task with relative ease…

Author: Britt Gillette
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