What did you think of The Departed?

Comedies rarely have the visual impact to make them "must see" for me on a big screen.

Borat great success!

I saw it yesterday. I haven't laughed that much in a cinema in quite a while.

I can't decide if Sacha Baron-Cohen is fearless or a masochist.

I liked it a lot. Though I think the Borat skits on the Ali G show were funnier.

This one is probably my favorite. Great success!

WE just saw it. Fantastic. I had been a little wary, doubtful that a series of skits strung together could make a good feature-length movie -- but this turns out to be a much more meaningful movie than I'd have guessed.

It wasn't just stupid humor - it was really skilled political satire. I didn't quite appreciate it as such until I saw this movie, and I've had to think about it a little to get why his strategy works. I think it's this: We've all noticed that people who have racist or sexist or religious biases feel a lot more comfortable talking about their views when they think you're in agreement, or at least that in you they have an audience that will not object. By immediately establishing his bigoted nature, Borat can take the farthest, most extreme position, which allows everyone else to give air to their views about Jews, women, blacks, and whatever else. The painful part, the part that give his interactions with real people such sting, is that he doesn't mean it, but they do.

I also enjoyed the deleted scenes, and this one from another site was really perverse and chilling. The commentary on that one is good, too.

Did y'all see this Borat-related AskMe question?

Very interesting thread, mullacc, as is this linked article. I had heard years ago that the production techniques used in getting the interviews for the Ali G. show were a well-kept secret; it's cool to know a bit more about what they are.

And as far as I'm concerned, as soon as you take somebody's $150 and agree to be on their TV show without knowing what you're going to be asked to do, you have earned whatever happens to you next.

The man is a menace and the movie is so inappropriate it beggars belief, so of course I loved it.

Oh man, this is the smartest satire I've seen in awhile, I mean when it's not being disgusting and gratuitous (and still funny.)

Meeks and I saw it last night and I'm still letting it filter through my head and appreciating the levels of it.

We were talking this morning about the shifts in comedy, and how my favorite new comics, people like Eddie Izzard, Sara Silverman and now Sasha Baron-Cohen are making the old guard look REALLY old (meaning Robin Williams, Billy Crystal, etc.). Makes you wonder what will come down the pike that will make Borat seem dated and dowdy.

So here's the issue that keeps coming back to me about the style of comedy that we see from the Borats and Jackasses of the world:

I realize that the majority of us are laughing AT the racist, misogynist, generally assholish behavior, but clearly some people are not. They are thinking (privately or not) that the rednecks and frat boys are RIGHT and it is Borat that is the idiot. In addition, by associating those types of views with laughter and comedy instead of rational argument and disdain, are we somehow making them more palatable? I always thought the same way (in the other direction) about Will & Grace and other gay-friendly sitcoms -- they may be stereotypical, but if they can make more Middle Americans associate gays with fun and humor, maybe they will be less likely to hate them in the future (especially kids).

Anyway, I still think SBC is funny as shit, it's just something to think about.

There were scenes in Borat that were only funny in the most marginal of ways, i.e. the Rodeo Guy talking about imprisoning gays and the Frat Boys advocating slavery. That didn't make anything more palatable for me - it was bone-chilling and only funny becauze Borat himself was funnier. They were real people.

Well, I don't mean in any perceptible or immediate way, but just in the way a trickle of water can wash out a foundation. If we laugh at intolerance again and again, perhaps there comes a point when it does seem as ludicrous anymore.

Er, DoesN'T seem as ludicrous anymore.

Personally, I think ridicule is the only way to kill intolerance. People have far less tolerance for humiliation and rejection than they do for opposition.

Borat works on many levels. Check out that "Box Office Manifesto" link I posted above.