Borat: First 4 minutes of movie online

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6071486.stm

How Borat hoaxed America
By Ian Youngs
Entertainment reporter, BBC News

Spoof Kazakh reporter Borat - aka Ali G comedian Sacha Baron Cohen - is expected to score a box office hit by offending and humiliating real Americans in a new movie.

When a gangly foreign reporter with broken English, bushy moustache and crumpled suit turned up at artist Linda Stein's New York studio, she thought she was helping spread the word about women's rights.

Ms Stein, with two other members of Veteran Feminists of America, agreed to be filmed for what they thought was a documentary to help third world women.

But then the reporter started talking about his wife's farm work ("she pulls the plough"), women walking three steps behind men ("it used to be 10 steps, my country is advancing") and asking how to contact Pamela Anderson.

"I thought I was talking to an uneducated man, maybe from a tribal community," Ms Stein says. "I mean, that's how it seemed to me.

"In our earnestness, we were trying to help women around the world."

Shocking and provocative

Ms Stein is not alone in being duped by Baron Cohen.

The British comedian has perfected his act as the apparently naive reporter whose enthusiastic offensiveness either leaves his interviewees in shock or persuades them to reveal a little too much of their own prejudices.

And the result is set to be one of the year's most popular films.

I'm a New Yorker, all sorts of things happen in New York - I'm not angry
Linda Stein


Artist
Most of Borat's victims were ensnared in a similar way. They would be contacted by a woman calling herself Chelsea Barnard from a fictional film company, One America Productions.

They would be told about the foreign correspondent making a film about life in the US, with the pitch tailored to each person's specialist subject.

Then on the day of the interview, they would be presented with a release form at the last minute, be paid in cash and, finally, Borat would amble in, beginning with some serious subjects before starting his provocative routine.

"We're all primed to do an academic dissertation, we did our homework," says yoga teacher Grace Welch, another member of the three-strong feminist panel.

"And as we're talking, out of the blue, he says: 'Do you know Baywatch?'

"I knew something was going on but I didn't know what it was. I'm looking at the cameramen and everyone was stony-faced. And then he would come out with outrageous things."

Ms Stein first tried to throw Borat out when he started talking about women having smaller brains than men.

The producer persuaded her to carry on, apologetically explaining that Borat did not realise he was saying anything wrong.

But the final straw came when Borat asked the women to lift up their shirts at the end of the interview.

'Mixed feelings'

"I've seen the film and parts of it were hilarious," Ms Stein says. "As an interviewee, I have had a lot of mixed feelings about it.

"I thought about it, I worried about it, and then felt I have to get back to my work. I just have to move on. I'm a New Yorker, all sorts of things happen in New York. I'm not angry."

But the artist, whose sculptures represent "empowerment and strength", wants to ask Baron Cohen why his art "zooms in on human weaknesses and foibles".

She has invited him to her exhibition, which begins on 2 November - the day before the film is released. "He owes me one and he should buy a sculpture."

Washington DC public speaking coach Pat Haggerty also appears - and is seen trying to teach humour to Borat, who talks about having sex with his mother-in-law and keeping his "r****d" brother in a cage.

"About halfway through the session we took a break and I went up to one of the producers and said: 'This guy can't be real.

"'If you let me in on the gag, I will help you reach your goals because I don't care if you're from Kazakhstan, nobody is this crazy.'

"But I soldiered on and figured they paid me my money and they deserve an hour of my time and I'm going to be as professional as I can."

To the best of my memory I don't believe I said anything stupid - however, I'm in the movie
Pat Haggerty
Public speaking coach

Mr Haggerty says he is having "a lot of fun" with his new-found fame and hopes it raises his professional profile.

He has not yet seen the film - but hopes he did not say anything he will regret.

"To the best of my memory I don't believe I said anything stupid. However, I'm in the movie. The only downside I see is if I appear to be a fool."

One person who is likely to regret the day he met Borat is Tennessee rodeo manager Bobby Rowe, who is cajoled by the comedian into making disparaging remarks about Muslims and homosexuals.

Movie 'mess'

A phone call to Mr Rowe and an enquiry about whether he is the person in the movie elicits a slow, painful reply: "Yeah, I'm the same one."

But he says he has been stung by his experiences. "I got into this mess by someone calling me and telling me who they was and they weren't," he says.

"And so I don't do any interviews over the dadgum phone any more. This phone rings 10-12 times a day.

"That's what got me into this mess and I don't want to get in any deeper."

 

Borat on the red carpet at movie premiere.

http://us.video.aol.com/video.full..../video.index.adp?mode=1&pmmsid=1749341&mode=1

 

There's no way this movie can possibly live up to the hype and praise it's receiving. Everytime I get pumped up for a movie it's ends up sucking.



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/li...73&ico=Homepage&icl=TabModule&icc=picbox&ct=5

Laughter by the cartload as Borat and his babes ride in

Last updated at 09:35am on 26th October 2006



Borat arrives for the UK premiere of his controversial film

There were peasants, prostitutes, several barrels of fermented horse urine and possibly the most politically-incorrect speech Britain has ever heard.

Borat, Kazakhstan's famous TV reporter, was in town.

He arrived on a wooden cart drawn by a mule, surrounded by a gaggle of cheap-looking Kazakh ladies of the night.

And he brought laughter - although much more bafflement - to London's Leicester Square.

Unsuspecting office workers paused on their way home last night to watch as Borat attended the premier of his film, Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

Borat, for the uninitiated, is the latest character of Ali G comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.

His persona as a Kazakh TV reporter - depicting his homeland as a nation of misogynists, racists and anti-Semites - has infuriated the country's President.

Last night, it was easy to see why. Baron Cohen hopped off his mule cart and declared: "Good evening gentlemen and prostitutes."

Wearing a bright yellow jacket and jeans, and oversized sunglasses, he grabbed a microphone and invited the crowds to join him after the screening at his hotel in King's Cross, where "We will all drink, wrestle with no clothes on and shoot dogs from the window."

Puzzled onlookers, standing in heavy rain, could be heard asking who on earth was speaking.

Lampooning Kazakhstan, Borat spoke warmly of the progress his home nation had made towards the modern world.

Such strides, he declared, as "women now permitted to travel on inside of bus" and "homosexuals no longer have to wear blue hats."

Flanked by two fearsome-looking guards with bayonets, Borat said he would love to meet the Queen, though he stressed: "Not for sexy time."

He also said he was hoping to meet Madonna after reading about her adoption of 13 month old Malawian boy David Banda.

"I have brought here with me my 11-year-old son, his wife and their new-born baby, who I am hoping to sell to singing transvestite Madonna," he said.

And his verdict on English women? "Very nice, but I cannot say for sure because I have not had time to buy any," he remarked, adding: "Here the women have more hair on their heads than our women do on their backs but English women not look strong enough to pull a plough."

As celebrities such as Peaches Geldof, Trinny Woodall and Desperate Housewives star Jesse Metcalfe hurried into the cinema, Borat announced: "Now we will sing Kazakhstan national anthem. All who do not join in will be reported."

And off he went, booming out the song in English - well, there was some English in it - and it was possible to discern something about his nation's prostitutes.

As Borat sang a verse that went something like "Kazakhstan's filtration system a marvel to behold," the crowds were divided into those attempting to sing along with the joke, and those left utterly baffled by what was happening.

One onlooker, Tomsk Alojzy, 23, from Poland, said: "Is this supposed to be Eastern European or English humour? I really don't understand it."

Perhaps Borat still has much to learn from Hollywood stars such as Tom Cruise, famed for spending literally hours chatting to his fans.

High-fives and screeched greetings were the only reward Borat's sodden fans received from Baron Cohen.

Borat has dismayed the Government of Kazakhstan with his claims that the country's national pastimes are "disco dancing, archery, rape and table tennis."

The Central Asian state cannot work out how to respond. Its enraged president has threatened to sue Baron Cohen and has hired two Western PR companies to denounce Borat's jokes.

But other ministers have said many people are in danger of taking the character too seriously.

Tonight, the Kazakh government attempted to give Baron Cohen a taste of his own medicine by sending a real-life Kazakh TV star, Jantik Baimukhamedov, along to report on the premier.

But he succeeded only in confirming the inept stereotype by arriving late and being refused entry.

Maybe London got off lightly. In Toronto, at the film's world premier last month, Baron Cohen arrived in an oxcart pulled by six women ferrying a donkey in the back.

 

Bruno next.



link

By Borys Kit

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Universal Pictures has won the intense bidding war for "Bruno," Sacha Baron Cohen's follow-up movie to "Borat."

Sources said that Universal is paying $42.5 million for the worldwide rights to the film. The price includes the production budget of the film, rumored to be in the $20 million-$25 million range. Also included is a significant profit-participation component for the film's participants, believed to be the 15% range.

The price has raised eyebrows in Hollywood because Baron Cohen's much-hyped "Borat" does not open until November 3. Despite much advance praise for "Borat," distributor Fox scaled back its Friday opening to about 800 theaters because it is concerned that the movie wasn't registering high enough in audience-awareness tracking.

With "Bruno," Baron Cohen is calling upon another of his comic alter egos, Bruno, a gay fashionista from Austria who fancies himself as "the voice of Austrian youth TV" and who sashayed from New York Fashion Week to Miami nightclubs in his previous appearance on HBO's "Da Ali G Show,"on which Baron Cohen also first introduced Borat to American audiences.

As in the case of "Borat," Jay Roach would produce with Baron Cohen. No director is on board, though it has been reported that Baron Cohen wants to shoot the movie during the summer.