Is Very Niiiiiice

[thehefner]

BORAT was utterly brilliant. There's really not much that I can or would want to add to that. It's the sort of thing that can only really be discussed with folks who've already seen it. My brother is cynical enough to think that intelligence and layers of this movie will be lost on the majority of people seeing this, but I am certainly more hopeful than that. I really hope this film provokes some discussion. One critic put it well by saying that CRASH and Michael Moore don't have shit on this.

Between this and JACKASS NUMBER TWO a month ago, this was one of the greatest cinematic one-two punches I've ever experienced. It bugs me that I know some people who loved BORAT but who claim to hate JACKASS, even though they've never seen it. Hey, lord knows that JACKASS ain't for everybody, oh hell no, no argument there. But I swear to god, people, it has to be seen to make a real judgment.

JACKASS and BORAT are similar in a great many ways, two sides of the same coin in some respects. What seperates them is that BORAT actually has a plot (!) and brilliant character work, while JACKASS, at its best, is... I dunno... like pure, pared down, bare-bones Dadaist performance art, or something that hits at the very gut of what's funny, whether we want to laugh or not.

No amount of cold description can do justice to BORAT and JACKASS. They need to be seen to be believed and understood, so says I.



I also finally saw Herzog's GRIZZLY MAN. Amazing film, due as much to the excellent, understated use of music and Herzog himself as the titular Mr. Treadwell. Funny thing was, he was totally nuts... but not in the way that many people thought he was. Fascinating man, fascinating movie.

I think I adore Werner Herzog more with each movie of his that I see. Along with Garrison Keillor, there is something so moving, calming, even zen about just listening to him. His use of English is poetically remarkable. And, let's not forget, he's a veritable diety. It's funny how he reactes to Treadwell, especially when Herzog mentions "I have seen this madness on a film set before," and Mom, Edd, and I (who were watching it with me), all went, "Ohhhhhhh, I bet you have." I can only speculate how much of Klaus Kinski Herzog is seeing in Treadwell.

Comments

[tompurdue.livejournal.com]

Is Sacha Baron Cohen getting people to look like idiots on film significantly different from watching Steven Colbert getting people to look like idiots on film?

We all do stupid things. I really hope that the next stupid thing I do isn't in front of Steven Colbert. And so I don't particularly find it funny when he does it to other people. Yes, they're hanging themselves with their own stupidity, and somehow when he does it I don't even get a good shadenfreude out of it.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Y'know, it's odd, but as I think about it, I don't think one can really compare one to the other. I mean, the trick with Colbert is that he's can get away with doing or saying much becuase he's the one who comes off as the bigger idiot, which is the joke.

But Cohen... well, sure, he does that in the movie, and yet... he doesn't. That's the thing, much of the people to whom he does these things aren't bigoted or made to look stupid at all. Many of them are normal, well-meaning people, and the joke is how they, members of polite society, would react to the things that Borat is saying and doing. He's not exploiting their stupidity as much as playing on... how can I put this? I'm having trouble finding the words. American political correctness? Cultural differences? Shit, I have the idea in my head but can't quite put it into words.

I really don't think Borat or even Colbert's appeal, for me anyway, lies in shadenfreude, and I'm frankly amazed to hear you say that. Maybe that's the aspects you pay attention to, whereas I am far more interested in the sheer performance aspects of them both.

Seriously, I really think you should see BORAT. I can't help but wonder (with some degree of genuine surprise) if you might have the wrong idea about this film. If nothing else, if nothing else, the twin aspects of performance and craft in this film are rather dazzling.

Yeah, I think it's not about shadenfreude at all. If it were, I wouldn't have cared for it at all. I get no pleasure in the misfortune of others, generally speaking.

I'm really having a hard time coming up with the words here, which is all the more reason I want you to see this movie.

[tompurdue.livejournal.com]

I will see the movie, but it may wait for DVD. I'm horribly busy, but if the opportunity should arise, I'll try to use it. But I'm seeing Flushed Away first.

I know you don't consider your description really accurate, but I'm going to pick away at one concept anyway. Making fun of American political correctness seems kinda like...well, shooting fish in a barrel. Every society has things it considers polite, and other people tend to assume that you're polite. If you're shouting, people assume that you need help, and if you're doing it for some other reason, the people will look foolish for a bit. It's not polite in this society to insult one's host, and most people will assume you mean something different if you do insult them. And if you really are insulting them, they'll look foolish until they figure it out.

If one wants to pick apart the characteristics of politeness, it's an interesting pursuit. But to make fun of people for doing so is just mean.

I'm not saying that's what goes on in this film. I assumed it was something like that because a lot of people consider that kind of meanness pretty funny. It drives Steven Colbert's interviews (but not his stand-up); fictionally it also drives a lot of stuff like Pauly Shore. But it's not my thing.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

One critic remarked (and I'm paraphrasing here) that Borat's stuff isn't the humor of meanness, but rather the humor of discomfort, which is a particularly British sense of humor. That's how I saw the film, because any outright meanness against innocent people really, really isn't my thing. Maybe Borat and Colbert both are really like that and I've just missed those elements, because I really don't like watching people be humiliated. I mean, I really don't like it.

Y'know, thinking about Colbert, perhaps that's the reason why I don't watch his interviews with representatives. His regular interviewees are often shown totally in on the joke (he warns them beforehand, "Look, just understand, I'm going to be a jerk out there, that's my character") and I can only assume that most anyone else he interviews as well these days know him too. But the interviews with the representatives are edited to heighten the sense of discomfort in the humor, and those I don't watch. I love Colbert for his solo character stuff in the first half of the show.

And yeah, I will admit there were definite moments in BORAT that I had to sink into my chair, put my fingers in my ears, and wait till it was over, just because I don't like scenes of that much discomfort. But those scenes were (surprisingly!) few and far between. Well, maybe not that far between, and maybe not that few depending on your discomfort threshold (I speak as one very, very sensitive to it... hell, I'm sinking down in my seat and sticking my fingers in my frickin' ears!).

And yet, for all that, I absolutely adored the movie. Mainly because scenes like that didn't make up the whole movie (as I feared they might), nor were they even really the heart of the movie. And for all the reasons I just can't put into words right now, I really do hope you see it eventually and soonish.

(also, Pauly Shore? Ouch, man. The intelligence that drives both Colbert and Borat alone makes that a low blow)

But yeah, definitely see FLUSHED AWAY. I really look forward to your thoughts. When I feel up for it, you'll see my glowing review on LJ tonight or tomorrow.

[tompurdue.livejournal.com]

You're right that the British seem to go for that sort of thing. One sees it in The Office and Fawlty Towers, both shows that a lot of people find brilliant but which I just don't go for.

I don't know why I should be any different from the British. I can't claim to be any more likely to see myself there; in fact I'm sure the reason they like it so much is that they get a visceral rush off the discomfort.

It's a bit like a horror film. Horror film viewers are no less sensitive to depictions of pain than I am, and quite possibly more so. They distinguish very well between what they seen on the screen, and have no interest in seeing such things in real life.

Perhaps I'm the one with a lousy grasp of the distinction between fiction and reality.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Now that is fascinating; I am amazed to hear you don't care for either The Office or (especially!) Fawlty Towers. At this point, heck, now I'm not even sure what to recommend anymore! Perhaps you very well won't care for BORAT after all, mean-spirited humor or no. And yet, it's so blasted different that I just really would love to hear what you would make of it.

[tompurdue.livejournal.com]

In the case of The Office, I only watched a few episodes of the British version. It may well be one of those things that I'd learn to like.

As for Fawlty Towers, I'll admit that I've only caught bits of it, and never a whole episode at a time.

I will probably see Borat at some point, just because it is different and maybe that's good.

I will not, however, be likely to forgive them for using the letter "de" for "a" in the logo. Yeah, they're not the only ones to misuse Cyrillic (I found that Wikipedia has a whole article on that, and I can't look at a "Toys Я Us" sign without thinking of it as "Toys Ya Us") and it's not necessarily Cohen's idea. So I forgive him, but I owe the marketing department a punch in the teeth.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Maybe you'd prefer the American version? I've seen both and rather enjoy 'em.

But I think Fawlty is bloody brilliant, and I really think you should check out a couple whole episodes. There were only, what, twelve or something. The best ones that come to mind are "The Germans," "The Kipper and the Corpse," and "Waldorf Salad," the latter one we came this close to putting on as a one-act-play in high school. I would have been the Cleese role. Still bitter about that.

Heh heh heh, now, I can understand your anger towards the marketing department responsible for Borat, but I always thought the Toys Я us thing was just meant to convey, like, innocent child-like spelling, like a backwards E on lemonade stands. Which you probably know, but still, that it should bug you this much amuses me.

[tompurdue.livejournal.com]

I don't blame the Toys Я Us people; that doesn't actually piss me off, because it's not trying to be fake Russian. It just causes a vaguely amusing cognitive dissonance.

But the TETЯIS people (what... "tet-ya-is"?) people who piss me off.