View Full Version : Borat! - Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
FinnFreak
11-09-2006, 7:00am
STT - 9.11.2006
Russia shelves the Borat movie
According to authorities the film will not be allowed to be shown in Russian
movie theaters, as it might offend some countries and religions
http://www.iltalehti.fi/leffat/borathyllytettiinHM_le.jpg
The Borat movie starring Sacha Baron Cohen has gained huge audiences during it's
opening weekend in the U.S. and Europe
Russia has shelved the Borat comedy about a TV reporter from Kazakhstan.
Borat was supposed to premiere at the end of November in Russia with 300 copies distributed in Russian theaters.
The movie is one of the very few non-pornographic movies being banned since the fall of the Soviet Union.
The Borat movie starring the British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen has gained huge audiences during it's opening weekend in the U.S. and Europe.
Borat!
Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)
http://us.movies1.yimg.com/movies.yahoo.com/images/hv/photo/movie_pix/twentieth_century_fox/borat/sacha_baron_cohen/borat_poster.jpg
Plot Outline: Kazakhstani TV talking head Borat (Cohen) is dispatched to the United States to report on the greatest country in the world. With a documentary crew in tow, Borat becomes more interested in locating and marrying Pamela Anderson.
Quotes:
Borat Sagdiyev: Jagshemash! My name Borat. I like you. I like sex. Is nice!
Borat Sagdiyev: [to American Audience] We support your war of terror.
Borat Sagdiyev: My country send me to United States to make movie-film. Please, come and see my film. If it not success, I will be execute.
Borat Sagdiyev: High five!
Official Borat Homesite (http://www.borat.tv/)
Official Website for Borat Sagdiyev - Kazakhstan's sixth most famous man
...anyone seen it yet..?
John - :p
I'll see it when it comes out on DVD.
I saw him on Jonathan Ross, some of the things he comes out with are mind blowing, I dread to think what he says in the film :p
From what I've read, I'm suprised it's being shown anywhere!
Blue_Firefly
11-09-2006, 4:49pm
I will be seeing this movie soon (hopefully)
This is definately a movie that I will not be seeing.
It sounds good, I like the pics:funny: I might be watchin' it soon when it's comin' up.
SevenUp!
11-10-2006, 10:37am
Sounds like it would be funny....but I probably won't see it in the theatre anyway.
Humiliated Frat Boys Sue 'Borat'
Nov 10, 8:24 AM EST
The Associated Press
SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- Two unsuspecting fraternity boys want to make lawsuit against "Borat" over their drunken appearance in the hit movie.
The legal action filed Thursday on their behalf claims they were duped into appearing in the spoof documentary "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," in which they made racist and sexist comments on camera.
The young men "engaged in behavior that they otherwise would not have engaged in," the lawsuit says.
"Borat" follows the adventures of comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's Kazakh journalist character in a blend of fiction and improvised comic encounters as he travels across the United States and mocks Americans.
The plaintiffs were not named in the lawsuit "to protect themselves from any additional and unnecessary embarrassment." They were identified in the movie as fraternity members from a South Carolina university, and appeared drunk as they made insulting comments about women and minorities to Cohen's character.
The lawsuit claims that in October 2005, a production crew took the students to a bar to drink and "loosen up" before participating in what they were told would be a documentary to be shown outside of the United States.
"They were induced to agree to participate and were told the name of the fraternity and the name of their school wouldn't be used," said the plaintiffs' attorney, Olivier Taillieu. "They were put into an RV and were made to believe they were picking up Borat the hitchhiker."
After a bout of heavy drinking, the plaintiffs signed a release form they were told "had something to do with reliability issues with being in the RV," Taillieu said.
The film "made plaintiffs the object of ridicule, humiliation, mental anguish and emotional and physical distress, loss of reputation, goodwill and standing in the community," the lawsuit said.
It names 20th Century Fox, a unit of News Corp., and three production companies as defendants.
Studio spokesman Gregg Brilliant said the lawsuit "has no merit."
The plaintiffs were seeking an injunction to stop the studio from displaying their image and likeness, along with unspecified monetary damages.
"Borat" debuted as the top movie last weekend with $26.5 million.
http://movies.msn.com/news/article.aspx?news=241264>1=7701&mpc=2
“Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” took in $29 million
Humiliation, job loss for ‘Borat’ victims
People who felt duped by comic file lawsuits, seek apologies
NEW YORK - While teaching American humor to a gregarious and absurdly out-of-touch foreign journalist, Pat Haggerty realized something was off — who WAS this guy?
Haggerty, a public speaking coach from Washington, D.C., is one of the unwitting co-stars of the surprise hit movie "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit of Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan." Haggerty has no hard feelings toward Borat, a.k.a. comedian Sacha Baron Cohen — but the same can't be said for others who were humiliated or even lost their jobs thanks to the awkward fellow with the bushy mustache.
Their embarrassment over the film's hilarious, cringe-inducing blend of fiction and improvised comedy is magnified by its success — "Borat" has topped the box office two weeks in a row, earning a total of $67.8 million.
Last year, Haggerty agreed to be filmed for what he thought was a benign documentary on his client's journey across America. He hurriedly signed a release form, was paid $400, and the lesson began.
As cameras rolled, his client told raunchy stories in garbled English and laughed heartily at the expense of handicapped people. "And then, I'm starting to smell a rat," Haggerty told The Associated Press. "Each passing minute I'm going, you know, this can't be real."
Confused, he ended up playing along. He later figured out — thanks to his son, an HBO-watching college student — that he'd been duped.
Duped by Borat.
"They were exercising a First Amendment right," said Haggerty, adding that he enjoyed the movie. "And this Sacha Cohen guy's going to make 87 gazillion dollars. You know, good for him. I'm just sorry that he had to do it in such a way that he allowed people to make jerks out of themselves exposing their character flaws."
Two of Cohen's targets — fraternity boys who made drunken, insulting comments about women and minorities — are suing 20th Century Fox and three production companies. The lawsuit claims that a production crew took the students to a bar to "loosen up" before participating in what they were told would be a documentary to be shown outside of the United States, and that they signed waivers after drinking heavily. Studio spokesman Gregg Brilliant said the lawsuit "has no merit."
Cohen's behavior also wasn't funny to Dharma Arthur, who claims she was fired as a morning show producer in Jackson, Miss., after being duped into giving Cohen air time. Cohen's live appearance, in which he said he had to go "urine" and hugged a bemused weatherman, led her life into a downward spiral, she told the AP. She is seeking an apology.
'Taken aback' by photos
Kathie Martin, who runs an etiquette school in Birmingham, Ala., was also left out of the joke. Even though she was gracious and calm when Borat showed her nude photos of his son, Martin admitted she was "taken aback" by his schtick during their on-camera meeting.
"Unless you can figure it out for yourself, you have no way of knowing you have been tricked into being part of a childish prank with an R rating attached," she told the AP via e-mail.
"And even if you figure it out, you've signed a release that Mr. Cohen's people say relinquishes any rights on your part to take action against them."
Ronald Miller, of Natchez, Miss., was baffled by the ruse. He and his wife attended a dinner at a plantation house, which they were told would be an interview with an "Eastern European television reporter coming to Natchez to film social customs in the South," he told the AP.
Borat disturbed guests, Miller said, by making anti-Semitic remarks and saying slavery was wonderful. He also invited a dinner guest — a woman posing as a prostitute — to join the group. The Natchez dinner was not included in movie.
Cohen's kerfuffle with Pamela Anderson, however, did make the cut. The "Baywatch" babe was attacked by his alter ego at a book signing, and he later chased her through a parking lot.
Did she learn of his antics in advance? Anderson's not telling.
"Unfortunately, Pamela is not doing any press interviews for ‘Borat,'" her spokeswoman, Tracy Nguyen, wrote in an e-mail.
"Regarding if it was a surprise or not, we'd like to leave it to the imagination. Pam loves Borat and Borat loves Pam."
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15698520/
Thanks for both articles.
I'll see it when it comes out on DVD.
I saw him on Jonathan Ross, some of the things he comes out with are mind blowing, I dread to think what he says in the film :p
From what I've read, I'm suprised it's being shown anywhere!
I have seen. It's good. I like!
Tip - don't take family or anyone easily offended to see it...it's insane. I've never seen a film where an entire cinema full of people can't breath from laughing. But it's very crude, rude, mad.
He's a genius. This is going to be the all time most succesful comedy movie. Seriously, the man is a genius, think of all the great comedians, they couldn't do this, its spontanious, all done completely in character, he's unbelievable.
FinnFreak
11-13-2006, 5:03pm
I'm thinking Andy Kaufman - in the 21st century, on steroids (or worse) and with a limitless financial backup. (oh yes - and an audience of millions and millions of idiots) :p
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borat
John - ;)
If you check you'll see Wikipedia has locked the site, as well as the Kazakhstan site. People were altering it to give it the "Borat" effect! :funny:
FinnFreak
11-14-2006, 8:50am
Man, those wikipedia pages are amusing...
John - :p
FinnFreak
11-14-2006, 8:50am
...at times.
John - :p
FinnFreak
11-16-2006, 7:36am
RollingStone - 11/15/06
Borat: Meet the Man Behind the Mustache
Ever wonder how Sacha Baron Cohen dupes his guests, what his grandmother thought of the movie, or which hilarious 80s hobby got his comedy-groove cooking? Get to know the real Borat — in a peek at our exclusive talk with the man behind the mustache, his only major talk out of character. Pick up a copy — on newsstands in New York and L.A. today and everywhere else by Friday. For now, tell us what you think. Is Borat the funniest movie of the year? Does Cohen rub you the wrong way? Or are you ready for the next Cohen movie?
>> PLUS: Don’t miss Sachamania! (http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/category/sachamania-all-things-borat/), five days of the funniest clips from Cohen’s video history:
Day Two (http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2006/11/14/day-two-borats-most-hilarious-visits-to-talk-shows/): Borat’s Most Outrageous Talk Show Stunts
Day One (http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2006/11/13/glorious-video-history-for-explain-man-called-sasha-baron-cohen/): The Five Funniest Ali G Clips of All Time
Sacha Baron Cohen - The Real Borat - Finally Speaks
In his only interview as himself, Sacha Baron Cohen talks about growing up
kosher in London, inventing a new kind of comedy with Ali G and conquering
Hollywood with Borat
http://i.realone.com/assets/rn/img/9/7/1/8/12478179-12478182-slarge.jpg
With wallaby and traditional bush hat, Sacha Baron Cohen
gets into character at the Australian premiere of "Borat"
in Sydney, November 13th.
By NEIL STRAUSS
This is an excerpt from the new issue of "Rolling Stone," on newsstands until November 30th.
Watch definitive clips (http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/category/sachamania-all-things-borat/) from Sacha Baron Cohen's video history.
PLUS: Read (http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/movie/9544561/review/12221746/borat_cultural_learnings_of_america_for_make_benef it_glorious_nation_of_kazakhstan) Peter Travers' review of Borat.
Two Escalades stop in the middle of Sixty-Fifth Street on the West Side of Manhattan. Out of the front SUV, a tall, awkward mustachioed man in an ill-fitting blue-gray suit emerges. In the past month, through a series of press stunts, interviews, news events and blanket advertising, this man has turned himself into a household name in America: Borat.
It is Halloween, the night of a thousand living Borats roaming our city streets in costumed adulation of the spurious Kazakh journalist, but this Borat is the real thing. A throng of movie publicists, photographers, collaborators and assistants close in around him as he heads toward the escalators that lead up to the Walter Reade Theater, where an advance screening of his American cinematic debut is about to start. He pauses at the foot of the escalator, turns to me and extends a hand. "Hi," he says, in a deep, genteel British accent that I've never heard emerge from this mustachioed visage, despite having watched every minute of available footage he has recorded. "I'm Sacha."
And with this one word -- "Sacha" -- he informs me that I am being let behind the Kazakh curtain, into the mind of the man behind the buffoon, into the very private world of England's most popular enigma, Sacha Baron Cohen.
Since reaching star status in Britain in 1998 with his other alter ego, the wangsta jester Ali G, Baron Cohen has never done an interview in his home country as himself and has never done an interview this extensive anywhere. Even when promoting his supporting role in the Will Ferrell Nascar parody, Talladega Nights, the Sacha Baron Cohen he presented to the press was still a character: typical of either a pretentious British thespian or a really stupid bystander who didn't understand any of their questions. A shorter, shaven-headed man chases after Borat. "Your hair," he mouths, as he reaches him and adjusts the tangle of black curls on his head. This man is Jason Alper, who has designed all of Baron Cohen's costumes and will later tonight accidentally steal his shoes.
After pausing for paparazzi in his usual pose -- ****-eating grin, elbows pressed against his sides and two thumbs up -- Borat heads into the theater and introduces Borat!: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.
"At first, Kazakh censors wouldn't let me release this movie because of anti-Semitism," he tells the assemblage. "But then they decided that there was just enough."
What follows is one of the greatest comedies of the last decade and perhaps even a whole new genre of film. It features just four actual actors (and a male porn star found to portray Borat's teenage son, Huey Lewis); the rest of the cast consists of real people Borat encounters while traveling across the country in pursuit of Pamela Anderson -- each one an unwitting actor propelling forward his Don Quixote-like quest (Anderson was in on the joke). If you've been anywhere near a television or newspaper in the last month, you know the story. Chances are you've already seen it. Maybe even twice.
After the screening, Borat returns to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel to shower and transform back into Sacha Baron Cohen: mild-mannered Londoner, fiance of actress Isla Fisher (Wedding Crashers), reluctant sometime resident of Los Angeles. I wait outside the restaurant Asiate for him to appear. I'd met Baron Cohen once before, three years ago, when he was recording his first series of Da Ali G Show for HBO, interviewing a panel of leading scientists as pseudo hip-hop youth talk-show host Ali G. ("Let's talk about when technology goes horribly wrong: Could there be another Nintendo 64?") At the time, our interview resulted in answers like this one: "When me came out me mum's poom poom bush, me immediately started crying in a junglistic riddim. Me first word was 'ho.' "
This interview promises to be different....
Today, without the funny mustache, Baron Cohen responds to the statements from the Kazakh government seriously for the first time.
"I've been in a bizarre situation, where a country has declared me as it's number-one enemy," he says, forcing a wry grin. "It's inherently a comic situation." He stops, then backpedals a little. "I mean, it's always risky when you don't go down the normal route." Pause. Maybe he's taking himself too seriously now. "I wish I would have been there at the briefing that Bush got about who I am, who Borat is. It would have had to be great."
When Baron Cohen first heard that the Kazakh government was thinking of suing him and placing a full-page ad promoting the country in The New York Times, he was editing his movie in Los Angeles. His reaction: "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."
In actuality, it turns out that Borat is a far more damning critique of America than it is of Kazakhstan. The jokes that Baron Cohen mentions above -- and all the rest about beating gypsies, throwing Jews down wells, exporting pubic hair and making monkey porn -- are clearly parody. But the America that Borat discovers on his cross-country trek here -- rife with homophobia, xenophobia, racism, classism and anti-Semitism -- is all too real.
"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," Baron Cohen says.
A waiter places a complimentary appetizer in front of Baron Cohen.
"What is this?" he asks.
"Ceviche," the waiter answers.
"No, what's in it?"
"Coconut, fish, yuzu, pomegranate."
Baron Cohen continues to grill the waiter: "What kind of fish?"
It soon becomes clear that he is not merely curious or vegetarian or allergic to peanuts. He keeps kosher and is making sure that there is no shellfish, pork or other forbidden food or food combination in the dish. A devout Jew, Baron Cohen also keeps the Sabbath when he can, which means that he doesn't work from Friday evening to Saturday evening.
Unsure of the waiter's trustworthiness, Baron Cohen pokes at the appetizer as he points out that his parents "love" the Jewish humor. And his maternal grandmother, who's ninety-one and lives in Haifa, Israel, went to a midnight screening, then called her grandson at 4 a.m. to compliment him and dissect the scenes in detail.
"Borat essentially works as a tool," Baron Cohen says. "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. 'Throw the Jew Down the Well' [a song performed at a country & western bar during Da Ali G Show] was a very controversial sketch, and some members of the Jewish community thought that it was actually going to encourage anti-Semitism. But to me it revealed something about that bar in Tucson. And the question is: Did it reveal that they were anti-Semitic? Perhaps. But maybe it just revealed that they were indifferent to 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."
Baron Cohen doesn't make this grand statement with confidence. He makes it shyly, as if he's speaking out of turn. It's interesting to watch Baron Cohen get bashful, because it is the exact opposite of the characters he portrays. These sincere boors aren't afraid to bring a bag of their own excrement to the table at an antebellum dinner party or ask David Beckham if he can feed on his wife Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham's breasts.
There is a certain sadism to Baron Cohen, who seems most comfortable when making others uncomfortable. To some degree, Borat and Ali G are safe refuges for him, masks he can hide behind. If everything that comes out of your mouth is parody, then you never have to be accountable for what you say -- because you didn't really mean it anyway. You only said it to lead your interview subjects to the thin line between patience and intolerance in order for their true personality to reveal itself.
In contrast, Baron Cohen himself has no defenses or alibis. One wonders if he could withstand the awkward situations to which he constantly exposes his alter egos.
"I think I'd find it hard to," he admits. "I think you can hide behind the characters and do things that you yourself find difficult."
There are two things Baron Cohen doesn't like talking about: his background and his creative process -- how he creates his characters, how he procures interviews with highly inaccessible figures like Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump, and how he gets them to take seriously his preposterous questions...
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/sacha_baron_cohen_the_real_borat_finally_speaks
John - :p
Etiquette-business owner fooled by ‘Borat’
Cindy Streit says she was told that filming was for Belarus documentary
LOS ANGELES - The owner of an etiquette business who was handed a plastic bag supposedly containing feces in the hit movie “Borat” says she was told the filming would be used for a documentary in Belarus.
Cindy Streit said she filed a complaint Thursday with California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, requesting an investigation into possible violations of the California Unfair Trade Practices Act.
Streit said that a representative from a Los Angeles-based company called Springland Films contacted her Birmingham, Ala.-based company, Etiquette Training Services, about arranging an etiquette session for an “international guest from Belarus Television.”
Attempts to find a contact for Springland were not successful. The company had no phone listing and Streit’s lawyers declined to provide copies of the contracts allegedly signed.
The attorney general’s office had not received a copy of the complaint, spokesman Nathan Barankin said late Thursday.
Streit said she arranged in Alabama both a sit-down session with Borat, played by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, and a dinner party with some of her friends. Clips of both appear in the movie “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit of Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.”
Though awkward at times, the dinner went well until Borat asked to use the bathroom, Streit said.
“I had taught him to excuse himself. He did that correctly and went upstairs,” Streit told The Associated Press. “The next thing that happened is that he came down the stairs holding this plastic bag with whatever was in it.”
“My horror was that he had brought a bag of feces to my dinner table,” she said.
Springland put in writing that the second of two scheduled sessions “will be filmed as part of a documentary for Belarus Television and for those purposes only,” said Gloria Allred, Streit’s lawyer.
Streit, 59, said she requested an investigation by the attorney general instead of filing a lawsuit in hopes of setting a precedent that will make movie studios think twice before using other ordinary citizens for “reality movies.” However, she said she wouldn’t rule out a lawsuit.
Streit’s demand follows complaints by others shown in the film, including a lawsuit filed by two fraternity members from a South Carolina university who appear in the film drunk.
© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15758101
canoilers
11-18-2006, 9:02pm
I don't get these law suits at all, I totally think they have no merit. I don't care if they thought it was to be shown outside of the States or not. I don't think it matters how drunk they were before they spouted off their mouths. If the movie was to be shown outside of the U.S. parts of it would've probably made it back anyways. Nobody held a gun to those guys heads and told them to drink. I hate it when people blame other people for their stupidity and then get away with it.
Lawsuit could delay release of ‘Borat’ on DVD
Men say they were tricked into making racist, sexist remarks in film
LOS ANGELES - A judge weighing whether to halt the DVD release of "Borat" viewed a scene from the hit film in which a group of South Carolina fraternity brothers converse with the raucous Kazakh journalist played by British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Joseph Biderman, after reviewing the scene Thursday, said he would review the case but did not indicate when he might issue a ruling.
Two fraternity members filed a lawsuit Nov. 9, alleging they were tricked into making racist and sexist remarks in the spoof documentary "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."
The men, who were not named in the lawsuit, alleged the film's producers took them to a bar and, after a bout of heavy drinking, they signed release forms agreeing to appear in what they were told would be a documentary shown outside the United States.
The lawsuit claimed the film brought them "ridicule, humiliation, mental anguish and emotional and physical distress, loss of reputation, goodwill and standing in the community."
Attorney Olivier Taillieu, who represents the fraternity brothers, said the DVD should not be released because "further dissemination of the film is going to cause some injury to my clients."
He said one of the plaintiffs was forced to resign from his prominent position at the University of South Carolina chapter of Chi Psi. Along with barring the DVD release, the plaintiffs were seeking unspecified monetary damages.
An attorney representing 20th Century Fox, a unit of News Corp., questioned the plaintiffs' claim they were too drunk to understand the release forms.
"We're confident that we're going to prevail," attorney Louis Petrich said following court. "We don't think the lawsuit has any merit. We don't even agree with them on the facts."
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16108684/
Judge refused to halt DVD release of ‘Borat’
Biderman also rules scenes with fraterity boys will remain in movie
LOS ANGELES - A judge rejected a request by two fraternity brothers to halt the DVD release of the hit spoof movie “Borat.”
West Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Joseph S. Biderman also refused to order the removal of a scene that includes the two men, who claim they had been duped into misbehaving on camera.
Biderman issued his two-page decision on Friday after hearing arguments the previous day.
The South Carolina fraternity brothers filed a lawsuit Nov. 9 claiming they were tricked into making racist and sexist remarks to British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen in “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.”
In one scene of the mockumentary, Cohen as rowdy Kazakh journalist Borat hangs out with the men in a motor home and watches the Pamela Anderson-Tommy Lee sex tape.
The fraternity brothers claim the filmmakers got them drunk before getting them to sign release forms agreeing to appear in the film. Their names do not appear in the lawsuit.
The film “made plaintiffs the objects of ridicule, humiliation, mental anguish, and emotional and physical distress,” the lawsuit claims.
A trial date for the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified monetary damages, has not been set.
Louis Petrich, an attorney for 20th Century Fox and One America Productions, said he was pleased about the judge’s decision.
Calls to the plaintiffs’ attorney, Olivier Taillieu, were not immediately returned.
© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16161616/
Sacha Baron Cohen to Be Sued, Again
Jan 30, 8:40 AM EST
The Associated Press
JERUSALEM -- Wa wa wee wa, is Borat in trouble again? Following lawsuits from Southern conservatives, frat boys, Romanian villagers and seemingly every other group in the "U.S. and A.," Sacha Baron Cohen could be facing even more legal difficulties over his wacky comedic creation, Borat Sagdiyev. This time his accuser is an Israeli comedian who claims that Borat's signature exclamation of excitement — "Wa wa wee wa" — belongs to him.
According to "Good Evening With Guy Pines," an Israeli entertainment news show, Dovale Glickman plans to sue the Golden Globe-award winning comedian for copyright infringement.
Baron Cohen capped his Golden Globe acceptance speech by thanking "every American who has not sued me so far."
But he didn't count on Glickman. The Israeli comedian coined the phrase 16 years ago, for a character on the hit Israeli comedy show "Zehu Zeh." Glickman further popularized the expression in a series of TV commercials for the Israeli yellow pages. It caught on and is still commonly heard on the street in Israel.
When asked by The Associated Press if he planned to press forward with a lawsuit, Glickman would neither confirm not deny the report.
"Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" was a huge hit in Israel, in large part because Israelis were the only ones to truly understand what the anti-Semitic, misogynist Kazakh journalist was actually saying. Few realize that in the movie Borat is not speaking Kazakh or even gibberish, but rather Hebrew.
http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=249584>1=7701
mistershow
02-07-2007, 5:55pm
The funny thing about this is that Cohen has been playing the Borat character for years on HBO. It is interesting to me that only now do people come out and start to sue him.
The funny thing about this is that Cohen has been playing the Borat character for years on HBO. It is interesting to me that only now do people come out and start to sue him.
Yep it is funny.
FinnFreak
02-08-2007, 9:14am
http://us.movies1.yimg.com/movies.yahoo.com/images/hv/photo/movie_pix/twentieth_century_fox/borat/sacha_baron_cohen/boratcannes2.jpg
I like..!
John - :p
ELEANOR MAW
02-08-2007, 9:21am
A very rude pic of Borat, thanks John. I don't think I would let my husband wear that on the beach.
goinUP
04-13-2007, 12:49am
Hehehehehe. This is weird, but my English project is on Borat....and, FWIW, we got to pick our own movies :D
So my homework this weekend is to watch Borat, lol!!! Gotta love this movie.
ELEANOR MAW
04-13-2007, 3:58am
The best thing about Borat is he is non pc and that's what makes him funny.
Report: Baron Cohen Retiring Borat, Ali G
Dec. 21, 2007, 1:18 PM EST
The Associated Press
NEW YORK -- Borat is dead.
Sacha Baron Cohen tells The Daily Telegraph that he's retiring the clueless Kazakh journalist, as well as his alter ego, aspiring rapper Ali G.
"When I was being Ali G and Borat I was in character sometimes 14 hours a day and I came to love them, so admitting I am never going to play them again is quite a sad thing," the 36-year-old actor-comedian says in the British newspaper's Friday edition.
"It is like saying goodbye to a loved one. It is hard, and the problem with success, although it's fantastic, is that every new person who sees the Borat movie is one less person I `get' with Borat again, so it's a kind of self-defeating form, really."
Baron Cohen brought Borat Sagdiyev — an anti-Semitic buffoon in search of Pamela Anderson — to the masses last year with his smash comedy, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan." He first introduced the character on "Da Ali G Show," which was carried in the U.S. on HBO.
"It's much easier for me to be in character and it's a lot more fun," he says. "If I'd done the entire promotional campaign for (the `Borat' movie) as myself it wouldn't have developed in the same way."
Baron Cohen — not Borat — can be seen as a singing barber in Tim Burton's "Sweeney Todd," co-starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.
His spokesman, Matt Labov, did not immediately return phone and e-mail messages by The Associated Press seeking comment on the "deaths" of Borat and Ali G.
http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=289754>1=7701
Bwhahahah! Just thinking of Borat makes me laugh! :funny:
Ahh well you haven't seen Bruno yet - the gay Austrian fashion reporter...almost as hilarious as Ali G and Borat, I think that will be the next character he'll do.
Glorious NYC lawsuit ruling for 'Borat' filmmakers
Sept. 9, 2008, 7:09 PM EST
NEW YORK (AP) -- A New York judge has tossed out lawsuits brought by a driving instructor and two etiquette school teachers who said the makers of the movie "Borat" deceived them.
Judge Loretta Preska says all three accepted money and signed agreements releasing the filmmakers from liability. She noted in a Sept. 3 ruling the agreements said the plaintiffs consented to appear in a "documentary-style" movie.
In the 2006 film "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen plays an uncouth and anti-Semitic journalist traveling the United States in pursuit of Pamela Anderson. Cohen often fools people with his gag interviews.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs haven't returned phone messages seeking comment.
Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx/?news=330057>1=28102
Who wants to bet that some England fans will go dressed as Borat to Saturdays game agaibst Kazakhstan? :biglaugh: Im looking forward to the anthems. :p
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