Cinemascope

Another interesting article, this one about the award given by the Israel Film Festival. 'Borat' Star to Receive Israel Award It will be the festival's first outstanding achievement award given Zap2It.com Sacha Baron Cohen didn't win his Oscar, but his comic genius won't go unrecognized. The 35-year-old actor will be the first to receive the Israel Film Festival award for outstanding achievement on Tuesday, March 6, reports Variety. "This was his year and we couldn't have chosen a better person to recognize," said exec director Meir Fenigstein. Baron Cohen, known for "Da Ali G Show," made a sensation this past year even before "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" was released. His antics as a fake reporter shocked and delighted many while providing fodder for lawsuits for others. He received a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination for the screenplay. The honor will take place at the fest's opening night award dinner at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Also honored that night will be Sony Pictures Entertainment Co-Chair Amy Pascal and Israeli actress Gila Almagor. The dinner is open to the public for $350 per ticket. Baron Cohen was also the voice of the head lemur in "Madagascar" and stole scenes in Will Ferrell's comedy "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby." The actor next joins Tim Burton's musical remake of "Sweeney Todd" as Signor Adolfo Pirelli.

Whatever animosities the three of you have with each other doesn't make it right for you to hijack a thread. Please do not accuse someone of "hijacking" when one has been the target of badgering by other people with personal vendettas. My sole interest and the only reason I became interested in this thread is because I admire Brando very much and I'm looking forward to the documentary.

Sorry you forgot your reminder! I'll tell you all I think of it as soon as I watch it (maybe later today or tomorrow).

Oh yeah, good point. Well, now the DVD is out so they have no excuse!

Oh, she was, but she had a small part -- the movie's stars of course were Bette Davis and Anne Baxter. She would get bigger parts starting around Clash by Night in which she co-starred with Barbara Stanwyck.

Huh? Sorry who pirated Borat? :0

I think it's included in the upcoming DVD box set.

I'll keep an eye out, but I think that for a lot of titles a rental now would probably be enough to wait out the eventual HD release, even if it's 5 or 8 years down the road.

Are those all from the same studio?

Oh that sounds like quite the collection! Too bad Bhowani Junction is not yet on DVD.

Just because she played a dumb blonde doesn't mean she was one.

Have been looking forward to this movie, it's showing now on FMC. Humphrey Bogart and Gene Tierney are very appealing leads!

A funny dispatch from London.... Kazakhstan, 'Borat' view of country differ LONDON, March 2 (UPI) -- The real Kazakhstan and the country portrayed in Sacha Baron Cohen's send-up "Borat" are nothing alike, the country's citizens told a British reporter. The movie, a box-office smash and Golden Globe winner, was banned in Kazakhstan movie houses and prompted the country to launch a global marketing campaign to show just how much the former Soviet state has to offer, said a Sky News correspondent who visited the country. Baron Cohen's movie, fully titled "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," follows the politically incorrect journalist as he learns about America for viewers "back home." A student said he was so furious that he couldn't watch the pirated DVD he snagged. "I tried to watch this movie fully, but after only 15 minutes I couldn't because there was so many wrong and bad things that were shown in this and I was offended," he said. Visitors to Kazakhstan will certainly find a different country than the one portrayed in the film, tour guide Rima Junusova said. "I would like everybody to come here to see the reality," she said.

I've been in love with the movies since my earliest memories, but that love didn't fully bloom until I had the opportunity to start learning about film from an academical perspective in college, and took every opportunity to attend special screenings, festivals, and to track down rare videos for movies that were very difficult to find. I can't think of anything more stimulating for a film buff who has a particular fondness for classic American cinema than watching TCM on a regular basis. I like foreign-language films too, and watch many recent releases. But the bulk of what I like is the kind of stuff that shows up on TCM. :x

I also enjoyed reading this other review: "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" and "Peter Pan" are among this week's release. ?Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan? One of the most crude, crass yet beloved overseas observers of the glorious nation of U.S. and A. blusters his way into your homes. Reprising one of the alter egos he created on ?Da Ali G Show,? British comic Sacha Baron Cohen delivered a $100 million hit with this uproarious assemblage of sketches, documentary-style encounters and moments of cultural ridicule. Cohen plays the clueless, buffoonish Borat, a Kazakh TV journalist traveling across the United States to report back on the nation and its people to his homeland ? and hopefully, to wed Pamela Anderson in the process. The DVD includes five deleted scenes plus a montage of deleted footage, along with coverage of the publicity tour Cohen did last year, always maintaining the Borat persona. DVD, $29.98. (20th Century Fox) ??? ?Peter Pan? Another of the most cherished cartoon features ever is re-released from the Walt Disney vaults in a two-disc set with a digitally restored version of the 1953 classic. The adaptation of J.M. Barrie?s tale follows the adventures of three children, Wendy, John and Michael Darling, who are whisked to a magical land of pirates, fairies and Peter Pan, the boy who can fly and refuses to grow up. Among the highlights of the DVD extras is a segment about alternate approaches Disney considered for the film but abandoned, including a different opening that would have started the story in the fantasy world of Never Land, instead of the Darlings? London home. The set includes a couple of deleted songs, games and storybooks, a making-of featurette and an essay from Walt Disney himself on why he made the film. Walt?s nephew, Roy Disney, is host for audio commentary that includes Disney animators, critics such as Leonard Maltin, and Kathryn Beaumont, who provided the voice of Wendy. The set also has a preview of the upcoming straight-to-video release ?Tinker Bell,? centered on the tiny flying pixie who is best pals with Peter. DVD set, $29.99. (Disney) ??? ?Literary Classics Collection? Three decades of films adapted from classic literature debut on DVD. The five-disc set includes Vincente Minnelli?s 1949 rendition of Gustave Flaubert?s ?Madame Bovary,? with Jennifer Jones as the doomed adulteress. Also in the set: the 1948 take on Alexandre Dumas? ?The Three Musketeers,? starring Gene Kelly as the dashing D?Artagnan; 1962?s ?Billy Budd,? with Robert Ryan and Peter Ustinov in an adaptation of Herman Melville?s shipboard saga; Gregory Peck in the title role of C.S. Forester?s naval adventure ?Captain Horatio Hornblower?; and a double-feature disc containing the 1937 and 1952 versions of Anthony Hope?s ?The Prisoner of Zenda.? Terence Stamp, who plays the title role in ?Billy Budd,? and his director on ?The Limey,? Steven Soderbergh, offer commentary for that film, while the other discs feature vintage cartoons and short films. DVD set, $59.92; single DVDs, $19.97 each (Warner Bros.)

> I would have happily volunteered to be his WATER > GIRL. Good point.

Another solid point are the onscreen menus, which are quite funny as well... `Borat' goes further Rich Heldenfels Beacon Journal DVDs of the week: I didn't think an onscreen menu could make me laugh, but it did on Borat: Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (Fox, $29.98, in stores Tuesday). That's not to say I was entirely comfortable with the Sacha Baron Cohen comedy, a deliberately outrageous look at America through the eyes of a sexist, anti-Semitic TV reporter. In fact, as much as it could make me laugh, it also made me cringe with its embrace of its main character's prejudices. Still, the DVD continues the notions of the movie and builds on them with deleted scenes and other extras. Even routine fare such as previews of other movies become comedic fodder -- marked as movies ``coming to Kazakhstan in 2028.''

Well I know that! What I'm saying is, it doesn't seem to be the official release.

Yes, and the temperatures in the middle of the desert were very tough on everyone who was on location, you wouldn't have wanted him to become dehydrated, would you?

JTA apparently also had a positive appraisal for the Cambridge-educated comic: ?Borat? scores big at box office Tom Tugend The new ?Borat? film from British Jewish comedian Sacha Baron Cohen earned an astonishing gross of $26.4 million in its first weekend ? though all but a few Jewish reporters missed the main jest. LOS ANGELES, Nov. 6 (JTA) ? Judging from the early box-office returns and the howls of laughter coming from those watching, British Jewish comedian Sacha Baron Cohen?s new ?Borat? film scores a direct hit on the audience?s funny bone. Yet in all the glowing reviews of the film in major newspapers and magazines, only a couple of Jewish reporters got the supreme jest ? that the Jew-bashing Borat frequently speaks in Hebrew. For instance, when Borat takes leave of his home village, he tells a one-armed peasant, ?Doltan, I?ll get you a new arm in America,? according to the subtitles translated from ?Kazakh.? What he actually says is, ?I?ll buy you some kind of a new arm? ? in Hebrew. Borat also sings the lyrics from an old Hebrew folk song, and identifies his country?s greatest scientist, who discovered that a woman?s brain is the same size as a squirrel?s, as ?Dr. Yarmulke.? Baron Cohen?s Hebrew is excellent, thanks to an Israeli mother of Iranian descent, a year spent at Kibbutz Rosh Hanikra and his early membership in the Habonim Dror youth movement. To top it off, the 35-year-old played Tevya in ?Fiddler on the Roof? while attending Cambridge University. There are some real knee-slappers as Borat Sagdiyev, a faux Kazakhstani television reporter, makes his way across America in an ice cream truck. But the biggest laugh must be reserved for Baron Cohen and the folks at 20th Century Fox as they schlep the box office receipts to the bank. ?Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan? earned an astonishing weekend gross of $26.4 million, easily beating second-ranked ?The Santa Clause 3,? which opened in four times as many theaters. The mock documentary also topped the charts in six European countries, including Baron Cohen?s native Britain. In his travels across the United States, the wide-eyed, mustachioed Borat encounters, and generally makes fools of, a cross-section of unsuspecting natives. His hapless foils include humor and etiquette coaches, Washington politicians, feminists, gays, Pentecostal revivalists, drunken frat boys, blacks, **** at a rodeo, a car salesman and the owner of an antiques store. But Borat?s favorite targets are Jews, and he plays the true believer of Jewish conspiracy theories to the hilt. He refuses to fly from New York to Los Angeles, for instance, for fear the Jews will hijack his plane, ?as they did on 9/11.? His Jew-phobia is so over the top, so wacky, that it?s doubtful that even an assembly of ayatollahs would take it at face value. There?s a bit more shock value in some pretty gross scenes, including a highly graphic nude wrestling match between the hairy Borat and his obscenely fat producer. In another, Borat presents a bag of **** to a Southern society lady. The screening was punctuated by a lot of laughs, and a few squeals, but at about the same volume as the ones that greeted a trailer of coming attractions about a bunch of klutzy cops. In one Los Angeles neighborhood, Darius Moghadan attended with his wife and 15-year-old son, Arash. They thought the movie was funny and weren?t put off by the wrestling and **** scenes. Most of his friends would probably see the film, Arash said, because ?everyone enjoys watching fools.? Apparently the shock waves anticipated by critics did not fully kick in, perhaps because in the preceding weeks Borat?s nonstop appearances on television and radio shows, and excerpts from the movie readily available on the Internet, had given viewers a solid idea of what was to come. We can expect to see a great deal more of Baron Cohen, if not as Borat then as two of his alter egos ? Ali G, a dim-witted London rapper, and Bruno, a gay Austrian fashionista.

Very clever using "To Be Continued Next Week" on your serial choice. I loved that, too!

It's hard to imagine Joan Crawford advertising perms! How many photos are in each CD?

I didn't find anything "snoozy" but to each their own!

From blogcritics magazine: DVD Pick of the Week: Borat Written by Chris Beaumont This week is a little slim when it comes to interesting releases, at least for me. It?s weeks like these that make writing the introduction a little difficult, knowing what is coming next. There is one thing to look forward to, and that is this week's pick, which also happens to be an Oscar nominee. The rest of the slate has a smattering of interesting titles, but in the end, this is a welcome respite from the recent heavy weeks. This week's pick is none other than the fakeumentary concerning a certain reporter who leaves his native land in order to learn from another land in the hopes of making his home a better place to live. That's right, this week's most anticipated release is none other than Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. This was hands down one of the funniest films of 2006, right behind Clerks II, in my estimation. Borat is the story of a reporter from a foreign land on a journey across the United States for make glorious conversations with people of United States. This movie was absolutely hilarious, and oftentimes cringe-inducing as it dug into the hidden prejudices of the people he meets. My biggest problem with the movie was the hype. There was such an exorbitant amount of hype surrounding it, making it nearly impossible for the movie to really live up. I was getting tired of all of the promotions and interviews, which had Sacha Baron Cohen appearing in character. Fortunately the movie was funny enough to stand on its own. Extras of the DVD include a selection of deleted scenes, a Kazakhstan spoof of Baywatch, and a featurette on the promotion.

Personal quotes "The more sensitive you are, the more likely you are to be brutalised, develop scabs and never evolve. Never allow yourself to feel anything because you always feel too much." "The only thing an actor owes his public is not to bore them." "An actor is at most a poet and at least an entertainer." "Would people applaud me if I were a good plumber?" "I don't know what people expect when they meet me. They seem to be afraid that I'm going to **** in the potted palm and slap them on the ****." "I put on an act sometimes, and people think I'm insensitive. Really, it's like a kind of armour because I'm too sensitive. If there are two hundred people in a room and one of them doesn't like me, I've got to get out." "If you're successful, acting is about as soft a job as anybody could ever wish for. But if you're unsuccessful, it's worse than having a skin disease." [On one of his most famous characters, Stanley Kowalski from A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)] "Kowalski was always right, and never afraid. He never wondered, he never doubted. His ego was very secure. And he had the kind of brutal aggressiveness that I hate. I'm afraid of it. I detest the character." "I don't want to spread the peanut butter of my personality on the mouldy bread of the commercial press." "The most repulsive thing you could ever imagine is the inside of a camel's mouth. That and watching a girl eat octopus or squid." "With women, I've got a long bamboo pole with a leather loop on the end. I slip the loop around their necks so they can't get away or come too close. Like catching snakes." "I don't think it's the nature of any man to be monogamous. Men are propelled by genetically ordained impulses over which they have no control to distribute their seed." "An actor's a guy who, if you ain't talking about him, ain't listening." "If there's anything unsettling to the stomach, it's watching actors on television talk about their personal lives." [On Frank Sinatra] "He's the kind of guy that when he dies, he's going up to heaven and give God a bad time for making him bald."