Cinemascope
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Posts posted by Cinemascope
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Well I know that!
What I'm saying is, it doesn't seem to be the official release.
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It's very possible. When video-on-demand replaces rentals (Netflix and also video stores) we'll have a myriad choices at our fingertips.
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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?
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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.
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Very clever using "To Be Continued Next Week" on your serial choice.
I loved that, too!
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Hey it's cool, if it's a secret it's a secret!
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It's hard to imagine Joan Crawford advertising perms!
How many photos are in each CD?
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I didn't find anything "snoozy" but to each their own!
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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.
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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."
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Thanks for sharing with us AlfJoint
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Wow, I'd sure like to hear that recipe! *hint, hint*
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No, Pelosi becoming president would be absolutely awesome -- although perhaps we can only hope it would be under very different circumstances.
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Wow those figures are amazing.
I don't even have any idea how long it would take to watch 948 short subjects!
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Gary Cooper would have been great in it but I wonder if he was really eager to spend months in the desert shooting this movie!
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What if you told her that this one is an old black-and-white? It is in B&W, if I remember correctly!
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I don't get it...
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Captains of the Clouds is awesome, especially if you're a James Cagney fan. Great use of Technicolor, too!
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Oh yeah - the Baywatch spoof is also hilarious, although I wouldn't advise any guys to head to the beach with the same kind of swimsuit that Borat wears!
BORAT: CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF AMERICA FOR MAKE BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN
Never before have broken English and blundering Americans been more fun than in ?Borat,? from comic genius Sacha Baron Cohen, who reprises the role from his HBO series ?Da Ali G Show? in the movie.
Borat Sagdiyev (Cohen) leaves his home in Kazakhstan to film a documentary on America. However, after watching an episode of ?Baywatch,? his plans change and he proceeds to track down Pamela Anderson. Along the way, his run-ins with Americans present a dim, yet funny, view of American culture.
The DVD?s great extras include a ?Baywatch? spoof, deleted scenes and a compilation of the wild promotional tour Cohen took as Borat. Price: $29.99. Rent or buy: A good rental.
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Can you guys take it off-line though? I mean some of us want to just post our thoughts of Brando on a thread devoted to him. Please take this off-line as I'm sure some of us are reluctant but would like to join in. Please?
Whew, I'm glad someone has at least shown some common sense here.
I agree with you 100%, any issue of a personal kind should be addressed off the boards, via PM. To badger people and post obviously disruptive posts due to personal vendettas like someone has done in this thread isn't the way to be taken seriously.
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And there's these ones too.
Sean Penn told writer Charles Bukowski that Brando put scripts from producers into his freezer, in order to use them as targets in skeet shooting. Brando would take the frozen scripts and have them tossed in the air into the canyon below his home at night, and then proceed to blast them into smithereens with a shotgun while they were on the fly. By freezing the scripts, the pages were stiff and made for better "clay pigeon" substitutes. The practice is mentioned in one of Bukowski's poems. Bukowski also wrote about Brando in his short story "You Kissed Lilly", in which Lilly **** while watching Brando in a movie on television. The story is part of the collection "Hot Water Music" (1983).
Turned down the role of Vulcan in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988). Director Terry Gilliam was summoned to Brando's Mulholland Dr. home in Los Angeles to discuss the part, but it became apparent that Brando really wasn't interested in taking the part. Nonetheless, Gilliam treasured the time he got to spend with Brando. The part later was played by Oliver Reed, who spent his time drinking and trying to seduce Uma Thurman, who was a virgin at the time.
Was Oliver Stone's first choice for the role of Richard Boyle in Salvador (1986), however had become notoriously reclusive by the time the project got underway.
In Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Movie Character's of all time, he won the top spot for his performance as Vito Corleone in The Godfather.
He was an avid user of the Internet in his final years, often going into chat rooms to start arguments.
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I enjoyed reading this article as well --
Borat truly one of a kind
By Mike Pearson, Rocky Mountain News
March 6, 2007
Given the range of reactions during its theatrical run, you'd think this was either the greatest satirical film of the past 50 years or an embarrassment on celluloid.
The truth? It's a little of both.
Sacha Baron Cohen reprises the character of Borat Sagdiyev from Da Ali G Show, a tactless Kazakhstan journalist who comes to America to make a documentary for his homeland.
Borat's a dolt, to say the least. While touring he gets lessons in driving, manners and dreams deferred. What starts as a cultural pilgrimage becomes a sexual one after he sees Pamela Anderson on TV and heads to California to claim her as his bride.
Cohen so thoroughly immerses himself in his character that it's easy to lose sight of the fact that none of what transpires is real. Not much anyway - although he manages to crash a posh dinner party, a gay-pride parade and a get "saved" at a Pentecostal revival.
Borat unfolds like Monty Python-meets- Jackass, with some stunts designed to amuse and others designed to disgust. What do the ordinary Americans he meets make of this man who carries a live chicken in his satchel? They're mostly stunned, and seldom in on the joke.
There aren't many belly laughs here, but satire runs deep as Borat exposes many a prejudice in the American way of life. Sometimes the film is downright silly, as when Borat takes a prostitute to a rodeo bar to ride a mechanical bull.
I can't claim to be a convert, but I'll concede I've never seen a comedy quite like Borat, and I don't expect to see one again any time soon.
EXTRAS: several extended and deleted scenes and publicity-tour footage as Cohen stumps for the movie in character as Borat
The many faces . . .
Borat was one of three characters that comic Sacha Baron Cohen created in 2003 for Da Ali G Show on HBO. The others were:
? Ali G: right, a lower- class white male who acts like a Jamaican Londoner
? Br?no: a superficial Austrian fashion expert who often makes macho men uncomfortable with his blatant homosexuality
? Cohen can also be seen as Will Ferrell's race-car-driving nemesis in Talladega Nights.
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I'm absolutely all about discussing Brando.
Found a bit more trivia about Brando (it's amazing how much there is, isn't it?):
Signed on to appear in director Sidney Lumet's adaptation of the play Child's Play (1972) as school teacher Joseph Dobbs, but backed out just before principal photography was to being when he realized James Mason had the better part as his school teacher rival. According to Bob Thomas's "Brando: Portrait of the Artist as a Rebel", Brando quit the production when he realized his flagging career would soon be revitalized by the The Godfather (1972). A last minute replacement, Robert Preston was signed to take over the role, and though a fine actor, he bombed in the performance due to over-projection of his voice. (Preston had been focusing mainly on the theater in the previous decade.) Brando subsequently was sued by producer David Merrick. Ironically, both Brando and Mason were rivals for the part of Viktor Komarovsky in Doctor Zhivago (1965). Both were offered the role by David Lean, and both turned it down.
Was offered the part of Viktor Komarovsky in Doctor Zhivago (1965) by double-Oscar winning director David Lean. After a month went by in which Brando failed to respond to director Lean's written inquiry into whether he wanted to play Komarovsky, the director offered the part to James Mason, who was a generation older than Brando. Lean decided on Mason, who initially accepted the part, as he did not want an actor who would overpower the character of Yuri Zhivago (specifically, to show Zhivago up as a lover of Lara, who would be played by the young Julie Christie, which the charismatic Brando might have done, shifting the sympathy of the audience). Mason eventually dropped out and Rod Steiger, who had just won the Silver Bear as Best Actor for his role as the eponymous The Pawnbroker (1964), accepted the role.
Is mentioned in the Billy Joel song "We didn't start the fire"
Made the Top 10 Poll of Money-Making Stars, as ranked by Quigley Publications' annual survey of movie exhibitors, five times from 1954 to 1973. He debuted at #10 in 1954, and climbed to #6 in 1955 before falling off the list in 1956. He again made the list, as #4, in 1958. He did not appear on the list again until 1972, when he was ranked the #6 Box Office star after the extraordinary success of The Godfather (1972). He made one last appearance in 1973, going out as he had come onto the list, at #10.
Supported John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election.
Idol of Julie Christie.
Posthomously received the 'Stella Adler' Award for Lifetime Achievement, presented by his friend and neighbor Warren Beatty to his son Miko C. Brando.
Brando's decision to send a Mexican actress named Maria Cruz - calling herself Sacheen Littlefeather - to refuse his Best Actor Oscar for The Godfather (1972) at the The 45th Annual Academy Awards (1973) (TV) brought widespread condemnation. At the ceremony Clint Eastwood remarked he didn't know whether he should dedicate the Oscar he was presenting to "all the cowboys shot in John Ford's westerns". Michael Caine, nominated for his performance in Sleuth (1972), angrily condemned Brando's actions while Rock Hudson remarked, "Sometimes to be eloquent is to be silent.".
He was a close friend of the reclusive singer Michael Jackson for many years, even appearing in his music video "You Rock My World" in 2001. The last time Brando left his bungalow in Hollywood was to stay at Jackson's Neverland Ranch in the summer of 2003.
Had one son from his first marriage, Christian Devi Brando (b. 1958). Had two children from his second marriage, Miko Casta?eda Brando (b. 1961) and Rebecca Brando Kotlinzky (b. 1967). Had three children from his third marriage, Simon Tehotu Brando (b. 1967), Stefano Brando (b. 1967) and Tarita Cheyenne Brando (b. 1970 and d. 1995). Had two adopted sons, Petra Brando-Corval (daughter of Brando's assistant Caroline Barrett), Maimiti Brando and Raiatua Brando. Had three children from his fourth marriage, with his maid, Ninna Priscilla Brando (b. 1989), Myles Jonathan Brando (b. 1992) and Timothy Gahan Brando (b. 1994). Is related to four Presidents of the United States of America: James Madison Jr, John Tyler Jr, Zachary Taylor and James Earl Carter Jr; and to General George Smith Patton Jr.
Brando's character Ken Wilcheck in his cinema debut The Men (1950) (1950) has the nickname "Bud", which was his own nickname as he was a "junior". (Brando's father, Marlon Brando Sr., later worked for his company Pennebaker Productions, which was named after his mother, the former Dorothy Pennebaker.) The only other film in which Brando goes by the name which his family and intimate friends called him is The Night of the Following Day (1968) (1968).
After he received his first Academy Award nomination (Best Actor for A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)), Brando impishly told the Hollywood beat writers that he would not attend the ceremony but would send a cab-driver in his place to pick up the Oscar, should he win the award. Indeed, Brando did not attend, and some columnists claimed that a cabby actually was in attendance in Brando's seat at Los Angeles' R.K.O. Pantages Theatre the night of ceremony of March 20, 1952. Alas, Brando was the sole "Steetcar" acting nominee not to win that night as Humphrey Bogart took home the gold, so the question can never be satisfactorily resolved.
Jay Kantor was a lowly mail-room clerk at Lew Wasserman's talent agency Music Corp. of America when he was sent to pick up Marlon Brando and drive him to the agency. Impressed by the young man, Brando promptly appointed him his agent. (Kantor inspired the character of Teddy Z in the 1989 TV series "The Famous Teddy Z" (1989).
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Yes, let's not forget that during the heyday of 3-strip Technicolor, the use of color in film was relatively selective. Many movies were still being made in black-and-white and people enjoyed them just fine.
Over the years, color became less special, the colors aren't as bright, and it's not anything special because practically *all* movies are in color.
I think we can all see the nostalgia value in the early 3-strip Technicolor process
Borat: Cult film?
in General Discussions
Posted
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.''