Borat review

In case you're looking for something funny to see this weekend, here's some advice: Go see Borat. If you've already seen it, see it again; after that go see Stranger Than Fiction (opening Friday). Seriously though, Borat is hysterical. I've never laughed as hard as I did at this movie; there are a couple of parts where it started to hurt to keep laughing but I did anyway. A while back I wrote about Sacha Baron Cohen and his role in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and how he was even funnier than Will Ferrel.
In Borat, Cohen again lives and breathes his character, this time as Borat, the fictional Kazakhstani journalist who travels to America to gain "Cultural learnings of America for make benefit glorious nation of Kazakhstan" (as the title informs us). Basically he acts like a clueless foreigner and unknowing Americans make themselves look quite stupid by either ignoring his outrageous statements about Jews, Women and Homosexuals or even worse, they show their true colors and agree wholeheartedly with him.
Watching the film you may stop and realize that you yourself might not handle an encounter with Borat any better; any one of us would act one way or the other. I was impressed however with how some of the duped dealt with Borat by being polite and trying to correct him on how things are done in Western Civilization. Then there are the people who made me ashamed to be American, like the rodeo manager or the road-tripping fraternity members. Borat makes us laugh at own awkwardness but also at our ignorance.
Borat was the number one movie last weekend and it only played in 800 theaters as compared to the standard 3000+ theaters a typical widely released film receives. This weekend it should be showing just about everywhere (that way even the rodeo manager can see himself on the big screen). If you want to know more about the character of Borat check out the Wikipedia article devoted to him.

Another film opening this weekend, in addition to Stranger Than Fiction, is Babel (in case you're not in the mood for laughs). The reviews and buzz on Babel are good so I'd say it's a safe bet and would be an interesting follow-up to the culture clash themes of Borat.