Posted on 12/27/2006 8:36:11 AM PST by Quilla
The Sheriff is nearer!
That is the joke for us to see. His private joke concerns the making of the movie.
>> Yeah, your list proves my point, actually<<
Well actually, you said that Ben Stein lacked humor and his roles proved it.
He had many roles but the biggest one, like Wayne Rogers is an investor first and actor second, he is a writer first then an actor.
From IMDB
Ben Stein (Benjamin J. Stein) was born on Nov. 25, 1944 in Washington, D.C. The son of noted economist and writer Herbert Stein, he grew up in Silver Spring, Md., and attended Montgomery Blair High School. Some of his classmates included journalist Carl Bernstein, and actors Goldie Hawn and Sylvester Stallone. He graduated from Columbia University in 1966 with honors in economics and as valedictorian of the 1970 Yale Law School class. He has worked as a poverty lawyer, a trial lawyer, a university adjunct (American University, University of California at Santa Cruz and Pepperdine University), a speech writer for Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford and a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Herald Examiner, King Features Syndicate, Los Angeles Magazine, New York Magazine, E! Online and The American Spectator. He also writes frequently for The Washington Post. Stein has written and published 16 books (seven novels, nine nonfiction books), the most recent of which is about life with his 12-year-old son, Tommy. He has been a longtime screenwriter and was one of the creators of the TV series Fernwood 2Night. He has acted and made guest appearances in numerous movies and TV series, appears in many TV commercials and is the host of two Comedy Central TV series, "Win Ben Stein's Money" (1997) (October, 1997-2002) and "Turn Ben Stein On" (1999). He is married to entertainment-industry attorney Alexandra Denman.
Ben Stein does the roles he wants and has no need for any more. The man is brilliant. I don't think the actor playing Borat is the same.
There is tons of material on him on YouTube. I watched some and found it amusing but not hillarious. I do wish him the best thought.
I don't plan to see the Borat movie, but I saw him in "Talledega Nights," and he was completely unfunny as the French driver/Ricky Bobby rival.
He's lame.
Or "Life is Beautiful."
"how Jews are like cockroaches (the last a direct steal from Joachim Goebbels, who compared Jews with breeding rats and insects)'
It has a history reaching back further than that. Kafka's Metamorphosis was the story of Gregor Samsa turning into what Jews were being called in Austria in the 1920's, insects and cockroaches.
Borat is merely a recent iteration of Mel Brooks.
No different than Punked or Jackass.
Certainly not "the funniest movie ever" as it was hyped.
D'oH!! Wrong Ben.
So, to Ben, having lunatics and idiots say anti-Semitic things is anti-Semitic. Guess he doesn't understand satire. This movie was so hilarious that my girlfriend claims I embarrassed her with my howling.
Ben totally missed the boat here.
You must have hated The Producers and believed "Springtime for Hitler in Germany" to be a recruiting tool.
Talk to a person who lost her parents and all her brothers and sisters, several aunts, uncles and cousins in the camps and see if they find Borat all that amusing.
There were probably some girlfriends who were embarassed when their boyfriends laughed at Michael Richards' outburst at that Comedy Club (the crowd did let out some nervous laughter at first). And again at the David Letterman studio when Richards' tried to publicly apologize and the audience chuckled.
No "explanations" are required for this movie. It is hilarious to those who appreciate satire.
Unfortunately for your analysis this is as far from "the school of 'well, if it was funny once, it will be hilarious by the 15th time we do the same shtick' writing that passes for comedies today" as you can get. In fact, it is so unique and inventive that even Ben didn't get it.
There has not been such a funny movie in years. Very few have made me laugh more.
There were no positive characters in Borat. Just hilarious loons of one degree or the other or people who were clueless altogether. While some, like Alan Keyes, were not ridiculous they just didn't realize what was going on.
Guess that whole "early 40's" thing was just a botched joke, yes? ; )
borat is to anti-semites as steven colbert is to conservatives
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