The battle: Bond VS Borat

[Blackleaf]

Two of Britain's biggets icons prepare to do battle at box offices across the world.


The battle: Bond v Borat

November 16, 2006

JAMES BOND comes face to face with his strangest enemy this weekend as he takes on Borat at the box office.

Sacha Baron Cohen’s creation broke the record for the biggest opening weekend takings for a low-budget movie in the US.

But Daniel Craig has had rave reviews as the new OO7 in Casino Royale – and could knock Cohen’s Kazakhstan reporter off the No1 spot on both sides of the Atlantic. GRANT ROLLINGS sees how the two, ahem, heroes measure up.

While cinema-goers adore Jewish funnyman Cohen’s Borat, he pours a bucketful of bile over minorities on screen.

The Sun got a Kazakhstani student, a Jewish film expert, a black Briton and an American to watch the movie and to give us their views.
*********************************************************************


James Bond

Star: James Bond

Played by: Daniel Craig

Plot: One man’s struggle to protect the intelligence of a nation

Catchphrase: The name’s Bond, James Bond

Style: Tuxedo-wearing smoothie who has gone blond and spent a bit of time at the gym

Love interest: Beds two beautiful brunettes, Solange, played by Caterina Murino, and Vesper Lynd, played by Eva Green

Transport: Aston Martin

Budget: £60million

Most daring stunt: Jumping from a 100ft high crane

Opponents: A website called craignotbond was set up in a bid to remove Daniel Craig from the film

Best scene: Bond has lost a stack of cash at the poker table and orders a Martini at the bar. The barman asks: “Shaken or stirred?” and Bond replies “Do I look like I care?”

Likely audience: Casino Royale is pitched beyond the normal Bond fans, towards a younger generation and female cinemagoers

Theme song: You Know My Name, by Chris Cornell

Creator: Ian Fleming

Reviews: The Sneak, The Sun – “Daniel Craig is the best Bond since Connery”
*******************************************************************


Borat

Controversial ... Kazakhstan's No2 journalist

Star: Borat Sagdiyev

Played by: British comedy genius Sacha Baron Cohen who also created Ali G (a gangsta from the mean streets of Staines, Berkshire) and Bruno, a gay Austrian TV reporter

Plot: One man’s struggle to expose the lack of intelligence of a nation

Catchphrase: Jagshemash, Eet’s niiice, High five

Style: Sports a porn-star moustache and a grey, cheap, ill-fitting suit.
Looks a bit like a Soviet baddie from one of the early Bond films

Love interest: His wife is a formidable 16-stone Kazakh wood chopper with gaps in her teeth. Borat tries to make surgically-enhanced actress Pamela Anderson his new wife

Transport: A cart pulled by peasants

Budget: £9million

Most daring stunt: Singing the words of the “Kazakh National Anthem” to the tune of the US National Anthem at a redneck rodeo in Tennessee

Opponents: The government of Kazakhstan ran a four-page advertisement in The New York Times newspaper complaining about the film’s depiction of their nation

Best scene: Borat gets out of a shower and finds his agent pleasuring himself over a picture of Pamela Anderson. Borat starts to wrestle his agent and they end up fighting each other naked as they make their way through a conference hall

Likely audience: Not one for the sandal-wearing social workers – more for those with a broader mind

Theme song: O Kazakhstan

Creator: Sacha Baron Cohen

Reviews: Johnny Vaughan, The Sun – “Lung-bustingly funny from start to finish”
****************************************************************************

WHAT PEOPLE THINK OF BORAT

Karina ... found some of it was offensive



The Kazakhstani

KARINA Shaidarova, 18, from Camden, North London, is studying sociology at City University. She said:
I admit that parts of the film were quite funny – but some of it was quite offensive.
The movie leaves an awful after-taste for me. It shows up our country in the worst possible way.
The one compensation is that most people will realise that is is all fake and that my country is not like that at all.
For me the most upsetting aspect was the singing of the fake Kazakhstan national anthem and the use of the national flag.
This film is bad PR for our country. On the other hand, it has vastly increased our international profile.

----------------------------------------

Caroline Westbrook ... clever comedy




The Jewish woman

FILM expert Caroline Westbrook, 35, from Acton, West London, writes for website jewtastic.com. She said:
I really enjoyed the film. It was funny in a clever way.
However, there are aspects Cohen could get away with only because he is Jewish.
It’s important to remember, though, that while Borat is an anti-Semitic character, that doesn’t make this an anti-Semitic film.
It was quite disturbing when a gun-maker played along without question after Borat asked about a suitable gun to shoot a Jew with.
However, you have to make allowance because, often, the people involved may not have understood exactly what was being said.
-------------------------------------------

Jasmin Weiss ... hilarious movie


The black Briton

JASMIN Weiss, 27, is a producer and lives in Wimbledon, South London. She said:
I loved the film. I’ve always been a massive fan of Cohen’s characters, including Ali G.
I had high expectations and I was not disappointed.
And I don’t think the film is racist or offensive.
Yes, Borat made some comments which WERE racist and anti-Jewish.
But they served an important purpose — by exposing the racist views still held today in some parts of America.
In fact, this film did anti-racism campaigners a service by pinpointing the problems that remain beneath the surface.
Overall, the film was hilarious. It also made an important political point.
----------------------------------------------------------------

Eric Taylor ... saw most people laughing




The American

ERIC Taylor, 41, has moved to central London from Kansas City. He said:
I enjoyed the film. For me it was a nine out of ten. I found it very funny pretty much all the way through.
At one point Borat made a racist remark when he called someone “chocolate face”.
I found myself joining in and laughing myself – it didn’t feel as though the film was being racist.
America also didn’t come out of the film particularly well. But still, it made some valid points about different attitudes held by Americans.
At the end of the day we shouldn’t get too precious about it.
I looked around during the film and most people were laughing.

thesun.co.uk

 

[#juan]

The two items are not even in the same league. The latest incarnation of Ian Fleming's James Bond saga will likely blow every thing else away, including the tasteless offerings of Borat.

 

[snowles]

I'm doing my part and seeing both this weekend. Ah, the joys of living in smallwoods Ontario, and having to drive 3 hours to a theatre!

I love Daniel Craig from his days in Layer Cake, and hope he can revive James Bond, which after the last couple of movies, have been wretched. As for Borat, "it is nice; I like!"

 

[Calberty]

Opening box office receipts mean what? It means the movie is hyped to appeal to males ages 14 to 25.

wow. quite the endorsement.

 

[Blackleaf]

including the tasteless offerings of Borat.

You're too politically correct.

 

[Blackleaf]

Way of the world


By Craig Brown







Bond's dinner jacket has a pivotal role in torture scenes

Thirteen things you didn't know about James Bond:


• 1 James Bond's middle name is revealed only once in the entire canon. In On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1963), Bond is being held in a raffia-work cage suspended over a pool of piranha fish while the villain, Dr Peevish, taunts him by saying "Herbert, Herbert, Herbert" over and over again. Finally, Bond can bear it no longer. "Go on – kill me, kill me, PLEASE!" he screams. But at that very moment he spots Dr Peevish's Christian name on the laundry-mark attached to the raffia-work cage and shouts, "Do your worst – Dibdin!" While Peevish is blocking his ears in anguish, Bond makes good his escape.

• 2 For the past 40 years, James Bond's older brother, Basildon, has been a leading figure in the stationery business.

• 3 Roger Moore landed the role as an earlier James Bond only after stiff competition from fellow British actor Kenneth Williams, who was shortlisted after a successful screen test for the scheduled Bond sequel, With a View to a Perm.
"Sean had played James all rugged and macho, which I found so dreadfully common," Williams recalled in his diaries. "So I was determined to bring out his more suave and cultured side. I hit upon the idea of giving him a lime-green silk handkerchief that he would take out and wave at the villains at opportune moments – during a car chase, for instance, or while swinging uncomfortably from the underside of a helicopter. But the producers sadly went for the safe proletarian option. Typical!"

• 4 James Bond's dinner jacket plays a pivotal role in the novels. In a key torture scene in Dr No (1958 ), Bond picks up his dinner jacket from a dry-cleaners, quickly changes into it, then leaps into a mini-submarine to do battle with one of his deadliest enemies. Alas, he has forgotten to remove the array of pins dry-cleaners like to stick into dinner suits, so he spends the entire journey writhing in agony.

• 5 Gadgets have played an increasingly vital role in the James Bond films. In the very first Bond film, Dr No, James Bond is seen struggling with a tin-opener in the exciting opening action sequence; from then on, the producers felt obliged to up the stakes with each successive film. In From Russia With Love (1963), he wrestles with a deckchair, in You Only Live Twice (1967) he spends a tense two minutes attempting to untangle a telephone cord; and in the futuristic Diamonds Are Forever (1971) he is forced to set a video recorder in 20 minutes, armed only with a 60-page instruction manual.

•6 The Bond films have always prided themselves on featuring the latest gadgets, particularly where cars are concerned. In Licence to Kill (1989) there is a cliff-hanging three-minute sequence in an underground car park where Bond keeps pressing his new key-fob, but remains unable to effect entry into his Aston Martin.

• 7 In the early 1980s, the real-life Dr No was given a regular slot dispensing medical advice on GMTV's Good Morning with Anne and Nick, and last year he appeared as an expert panellist on Celebrity Fit Club. But earlier this year, the News of the World published the splash headline "TV Doctor EXPOSED as Ruthless Power-Crazed FIEND Who Plotted World DOMINATION in Island Fortress", which led to his resignation. He is now believed to be operating a veterinary practice in an underground bunker off the Isle of Wight, and is said to employ up to a thousand assistants, many of them dressed in wet-suits.

• 8 The safari suit worn by Roger Moore in Live and Let Die (1973) had originally been worn by Dr Marsh Tracy in the long-running Daktari TV series. Moore's influence was remarkable: in 1974, an estimated 82 per cent of British wore lightweight safari suits to formal dinner parties and society balls. Even the Speaker of the House of Commons opted for a safari suit during the crucial Balance of Payments debate in November 1973, and Earl Mountbatten of Burma wore one, with full decorations, while representing the Queen at a memorial service for King Gustaf of Sweden at Westminster Abbey the following year.

• 9 James Bond's sister, Jennie, was the BBC Royal Correspondent from 1989-2003, and later proved her family mettle on I'm a Celebrity – Get Me Out of Here (2005). The first full-length Jennie Bond movie, scheduled for release in early 2007, is said to be less aggressively masculine that the usual Bond films, and features the all-action heroine grappling with the Earl and Countess of Wessex in a six-inch pool of ornamental goldfish.

• 10 Studies indicate that the average British male imagines himself to be James Bond for at least 13 minutes in every hour. However, some individuals revealed higher readings. For instance, tests show that Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott believes himself to be James Bond for up to 10 hours a day.
This explains his decision – taken months in advance, then rehearsed and executed with pinpoint precision – to punch a voter during the 2001 general election. It also explains his debonair courtship of Miss Tracey Temple, and his repeated insistence on having his half-pints of lager-and-lime shaken, not stirred.

• 11 Distinguished commentator Lord Rees-Mogg can be glimpsed in a cameo role in the Bond film For Your Eyes Only (1981). Clad in a white coat, Rees-Mogg is spotted advising Bond that "in my considered opinion, the SMERSH empire will prove indestructible. Now is the time for the prudent long-term economist to invest in a considerable number of shares". At that very moment, the vast subterranean SMERSH headquarters comes crashing down.

• 12 Baptismal records indicate that Bond was christened Bond James Bond: this explains the way he introduces himself to Ursula Andress in Dr No (1962).
Other famous people who have introduced themselves to women in a similar fashion include Ford Madox Ford, William Carlos Williams and Jerome K. Jerome.

• 13 The cheapest Bond film ever made was the unjustly neglected The Man with the Beige Water Pistol (1974), produced in a time of recession. The most breathtaking action sequence in the film is undoubtedly when Bond – played by Gareth Hunt – chases the villain, Brassfinger, in his Hillman Hunter through the streets of Basingstoke, sticking closely to the speed limit and taking care to stop at traffic lights and intersections in order to avoid costly fines.

telegraph.co.uk

 

[Nuggler]

Borat

You're too politically correct.

I'm not.

Borat is a no talent, one trick pony, who derives his humour from the ignorance/politeness of others. Such bullsh*t wears thin quickly, and he is having is 15 minutes in the sun and making his million. Good for him; may he
please leave soon.

Not too PC we hope.

Ugg

Forgot to add; he's tasteless and sick making to watch. Did I mention no talent?

When do I get to be an Ubergod???????????

 

[Curiosity]

With all the golden talent who have given their best to Bond ....

.... and I adore Sean Connery especially..... I find the Bond character a plastic personae. There may be international characters from whom Bond was fashioned and typed, but were I to know a real person of this
elitist snobbery, I would find him to be a bore as too much pomp for me, is as difficult to handle as comedic insult.

I found especially offensive when I first became aware of this "Bond cult thing".... was the kind of portrayal his female characters were allowed. Scratch this puppy off my fan list thankyou.

Somehow if I were looking for a hero - he would have rough hands from hard work or sport, tousled hair which does not get too much attention - or no hair which is unimportant - and an honest, caring, interesting, confident guy who looks upon his personal space with a desire to donate his share of improving it and be blessed with a great sense of humor, especially towards himself. Oh and knows how to say: "I'm sorry" and really mean it.

 

[Blackleaf]

Comic genius ... British comic Sacha Baron Cohen is Jewish even though his alter ego, Kazakhstan's Borat, is anti-Semitic
Picture: REX

Comedy genius Sacha opens up


By GRANT ROLLINGS
November 22, 2006

Baron Cohen says he's not racist. The real racists are those who believe that everything he says about Kazakhstan is true.



RACIST, anti-Semitic journalist Borat has become a worldwide phenomenon thanks to his box-office busting adventure.

While there have been countless interviews with Kazakhstan’s most controversial export, no one has heard the real star’s views on the zany character — until now.

Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, 35, normally insists on speaking to the media in character. The first surprise when he talked to Rolling Stone magazine was to reveal that Borat is based on a fellow Jew.

Sacha recalled a holiday he had in southern Russia and said: “There was a guy there who was a doctor and the moment I met him, I started laughing.

“I remember him saying, ‘You’re English, yes, — you say cock, but Americans, they say a cack.’

“He had some elements of Borat but none of the racism or the misogyny or the anti-Semitism. He was Jewish, actually.”

Sacha, from North London, who is a devout Jew, says he uses Borat, who first featured in TV’s The 11 O’clock Show, to expose prejudice.

“Borat essentially works as a tool,” Sacha said. “By himself being anti-Semitic, he lets people lower their guard and expose their own prejudice.

“Throw The Jew Down The Well, which he sang at a country and western bar, was a very controversial sketch, and some members of the Jewish community thought 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 they were anti-Semitic? Perhaps. Maybe it just revealed that they were indifferent to anti-Semitism.

“When I studied history there was one major historian of the Third Reich, Ian Kershaw.
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, just apathetic.”

The comic also disputes the idea that Borat insults the Kazakh people.

Boyakasha ... Baron Cohen as his other character Ali G, leader of
the Staines (Berkshire) gangsta posse!


He said: “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 people might have about this ex-Soviet backwater.

“The joke is not on Kazakhstan. The joke is on people who can believe that the Kazakhstan that I describe can exist — who believe there’s a country where homosexuals wear blue hats and the women live in cages, they drink fermented horse urine and the age of consent has been raised to nine years old.”

The Kazakh government even complained about Borat to the US President. Sacha admits he would loved to have been in the briefing where the world’s most powerful man was told about his comic character.

Sacha’s Jewish grandmother was an acclaimed ballet dancer who fled to London from Hitler’s Germany.

His mother taught at a school of movement and his father, from Wales, owned a clothing store in Piccadilly Circus.

He said: “My parents were incredibly loving. I think that gives you the strength to go into a crowd of people who hate you.”

The youngest of three boys, Sacha went to the private Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire.

He said: “I used to break-dance. Starting at the age of 12, my mother would take me and my crew in the back of her Volvo.

“We had the linoleum in the back and she’d drive us to Covent Garden and we’d pull the lino out and start breaking.

“We didn’t really have a name until we started doing bar mitzvahs.

“I think we were called Black On White. We used mainly robotics. Essentially we were middle-class Jewish white boys, who were adopting this culture, which we thought was very cool. That was sort of the origin of Ali G.”

Intelligent ... Sacha in his Cambridge University days


Ali G, he admits, was inspired by the Radio 1 DJ Tim Westwood, who he describes as “absurd”.

Sacha said: “We used go to these hip-hop happenings, and even then he was kind of laughable. Once I found out that he was actually the son of a bishop, it became even more absurd. He was so keen to be presented as a gangsta.”

After school Sacha spent a year in Israel in a communal farm then came back to Britain to study and graduate from Christ’s College, Cambridge.

“I gave myself five years to start earning money from being an actor, a comedian,” said Sacha, on his post-university days.

“If it didn’t work out, I was going to move on to something else, become a barrister or something.”

During those five years he developed an early Ali G called MC Jocelyn Cheadle-Hume (named after the area of Manchester) and a Borat forerunner, Moldovan Alexi Krickler. His first show, Pump TV, aired on satellite then he worked on Talk TV on London Weekend Television.

Much of his material never made it to our screens as it was thought too risque.

Just two months before his five year deadline was due to end Sacha considered quitting the entertainment industry



It was his early version of Borat that saved him.

Sacha said: “I was sitting on a beach in Thailand, I had just come back from my brother’s wedding in Australia.

“I was thinking about staying, because I was having this very nice life on £1.50 a day.

That’s when I got a call from my agent saying there’s this audition for The 11 O’Clock Show, a satirical late-night show, and they were looking for a host.

“I remember telling her I didn’t know if I wanted to come back.

“I had been rejected so many times that I didn’t know if it was worth it.”

The cult hero ... rewarding alter ego


His tape of Alexi at a pro-hunt rally earned him the job.

Now Sacha, who is engaged to actress Isla Fisher, is in huge demand. He is working on several films, including one featuring his character Bruno, an Austrian fashionista.

Sacha said: “I do have other characters that I want to start developing in the next six months.

“But I think it’s going to be harder to do stuff in a reality setting. It’s going to be impossible to have Borat operate in the way he used to.

“He might be going to live in a very obscure part of Kazakhstan where it’s hard to contact him.”

Sacha always tried his best to stay in character as Borat while filming — even when confronted by the law.

He said: “The first time I got stopped by the police, I thought to myself, ‘What do I do?’ because I was separated from the crew. And I thought, ‘There can’t be a law against speaking in a funny voice to a policeman.’

“Plus, I didn’t know what story the rest of the crew had told the police as they separated us.

“The director was surprised when the secret service stopped us at the White House and I stayed in character.”

But now, at last, it seems that Sacha might be willing to publicly separate himself from his characters — despite the cost to his home life.

“I think, essentially, I’m a private person,” he said: “So I’ve been trying to have my cake and eat it, too — to have my characters be famous yet still live a normal life where I’m not trapped by the fame and recognisability.

“I guess I’ve been greedy . . . maybe it’s time to let go.”

©2006, Rolling Stone. First published in Rolling Stone® Magazine. Distributed by Tribune Media Services.

thesun.co.uk