Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (2020)

[greekmom]

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (also known as Borat 2) 

A  mockumentary comedy film written by and starring Sacha Baron Cohen as the comically inept and wild Kazakhstani television personality Borat Sagdiyev. Fourteen years after release of Borat, Borat Sagdiyev returns to the United States from Kazakhstan and this time he discovers more about American culture, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the 2020 elections.

Released on October 23, 2020, on Amazon Prime Video.

[greekmom]

 

[Robert Lynch]

I know the actor is 24 years old, but this is icky here

 

[Kel Varnsen]

I had a day off today so I watched it this afternoon. Pretty funny although a little bit long. They probably could have cut out at least one segment. I didn't really care for the dance at the debutante ball, although the girl calling the old guy disgusting was hilarious. The bit in the Synagogue was awesome though. The stuff with Rudy seemed way less scandalous than what the media reports made it sound like. I did like the end though back in Kazakhstan.

[Duke2801]

I enjoyed it, although some parts depicting real people/events are highly disturbing. Like the “rally” towards the end. Definitely a movie one would have to watch several times to pick up on all the jokes.
 

I’m still confused which people “knew” about the filming of the movie or not. Some seemed somewhat in on the joke, while others (like Rudy Giuliani) did not. 

(After discovering Facebook and all its conspiracy theory groups): 

“You’re my favorite daddy in the whole flat world.” 
 

 

[greekmom]

I liked it especially the twist at the end. The dirty old man at the ball and his daughter (?) saying gross - that was real.  The rally was real. I think the UPS fax guy and the costume shop they were in on the joke.  I read that Sascha broke character and told the lady at temple who he was and it was satire which was super sweet.  I am still not sure about the conspiracy theorist if they knew or not. I mean he was with them for 5 days from what I read online totally in character as Borat. 

The Rudy Giuliani thing - the only thing I have to say is a) who goes into the bedroom to take off their mikes  and b) he was patting her backside and asking for her phone number and email address. Make your own conclusions.

One thing I wasn't sure about is I know Sascha speaks fluent Hebrew and Polish and Maria speaks Bulgarian.  So when they are speaking together in their "home language", they really made it believable that they understood eachother.

I forgot to add that both Sascha and Maria took great risks with covid to film this movie. Kudos.

Edited October 24, 2020 by greekmom
one more thing

[Kel Varnsen]

18 minutes ago, greekmom said:

The dirty old man at the ball and his daughter (?) saying gross - that was real.  The rally was real. I think the UPS fax guy and the costume shop they were in on the joke.  I read that Sascha broke character and told the lady at temple who he was and it was satire which was super sweet.  I am still not sure about the conspiracy theorist if they knew or not. I mean he was with them for 5 days from what I read online totally in character as Borat. 

The creppy old man at the ball was hilarious, but for the most part the ball stuff seemed off. Because for the most part he was making fun of people who had to coming, (like the lady at the bake shop or that pastor guy they went to in that dumb pregnancy centre) or making fun of himself around people who were awesome (like the babysitter or the ladies in the Synagogue). But at the ball it seemed like a bunch of kids at a fancy party that was probably a big deal to them and he he kind of ruined it.

Also McDonald Trump was my favourite little running joke. 

As for real vs fake people, I assumed that the guy who delivered the crate with Johnny the Monkey was an actor or at least in on the joke. Because otherwise I can't see him nailing closed the crate with a person and a monkey corpse in it.

[greekmom]

1 hour ago, Kel Varnsen said:

The creppy old man at the ball was hilarious, but for the most part the ball stuff seemed off. Because for the most part he was making fun of people who had to coming, (like the lady at the bake shop or that pastor guy they went to in that dumb pregnancy centre) or making fun of himself around people who were awesome (like the babysitter or the ladies in the Synagogue). But at the ball it seemed like a bunch of kids at a fancy party that was probably a big deal to them and he he kind of ruined it.

Also McDonald Trump was my favourite little running joke. 

As for real vs fake people, I assumed that the guy who delivered the crate with Johnny the Monkey was an actor or at least in on the joke. Because otherwise I can't see him nailing closed the crate with a person and a monkey corpse in it.

The ball was a set up but the attendees didn't know it.  I read that they had to fill out a survey about pop culture prior to be invited to go (i.e. do you know who Baron Cohen is) and were paid 100$.  Also that their phones were confiscated. 

[Spartan Girl]

1 hour ago, greekmom said:

The Rudy Giuliani thing - the only thing I have to say is a) who goes into the bedroom to take off their mikes  and b) he was patting her backside and asking for her phone number and email address. Make your own conclusions.

And who lies down to "tuck their shirt back in"? 

Azamat's fate was so nasty.

I'm glad that the Holocaust survivor at the synagogue was in on it.

I'm still impressed that SBC was able to pull this off in the age of Twitter. You think after all the times he's pulled this people would start to catch on to his disguises but nope.

[Duke2801]

Oh yeah that reminds me that I’m also very confused about the Holocaust survivor because I’m reading 2 different things (not here, elsewhere online):

 

 1. I’ve read that they did tell her about the premise of the film ahead of time.
 

2. Then I’ve also read that her family/estate sued SBC (for emotional distress I think??) when she found out that she’d been duped. 

 

[Kel Varnsen]

2 hours ago, greekmom said:

The ball was a set up but the attendees didn't know it.  I read that they had to fill out a survey about pop culture prior to be invited to go (i.e. do you know who Baron Cohen is) and were paid 100$.  Also that their phones were confiscated. 

Ok well if the movie/SBC organized it then it doesn't really bother me. Since it is not like he crashed and then ruined someone else's event.

2 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

And who lies down to "tuck their shirt back in"? 

As someone who has worn a lot of dress shirts/pants that kind of makes sense. Trying to tuck a dress shirt in while sitting never really works. Usually when my office was opened I would stand up to do it. Lying down to do it is a little weird but it kind of makes sense, especially since it happened right after she untucked it. Based on some of the reports I was totally expecting him to be putting his hands in his pants for a long time while in a room with an obvious teenager.

2 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

I'm still impressed that SBC was able to pull this off in the age of Twitter. You think after all the times he's pulled this people would start to catch on to his disguises but nope.

What surprises me is that after his first movie and then his This is America show he isn't like Fox News's public enemy number one so that all of their viewers aren't constantly on guard against him.

[Growsonwalls]

I feel like this movie didn't have the punch of the first one because we're no longer shocked at stuff like the rally -- that stuff is on CNN day and night. And the Qanon nuts sounded like people I'm friends with on FB who share those conspiracy theories day and night. So all this seems like a retread and thus not shocking.

The best parts of the movie were the more heartwarming bits like the babysitter and the Holocaust survivor. Those bits actually were more "surprising" because of their sweetness.

As for the Rudy bit I bow to no one in my hatred of Rudy but I noticed that a lot of the dialogue seemed dubbed over and there was a lot of use of a split screen between the daughter and Rudy, so it's hard to know how real that whole segment was.

[snickers]

54 minutes ago, Growsonwalls said:

As for the Rudy bit I bow to no one in my hatred of Rudy but I noticed that a lot of the dialogue seemed dubbed over and there was a lot of use of a split screen between the daughter and Rudy, so it's hard to know how real that whole segment was

you and I must be watching two different movies...sure the scenes were edited/spliced up....but i think it is obvious...we saw what we saw...a guy totally infatuated.....and I think he thought, "she's totally into me too" with the hand on the knee, etc....I think the asking for the number/email sealed the deal...and is he married?

 

As for the rally scene that was another scene heavily edited.....did anyone remember when that footage was leaked over the summer? I think someone at the rally figured out it was SBC....because the video i saw on the net showed him getting booed off the stage...not because they figured out who he was...but I think the started to figure out they were getting duped....but, i swear the video i saw was like at least 9 minutes long, maybe longer...which just shows how long it was going on and how as he sang more versus, the more they were eating it up....i wonder if this was the place where he wore the bullet proof vest...it has to be.....

 

my hubby thought the scene with Pence was the scene where he wore the vest

 

i quite liked this.....it's been so long since i've seen the first borat i can't really compare, but, while he changed it up that's not a bad thing...

[Growsonwalls]

I believe that the Rudy scene was partly real but there was some funny editing/splicing and the use of the split screen made me wonder if parts of the Rudy interview were taken with another interviewer. 

[Robert Lynch]

9 hours ago, snickers said:

you and I must be watching two different movies...sure the scenes were edited/spliced up....but i think it is obvious...we saw what we saw...a guy totally infatuated.....and I think he thought, "she's totally into me too" with the hand on the knee, etc....I think the asking for the number/email sealed the deal...and is he married?

 

As for the rally scene that was another scene heavily edited.....did anyone remember when that footage was leaked over the summer? I think someone at the rally figured out it was SBC....because the video i saw on the net showed him getting booed off the stage...not because they figured out who he was...but I think the started to figure out they were getting duped....but, i swear the video i saw was like at least 9 minutes long, maybe longer...which just shows how long it was going on and how as he sang more versus, the more they were eating it up....i wonder if this was the place where he wore the bullet proof vest...it has to be.....

 

my hubby thought the scene with Pence was the scene where he wore the vest

 

i quite liked this.....it's been so long since i've seen the first borat i can't really compare, but, while he changed it up that's not a bad thing...

That's why I have zero sympathy for those rally goers. I hate to be angry, but I see too many of these rally people in news sources who try to deny reality and sometimes would go no comment after some newscaster hit them with hardball questions. It is those typical type of people that  I am more disturbed at. So I applaud SBC for showing what type of sheep these people are.

Edited October 25, 2020 by Robert Lynch

[Spartan Girl]

Funny how the QAnon roommates were genuinely kind to Borat and taught him that his daughter deserved equal rights, but where everything was concerned they were ignorant, racist people that believe that conspiracy theory crap.

[PikaScrewChu]

13 hours ago, snickers said:

you and I must be watching two different movies...sure the scenes were edited/spliced up....but i think it is obvious...we saw what we saw...a guy totally infatuated.....and I think he thought, "she's totally into me too" with the hand on the knee, etc....I think the asking for the number/email sealed the deal...and is he married?

 

As for the rally scene that was another scene heavily edited.....did anyone remember when that footage was leaked over the summer? I think someone at the rally figured out it was SBC....because the video i saw on the net showed him getting booed off the stage...not because they figured out who he was...but I think the started to figure out they were getting duped....but, i swear the video i saw was like at least 9 minutes long, maybe longer...which just shows how long it was going on and how as he sang more versus, the more they were eating it up....i wonder if this was the place where he wore the bullet proof vest...it has to be.....

 

my hubby thought the scene with Pence was the scene where he wore the vest

 

i quite liked this.....it's been so long since i've seen the first borat i can't really compare, but, while he changed it up that's not a bad thing...

The Olympia militia rally, it depends on where the person recording was standing. There's one where there's a guy screaming "That's racist!" over top of all the chanting. Another video has a lot more enthusiastic chanting going on. 

Fun fact. If you watch the aftermath videos you can see a lot of the people who were singing along in the movie. I re-watched the videos to see if they did some movie magic to get him to yell "over there" to the QAnon guys.

Maria Bakalova really carried the film. The fact she had to do quite a bit herself without Sacha Baron Cohen being there directly is pretty impressive. 

Also it's 2020 folks. How are people still okay with making jokes about "the Jew nose"? 😬😬😬😬😬

[snickers]

2 hours ago, PikaScrewChu said:

How are people still okay with making jokes about "the Jew nose"? 😬😬😬😬😬

Man, I tell you, that scene in the synagogue....she HAD to be in on it right? If someone showed up dressed up like that at my place of worship I’d be calling the police. If she wasn’t, she was truly a saint. 
 

Another WTF moment was the lady and the cake...you just write that with no pause? 
 

as for the Q guys, the hubby theorized they were a gay couple? Anyone else suspect that? I mean, it would explain them not going totally crazy on him when he was parading around in his underwear 😂

[Brn2bwild]

While some of the people involved were apparently ignorant that it was a stunt, I think the office worker at that plastic surgery clinic was aware it was a joke.  She seemed to be struggling to keep a straight face when Borat asked if they could use potatoes instead of silicon.  And what busy clinic has an opening at 6 pm the next day?

[greekmom]

1 hour ago, snickers said:

Man, I tell you, that scene in the synagogue....she HAD to be in on it right? If someone showed up dressed up like that at my place of worship I’d be calling the police. If she wasn’t, she was truly a saint.

The lady at the synagogue was in on it. SBC actually  broke character and told her who he is and what he's doing. 

[Growsonwalls]

2 hours ago, snickers said:

as for the Q guys, the hubby theorized they were a gay couple? Anyone else suspect that? I mean, it would explain them not going totally crazy on him when he was parading around in his underwear 😂

Yeah the vibe I got was that they were a gay couple too. They also seemed like only casual followers of that Qanon conspiracies. I know some hardcore followers and ... let's just say they live, breathe, and eat Q drops. Like they check for timestamps of tweets and those are all apparently "messages." They went into orbit when Melania wore a green dress because that was a nod to Pepe the Frog. These two guys seemed more like they generally knew what the conspiracy theory was but weren't hardcore into that life.

[PikaScrewChu]

12 minutes ago, greekmom said:

The lady at the synagogue was in on it. SBC actually  broke character and told her who he is and what he's doing. 

Yep. That's why everyone was so chill in that scene. Nevermind he hit on every stereotype walking into the synagogue. I think I may have missed some.

The rest? Tom Hanks clearly had to be in on the joke.

[Hava]

The abortion clinic scene was extraordinary. The best part of the film. It showed exactly how anti-choice types care more about the unborn fetus than the actual girl/woman, who here was presenting as a child of sexual abuse at the hands of her father.

I am a tried and true liberal, but I the Rudy Giuliani scene was overhyped. Sure, he was a creepy old man, but it did not look like he did anything non-consensual. And it really is believable that he was just tucking in his shirt. 

[Kel Varnsen]

3 hours ago, Hava said:

The abortion clinic scene was extraordinary. The best part of the film. It showed exactly how anti-choice types care more about the unborn fetus than the actual girl/woman, who here was presenting as a child of sexual abuse at the hands of her father.

That wasn't an abortion clinic though. The guy was a pastor so I am pretty sure it was one of those places where they make it seem like a doctor's office but then they try to talk you out of an abortion.

[Kromm]

Yeah, I'm sorry but that in no way was an abortion clinic. The point in fact was the exact opposite.  That it was in a place where the very idea of abortion was taboo. 

[Hava]

5 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

That wasn't an abortion clinic though. The guy was a pastor so I am pretty sure it was one of those places where they make it seem like a doctor's office but then they try to talk you out of an abortion.

You're completely right. I misspoke. It was a clinic of some sort though I believe where they convince women out of having an abortion. 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Golden Globe nomination!

BEST MOTION PICTURE – MUSICAL OR COMEDY

BEST ACTOR – MUSICAL OR COMEDY - Sacha Baron Cohen

BEST ACTRESS – MUSICAL OR COMEDY - Maria Bakalova

Edited February 3, 2021 by ElectricBoogaloo

[Kromm]

I'll be 100% honest and say I'm not entirely sure Sacha deserves a nomination, but Maria Bakalova deserves this entirely.  She took a silly little role and elevated it, totally stealing the show from Sacha at every opportunity. 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

SAG Award nomination!

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role - Maria Bakalova

[Kel Varnsen]

10 hours ago, Kromm said:

I'll be 100% honest and say I'm not entirely sure Sacha deserves a nomination, but Maria Bakalova deserves this entirely.  She took a silly little role and elevated it, totally stealing the show from Sacha at every opportunity. 

I can see him getting it. Especially when you consider all the stories about how he stayed in character as Borat for 3 days plus how in some cases he was playing Borat playing someone else. Probably not Oscar worthy, but good enough for the ridiculousness that is the Golden Globes.

Plus at least it is an actual comedy not one of those cases where they really wanted to give a famous actor a nomination so they show up to the ceremony but the drama category was too full so they decided that a movie was a comedy when it wasn't.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Critics' Choice Award nominations!

Best Supporting Actress - Maria Bakalova

Best Comedy

[ElectricBoogaloo]

2 Golden Globe Awards!

Best Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy: Sacha Baron Cohen

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Critics' Choice Award win!

Best Supporting Actress - Maria Bakalova

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Producers Guild of America nomination!

Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures

“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” (Amazon Studios)
Producers: Sacha Baron Cohen, Monica Levinson, Anthony Hines

“Judas and the Black Messiah” (Warner Bros)
Producers: Charles D. King, Ryan Coogler, Shaka King

“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” (Netflix)
Producers: Denzel Washington, Todd Black

“Mank” (Netflix)
Producers: Ceán Chaffin, Eric Roth, Douglas Urbanski

“Minari” (A24)
Producer: Christina Oh

“Nomadland” (Searchlight Pictures)
Producers: Mollye Asher, Dan Janvey, Frances McDormand, Peter Spears, Chloé Zhao

“One Night in Miami” (Amazon Studios)
Producers: Jess Wu Calder, Keith Calder, Jody Klein

“Promising Young Woman” (Focus Features)
Producers: Josey McNamara, Ben Browning, Ashley Fox, Emerald Fennell

“Sound of Metal” (Amazon Studios)
Producers: Bert Hamelinck, Sacha Ben Harroche

“The Trial of the Chicago 7” (Netflix)
Producers: Marc Platt, Stuart Besser

[ElectricBoogaloo]

BAFTA nomination!

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
NIAMH ALGAR Calm With Horses
KOSAR ALI Rocks
MARIA BAKALOVA Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
DOMINIQUE FISHBACK Judas and the Black Messiah
ASHLEY MADEKWE County Lines
YUH-JUNG YOUN Minari

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Oscar nominations!

Best Supporting Actress
Maria Bakalova (“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”)
Glenn Close (“Hillbilly Elegy”)
Olivia Colman (“The Father”)
Amanda Seyfried (“Mank”)
Youn Yuh-jung (“Minari”)

Best Adapted Screenplay
Sacha Baron Cohen and Co-Writers (“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”)
Florian Zeller and Christopher Hampton (“The Father”)
Chloe Zhao (“Nomadland”)
Kemp Powers (“One Night in Miami”)
Ramin Bahrani (“The White Tiger”)

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Writers Guild of America award!

Best Adapted Screenplay: Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Dan Swimer, Peter Baynham, Erica Rivinoja, Dan Mazer, Jena Friedman, Lee Kern & Nina Pedrad