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Sacha Baron Cohen aka Ali G

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I really thought we had a thread for this guy but I did a search and came up w/ nothing so here it is..........Ali G is Convinced He is Being Watched by CIA British chameleon Sacha Baron Cohen believes he is being watched by the Central Intelligence Agency, after filming inside American space agency Nasa By: Entertainment News Staff -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, famous for his Ali G alter-ego, has filmed inside American space agency NASA and now he is convinced that the CIA has been watching him since.Cohen sneaked into a secret testing room in Cape Canaveral, Florida, to shoot a sketch for his upcoming TV series.The paranoid comedian believes he is being followed by CIA agents to make sure he doesn't try to pull the same stunt again."We managed to get into this secure room and since then I have been watched whenever I travel", Ali G said.

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"I am look forward very much to the festival, where I am intend to watch many Hollywood blockbusters films and then produce DVD copies of them for sell in Kazakhstan."

– Borat (a.k.a. Sacha Baron Cohen), on attending the Toronto International Film Festival

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:D Fantastic!!!!

 

.........................

 

Bush to hold talks on Ali G creator after diplomatic row

Last updated at 16:11pm on 12th September 2006

 

Making waves: Sacha Baron Cohen's creation Kazakh tv presenter Borat

 

US President George Bush is to host White House talks on British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.

 

Cohen, 35, creator of Ali G, has infuriated the Kazakhstan government with his portrayal of Borat, a bumbling Kazakh TV presenter.

 

And now a movie of Borat's adventures in the US has caused a diplomatic incident.

 

The opening scene, which shows Borat lustily kissing his sister goodbye and setting off for America in a car pulled by a horse, had audiences in stitches when it was first shown last week.

 

But the film, which has just premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, has prompted a swift reaction from the Kazakhstan government, which is launching a PR blitz in the States.

 

Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev is to fly to the US to meet President Bush in the coming weeks and on the agenda will be his country's image.

 

President Nazarbayev has confirmed his government will buy "educational" TV spots and print advertisements about the "real Kazakhstan" in a bid to save the country's reputation before the film is released in the US in November.

 

President Nazarbayev will visit the White House and the Bush family compound in Maine when he flies in for talks that will include the fictional character Borat.

 

But a spokesman for the Kazakhstan Embassy says it is unlikely that President Nazarbayev will find the film funny.

 

Roman Vassilenko said: "The Government has expressed its displeasure about Borat's representation of our country.

 

"Our opinion of the character has not changed.

 

"We understand that the film exposes the hypocrisy that exists both here in the USA and in the UK and understand that Mr Cohen has a right to freedom of speech.

 

"Nursultan Nazarbayev has taken Mr Bush up on an invitation to visit this country to help build our relationship with the USA.

 

"I cannot speak for the president himself, only for the government, but I certainly don't think President Nazarbayev and Mr Bush will share a joke about the film.

 

"The bottom line is we want people to know that he does not represent the true people of Kazakhstan."

 

The Kazakh government has previously threatened Baron-Cohen with legal action, for allowing Borat to, among other things, make fun of his homeland, demean women, slander gypsies and urge listeners to "Throw the Jew Down the Well."

 

Anti-Borat hard-liners have pulled the plug on borat.kz, Borat's Kazakhstan-based Website after his frequent displays of anti-Semitism and his portrayal of Kazakh culture.

 

Nurlan Isin, President of the Association of Kazakh IT Companies took the action after complaints.

 

He said: "We've done this so he can't badmouth Kazakhstan under the .kz domain name.

 

"He can go and do whatever he wants at other domains."

 

The row originally erupted in November 2005, following Borat's hosting of the MTV Europe Music Awards in Lisbon.

 

The Kazakh Foreign Ministry was furious over Cohen's bad taste representation of the nation.

 

'No such thing as bad publicity'

 

Foreign Ministry spokesman Yerzhan Ashykbayev told a news conference: "We view Mr. Cohen's behaviour at the MTV Europe Music Awards as utterly unacceptable, being a concoction of bad taste and ill manners which is completely incompatible with the ethics and civilized behaviour of Kazakhstan's people.

 

"We reserve the right to any legal action to prevent new pranks of the kind."

 

Baron Cohen responded to Ashykbayev in character by posting a video on the Official Borat website.

 

In the video, Borat said, "In response to Mr. Ashykbayev's comments, I'd like to state I have no connection with Mr. Cohen and fully support my Government's decision to sue this Jew.

 

"Since the 2003 Tuleyakiv reforms, Kazakhstan is as civilized as any other country in the world.

 

"Women can now travel on inside of bus, homosexuals no longer have to wear blue hats, and age of consent has been raised to eight years old."

 

His blatant outpouring then prompted the Kazakh government to hire two public relations firms to counter the claims, and ran a four-page advertisement in The New York Times.

 

The ad carried testimonials about the nation's democracy, education system and the power and influence enjoyed by women. News of President Nazarbayev's upcoming visit has prompted experts to study the character's impact on US culture.

 

Sean R. Roberts, Central Asian Affairs Fellow at Georgetown University, has been studying the phenomenon.

 

He said: "I have found that more Americans are aware of Kazakhstan than four years ago when I last lived in the United States.

 

"The increased knowledge of Kazakhstan, however, is not due to the country's economic successes or its role as a U.S. ally in the war on terror.

 

"Instead, most Americans who have heard of Kazakhstan have heard of it through a satire of a Kazakh journalist named Borat.

 

"Borat certainly does not promote an image of Kazakhstan that is in sync with that which the government and its leader would like to promote abroad.

 

"As the old adage goes, however, 'there is no such thing as bad publicity.'

 

"If that is true, Borat is bringing much more publicity to Kazakhstan."

 

Cohen's representatives refused to allow him or his alter ego to respond to the controversy because it's not close enough to the film's release date.

 

......................

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Please, oh Goddess of humor, let Ali G interview George W. He would be struck even dumber by the first question. Man, that would be funny, and it would make all of us who find W a parody anyway quite happy!!

 

Confidential to Dick & Karl (Bushies handlers): Boys, it would help bring youth to your party!! Schedule it!!

 

Up with Borat and down with the fogies in the Kazakhstan government!!

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White House turns away "Kazakh reporter" Borat

 

Borat, the fictional TV reporter from Kazakhstan, may have gotten under the skin of Kazakh officials but on Thursday he couldn't get past the gates of the White House.

 

Secret Service agents turned away British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, in character as the boorish, anti-Semitic journalist, when he tried to invite "Premier George Walter Bush" to a screening of his upcoming movie, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."

 

Also invited to the screening: O.J. Simpson, "Mel Gibsons" and other "American dignitaries."

 

Cohen's stunt was timed to coincide with an official visitby Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who is scheduled to meet with Bush on Friday.

 

Nazarbayev and other Kazakh officials have sought to raise the profile of the oil-rich former Soviet republic and assure the West that, contrary to Borat's claims, theirs is not anation of drunken anti-Semites who treat their women worse than their donkeys.

 

Kazakhstan is expected to become one of the top 10 oil producers within a decade. A U.S. ally with troops in Iraq, the country has drawn criticism for its deteriorating civil liberties and flawed elections.

 

Shortly after Nazarbayev dedicated a statue in front of the Kazakh embassy, Borat denounced an official Kazakh publicity campaign running in U.S. magazines as "disgusting fabrications" orchestrated by neighboring Uzbekistan.

 

"If there is one more item of Uzbek propaganda claiming that we do not drink fermented horse urine, give death penalty for baking bagels, or export over 300 tonnes of human pubis per year, then we will be left with no alternative but to commence bombardment of their cities with our catapults," Borat said.

 

Cohen, 35, who is Jewish, recently co-starred in the recent U.S. box office hit "Talladega Nights" and has appeared in TV comedy series "Da Ali G Show" on U.S. cable channel HBO and Britain's Channel 4.

 

Cohen's "Borat" comedy routine has drawn legal threats from the Kazakh government, which keeps a tight lid on criticism in its news media.

 

Kazakh press secretary Roman Vasilenko said he was worried that some may take the Borat routine seriously.

 

"He is not a Kazakh. What he represents is a country of Boratastan, a country of one," Vasilenko told Reuters.

 

yahoo news

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JAGSHEMASH, U.S. CAPITAL!

 

On the road to promote his "movie-film," Borat (a.k.a. Sascha Baron Cohen) make nice with the American press in Washington D.C. on Thursday, where the Kazakh reporter invited "Premier George Walter Bush," and other "American dignitaries" (including Donald Rumsfeld, O.J. Simpson and Mel Gibson) to a special screening of his film Borat.

 

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Oy Vey! Borat Gets Boot From British Jewry?

by TMZ Staff

Filed under: Movies, Wacky and Weird

 

A Jewish organization in the UK says it has had enough of Sacha Baron Cohen's meshuggah Borat act, and is punishing the British-born comic with a £9.000 ($17,000) fine and a ban of six months from any UK synagogue. Or at least that's what it says.

 

Just as Jews worldwide gathered to observe Yom Kippur, the solemn day of atonement, The Board of Guardians of British Jews made this scathing proclamation on its Web site, www.theboard.co.uk: "We gave Mr Baron Cohen an informal warning over six months ago about the Borat character ... bringing major embarrassment to the Jewish community," says one Harry Greenberg, president of The Board. "Mr Baron Cohen ignored our letters and phonecalls [sic] ... and has been banned from setting foot into any synagogue for six months." Cohen's fake-Kazakh character continually talks about himself and his countrymen abusing and demeaning Jews, jokes that the American Anti-Defamation League and the Kazakh government have rebuked.

 

Of course, the so-called British Guardians' threats and edicts might be much ado about bubkes. The same organization -- which is not to be confused with The Board of Deputies of British Jews, which is the UK equivalent of the Anti-Defamation League -- put up a posting just after Mel Gibson's DUI arrest and subsequent anti-Semitic tirade in August saying that it had welcomed Gibson to its board as a vice-president, and that, "despite American media trying to imply his is anti-Semitic, Mel is a true lover of all Jews and the Jewish faith." We all know how grounded in reality that is.

 

Due to Yom Kippur, all parties involved were unavailable for comment or verification.

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Please, oh Goddess of humor, let Ali G interview George W. He would be struck even dumber by the first question. Man, that would be funny, and it would make all of us who find W a parody anyway quite happy!!

 

Confidential to Dick & Karl (Bushies handlers): Boys, it would help bring youth to your party!! Schedule it!!

 

Up with Borat and down with the fogies in the Kazakhstan government!!

This makes me laugh just thinking about it. I would give anything to see GWB & Ali G.

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Oy Vey! Borat Gets Boot From British Jewry?

That's funny considering Cohen is Jewish himself.

 

Anyone see the episode of Ali G where he goes into this Southern-type bar and sings all these anti-semitic songs -- and the entire crowd gets really into it? Hysterical. And very scary.

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Oy Vey! Borat Gets Boot From British Jewry?

That's funny considering Cohen is Jewish himself.

 

Anyone see the episode of Ali G where he goes into this Southern-type bar and sings all these anti-semitic songs -- and the entire crowd gets really into it? Hysterical. And very scary.

 

LOL! I saw that one...The song was "Throw a Jew Down a Well!" The crowd all got into it...and it was a redneck bar.

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No Glory for 'Borat' in Kazakhstan

 

 

Kazakhstan's largest movie chain has done the expected -- banned the upcoming movie Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. The movie stars Sacha Baron Cohen as a Kazakh journalist who tours America depicting Kazakhs as a nation of misogynists, racists and anti-Semites. (Cohen is Jewish.) The theater chain, Otau Cinema, called the film "offensive, a complete lie and nonsense," and worried that "Americans will probably believe what they see there." Ironically, the same point was made by the Jewish Anti-Defamation League, which expressed concern "that the audience may not always be sophisticated enough to get the joke and that some may even find it reinforcing their bigotry. While Mr. Cohen's brand of humor may be tasteless and even offensive to some, we understand that the intent is to dash stereotypes."

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I was watching CNN this morning, and I saw this long commercial promoting Kazakhstan. I'm pretty sure the majority of people know Cohen is joking, but I guess you never know.

 

In my opinion, most Kazakhs are anti-semitic people who sleep with animals and their sisters. :rolleyes:

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Oy Vey! Borat Gets Boot From British Jewry?

That's funny considering Cohen is Jewish himself.

 

Anyone see the episode of Ali G where he goes into this Southern-type bar and sings all these anti-semitic songs -- and the entire crowd gets really into it? Hysterical. And very scary.

 

LOL! I saw that one...The song was "Throw a Jew Down a Well!" The crowd all got into it...and it was a redneck bar.

 

Oh man, I remember that episode. The worst thing about it was that the song was so catchy! I was singing "Throw the Jew down the well/so my people can be free/something something something something/and we'll have a big party!" all freakin' week. It was a little hard to explain. :unsure:

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Borat Goes Sondheim; 'Quills' Thrills

 

Get ready: The word is that Sacha Baron Cohen, aka Borat and Ali G, will play the Italian tonic salesman and barber Adolfo Pirelli in Tim Burton’s film version of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd.”

 

Pirelli is only in two scenes, but his grisly death is a major plot point in this flawless musical. Cohen is far taller than the usual stage Pirelli, but could be quite funny. Johnny Depp is already set as Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street.

 

Now, if Burton were smart, he’d call on Imelda Staunton ("Vera Drake") for Mrs. Lovett. The above-mentioned Haley would make an excellent Toby, Pirelli’s assistant …

 

The second annual Quills Awards were given out last night at the American Museum of Natural History. The show airs Oct. 28 on NBC stations with Lester Holt as host and Dana Delany, Donald Trump, Stanley Tucci and Judd Hirsch among the presenters. Fantasia made a cameo appearance and belted out “Summertime” for musical enjoyment.

 

Some of the famous writers you’ll see include Liz Smith, Dominick Dunne and Nora Roberts. Director David Frankel and writer Lauren Weisberger got a special award for making a terrific movie out of her novel, “The Devil Wears Prada.” Kudos to former Variety publisher Gerry Byrne, who’s made the Quills into an institution after one year!

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Behind the Schemes

In 'Borat,' Sacha Baron Cohen plays unsuspecting folks for big laughs. Meet the real people who became punch lines.

 

By Devin Gordon

Newsweek

Oct. 16, 2006 issue - He arrives at the very last second for his interviews, and he doesn't stick around afterward for small talk. As soon as the camera's off, he vanishes. "His crew wouldn't let anybody near the guy," says Jim Sell, a car salesman at the Criswell Dealership in Gaithersburg, Md. About 18 months ago, Borat Sagdiyev, a "TV journalist from Kazakhstan" who's actually an English guerrilla comedian named Sacha Baron Cohen, visited Sell to buy a vehicle for a "documentary" he was making about his experiences driving across America. "We had to move to a remote area on the lot," says Sell, "and now I understand why." After a few hours, during which Borat, cameras rolling, requested a car with a "p---y magnet" and tried to buy a $70,000 Hummer for $600, the strange visitor was gone. Later, while Sell shared the story with his co-workers, one woman rushed off to print out a photo from HBO's Web site. "It was Borat," he says. "I got set up pretty good, and I'm not real happy about it. For $150, I wasted three hours and he never even bought a vehicle."

 

Even if you're an HBO subscriber, the name "Borat" might not ring a bell. He's one of several characters on "Da Ali G Show," all of whom are played by Baron Cohen, and all of whom get famous squares and average Joes to say really dumb things on camera. It's an old gag, but Baron Cohen has a genius for it, especially when his target is American xenophobia. The hip-hopping ghetto-wanna-be Ali G is the show's nominal star, but Borat—an uncouth, anti-Semitic but weirdly lovable horndog—has blown past him in cult fervor. Now comes the "Borat" movie. (Actually, the full title is "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.") It opens Nov. 3 and has generated more advance buzz than any movie this year. Before one early screening in New York for an audience culled from MySpace users, 400 fans killed time by serenading each other with a sardonic Borat tune from his HBO days, "Throw the Jew Down the Well." The film, a series of interviews and sketches as Borat crosses America in search of Pamela Anderson, has already stirred up a fuss over its anti-Semitic humor. (Baron Cohen himself is Jewish.) Even if most viewers decide it isn't offensive, there's no avoiding the fact that it is kinda mean.

 

It's also hilarious, but how did Baron Cohen get people to participate? NEWSWEEK tracked down many of the unwitting costars. Some are angry, some amused. But to varying degrees, all of them feel foolish. "I was disappointed that Mr. Cohen never let me in on the joke," says Kathie Martin, who runs an etiquette school in Birmingham, Ala. "And I would've liked my 15 minutes of fame in this life to have been for something more worthwhile than an R-rated movie." (Baron Cohen and Twentieth Century Fox did not respond to requests for comment.)

 

It always began the same way: with a phone call out of the blue from a producer representing a phony company called One America Productions. The producers claimed to be working with "a Belarus TV station"—too many people had gotten wise to the Kazakhstan bit, presumably—on a documentary about America. They used fake names (try Googling "Lawrence Wenngrodd"), gave out inactive cell-phone numbers and e-mail addresses and paid interview subjects between $150 and $400 an hour. "They paid me in cash. Eight $50 bills," says Pat Haggerty, a humor coach from suburban Washington, D.C. "One tenth of 1 percent of my clients pay me in advance, and nobody pays me in cash. That's when I should've smelled a rat."

 

The next step was the release form. The producers usually pulled it out just before the cameras rolled, at a moment of maximum bustle. Bobby Rowe, a rodeo veteran of nearly 50 years from Dickson, Tenn., agreed to let Borat sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" before a major rodeo in western Virginia. He says the "Borat" crew showed up 10 hours later than he requested, just before the show began. (He also says he asked for a CD of Borat's singing the anthem weeks in advance; the producers mailed him one, and it was blank.) Most of the folks contacted by NEWSWEEK admit they barely read the release. Even if they did, they might not have grasped the legalese about waiving claims for "breach[es] of alleged moral behavior" and "fraud (such as any alleged deception or surprise about the Film)"—which is a nifty way of getting people to agree that it's OK to defraud them.

 

The people contacted for this story say they knew early in their Borat encounters that something was fishy, even if they couldn't put their finger on it. According to Haggerty, what tipped him off was the way Borat cracked up whenever Haggerty brought up handicapped people. Grace Welch, of the Veteran Feminists of America, says her radar beeped as soon as she laid eyes on Borat. "He had this powder-blue suit on, and it was the cheapest thing you ever saw! The seams were puckered!" Martin, the etiquette teacher, says it was the whole interview, nothing in particular, that got her wondering. But she's just being polite. It had to be the moment when Borat asked her if it was rude to show family photos, then offered up nude snapshots of his well-endowed teenage "son."

 

Unfortunately for Rowe, the rodeo man, he caught on too late. Once Borat took the mike at the rodeo, he saluted President George W. Bush by saying, "May he drink the blood of every man, woman and child in Iraq," then butchered the national anthem so badly that a horse reared up and fell over. Rowe, in a word, freaked. "I go out there," he recalls, "and I say, 'Get the hell outta this dadgum building! Half the sumbucks in here are probably packin' heat, and they'll put you in front of the firin' squad.' Boy, they got in their trucks and hauled boogie." When Rowe later learned that Borat was an actor on HBO, he breathed easy. He doesn't get HBO, and neither do his friends. Then a couple of months ago, a pal called him up after seeing the "Borat" trailer in a theater and said, "Hey, movie star!"

 

Most of Borat's victims manage to avoid saying anything that might embarrass them in front of, say, an international audience. Others aren't so careful. Before sending Borat out to sing the anthem, Rowe imparts some advice about blending in with Americans and, along the way, makes derogatory comments about gays and Muslims. Reminded of what he said on camera, the normally gregarious Rowe falls silent. "Man, oh, man," he says. "I guess I'll go see that sumbuck so I know whether to run off and hide." Late in the film, a trio of fraternity brothers from the Chi Psi house at the University of South Carolina pick up a hitchhiking Borat, share a few beers with him, offer their commentary on sexual politics and generally do America not-so-proud. (The fraternity's national chapter did not follow up on a request to locate the young men.)

 

Given the likelihood that Baron Cohen's movie will make piles of money—and the loose legalese of those release forms—someone is sure to try taking Borat to court. It's one of the few lessons in American life that Borat doesn't learn on screen: in this country, we sue. "I have a lawyer friend who said, 'Let me represent you! This is fraud!' " says Linda Stein, a New York-based sculptor whom Borat interviewed alongside Welch. Stein says she'll leave it alone, but she has terms. "If he invites me to the screening," she says, laughing. "And if he comes to my next gallery opening." Be careful what you wish for.

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'Borat' Defends Portrayal of Kazakhstan

 

The comedian known as "Borat" appeared briefly in Amsterdam Thursday, praising the city's freewheeling nightlife and defending his portrayal of the central Asian country of Kazakhstan. Borat boasted of picking up a date at a popular Amsterdam bar known as a gay meeting place.

 

"This woman reminded me of Kazakhi woman, she was more tall than me, with hair on arms, and some hair on face, and deep voice," he told the Dutch press.

 

Borat Sagdiyev, played by British comic Sacha Baron Cohen, has been criticized as a homophobic, misogynistic, English-mangling caricature _ the very traits that endear him to fans of his satire.

 

Kazakhstan's government placed four-page advertising inserts in the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune last month, countering Borat's portrayal of the ex-Soviet country as a backward place.

 

Borat said Thursday the ads were placed by agents of neighboring Uzbekistan and threatened to "commence bombardment of their cities with our catapults," if they do not stop.

 

In reality, Kazakhstan profiles itself as a forward-looking pro- Western nation, with double-digit economic growth and immense oil reserves.

 

Last month, Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev met with U.S. President George W. Bush to discuss economic ties.

 

Borat claimed that the true aim of Nazarbayev's trip was to promote Cohen's new film, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."

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'Santa Clause 3' Is Tracking BIGGER Than Hyped 'Borat'; Both Head-To-Head Nov. 3

 

 

I'm told that, right now, early tracking shows that Santa Clause 3 will be bigger at the box office than the much hyped comedy Borat. "The middle of the country is not in on the Borat joke yet," one movie marketing expert explained to me today. Few pics have received as much pre-release publicity as Sacha Baron Cohen's satire, whose full title is Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Though the Fox flick opens on November 3rd, it started making waves at the Cannes Film Festival and wowed audiences at September's Toronto Film festival. Recently, Cohen, in character as a fictional TV reporter, Borat Sagdiyev, the "sixth most famous man in Kazakhstan", staged various Washington D.C. publicity stunts outside the White House gates and Kazakh Embassy during a state visit by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayevin (who was not amused). The media ate it up, and since then Cohen, already a cult figure as Ali G. on HBO, has been red hot in Hollywood. But Internet hype does not necessarily translate into box office hype, as New Line's Snakes On A Plane showed. The satire of Borat, lampooning Kazakh culture with anti-Semitic mockumentaries, may be too elitist for Middle America, as the tracking is starting to show. By contrast, few pics could be as low concept as Disney's "G"-rated Santa Clause 3, which comes out the same day as Borat. Starring middle-aged, middle-of-the-road Tim Allen, audiences don't appear to be tiring yet of this franchise which has inexplicably made money from its first day out. Santa Clause 3 is tracking better as well against Dreamworks' animated Flushed Away, which also opens November 3rd. The buzz on this kiddie fare about a pet mouse-meets-sewer rat is that it's not Dreamworks' best, even though made by Aardman Animations, the creators of Wallace and Gromit. But Flushed Away doesn't incorporate Aardman's usual claymation; it's CGI created. In this coming weekend's tracking news, Clint Eastwood's Flags Of Our Fathers from Warner Bros./Dreamworks about the battle for Iwo Jima, should open No. 1, but it'll get heavy adult competition from Warner's other adult fare, Marty Scorsese's The Departed which is demonstrating it has legs. So Flags may not finish the weekend with more than $20 million. The other big pic opening this weekend is Disney/Buena Vista's The Prestige starring those two comic book heroes Hugh Jackman (X-Men) and Christian Bale (Batman Begins). Even though the ad campaign for this film about rival magicians is a winner, marketing experts tell me it probably won't score numbers better than in the teens.

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ALI G ALERT

Page Six

 

October 26, 2006 -- NEW York fashionistas, beware. On the eve of the release of Sacha Baron Cohen's "Borat" comes word of his next flick, which starts shooting next year. West Coast insiders say Cohen will delve into his Austrian fashionista character "Bruno." Paul Wilmot, the fashion p.r. guru who was unwittingly interviewed by Bruno last year as part of "Da Ali G Show," said, "Bruno is one of the strangest characters ever to inhabit the planet. He will be an odd and welcome addition to New York Fashion Week in February."

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MY NAME A SACHA!

 

A mustachio-free Sacha Baron Cohen (the comedian behind the lovable Kazakh journalist character Borat) and girlfriend Isla Fisher head to a party at London's 24 club after the British premiere of his "moviefilm" on Wednesday.

 

Posted Image

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Borat success sparks million dollar bidding war for rights to next film

 

Sacha Baron Cohen: His US success has started a bidding war for his next film

 

Borat star Sacha Baron Cohen is at the centre of a major bidding war to secure exclusive rights to a new film based on his latest character.

 

Hollywood film company Universal is offering £22 million for the worldwide rights to the film Bruno, based on a flamboyant gay Austrian fashion reporter.

 

A counter-bid is understood to have come in from Twentieth Century Fox, which was behind the Borat movie.

 

Further bids are assured as the low-budget Borat attracts rave reviews. Baron Cohen - as actor, writer and producer - is guaranteed at least a 15 per cent share of the deal for Bruno and, if box-office takings are good, his take could spiral into tens of millions. He's already set for a bumper pay day from Borat.

 

News of the bidding war came just a day after red-faced bosses at Fox admitted they had slashed the number of cinemas at which Borat opens this weekend in the US.

 

It had been scheduled to open in 2,000 cinemas, but will now open in only 700.

 

Fox executives pulled the plug on the wide opening after the film tested poorly, leading them to expect scathing reviews.

 

To their surprise, and now embarrassment, the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive. The film has also received massive coverage in the media.

 

Fox distribution official Bruce Snyder said studio bosses were now hoping to extend the film to as many cinemas as possible in the coming week.

 

The new film will feature the character Bruno, made popular from Da Ali G television show in 2000, as he travels around the US where he targets homophobic Americans by showing up at such events as gun shows, with the intention of provoking a reaction.

 

Like Borat, Bruno will entertain audiences with the same sartorial blunders and level of controversy.

 

A spokesman for gay rights campaign Stonewall predicts the film may spark off further debate and potential controversy.

 

"This character will definitely cause a debate especially among the gay community themselves about whether this character is helping to further their cause or make things worse.

 

"People do have different views, some may find it hilarious and some will take offence. This film is bound to impact the same way the gay character in Little Britain did.

 

"It seems to be that he is using gay and lesbians in the movie and that seems to be his style with his characters, like he did with Ali G and Borat".

 

The film Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan looks set to be a hit in both the UK and America despite controversy over his offensive portrayal of Kazakhstan.

 

Speaking at the Oxford University Union, Erlan Idrissov, UK Ambassador for Kazakhstan added to the debate about the film.

 

He said: "Sacha Baron Cohen has developed a grotesque character who mocks many people in this society and my own.

 

"What I saw of the film was not Kazakhstan. He used village people from a very remote part of Eastern Europe. I am also very sorry for the people who acted in Borat's film because he used them for his own self promotion.

 

"And also I felt sorry for the Americans he duped in his film,that was an utterly rude mocking of American society. I couldn't get rid of a small feeling of being insulted by the film."

 

Sacha Baron Cohen, a Bafta Award winner for Best Comedy Series in 2001, first hit the screens as Ali G in the channel four series of the Eleven O'clock Show.

 

Following the success in the UK, the show was then taken over by the US, where it aired on HBO.

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Studios Bid on Baron Cohen's 'Bruno'

Universal is in the lead for the 'Borat' follow-up

 

Sacha Baron Cohen's follow-up to "Borat," is generating a heated bidding war, featuring just about every major studio in Hollywood.

 

As of Thursday (Oct. 26) night, the largest bid had come from Universal, which was offering to pony up more than $42 million for the worldwide rights. In a fine piece of speculative journalism, The Hollywood Reporter is able to narrow the contenders for "Bruno" down to DreamWorks, Sony, 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros.

 

So apparently Disney and New Line aren't interested? Oh well.

 

Fans of "Da Ali G Show" remember Bruno as possibly Baron Cohen's third most popular alter ego. The character is a gay TV fashion commentator from Austria.

 

Baron Cohen and Jay Roach will produce the "Bruno" film, which may go into production by this summer.

 

Despite waves of hype and media buzz, 20th Century Fox announced earlier this week that "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" would initially be released in only 800 theaters in an effort to help build the film's general awareness before a wide release.

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Universal raises eyebrows with "Bruno" deal

 

Universal Pictures has won the intense bidding war for "Bruno," Sacha Baron Cohen's follow-up movie to "Borat."

 

Sources said that Universal is paying $42.5 million for the worldwide rights to the film. The price includes the production budget of the film, rumored to be in the $20 million-$25 million range. Also included is a significant profit-participation component for the film's participants, believed to be the 15% range.

 

The price has raised eyebrows in Hollywood because Baron Cohen's much-hyped "Borat" does not open until November 3. Despite much advance praise for "Borat," distributor Fox scaled back its Friday opening to about 800 theaters because it is concerned that the movie wasn't registering high enough in audience-awareness tracking.

 

With "Bruno," Baron Cohen is calling upon another of his comic alter egos, Bruno, a gay fashionista from Austria who fancies himself as "the voice of Austrian youth TV" and who sashayed from New York Fashion Week to Miami nightclubs in his previous appearance on HBO's "Da Ali G Show,"on which Baron Cohen also first introduced Borat to American audiences.

 

As in the case of "Borat," Jay Roach would produce with Baron Cohen. No director is on board, though it has been reported that Baron Cohen wants to shoot the movie during the summer.

 

 

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

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Kazakh Anger Has Yet to Ebb Over Borat

AP

 

 

Borat beware: Accept an invitation by a top Kazakh official to find out what the country is really like and you could be in for a nasty surprise.

 

"I'd kill this impostor on the spot," said Eltai Muptekeyev, who makes his living in Almaty by posing for photos with a blindfolded falcon clinging to a thick leather glove on his hand.

 

As British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's movie about his bigoted, English-mangling creation Borat Sagdiyev hits screens in Europe and the United States, the horror and outrage among Kazakhs of all stripes over the way their nation is being misrepresented has not gone away.

 

Borat has told the world that Kazakhs are addicted to horse urine, enjoy shooting dogs, view rape and incest as respectable hobbies, and are fond of pursuits like "running of the Jew" festivals.

 

In "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," the fictional Kazakh journalist travels to the United States to make a documentary and bring his findings back to his homeland. Along the way he falls in love with Pamela Anderson.

 

Even the nation's most liberal political voice had bellicose words for Borat.

 

"If it happened in a country where rules are more strict than ours, there would have been a government decree to destroy Borat," said Zharmakhan Tuyakbai, leader of the opposition National Social-Democratic Party.

 

"Even if we set aside his (offensive) personality, he should certainly bear responsibility for his offensive words."

 

But some Kazakhs were starting to see the humor.

 

Aigul Abysheva, a third-year linguistics student at Almaty State University, said she at first was "disgusted" by Borat's jokes, especially by his "chain of importance" where dogs and horses are higher than women.

 

"But then I realized he was making fun of ignorant people, no matter where they come from," she said. "The real target of Borat's movie is a couch potato who believes that Kazakhs drink horse urine."

 

Kazakhstan's deputy foreign minister, Rakhat Aliyev, recently extended an invitation to Borat to find out the truth about Kazakhstan.

 

"He can discover a lot of things. Women drive cars, wine is made of grapes and Jews are free to go to synagogues."

 

He also said his compatriots were overreacting.

 

"We must have a sense of humor and respect other people's freedom of creativity," Aliyev said in a recent interview with Kazakhstan Today.

 

But many Kazakhs still bristle at the way they are being portrayed. Svetlana Chuikina, an anchorwoman on Kazakh television, said Borat didn't even look the part.

 

"He might look like a Turk, but definitely not like a Kazakh," she said.

 

An ethnic Russian, she considers Kazakhstan her homeland just like the people of some 100 ethnic groups living in the ex-Soviet republic the size of Western Europe. Ethnic Kazakhs amount to just a half of the population of 16 million.

 

Covered with steppe and deserts and blessed with immense oil reserves, Kazakhstan is one of the fastest growing economies in the former Communist bloc. The streets of Almaty are jammed with expensive SUVs, restaurants are packed, and boutiques offer fine Italian shoes.

 

Having been part of two giant empires that of the Mongols and the Soviet Union Kazakhs are equally proud of their nomadic heritage and European education.

 

"Our way of thinking is mostly European," said Tuyakbai, the opposition leader. "For 70 years we lived in a totalitarian state, and successfully transformed our society in just 15 years of independence."

 

His tone changed when the conversation turned to Borat.

 

"If I see him, I'll hit him in the face," he said.

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Kazakh minister says can't laugh at Borat's jokes

 

Kazakhstan will probably not show a British comedian's film poking fun at the former Soviet republic, the country's foreign minister said, adding that he did not find it funny.

 

Kasymzhomart Tokayev told a German newspaper he hoped German cinema-goers would also keep straight faces when Sacha Baron Cohen's satirical film in which he plays fictional Kazakh television reporter Borat opens in their cinemas on Thursday.

 

Asked by the Bild newspaper if he had had been able to laugh at the snippets of the film "Borat" he had seen, the minister said: "Honestly, no."

 

"Apart from the name of our country and our flag, it has nothing to do with us. I also hope the people in your country will not laugh at us, but that the film will arouse their interest. They should come to our country and get to know the real Kazakhstan," he said.

 

Tokayev added that he did not expect any Kazakh cinema to show the film, in which Cohen's mustachioed Borat expresses his trademark misogynistic, racist and anti-Semitic views. It opens in cinemas across Europe and the United States this weekend.

 

"This is a film which has xenophobic content," he said.

 

Cohen's jokes have become a public relations headache for Kazakhstan as the former Soviet state seeks to position itself as a modern nation of well-educated professionals and a major non-OPEC oil exporter.

 

In the country's biggest city Almaty, a Kazakh artist and musician angered by Cohen's portrayal of his nation said he was on a mission to upstage his fictional compatriot.

 

"I want to challenge him to a battle and win," entertainer Jantemir Baimukhamedov told reporters on Wednesday.

 

Baimukhamedov aimed his first blow last week when he flew to London for the British premiere of the Borat movie. He dressed up as a 15th century Kazakh warrior and introduced himself to everyone as Borat's brother, Jantik.

 

But Baimukhamedov admitted he had failed to doorstep Cohen.

 

"We were about five minutes late," he said.

 

(Additional reporting by Olzhas Auyezov in Almaty)

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