I saw Borat with Arnab and Jeff, so I know there’s stuff to say about the movie, based on our initial post-film discussion, and many I’ve had with students and friends since. I guess I’ve been waiting, hoping that others would say it. In a nutshell, the movie will make you laugh. It’s often very, very, very funny. And often a bit tamer and somewhat padded and not as exciting as we’d been hoping. . . but then again part of me is plain excited to see a mainstream(ish) comedy with such transgressive energy, with a sly sharp political edge, with a fat man and a skinny man wrestling nude. So complaining seems like whining (like my dessert was pie, and I’m crying for ice cream), and yet trumpeting seems mere repetition of arguments we’ve made before. I would be curious if someone hates it, then I could pull out my enthusiasm for a defense. I do recommend it, just can’t muster up enough sense of conflict to “make a case” for it.

i haven’t watched a lot of movies of late, but if i may be allowed to extend this blog to a discussion of advertisements i’d like to direct your attention in mock-horror to a recent visa check card commercial. this is the one in which everything in a large cafeteria is moving like clockwork when a man shows up with cash and brings it all to a grinding halt. the ad itself seems like it must be a direct riff on the famous modern times sequence in which chaplin inserts himself into the assembly line and brings it to a halt with his body. here, however, the action of the human who breaks the chain, stops the line from moving is greeted with scorn, and mechanization of everyday life is presented as cheerful and hip. mechanization no longer evokes horror; it is presented instead as the bright, sunny prerequisite of paradise.

I thought the documentary (Street Fight) on Newark’s 2002 mayoral race was pretty engaging, largely because its ‘star,’ the rising political bigwig Cory Booker, is as smart and self-effacing and … well, grounded as you’d want a politician to be. I caution: the narrative of the documentary never digs deep into party politics, represents but doesn’t really interrogate or historicize or even explicate the racial tensions which emerged between the two black democrats vying for the job. It shows a collision of corruption, race, poverty, class, politics, and urban realities, but it doesn’t really do much more than make a good showing of such problems. That said, it’s a decent film. And as a complement to the Carcetti/Royce race on The Wire, it was even more compelling to this viewer.
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