(YMS:) The Walking Dead Part 2 review is out now on YourMovieSucks.org.
It'll be on YouTube within a week, but you can watch it there early.
After watching "Bad Grandpa" and feeling extremely underwhelmed, I thought I'd give my thoughts on the two movies that did it right.
"Borat" and "Brüno."
Now, if you haven't watched either of them, I would say, watch them right away.
So way back when, Sacha Baron Cohen had a TV show called, "Da Ali G Show."
Which is also pretty fucking hilarious.
And Ali G, Borat, and Brüno were all characters that he played on the show.
Now, when "Borat" came out in 2006, it was fucking huge!
I remember being in school and not even being able to walk down the hallway without someone saying,
(YMS imitates Borat's heavy accent:) "High five! Very nice. How much?"
The character was beyond impressionable. Who here remembers all the Borat Halloween costumes?
It was a movie that appealed to nearly everybody.
Like how racists can enjoy this movie for its racism, but other people who are smarter than that know that the movie is not actually racist, but is making fun of racism, can enjoy it for that.
It's intelligent on a satirical level.
But at the same time, you don't necessarily have to understand the satire and social-political commentary to be able to enjoy this movie.
Take away all the intelligent humor and you still have a "Bad Grandpa"-esque film filled with crude humor and funny reactions.
But even if that's all that this movie was, it would still be eons above "Bad Grandpa" because this movie took it to the fucking extreme.
In "Bad Grandpa," all they had to do to get people to sign the release to show their face, was to appear from behind a curtain after the gag and be like:
"'Sup. It's actually Johnny Knoxville and Jeff Tremaine. You guys are in a movie. Sign this thing, right? You wanna be famous, right?"
But there is no way that that would fly for a movie like Borat.
With the majority of people that had major roles in the film, they got them to sign the release while pretending as if the movie that they were filming was actually a real small documentary and that Borat was a real person.
You didn't always need hidden cameras to film the shot because the cameraman himself was a character.
And I, for one, think that's clever as fuck.
Not only was Sasha Baron Cohen so convincing to his victims because he never broke character,
but his genius sense of improv allowed him to create hilarious material independent of what was scripted.
(Man, has slight accent:) I'm recently retired.
(Borat, has heavy accent:) You are retard?
(Man:) Uh, yes. And now--
(Borat:) Physical or mental?
(YMS:) It was that level of quick thinking that helped bring a lot of realism to even the scripted parts.
(Borat:) Now I show you outside from mine houses.
(cow sneezes loudly and wetly)
(Borat:) Tissue.
(YMS:) And what I love about the writing is that it wasn't just: "Here's a bunch of scripted scenes that we're going to call the story" and "Here's all the pranks in-between."
They made an extra effort to make sure that the scripted parts and unscripted parts meshed together perfectly.
Like they knew that he needed to find Pamela Anderson on television as the initial incident,
but instead of doing just that, they decided that they could prank someone to get to that place.
Hell, a lot of the reincorporated jokes are products of unscripted scenes.
(Borat, yelling after her:) I am not attracted to you anymore!
Not!
(YMS:) Not only that, but he doesn't just go in, pull a prank, and then wait for reactions.
He judges people's character, delivers lines tailored to their personality, and in doing so, he's able to trick people into revealing the most horrific things they could possibly say on camera.
(Older Man:) I ain't gonna kiss you!
(Borat:) Oh, why not?
(Older Man:) The people that do the kissin' over here are the ones that float around like that.
(Borat:) Are they all loo loo loo (makes wobbly sounds)?
(Older Man:) Yeah, stay away from them that kiss.
(Borat:) In my country they uh, they take them and they take them to jail and finish them.
(Old Man:) Take them out and hang 'em?
(Borat:) Yes.
(Old Man:) That's what we're trying to get done here.
(Borat:) High five!
(YMS:) The victims in this film are not merely spectators to serve as funny face reactions, but they are now a source of the humor in the film.
The film is able to provide more commentary on social and political issues through improv than most films are able to do in a scripted setting.
Like, holy fuck, these people exist and they're voting.
Now, although there's a huge amount of scenes in this film that are obviously staged,
they're not ones that rely on you to believe that it's real to be funny.
The scripted story scenes, more often than not, led up to the gags in a way that made sense,
rather than having the gags and story be so completely separate and irrelevant that they might as well be interchangeable.
The film wound up being extremely successful, and nearly everybody that made an appearance tried to sue the film.
And then came "Brüno," which was not as well received.
I mean, you can have your preferences about it. I personally enjoy the film even more than "Borat," but I would say that on a technical level, they're probably on par.
First of all, how much of a testament is it to Sasha Baron Cohen's character acting abilities that he was able to fool all of these people into thinking that his character was a real person?
All within only a couple years of starring in one of the most talked about comedies of 2006.
Remember, this is just hair and makeup. He's not wearing a layered mask and putting on a fatsuit; what sells it is his performance.
There's so many details in his performance that separate this character from Borat: his posture, the way he walks, how his mouth is held open when he's not talking.
Again, he's able to use himself as a character pretending to film something completely different than what people actually think they're being filmed in.
And just like "Borat" was able to make statements on racism, cultural differences, and stereotypes; "Brüno" is filled with statements as well.
But they were statements about homosexual stereotypes' fame in the fashion industry.
Like how much of a statement is it that some guy with a camera is able to trick people into doing embarrassing things just under the premise that's it's "in right now?"
Do I seriously have to explain the statements they're making about celebrity media as they judged Jamie Lynn Spear's baby before birth?
(Brüno:) She's got her arms up like she's an A-lister. News flash! You're in a C-lister's womb, am I right?
(Brittny Gastineau:) Worse. I think like, D.
(Brüno:) Keep it, or abort it?
(Brittny Gastineau:) Abort it.
(YMS:) Everything he does on his quest for fame is a statement on society itself.
A lot of people like to pass this movie off as stupid and offensive, but it's actually pretty fucking clever.
They don't just end the joke at: "Haha, we got Paula Abdul to sit on a poorly paid Mexican immigrant"; but they take it a step further in the best possible way.
(Brüno:) How important is it for you to help other people?
(Paula Abdul:) Helping other people is so vital to my life. Um, it's like the air that I breathe.
And the water that I drink.
(YMS:) Is it not a hilarious statement on censorship when he uses a psychic to channel his dead boyfriend?
I mean it was a tough scene to get past ratings boards, but he's technically not doing anything. The only offense you could possibly take from this scene is what you imagine in your own head.
Isn't that fucking crazy?
To me, this movie was just as intelligent and satirical, and even more extreme than "Borat."
So it really makes me think of possible reasons as to why it wasn't as well received.
And there's a few things that I can thing of, right off the top of my head.
Firstly, I think it's no surprise to say that Brüno was not as emulatable of a character as Borat.
No one wanted to do impressions. No one wanted to dress up as him for Halloween.
There is definitely more of a social stigma when it comes down to wanting to portray a gay character.
Comically racist is okay, but something about Brüno makes people uncomfortable.
Which gives me even more respect for how fearless Sasha Baron Cohen's performance was.
Next, I think that a lot of people had misconceptions about what was staged and what wasn't; a lot of people were calling bullshit in places they didn't have to.
The talk show scene was set up, but that doesn't mean that it was staged.
The host was in on it and the child services lady was in on it, but everyone else was legitimately being trolled.
Believe it or not, Brüno's agent was not in on it.
Larry Charles and Sasha Baron Cohen explain it all pretty well on the Blu-ray commentary.
And I love the level of effort that was taken to set up each scene.
In contrast to the people who might not like this movie because Brüno's gay, there were also a decent amount of people who didn't like this movie because they thought it gave a negative image to the gay community.
But seriously? Especially if you're not gay yourself anyway, shut the fuck up.
Calling this movie homophobic is the equivalent of calling "Borat" racist. Making fun of a stereotype does not equate to making fun of a class of people.
By exaggerating the stereotypes, is he not making a statement on how ridiculous they are?
Like how fucking stupid do you have to be to be like: "Oh Brüno, the gay stereotype character, is overtly promiscuous and doesn't know how to take care of children; therefore, this movie is trying to say that all gay people do that."
Really, you're watching the gay conversion therapy scene and you're thinking: "This movie makes fun of gay people and not makes fun of people that make fun of gay people?"
If you're seriously going to try and reinforce your own opinions as valid under the guise of: "that's wrong because it's offensive to gay people," is it not offensive to treat all gay people as if we're too stupid to fucking understand a joke?
What's offensive is the assumption that I would want to censor certain types of media just because it (speaks in a baby voice) "hurt my feelings." Grow the fuck up.
"But about all the people that might not get the jokes, who aren't gay, that'll only reinforce the negative image of them in their heads?"
Um, yeah, homophobic people are going to continue to be homophobic. What else is new?
Like you seriously think that some on-the-fence person is just gonna watch this movie and be like: "You know what? I hate gay people now."
When I think about the people that liked "Borat" but hate "Brüno", considering all the amazing social-political commentary are still there, it makes me wonder if nobody appreciated that about "Borat" to begin with.
Is there seriously that much of the population that only liked "Borat" that much because he said, (speaks in Borat's accent) "Very nice, how much?!"
Like nobody gives a shit about the details that make the movie so great for me, but everyone's going: "haha, it's so funny. He's in a onesie, that's not attractive."
"Oh Borat, you want to adapt to North American society, but you're just so different. Tee hee."
Anyway, call me a pretentious faggot, but I loved both movies.
And hopefully this provided you some perspective as to why you should appreciate them a bit more.
Everybody have a happy Halloweeeeen...
(speaks very quickly) Even though I made a video that has nothing to do with Halloween...
(Brüno:) Is this the dancing of a talentless idiot?