November 2006 Archives

So which came first, the chicken or the egg? Sacha Baron Cohen’s case, the litigation or the film? This hilarious film charts the travels of Kazak reporter Borat Sagdiyev who leaves his home country for the USA for a little cultural cross-pollination. Travelling with his producer Azamat Bagatov and the camera crew Borat attempts to integrate with the American community. Soon after arriving in New York he is watching TV in his hotel room, observes ‘CJ’ from Baywatch, and decides to undertake a pilgrimage across the country to meet her.

Without giving anything away; if you pay for a ticket to see this movie you are accepting that you will be subjected to an eighty-four minute barrage of cutting humour directed in a very unlikely way. The film, shot as a documentary with full Kazak titles and credits, is full of detail and blink-and-you’ll-miss-it comedy. Rumour has it that one of the test screenings was a full two hours long; one wonders what has vanished from this story that pushes the bounds of taste and decency a fair way off-centre.

The film alternates between raw documentary footage and more narrative style scenes which, although still often filled with humour, are a little more sedentary than the joke per second style of the rest of the film.

Despite crying with laughter through most of the film I did find myself wondering how on earth Borat was not seriously injured, or worse, as a result of some of his more serious cultural misunderstandings.

If you are not of a nervous disposition and can take a joke then you will enjoy this film.

***** (out of 5)

Nofear.org proudly present to you a collaboration of some significance. 3 years in the making the Critic has finally got off his arse and produced his own remix for the Piano Man EP, thus completing the 5th track for this one-off production. Released in time for the 2006 Cambridge Music Festival these tracks are free to download:

Track 1 - Pianoman Outro Remix
Track 2 - Pianoman - - We're All In A Mood For A Melody Remix
Track 3 - Pianoman - Spank My Monkey Remix
Track 4 - Pianoman - Rave Remix
Track 5 - Pianoman - Intro Techno Remix

As if sleep were a ship
that had carried us to the edge
of the world’s wide rim
(over which we might slip),
we awoke. Night sucked
at the panes, its black mouth
pressed to the glass. You’d been dreaming
of cliffs and falling. Terror filled
your eyes as they locked onto mine –
limpets in their sockets, jellified.

Nerves strained tight as violin strings,
diaphragm pulled taut as a drum,
it was as if two hemispheres
had met: clamped one to the other
at the seams of the cerebellum.
The brain’s an astrolabe; wrought
more intricately than a compass,
it tells us how far we’ve come.
But if thoughts are stars
to be read, that night was dark.

Clueless in the moonless wood,
we listened as an owl’s screech
eviscerated the silence –
waited for the metallic clunk
we’d both heard to be repeated.
An intruder, or phantom engine
haunting this industrial hulk?
Like siamese twins, we shared the same
heart-beat, laughed the same laughter
when the boiler began its cycle.

Was that all it was then?
As dawn unknotted the tangle
of our gothic panic (showed us
thorn bush, stone wall, mine-shaft)
we discerned the outlines of each
single object, felt ourselves intact.
Yet it seemed that the copper wire
sourced from that Cornish vein had charged
our fibres – making us part
of Frankenstein’s experiment.