Borat Buzz Builds

Kim Masters tries to make sense of the Borat story on NPR; she compares it to a movie with internet buzz like Snakes on a Plane, which wound up not delivering the goods. That film was what it always was, a mediocre B movie with a funny concept. But it wasn't funny. The difference here is that Borat is.

Here's Anthony Lane's New Yorker review. He's usually a critic who gets what's funny. And here's David Edelstein's similarly wrong-headed New York review. While Borat certainly needs all the help it can get, whatever the critics think, it will be folks talking about it after seeing it that will spread the word that it is belly-achingly funny.

And here's a possible inspiration for Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat persona.