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Showing posts from September 29, 2006

Borat in Washington

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The president of Kazakhstan came to town yesterday, and a massive press scrum fought for toeholds outside the country's embassy, where a grand new statue symbolizing Kazakh independence -- a warrior holding a falcon standing on the back of a fierce winged cat -- had just been unveiled. But, no, of course that's not why we were there. That's not why any of the 50 or so journalists were there. We were there for Borat . Or rather, Sacha Baron Cohen , the British comic who performs in the gonzo, deadpan, taking-the-joke-almost-too-far tradition of Andy Kaufman and Peter Sellers . He plays many made-up characters on his HBO series "Da Ali G Show," but few that have struck a nerve like that of Borat Sagdiyev -- an anti-Semitic, oversexed Kazakh journalist who spins tales about the national sport of killing dogs and the practice of keeping women in cages -- much to the continuing dismay of the Kazakh government. In a brilliant stunt to promote his movie "Borat"