So, as it turns out, Little Miss Sunshine is not this year’s Sideways. (Meaning: the darling of the film press. See previous post.) That honor goes to Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Now on its second weekend and breaking all sorts of box office records (it opened at #1 on only 837 screens), there is little left to be said for a film as deftly marketed and critically heralded as this one. However, one should always be skeptical of universal critical appeal. A film about a couple geeks on a wine tasting bender may resonate with the handful of geeks who are the nation’s film critics more than it does the public at large. 
Likewise, the highly intelligent satire disguised as low comedy in Borat may tickle the film press to the tune of an almost unanimous 89 Metacritic score, but that doesn’t mean that this is a film for everyone.
A lot of people drink Merlot because it is a popular varietal, and yet some of those same people now pretend not to like Merlot because Sideways told them they were chumps if they did. I suspect a lot of the people sitting in the packed extra-large cinema on a Wednesday night’s screening of Borat were laughing because they were told (by a film critic or a friend) that they were supposed to laugh. Don’t get me wrong, the film is extremely funny. However, it is funny in a jaw dropping, wide-eyed “I can’t believe he’s actually doing and saying that, and I’m not sure if I can or should be laughing” sort of way. But the one who is laughing all the way to the bank is an unbelievably courageous, clever, and talented man named Sasha Baron Cohen, because a lot of us laughing at the screen don’t fully realize that we’re the butt of the joke. The small-minded America he so brilliantly skewers is shelling out $30 million a week to take its medicine. Now that is funny.
Here are this morning’s Oscar-nominated films, alphabetically. The nominees for foreign language film and documentary feature are compiled at the end of the list. (Short format nominees are listed in a 
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