Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: BORAT SUBSEQUENT MOVIEFILM (Amazon Prime)

Do not let anyone spoil any of the pranks that Sacha Baron Cohen pulls on people (mainly Republicans) in BORAT SUBSEQUENT MOVIEFILM, the new follow up to the 2006 comedy classic. The title is much longer than that, and goes through several hilarious changes throughout the sequel, but this is what Amazon Prime is calling the movie in order to market and promote it successfully. I also know that the Rudy Giuliani bit was spoiled for a lot of us a couple of days ago, but I assure you, that wasn’t even close to the funniest or shocking thing to happen in this movie. BORAT 2, for 96 minutes, made me forget what year it was. I also assure you that I will not spoil any of the pranks or the ending to the actual narrative thread this movie surprisingly has. I’m just going to let you know, in some obscure details, whether I:

A. Laughed my ass off

B. Laughed my fucking ass off

C. Laughed my motherfucking ass off

D. All of the motherfucking above.

This is a simple test. If you don’t correctly answer, you are as dumb as some of the people that pranks are pulled on in this movie.

IMDB describes Borat Subsequent Movie film perfectly: “A follow-up film to the 2006 comedy centering on the real-life adventures of a fictional Kazakh television journalist named Borat.” However, while the first one was mainly just a bunch of skits tied together with an “okay I guess” Borat wanting to bed and marry Pamela Anderson plot thread, the narrative here is so much more satisfying. Turns out Borat has a daughter, who he reluctantly takes along with him on his journey in America in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 elections. Borat’s mission? To deliver a famous smart Kazakstan monkey to Republican Vice President Mike Pence. If he has ‘GREAT SUCCESS’ in his mission, than his country will no longer see him as a disgrace for making their nation look embarrassing back in 2006. While the pranks on unsuspecting real life people is the main draw to watch most of Cohen’s films, the whole father/daughter heart of this movies’ plot was actually really satisfying here, and was an improvement over the unfocused, but still funny as fuck way the first movie was tied together. Funny wise, I say that both films are on par with each other, and make a great double feature…but a fantastic triple feature if paired with Bruno, still my favorite film of Cohen’s. Why is Bruno still my favorite? Because there is no way that 2009 film could be made today with how overly sensitive and pussified this nation has become. No way. And that’s why it still makes me laugh, no matter if its the 10th or 20th time I’ve seen it, because it’s offensive as hell. These Borat films won’t make me laugh as hard the 10th or 20th times I watch them, but they will at least get many a chuckle and one big guffaw.

Look, my review isn’t going to sway you one way or the other whether you are going to watch this film or not. You can’t be on the fence, because there is no fence. You’ve already decided. You are either going to watch it and laugh your ass off, or you aren’t going to watch it and be a pussy, then bitch and moan in a deep dark corner of your pathetic soul while the rest of us laughingly discuss it. Even though this movie is really one sided politically, a lot of die hard Republicans are not going to like it and possibly be offended, I still think that even if you are a conservative, and have a sense of humor in most things, that you’ll be able to get through it with ease. Yes, Jeremy, that was aimed at you. The young woman who plays Borat’s daughter in this, the actresses’ name is Maria Bakalova, is excellent in this and almost steals scenes out from under him. She was so funny and a delight to watch. I also liked that the way the movie handles the obvious elephant in the room: how do you prank unsuspecting people when Borat has become a famous household name? Simple, as Borat, Cohen dresses up in a disguise that already is already a disguise itself! What was also really amusing was that, from some of the stuff that happens in this movie (and calendars on the walls), that the movie was planned and was filming BEFORE the pandemic hit back in January. The COVID-19 massive spread mid filming just seemed to be a lucky happenstance for Cohen and company to get more out of the premise and story. It makes you wonder what other things would’ve been in it if COVID-19 and the pandemic had never come to pass. ESPECIALLY THE ENDING. Maybe Sacha could shed some light on it in future interviews or maybe even do a commentary for the film and add it to Amazon Prime later. Who knows? In the meantime, the answer to my multiple choice test question was D. as Borat 2 was…VERY NICE! But can we not wait so long next time for a third Borat…or (crossing fingers) a 2nd Bruno? Jak si mas!

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: EVIL EYE (Amazon Prime)

Well, we have come to the end of the first month of 4 “Welcome To The Blumhouse” films exclusively for Amazon Prime, and to be honest, each one was worse than the last. Enough where I’m going to do something rare at the end of this review and give them all letter grades. Just cheap mass produced potato chips that we’ve tasted all before. Not stale, such as Blumhouse’s Into The Dark Hulu exclusive movies, but a taste we start to get bored and tired of quickly after only a few chips. EVIL EYE is easily the worst because just like Nocturne, it is a rip off of another movie. Namely, it’s a spiritual, supernatural, reincarnation, Indian male rip off of Fatal Attraction. Not only that, but the two lead female protagonists talk on the phone and think it is ‘acting’ for over half the short 90 minute run time and then only have two scenes physically together at the end where we are supposed to care what happens to them due to said phone conversations, especially because they are mother and daughter. Due to the cheapness of the film I doubt that those two actresses were really talking to each other and their scenes were of course filmed separately, causing me not to get invested in them. And yes, I know that there is a pretty good screenplay reason for why they only talk on the phone, the daughter lives in the States and the mother lives somewhere in India, but what the movie needed to do was have all the actors and actresses near the same location, I don’t care where, it just needed to happen. That way there could’ve been more physically there scenes with both the protagonists and the male antagonist, where more tension would’ve been built, more suspense, which would’ve made me invested in not only the story, but everything about it.

I guess you could say that my evil ‘film’ eye was being too harsh on the film and my attention waned. IMDB describes Evil Eye with the following: “A superstitious mother is convinced that her daughter’s new boyfriend is the reincarnation of a man who tried to kill her 30 years ago.” What the movie fails at considerably is the execution of whether or not said new boyfriend of the daughter is really the reincarnation of the mother’s abusive ex-fiancee. Kind of spoiler alert, but you know that he really is, because if he wasn’t, there wouldn’t be a fucking movie. The story then goes about the cliched route of everybody thinking that the mother is crazy and that she should see a doctor to get her paranoia and superstitious nature put to rest. And of course, just as she agrees to get help, is when the “big reveal” happens. Now I liked the reveal/revelation, especially what happens right after the mother likes a picture on her daughter’s Instagram before she discovers the half way decent McGuffin object in the photo. The reason why I wasn’t into what was happening when the movie wanted me to be is that all the mother’s interactions with the daughter and the antagonist fiancee were over the phone (and only one brief use of a split screen), and all those moments, all that dialogue and ‘acting’, which again, were half the movies run time, felt “phoned in.” Yes, pun intended.

When the mother, played by Sarita Choudhury, was off the phone and talking to her husband or others, her acting was quite solid, especially when she seemed to be going off the rails mentally and didn’t have a phone to her ear. The daughter, Sunita Mani, less so, as she seemed just a little too ignorant for what was happening all around her. And you just know there is going to be a scene where the daughter finds out who her fiancee really is, but the way it is handled is kind of awkward, as the male antagonist was very careful and precise up until then, and his slip ups to his discovery ended up feeling forced and a bit out of character. The movie is extremely predictable, chunks of dialogue from screenplay writer Madhuri Shekar, who hasn’t done much else (this movie was based off an Audible original, it probably should’ve been kept that way), felt clunky and inauthentic (especially the parts over the phone) and there was no visual flair from directors Elan Dassani and Rajeev Dassani, who I’m not familiar with either, as they have mostly done shorts. It felt like it should’ve been a Blumhouse Lifetime movie, not something exclusive to prime. It all felt fake. I also think I’m being extra super hard on this movie because Netflix already tried to rip off and do a reverse gender and race Fatal Attraction earlier this year with Fatal Affair, which currently is in my top twenty worst of the year list. This movie is much better than that one, due to that the movie did have something to say about Indian culture, love and marriage expectations, and what the ‘evil eye’ is to their people, but it was still disappointing because even with those factors, it was just another beat by beat rip off of other and better movies with no sense of unique style. I don’t know if my eye will be able to take more “Welcome To The Blumhouse” movies in the near future…will have to probably wait and see what other eyes think of them first before proceeding to give them a chance.

Amazon Prime’s “Blumhouse Presents” Film Ratings:

The Lie: C+
Black Box: C
Nocturne: C-
Evil Eye: D+

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: NOCTURNE (Amazon Prime)

NOCTURNE is just a rip off of Black Swan, just replace the ballerina horror aspects of the latter film with piano playing and you get the former. Blumhouse productions is very frustrating in general. Only one in twenty of their films produced by mastermind Jason Blum is worth anything to write home about, and that one in twenty usually debuts in a theater. The other nineteen are usually direct to streaming (with one or two somehow getting theatrical distribution), cheap little projects, and it shows. Most of these Blumhouse produced films range from being only okay to down right fucking abysmal. The Amazon Prime exclusive ones, these newly introduced ‘Welcome To The Blumhouse’ ones, where they will put out 4 films in one month every several months, are the only okay ones. The Hulu exclusive ones, the one film per month going on two years now, labeled the “Into The Dark’ series, are the abysmal ones. So it is really not that all surprising that Nocturne is in the only okay category. However, while it might be in the only okay category when talking about its overall execution, the thought of it being beat by beat (literally, even the ending) of a much superior film makes you want to fit it right next to the abysmal file. Don’t get me wrong, it is very admirable if you are able to green light and make a motion picture on a small budget, but if you are a production company that mass produces them to no end, kind of like how author James Patterson is able to release 10 books all in the span of a year (I stopped reading his schlock awhile ago), then most of your content is just going to be bland, no excitement or surprises. IMDB describes Nocturne with the following: “An incredibly gifted pianist makes a Faustian bargain to overtake her older sister at a prestigious institution for classical musicians.” Don’t get me wrong, the movie is certainly watchable, but it doesn’t bring anything new to the genre table.

The definition of nocturne is “is a musical composition that is inspired by, or evocative of, the night.” Night equals dark. A dark movie usually doesn’t have a happy ending. Remember how I said this movie is a rip off of Black Swan? Has the dawn of light risen in your thoughts in what I’m trying to get you to see? Yeah, thought so. The movie is way too predictable and even if Black Swan hadn’t come before it, the very beginning of the film shows the entire story’s hand. There are several chances the film has to surprise viewers and flip all preconceived notions on their heads, but the film doesn’t take any of them. There are two things that are good in the movie, and only two: 1. The cinematography and shots are impressive and 2. The leads Sydney Sweeney and Madison Iseman give impressive performances. Although I would’ve like to see Sweeney play the sister and Iseman play the gifted pianist that made a Faustian bargain. Sydney Sweeney hasn’t really ever played (from what I’ve seen) the wholesome good girl, and while she is fine here, her transformation from a righteous yet shy girl into a jealous sort holding contempt for everyone wasn’t quite as day and night as I would’ve liked it to be. Madison Iseman has played both the good and bad girl (The Fuck It List/Jumanji) in different projects and I think maybe if they had switched roles, their character arcs would’ve been more clear. And don’t go in expecting a full on horror movie. There are absolutely no jump scares or tension, and it is definitely less artsy fartsy (the good kind for me) than Black Swan was. It’s more psychological. But due to the fact that there are no surprises in writer/director Zu Quirke‘s screenplay (she should maybe only stick to directing next time), the only deep rooted question you should be asking your id is why you decided to press play on this title in the first place.