Oscar Got It Wrong: Best Adapted Screenplay 2006

The Contenders:

Borat
Children of Men
The Departed (winner)
Little Children
Notes on a Scandal

Andy Kaufman

Film: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Format: DVD from personal collection on kick-ass portable DVD player.

I knew going in what Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (hereafter referred to as Borat to save my typing fingers) was going to be. I understood the point of it, and had seen probably a third of the film in clips. But as I sat and watched and shook my head, I realized I didn’t really have a proper way to react to it.

My guess is that most people reading this have seen Borat. Whether you have or haven’t, there isn’t much need of a plot summary here. Borat Sagdiyev (Sacha Baron Cohen) is a Kazakh television personality who travels to the United States to learn American culture to benefit his country. Cohen’s creation of Borat is, of course, entirely fiction, and that’s really the point of the film. This is social parody at its highest level, the sort of thing that Andy Kaufman would have produced or directed had he still been around for it.