I watched Battlestar Galactica the miniseries this weekend, and it was great. I watched it all in one sitting on Saturday afternoon, and I was really impressed. I can’t imagine that I’ll have anything academically interesting to say about it, so for now I’m turning off the critic switch and just enjoying it. It’s such great entertainment--the combination of drama/soap and action and FX is just great. Plus, it’s way sexier than I imagined. I expected some man/robot love, but I didn’t expect it to be so hot! I love all the characters...nuanced, compelling, and interesting dynamics between them. So, needless to say, the rest of series 1 is in my Netflix queue, my DVR is set to record all episodes, and I think I’ll make 1 and 2 in by the time I’ve got all of them to watch. Maybe they’ll do a parody episode I can write about...

After one week of resistance, I broke down last night and re-subscribed to HBO. I couldn’t download the new episodes of the Sopranos as easily as I hoped, so I’m back onboard. And it’s great as well. I’m showing last night’s episode in class today, along with the Tom Ford/Jeff Koons episode of Iconoclasts. It’s “quality TV” week, and next week is “postmodern TV” so those seemed like good choices. I’ve been dying to do something with the Ford/Koons thing for a while.

That Cormac McCarthy book, The Road, that makes a nice companion piece to Children of Men, got anointed by Oprah’s Book Club, and now it’s the number one bestseller. I hope he doesn’t go all Jonathan Franzen elitist and balk at Oprah. I think he’s too old to do that, probably. As a matter of fact, I think I might pair The Road and Children of Men for a week in my Media War seminar next year.

My new favorite song is “Girlfriend” by Avril Lavigne. I heard her perform it on SNL, and immediately got up to download it. I tried to temper this with also downloading the new Nine Inch Nails. Not that shameless pop music needs tempering. I will quote an unnamed colleague on this: “on the one hand this a reaffirmation of our masculinity through pop connoisseurship--but no doubt it is also a reaffirmation of our lechery through pop tart connoisseurship.” There it is, indeed.

JUST SAW BORAT...

And I'm trying to figure out why it is so funny. Which it is. I have probably never laughed that hard and that much at a movie. Now I'm trying to figure out why.

First off, the fundamental structure of the movie is Borat as fictional character being treated as if he is a nonactor by other nonactors. In many scenes in the movie, the humor derives from how these nonactors try to accomodate the offensive and inappropriate comments made by Borat because they presume him to be innocent. Once they figure out he isn't, the scene ends, the feminists leave, the police come, etc.

Borat is a sort of humor bomb waiting to go off. It's the traditional mode of suspense. We know he is an obnoxious, fictional character. The nonactors don't, and don't understand that his social indiscretions will become greater and greater until they can no longer pass them off as innocent.

The best example of this in the movie is the scene that cross cuts between Borat receiving etiquette training and trying to put this to work at a society meal somewhere in the south.

He insults the pastors wife. He repeatedly refers to one of the guests as "retarded" instead of "retired." He carries a bag of his own feces to the table and asks the host where to place it, pretending he doesn't know how to use a toilet. When his guest arrives, a black prostitute, that's the end of things.

There's also a major grotesque component to this humor and I will submit that the male on male, fat, hairy 69 is the most grotesque image put to film. It was if my skull opened up--perhaps exploded--as I watched something more horrific than I had ever before witnessed.

Surely much ink will be spilled on this film. See it.