If you're a fan of primo Hong Kong chop-sockey action movies (and who isn't), keep an eye open for a DVD entitled Kill Zone.

That's the title they slapped on SPL, the outstanding movie I saw at TIFF in 2005. Here's my review.

The Guardian: Five stars

Peter Bradshaw writes: "Borat is the hero of this extraordinary mocu-reality adventure: a film so funny, so breathtakingly offensive, so suicidally discourteous, that strictly speaking it shouldn't be legal at all."

The Daily Mail

Baz Bamigboye writes: "Sacha Baron Cohen and his director Larry Charles shot over 400 hours of footage for their film Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan and then spent months finely editing it to just under two hours. It boils down to the funniest 120 minutes to hit the big screen this year. The movie's going to offend just about every living soul on the planet. No one escapes Borat's razor-sharp wit."

The Telegraph

Sukhdev Sandhu writes: "Perhaps you'll laugh at the subtitle: Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Perhaps you'll laugh at the opening credits: a grab-bag of public-information-film graphics and sputtering newsreels from an inept cable-network show. The only guarantee for anyone who sees Borat is that once you start laughing, it will be impossible to stop. Kids who can't recite a line of poetry will be reeling off the entire script within days. ...

"Seeing a Barbie doll at a yard sale of a woman whom he's convinced is a gipsy, Borat demands: 'Who is this lady you have shrunk?' Seeing a couple of cockroaches on the floor of a Jewish-run guesthouse, he shrieks: 'Look! The Jews have shifted their shapes!'"

The Times: Three stars out of five

Larry Charles's big-screen account of Borat's cockeyed adventures is a squirming joy and a film to cherish.  It begins in a muddy village in Kazakhstan. This, explains Borat, is home. He is a cool and confident narrator. He introduces neighbours and hugs the local rapists, criminals and psychopaths. There is a cow in his state-of-the-art living room. This is rural bliss. Women are inherently stupid; incest is normal; bestiality is best. It’s a civic duty to butcher gypsies and Jews. It’s good, clean, normal fun.

Some U.S. reviews are available at rottentomatoes.com.

Twentieth Century Fox has cut down the number of theatres in which Borat will open from 2,000 down to 800. This is apparently not very precedented.

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A primer on British actor/comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's technique for duping his victims in 'Borat.'

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Image Metrics, a California company, has developed software that clones someone's face -- if not their soul.

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Both are fine films, but the one whose images will be exploding on the insides of my eyelids for days to come will be The Last King of Scotland.

From the BBC:

Italian film-maker Gillo Pontecorvo, who directed The Battle Of Algiers, has died at the age of 86.

Pontecorvo's film depicted the brutality of both sides during the guerrilla uprising against French colonial rule in 1950s Algeria.

Shot like a documentary, the highly influential film was banned in France for some time, while its scenes of torture were cut in the US and Britain.

Twice an Oscar nominee, Pontecorvo also directed Marlon Brando in Queimada.

Later in life, he was director of the Venice Film Festival.

Pontecorvo was a Jew, a communist and an Italian partisan against the fascists in the Second World War, so he had some experience of his own with guerrilla wars.

That may be one reason why The Battle of Algiers is an absolute masterpiece. It's one of the few DVDs I own (the Criterion Collection, no less! :) ).

Here's an earlier blog posting on the film. If you're a serious film fan, you really must see this movie once in your life.

Finally, a snippet from the NYT piece (the whole thing is worth a read):

Mr. Pontecorvo was to lie in wake at City Hall in Rome until Saturday morning. The Italian news agency ANSA said that the government of Algeria had sent a crown in his honor to be placed near the bier.

In no particular order:

1. The Trailer Park Boys.

2. The Departed

3. The Last King of Scotland

Gotta see the Boys! They are classic characters of Canadian white trash culture! :)

The Departed is a Martin Scorsese remake of Infernal Affairs, a fine 2003 Hong Kong film starring Andy Lau and Tony Leung.

And finally, Forest Whitaker has been a consistently fine actor throughout his career (he goes back to Fast Times at Ridgemont High!). The clownish despot Idi Amin was one of the most horrifyingly fascinating figures of the last 50 years. I have no doubt Whitaker will bring the character to life onscreen and make him indelible -- or at least small enough doubts that I'm willing to risk $12. :)