Customer Reviews

Da Ali G Show - The Complete Second Season [UMD for PSP]

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
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Mr. Cohen has received all kinds of accolades for his three stunningly vivid personas: Ali G, Borat, and Bruno.

But aside from the ultra-offensive and seemingly obvious ignorance lay some great social commentary. Through his characters, Cohen is able to expose the still present social bigotries of this country that so many argue went away with civil rights, but that are still so firmly rooted at the core of this nation. A Cambridge graduate, and Jew, Cohen is most impressive as Borat, the anti-Jewish video journalist from Kazakhstan. In this guise he offers up some of the most ridiculously awkward moments, and shines the darkest of lights on "The U, S, and A". As disturbing as it is hilarious is the Borat-led country song, "Throw the Jew Down the Well" in which a slew of stereotypically deep country town folk join in emphatically by the song's final chorus.

This is just a taste of the type of humor/commentary you will find in this great collection (as well as a real Harvard address, I mean, I know he graduated Cambridge, but Hah-vahd, wat wuh yeh thinkin?). Each character, the over-ghettotized clown from Stains (Ali G), the inept foreigner, and the most stereotyped gay man, feigns ignorance as the main selling point for this show, and the reactions from such guests as Noam Chomsky, DEA/FBI agents, Sam Donalson, and wildlife activists ranges from bewilderment, to utter confusion, to frustration, anger, embarassment, etc., etc., etc.

If you can tolerate tongue in cheek humor, and like a little side of social commentary thrown in, this is the perfect set for you. Since there are 6 episodes with seasons one and two, and each episode includes at least one Ali G, Borat, and Bruno skit, I will not suggest buying one over the other. You'll end up going straight to your favorite segments instead of watching the whole way through anyway. Just go out and buy both seasons; "If you do not, I will crush you."

Make sure you get the joke before watching these shows: Ali G isn't a real person. Neither are Borat and Bruno. They're all the same guy--and he's a comic genius!

Most of the friends I've turned on to Ali G said before they figured it out, "I thought that idiot was for real, like the ones on MTV."

No. It's a joke. And a great one.

Watching the First Season, I focused on the celebrity and political interviews (Ali G was lucky Buzz Aldrin didn't deck him for calling him Buzz Lightyear), but in the Second Season I was howling at the other segments. Borat buying a house ("Where is the cage for my wife?") and then later leading a drunken barroom filled with rednecks singing the Kazakistan song "Throw the Jew Down the Well" were hysterically funny.

And how did he stay in character after downing so much wine at a Texas wine tasting?

"Me and my sister, we make little joke!"

(I'll let you find out what that joke was).

Hilarious. Painful at times, but hilarious.

I defy anyone to try and describe Sacha Baron Cohen, aka Ali G., Borat and Bruno and not use the word "genius". It just can't be done. Every so often you stumble upon something or someone who is so unique (or just does the format so much better than it's ever been done before) that you know you are witnessing something you will never see again.

Mr. Cohen interviews people (most are well known) as one of his alter egos. As Ali G. (the hiphop wannabe who still lives with his grandmother - try to imagine a British Kevin Federline with no Britney money) his questions are beyond stupid, as Borat the reporter from Khazakhstan his questions are in-your-face offensive, racist, and sexist but somehow we Americans are more forgiving to this strange man from a country most have never heard of, and last but not least, Bruno, the gayest piece of Eurotrash there ever was.

We are treated to interview after interview from Pat Buchanan to Andy Rooney to real estate agents to a minister who claims he can convert gay people to straight. They have no idea who they are really talking with and two things amaze me. One is that Mr. Cohen never breaks character and the other is to see their reactions to some of the questions. This DVD also puts Americans to the test exposing us warts and all to what we really think.

My challenge to describe Sacha Baron Cohen as anything other than a "genius" at the beginning of my comment should also include a challenge to watch this only once. Go ahead, I dare you!

The success of the "Borat" movie has boosted the popularity of British comedian Sascha Baron Cohen in the United States. This series dates to the time when he had only a cult following, but his nerve and talent for improvisation is on full display. In order to conduct interviews of unsuspecting subjects, who think they are going to meet a serious journalist, he adopts the personas of Ali G, the confused white wannabe rapper with a flair for malapropisms, Borat, the journalist from Kazahkstan whose disarmingly friendly, ingratiating manner masks his anti-Semitism and hatred of women, and Bruno, the flaming Austrian fashion reporter who regularly and innocently makes assumptions about the sexuality of his subjects, leading to some uncomfortable encounters. These are all brilliant comic performances. He is always funny, even though he sometimes comes off as a bit of a bully when he is making fun of people who seem harmless. However, the show reveals its genius when he has an opportunity to skewer a worthy target, such as the celebrity makeover artist who freely speculates on Jesus Christ's potential as a male model and the members of a private Texas hunt club who are proud of killing endangered species and lament that they are not allowed to hunt Jews. It's a shame that there are only two short seasons of this show.

The second season is as funny or funnier than the first! Ali G,Borat and bruno returns with different Famous guests, asking stupid questions, and Deleted scenes that are even funnier and should have been aired.

This guy is a riot. He's really funny and very quick. Whether the interviewees actually know he's not for real or not is up for debate, but they certainly act like they don't know that's the case. They look confused and bewildered as Ali is faking ignorance as to who it is he is actually interviewing. For example, he'd probably ask Neil Armstrong what it's like to win the Tour de France etc. If you aren't easily offended, this will be a show you'll enjoy. Not for the faint of heart.

Ali G is one of the most original and brilliant tv shows ever created. His interviews are truly hilarious, and highlights of this season include his interview with the vet ("How often is animals really sick, an how often is thay jus' fakin it to get a day off work?"), his visit to the police dog training center ("Now, when the dog finds a bomb, how long does it take for it to defuse it?"), etc. The star of the show, for me, is Borat, and the deleted scenes of him humiliating the local GOP club and showing what anti semites rednecks really are in the hunting club are brilliant. Borat deserves praise for one thing alone; the harm he did to the GOP politician he interviewed, when he tricked him into revealing his anti jewish beliefs.

I had a great political science professor as an undergraduate, Jim Ranchino, a student of William Appleman Williams. Nothing angered Ranchino so much as lightly examined or passively accepted ideas. His goal as a professor, he said, was to raise our "B.S. quotient." To this end, he would try to make us challenge him. On occasion he would do his best to make his students challenge him, to force us to refuse to accept him as an authority, even intentionally lying for the entire class period, making up increasingly outrageous "facts" about, say, the war in the Pacific in WW II or the beliefs of some political philosopher. His goal was not to get us to ingest a certain body of "facts," but to get us to question, to challenge, and confront.

I think Jim Ranchino would have appreciated Sascha Baron Cohen's humor. His three alter egos - Ali G., Borat, and Brūno - are among the most challenging comic characters to have appeared in the past couple of decades. They are challenging both because Cohen uses them to challenge and satirize our almost limitless gullibility. Ali G. is a brilliant caricature of wannabes, people who are so fake that they themselves are unaware of it. We don't know what Ali G.'s real name is, but we know that he is a white, upper-class twit. He talks of "Keeping it real," yet he is so self-deceived that he can confront his viewers by asking, "Haven't you ever seen a black man before?" So on one level we laugh at Ali G. because he is a self-deceived idiot, but on another we laugh at the people who are taken in by his fraud. And since many of the people Ali G. deceives are people that we look up to in our culture, the joke is on us as well. Cohen's strategy is perhaps best seen in a skit where Brūno interviews a man in charge of a fashion show and asks him a string of questions that directly contradict one another, such as "Why was everything so light?" follows by "Why was everything so heavy?" His final question in the interview is, "Is consistency important to you?"

Of course, this constant puncturing of the pretensions of our culture would be merely an intellectual exercise if the series wasn't also hysterically funny. There are times in DA ALI G. SHOW when I laugh about as hard as it is possible for me to laugh. There are also times when I merely winch. Cohen is almost always on the edge in his humor, which how he likes it. Much of the time when I watch him, I'm extremely uncomfortable; the rest of the time I'm laughing my head off. In one scene I might be dying as Ali G. asks Buzz Aldrin, "Will man ever set foot on the sun?" (After Aldrin assures him that we will not, ever, because it is too hot, Ali G. asks, "What if we were to go during the winter?") In another I might feel uneasy compassion for some poor soul as Borat shows pornographic Polaroids of him and his sister. Sometimes his skits show us at our worse, such as the glee with which patrons in a country western bar join Borat in singing "Throw the Jew Down the Well." Are we, we wonder, really that racist beneath the surface? Or are the people in the bar oblivious as to the meaning of the lyrics?

Cohen has a longstanding interest in prejudice and hatred of otherness. At Cambridge University his studies were centered on the American civil rights movement in the sixties (I've wondered if his frequent visits to Mississippi on his shows are related to his academic background). I'm not saying that everything on Cohen's shows has an elevated purpose or is high-minded, but I do believe that it is part of the mix. Obviously he is first and foremost an entertainer more than willing to take the low road for a laugh, but it is also obvious that his questions often have other purposes.

Absolutely do not buy this product from Amazon. They sent me a copy that was damaged, so I called and let them know and they sent me a second copy that was also damaged. Their entire inventory of this show is probably damaged, so don't waste your money buying it here.

Da Ali G Show is a series created by the comedian Sacha Cohen, famous for the movie "Borat," which actually originated from this show. Sacha is able to disguise himself as 3 different characters, Ali G - the white gangster who interviews politicians, Bruno - the gay man who interviews everyday people, and Borat - the foreigner looking to learn about US customs. With this trio of characters Sacha is able to create an amazing TV show that is hilarious from beginning to end. Like the previous season, this DVD only has 6 episodes, but each one is hilarious. There are also quite a few bonus features which is great to watch. If you enjoy watching people get embarrassed and placed in awkward situations Da Ali G show is for you. Personally I find it to be one of the funniest TV shows within the last 10 years.