· In addition to the constant stream of lawsuits from co-stars unhappy with their profit participation, Borat's Sacha Baron Cohen is learning other lessons about the dark side of runaway success, like pasty-thighed fans who think it's OK to show up to movie premieres in their own neon nutslings.
· Have you heard? Our boss is blogging over at Valleywag, and while we have no idea if he's subjecting himself to the cruel lashings he distributes to his other minions when their posting pace drops, it looks like he's already figured out the value of a cheap "Separated at Birth" item.
· Losanjealous' Bill DeMarco is rating the top 50 Starbucks in LA. These are his stories.
· We made the call, and it's the Walken's sister one.
· You know what we haven't done in a while? Hey, unicorns!
· LA.com supplies a handy guide to stalking Nicole Richie. Weirdly, there are places where food is served on their list.

Apparently, Neil Strauss's Rolling Stone interview with Sasha Baron Cohen — the first that Borat's creator has shucked his moustache and fictitious persona for — isn't half bad. But the lessons he learned from the interview — and promptly shared with his mailing list of desperate ugly wannabe Pick Up Artists — show us why he's so beloved of Judith "OJ Profiteer" Regan.
In the email, he tells of adopting an alter ego who sounds very familiar:

Publishing a Borat book is clearly a totally genius idea. After all, people will still be just as feverishly enthusiastic about Borat a year from now, right? And Borat's accent-based humor seems like it would translate to the printed page really, really well. (Borat voice:) NAAHHT! (Yeah, see how funny that was?)

Along with the Borat movie's many unwitting victim/stars, yet another subgroup of angry Kazakh-lashers are emerging: those who suddenly find themselves putting up with endless, irritating Borat mimicry by the show's impressionable teen audiences. Dubbing it "the Borat effect," ABCNews.com examines how the movie's outrageous comic sequences have some parents worried they might soon be subjected to an inter-sibling penetrative liplock at the dinner table:

While his lawsuit may name him only as a John Doe, the tireless, truth seeking netizens at The Smoking Gun have identified one of the frat boys suing the makers of the Borat movie as Justin Seay, 24, whom you may recall as the portliest good ol' boy of the bunch. TSG has posted 8 photos from his MySpace profile, each featuring Seay in various stages of apparent shit-facedness, and always with a drink in his hand. Taken together, they suggest a fun-loving and irrepressible people-person, though they also provide overwhelming visual evidence that works against Seay's claims that he was coerced by producers into the heavy drinking that would ultimately make him do and say foolish and offensive things in a hit Hollywood comedy. This is clearly a man as proud of his love of libation as he is of his Southern heritage, as evidenced by that dorm room poster featuring John Belushi's iconic, Animal House crapulence accompanying a mounted T-shirt that hints at the pro-Confederate sentiments he and his buddies expressed to their Kazakh drinking buddy while under the influence of his cynically proferred moonshine.

The UK Sun brings word of a recent altercation:

It's one thing to be taunted by a mustachioed imbecile for a Kazakh public TV audience, but quite another when the mustachioed imbecile is set to become one of the richest and most powerful men in Hollywood, and the audience turns out to be every man, woman, and snuck-in child in America. A "not everyone loves Borat" round-up (and it's full of spoilers, for those die-hard Borat fans patiently waiting until the movie hits the discounted second-run theaters):
· The Sun reports that after the SNL taping of a few weeks ago, Sacha Baron Cohen, in character as Borat, and that week's host Hugh Laurie, popped into a New York bar for some interactive fun with the clientele. An unamused patron then responded to Borat's request to purchase and have sex with his clothing by punching him in the face several times. Witness reports claiming the assailant was a bitter and broke Yakov Smirnoff demanding his act back turned out to be erroneous. [The Sun]
· That village at the beginning of the movie wasn't a Fox backlot set—it was an actual village, called Glod, in Romania. Its inhabitants are now claiming they were lied to, having been paid roughly six dollars each and told they were being filmed as part of a documentary about poverty in the region. Particularly bitter is the one-armed man who has come to realize his floppy prosthetic may have once found its way up the anus of the film's unwitting star at the hand of a proud homosexual. [DailyMail.co.uk]
· As the world laughs, Borat's victims continue to weather the reverberations of their public humiliations and betrayals. Some of their stories are compiled by the AP, including the Jackson, Miss. morning show producer who let Borat on the air to wreak havoc on an interview segment and weather report, leading directly to her firing and a "downward spiral." We'd recommend adding the scene to her clip reel and immediately mailing an application package to Good Day L.A., where that kind of gonzo morning show programming vision is best appreciated. [ABCNews.com/AP]

Beat back your acute case of Monday morning depression with these pharmaceutical-grade box office mood enhancers:

[Once again, we must warn you of the possibility that this post may contain spoilers. Please, no angry e-mails about how we've ruined your life by discussing a film you haven't yet seen.] While two of Borat's troika of drunken, racist sentiment-spewing fraternity brothers have reacted to their newfound movie stardom by suing the production for filling them to the eyeballs with booze, locking them in an RV with a suspiciously friendly Kazakh reporter, and assuring them that any uncharitable remarks regarding minorities they might make during the shoot would only be seen on a public access broadcast whose only viewers are a flock of goats somewhere in Central Asia, the third beer-bonger was significantly less scandalized by the experience. In an ABC News Radio interview, the U of South Carolina student shrugs off the whole controversy:

[Warning: Further Borat movie spoilers lie ahead.] Some of those "How'd they do that?" tricks up the sleeves of the crafty team responsible for making the Borat movie have already been revealed, including, "How'd they get those Polaroids of our hero within spitting distance of his supposed teenage son's sprouting chram?" (Answer: Hire a dark, twinky-looking gay porn star), and "How'd they get Pamela Anderson to give a semi-convincing performance?" (Answer: Actually, we still have no idea). The small matter persists, however, of that RV full of wasted, University of South Carolina frat boys, and just how their loudly voiced philosophical alignments with the faux-Kazakh on subjects such as women, Jews, and the lamentable abolition of legal slavery managed to make their way into the final cut. Now, an anonymously filed lawsuit seems to reveal, at least in part, yet more behind-the-scenes Borat movie magic:

After months of being battered by Borat's publicity generating cultural offensive, the glorious nation of Kazakhstan, the Central Asian pubis-exporting giant and leading producer of potassium, can finally claim a victory against its greatest tormentor, as neighboring Russia has at least temporarily banned the film to protect its neighbor from the further hilarious tarnishing of its image. Reports Var:

[Spoiler Alert: Just skip this one if you haven't seen Borat or haven't already had most of the movie ruined for you by the obsessive press coverage.] Those who have spent the past month or so trapped in a meat locker in an underground bunker deep beneath one of the country's low-Borat-awareness zones might conceivably be unaware that the film contains both scripted and unscripted elements, a conceit used to give the movie narrative shape and the audience things to laugh at between incidents with RVs full of racist frat-boys and dinner party hosts stunned to discover their Kazakh guest's seeming unfamiliarity with Western waste-elimination apparatuses. In an attempt to ease the fears of moviegoers still concerned that well-hung minors and prodigiously breasted former Baywatch stars might have been harmed in the making of the film, Radar (shockingly!) reveals that part of Borat's teenage son, whose member dangles incestuously close to his fictional father's face, was played by a completely legal male porn star, while Page Six (world-rockingly!) assures us that Pamela Anderson's security detail almost certainly has been trained in how to instantly stun-gun any fan who shows up to a personal appearance brandishing a hand-embroidered betrothal-bag, despite their relative bungling of their duties in the film's culminating scene. You may return to rediscovering on your own the line between fiction and reality hopelessly blurred by your potentially traumatizing cinematic experience.

Marvel plans to clog the summer of 2008—which may already feature the next Batman movie— with its superhero fare by setting a June 27th date for its Hulk sequel, which will arrive just two months after May 2's Iron Man release. [Variety]
THR releases its annual Next Generation list of "35 executives who represent the future of the industry," providing this year's ambitious also-rans a convenient inventory of the people they'll need to murder in order to advance their rising careers. [THR]
More Borat release hand-wringing: Did Fox leave "money on the table" by going with last weekend's limited release? Will the great buzz drive huge numbers of people to theaters when the movie goes wide on Friday? Will Sacha Baron Cohen's emerging fame rob him of his ability to goad RVs full of drunken, Southern frat boys into musing about the good ol' days of slavery? Developing... [Variety]
Paramount Vantage buys the rights to the supernatural novel A Jealous Ghost for Kirsten Dunst to produce and star in, satisfying the actress's desire to unnerve audiences with something other than her mouthful of creepy baby teeth. [THR]
Microsoft fights back against iTunes' content downloading hegemony by offering films and TV programs as on-demand options over their online service for the Xbox, finally offering viewers a way to watch "movies" and "shows" on a "television set." [Variety]

Like many of you, we saw Borat on Friday evening. We enjoyed it. We even tolerated the man behind us who insisted on imitating every Borat-ism as it appeared on-screen, if only because we, too, were sharing in hilarious communion. And after the movie, we, ourselves, admittedly participated in a few "high five!"s. We might have even said "niiiiice" one or two times.

· Borat goes to LA. The man behind Borat. The other man behind Borat. And the balloon Borat.
· "I am a registered sex offender" t-shirts are sure to quickly become the hottest ironic garment in Silver Lake.
· Tomorrow's election day. It would be a shame if you showed up unprepared, so make sure you review this voting guide before you head out to the polls.
· Tomorrow (perhaps more importantly) is also Guitar Hero II day. Review this video before heading to the store.
· Harvey Weinstein goes on the record to refute the idea that he knows how to properly enjoy himself at strip clubs.

When our network of nightvision-goggle-equipped multiplex spies last reported back to us about the moviegoing activities of two-time intramural DreamWorks wet t-shirt competition winner Jeffrey Katzenberg, the bite-sized, permanently V-neck-rocking mogul was helping Tom Cruise boost his opening weekend gross for M:i:III. Last night, one of our operatives spotted him forsaking his company's own, third-place product, Flushed Away, to take in a screening of the eventual box office champion. Our reporter's tale of conspicuous seat-saving, the audience's possibly self-conscious overreaction to Mel Gibson's image, and Katzenberg's obvious enjoyment of the movie's signature moment follows: [Warning: Mild spoiler included]

Slate scribe Eric Weiner has a vested interest in clearing up Sascha Baron Cohen's misrepresentations: he just adopted a Kazakh baby. So just in case you missed Kazakhstan's 4-page NYT ad and/or have no sense of humor or ability to discern fact from fiction, guess what: Kazakh women can vote and drive and Kazakh horses can't, "khrum" is not the word for testicles, and Kazakh wine isn't made from fermented horse urine ("It just tastes like it.") Outside the realm of duh, though, the article's best mythbust has to be this one:

Borat's popularity grows overseas, with the movie taking in $17.7 million over the weekend at the foreign box office, including $11.5 million at 426 British theaters. Despite the film's instant international success, Fox still has no plans to induce riots in Kazakhstan by showing the movie in Borat's much-maligned homeland. [Variety]
Desperate Housewives is Sunday's most-watched show, but a strong performance by NBC's Sunday Night Football may give the beleagured network the win for the night once the final ratings come in. In the event of a Nielsen victory, NBC will strongly consider shifting to a primetime schedule consisting of nothing but football games (high-level negotiations with the NFL for revolutionary Every Night Is Football Night In America broadcasts are ongoing) and Deal or No Deal. [THR]
Awards Season Art Film Platform Release Mania! The Queen, Volver, and Babel perform well over the weekend, rolling up gaudy per-theater averages at their strategically limited showings. [Variety]
The budget-slashing NBC gives midseason sitcom The Single's Table a no-confidence vote, cutting back its order from 13 to 6. [THR]
· CBS rescues the comedy pilot the The Papdits from development hell, consigning it to a slightly higher circle of its network Inferno, an online run on their Innertube broadband channel. [Variety]

Sneak a little bourbon into that first cup of coffee, have a couple of greedy swigs, and come to the weekend box office numbers with a healthy, Monday-kickstarting buzz on:

Somewhere deep within Fox's distribution department, the following conversation is taking place: