Ali G - Bling Bling [DVD] [2001] - Region 2 DVD

Bling Bling is an assortment of Ali G's interviews; a couple of them with possibly the last people in Britain who didn't realise that someone was pulling their leg and several with American grandees of various sorts, including economist JK Galbraith and former CIA director Admiral Stansfield Turner. The real selling point, however, is Ali G's undeniably spectacular Comic Relief interview with David and Victoria Beckham, which, incidentally, presented the pair in a far more favourable light than any amount of avuncular fawning by Michael Parkinson. Bling Bling also includes quite a lot of Baron-Cohen's other alter-ego, hapless Kazakh! reporter Borat. Though Borat is a lazy and disappointing retreat to a time when British comedy was grounded in a belief that all foreigners are inherently hilarious--he's basically Manuel from "Fawlty Towers" with a microphone--he deserves kudos for the interview with an insufferable English undergraduate comedy troupe, in which he manages to get invited to slap two of them, and does so with the force they deserve.

On the DVD: The scene selector or, rather, "Scene Selecta" is straightforward enough. The only "extras" are some more Ali G interviews, and a trailer for the forthcoming Ali G film. --Andrew Mueller