Borat the Subsequent Movie (2020)

Every year there are some films that I watch that are nominated for an Academy Award that I just find to be clunkers. Usually they are in one of the special effects category, although I have to admit, while there are many movies that I would have skipped over but since they are nominated, I watch them, and more often than not I am pleasantly surprised. That is not, however, what happened here. This is the new installment in the misadventures of Sasha Baron Cohen's ignorant yet fearless Kazakhstani journalist Borat Sagdiyev and it is filled with risqué jokes, jokes that don't land, and, as is clearly the point, a terrible reflection on the American people. Tolerance for and occasional outright support for racism, xenophobia, misogyny, law breaking, sex trafficking, and openly talking about killing people who do not agree with you is all alive and well, and people are willing to be filmed doing so. The thing that makes it far less appealing now that it was in the first film is that Trump was elected president and we saw it every single day at the highest levels of government and it just is not at all funny.