Will we be hearing about lawsuits against the Borat movie for the next few years? On the heels of frat boys and transit workers suing the producers of Borat last year, a New York City businessman is suing Twentieth Century Fox for the "unauthorized and blatantly illegal use" of his likeness in the movie. Jeffrey Lemerond is best known to Borat viewers as the New Yorker who runs away from the faux Kazakh reporter......

Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg traveled back to his Massachusetts roots and gave the commencement speech at Tufts University. Bloomberg, who grew up in Medford, name checked various haunts in the hood, tried to seem with it by mentioning Busta Rhymes, Ali G, and Salma Hayek, and reminded kids to call their mother. He also discussed free speech, in what the Sun called a nod to the Minutemen incident at Columbia: The fourth lesson is, in......

To no one's surprise, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer was elected the next Governor, Senator Hillary Clinton was re-elected, and Andrew Cuomo was elected Attorney General. (Democrat Alan Hevesi was re-elected Comptroller, but more on that later.) But the dynamics are interesting: Spitzer won in a "historic landslide" and Clinton managed to take votes of 20-25% of Republican voters. After a victory speech that included a reference to Ali G, Spitzer will have to make......

Flight of the Conchords (FOTC) are Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement. You may have seen them on their acclaimed HBO One Night Stand and you'll be seeing a lot more of them soon because HBO just picked up their series for twelve episodes. In this interview, FOTC discuss hologram pants, trying to wrangle up audience members at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and radio comedy. Tell me about your HBO series. Brett: It's about the......

After seeing Ryan Brenzier's photograph of saw Ali G/ Sacha Baron Cohen/ Borat in Times Square (captured in this picture on the right), Gothamist has wondered where else the British comedian would strike. New York magazine reports he was spotted on the 4 train, "lunging in to kiss surprised men and introducing himself in broken English as 'Borat from Kazakhstan.'" Of course, the "Borat" part was a giveaway, as was the semi-discreet entourage ("ten men,......

By now we’ll assume most saw Episode III or are at least quite tired of seeing it butchered and plastered all over their Burger King fountain sodas. So I guess we can focus our attention back to more current matters, like deciphering Katie & Tom's publicity gymnastics (who else caught the jump, fall-to-one-knee, & arm wrestle move on Oprah?) and the new movies opening this weekend: New York’s animated zoo animals move from the Big......

Gothamist has been very excited for the premiere of Da Ali G Show's second season, because there is nothing like seeing bigwigs talking to an idiot - someone pretending very ably to be an idiot at that. But it was the NY Times' Virginia Heffernan's interview with Sacha Baron Cohen, the startlingly normal looking guy behind Ali G, Borat, and Bruno, that put Gothamist over the edge. Cohen describes some notable people's rapping style:And there's......

Every so often, news will pop up about various geniuses being autistic, based on books and essays about their behavior. Cambridge professor Simon Baron Cohenbelieve that Albert Einstein and Sir Issac Newton had Asperger's syndrome, a mild form of autism, which seems to explain their eccentricities and problems with socializing. There have been thoughts that Bill Gates is autistic, inspired by his rocking in chairs, his odd tics. "People with Asperger syndrome are often of......