WHY IS THIS ONE OF THE BEST FILMS OF THE YEAR?: Even more than the TV version of Borat pushed TV boundaries, this film challenges our perceptions of what a film can do, what a film should do. In an arena in which art is necessarily secondary to commerce, Sacha Baron Cohen proved that making art -- and not just any old art but genuine, provocative, paradigm-smashing art -- and making money -- and not just a coupla bucks but oodles of smackeroos -- were not mutually exclusive. And he did it by taking enormous risks like we rarely see Hollywood take.

BUT ISN'T THIS JUST JACKASS WITH A FUNNY ACCENT?: Borat is to Jackass what, say, a Shakespearean fool is to Johnny Knoxville. Baron Cohen doesn't merely appropriate the in-your-face outrageousness of the likes of Jackass, he takes the structures of reality TV and turns them on themselves, forces them to become commentary on a culture that would take Andy Warhol's prediction about everyone being famous for 15 minutes and turn in into a commandment. Western entertainment has descended to a nonstop barrage of letting everyone have their 15 as long as they're willing to do something idiotic -- eat a bug on a game show, have a family meltdown on Jerry Springer -- and do so without any sense of shame. Borat put the shame back into reality ... as all the lawsuits against the film prove.

CAN BARON COHEN DO THIS AGAIN? OR IS THIS A ONE-SHOT DEAL?: It's hard to imagine Baron Cohen being able to pull off something like Borat again -- too many people are wise to him ... though it would be a wonderful joke if he could still make it work. If this is a one-time-only success for Baron Cohen, that doesn't lessen its triumph at all. But I suspect he's got plenty more up his sleeve. He's a trickster, and tricksters are good at coming at you from angles you were never expecting.

[Check out my full review of Borat here.]

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