Maybe an Oscar nomination for Borat?

The biggest surprise of the year has to be the sensation of Borat.
For those who have liked the character for a while, maybe it shouldn't
come as that much of a surprise, but a recent announcement that the LA
and San Francisco critics both picked Sacha Baron Cohen as the best
actor of 2006 absolutely shocked me. With major critics from major
markets giving props to Cohen, there is now buzz that he might even
have an outside chance at getting nominated for an Oscar. Let me
repeat that. AN OSCAR. Though it's starting to look like Forrest
Whitaker might be able to start polishing the golden statuette for his
portrayal of a Ugandan dictator in "The Last King of Scotland," just
getting Cohen nominated would be unbelievable. Imagine what Cohen
could do with this. I can envision him stumbling over members of the
audience, showing pictures of his sister (the number four prostitute
in Kazakhstan) to people in tuxedos and Gucci dresses, muttering
anti-Semitic remarks to all the wrong people – the potential is
endless.

Borat would have a red carpet full of actors and actresses, who know
what game he's playing, yet because of the cameras that will be on
them, will be almost forced to comment. Of course, he could always
just show up not in character, but how could Cohen nix such an
opportunity? Unfortunately, the Academy Awards has become nothing
more than a display of vanity from personalities who've been
systematically trained to spit out dialogue that seems to have been
siphoned through a public relations firm first. Borat would have a
field day.

If those who pull together the Oscars are smart at all, they should
even have him give out an award or introduce a special segment. He
could probably make Sound Editing the most entertaining and
interesting part of the night fairly easily. And just imagine the
kind of conversation he could have with Sean Penn.