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At one point in Sacha Baron Cohen’s follow up to Borat (2006), Borat Subsequent Movie Film (aka Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan), the pandemic hits and our hero ends up holed up in a remote (yet spacious and well appointed) cabin with two guys, who tell Borat earnestly that Hillary Clinton kidnaps children to drink their blood and harvest adrenochrome. It’s a scene that makes us ask an internal question we probably never did the first time around: who is performing for who here?

In the first installment, on the heels of HBO’s Da Ali G Show, the American version of the already wildly popular guerilla prank show Cohen had been doing in the UK, the boundaries between staged and spontaneous were already a little blurry. What must he have told these people to get them to appear? But for the most part we could trust that people’s reactions to this simple, backwards foreigner from a mysterious former Soviet Stan were more or less genuine. Cohen played on the West’s casual assumptions about the former Eastern Bloc (mixed with genuine ignorance and trusting instincts) to expose their receptiveness to misogyny, superstitious Anti-Semitism, and poop — but also their general friendliness and willingness to help a fellow man. Getting an entire mega church to participate in a call and response by calling out “Do Jesus love my retard brother?” was a signature bit (along with the tamer but funnier, “Do Jesus love my neighbor Nusultan Tuliakhbar? —Nobody love my neighbor Nusultan Tuliakhbar!”)

This exposure of ugly strains in the national character was what got the most ink, even if it wasn’t the number one goal — Cohen is a humanist anarchist and subversive by nature, but I suspect that for the former student of French master-clown Philippe Gaulier (yes, Cohen attended a “prestigious French clown school”), laughs and spectacle trump politics, if only slightly. The thrill of discovering something new about our fellow man, good or bad, was a big part of Borat‘s appeal. You never quite knew what was going to happen. Whether it be a rodeo crowd’s half-cheering reaction to “I hope George W. Bush kills every man, woman, and child in Iraq, down to the lizards!” or a driving instructor who mostly just treats a horny Borat with kindness, good advice, and straightforward humanity. (“Look, you can’t do that here, okay?”)

In Borat Subsequent Movie Film, whose ostensible plot is about a now-disgraced Borat Sagdiev trying to deliver a famous chimp porn star to Mike Pence as a gift from the Kazakh premier, not only has casual racism and misogyny in public become far less shocking, but it’s much, much harder to tell who is performing for the camera. In the 14 years since the first movie, the kind of conservatism Cohen seems to delight in exposing has gone from at least somewhat ideological to almost entirely performative. It was always fairly hypocritical, but these days absolutely no one is buying that God and country crap from people lining up behind a thrice-divorced WWE heel in a billowy suit whose disrespect of veterans has spawned at least five separate controversies. What once may have at least seemed like genuine belief is now transparently just a cudgel.

The footage of Cohen that leaked out prior to release saw him performing at a right-wing rally. In the movie, we can now see Borat (disguised as a character called, amazingly, “Country Steve”) surrounded by people open carrying assault rifles, walking around in military fatigues, clad in your bog-standard pro-Trump, anti-Dem t-shirts, and other regalia. It feels, as it almost always does these days, more like a group of people LARPing in a park than a political gathering. Politics has goals and desired outcomes. These people are merely solidifying identity. Trump is a television character to them, and they enjoy the show. They bond over their shared enjoyment of the show.

There is no ideology beyond antagonism toward a perceived enemy — which is to say, I doubt any of them would even be there without the possibility of libs to trigger. Which is further to say, they’re all doing a Borat bit now, playing a character to get a rise out people or to prove a point. The people Sacha Baron Cohen delights in provoking have spent the last 14 years desperately trying to become the provocateurs.

So when two “country” looking guys (who like almost all supposedly working-class Trump fanatics appear to be driving around in $40,000 trucks) try to explain how and why Hillary Clinton harvests children, the shock isn’t so much “wow I can’t believe someone believes this” it’s “how far are these guys willing to go for the bit?”

What did Borat tell these guys that made them want to host him at their house and sign the waiver? Surely it was more than just them being nice. These kinds of questions require answers more in 2020 than they did in 2006. They don’t seem like bystanders anymore. Meanwhile, when Borat goes to a debutante ball at one point, I could’ve sworn I saw one of the guys from the first Borat‘s Southern society dinner there (the guy on the far right in this picture). What the hell did they tell that guy to get him to participate twice? I’m genuinely curious.

Cohen is still the same genius he was before, a David Blaine character who shrinks from no celebrity or situation, who will not only put himself in legitimate danger for a bit (literally doing comedy at the point of a gun, and not for the first time), but always seems to have the perfect one-liner queued up for maximum effect — like assuring Rudy Giuliani of his “tight back pussy.” Mostly it’s the world that has changed. For that and a handful of other reasons (like that Borat is too famous to do bits as Borat now, and not wanting to repeat himself, and probably a COVID-abbreviated shooting schedule) Cohen has to work a little harder for laughs now. Or even for surprise. He was always at least as much a social experiment as he was a comedian and these days staging a social experiment is complicated by the feeling that we’re all living in a social experiment all the time.

There’s also the fact that decent-sized chunks of this movie don’t even have Cohen in them. His daughter, Sandra Jessica Parker Sagdiev-Drummond (played by Maria Bakalova) does the heavy lifting in two or three scenes as Borat’s bumpkin daughter, who dreams of “a fancy wife cage” like Melania’s and has been schooled to fear the teeth in her vagine. That she can create situations every bit as awkward as Cohen, the kind that make you cover your eyes but keep watching, is a testament to her poise and bravery. It takes a special kind of person to be able to see those situations through. Yet she’s not quite Sacha Cohen — lacking the same sense of perfect one-liner — because… well, no one is.

When Borat Subsequent Movie Film is on, it’s as transfixing as ever. You don’t watch it like you would comedy, expecting regular and consistent laughs. You watch it like you would porn, where you know all the wonder and spontaneity are mostly staged but remain transfixed regardless, anticipating those fleeting moments when the mask slips off and a character’s true feelings are revealed. There are longer stretches where that doesn’t come (heh), but that’s mostly okay. Just as before, Borat uncovers craziness and kindness in almost equal measure — one moment with a Holocaust survivor in a synagogue, in particular, was so sweet (contrived or not) that it almost brought me to tears.

Yet if Borat Subsequent Movie Film feels scattered in comparison to its predecessor, that’s perhaps because the American body politic isn’t nearly as coherent as it once was. It’s hard not to feel like Walter from The Big Lebowski looking back on the Bush years — substituting neocons for “the man in the black pajamas,” a “worthy f*ckin’ adversary.” Say what you will about the tenets of vulgar imperialism, dude, at least it was an ethos. Turns out, it’s a lot harder to expose a belief system that is essentially nihilistic.

‘Borat Subsequent Movie Film’ is available October 23rd on Amazon Prime. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.

Miley Cyrus has been teasing a new era for some time now, and finally, she has offered concrete information about her next album: Plastic Hearts will be released on November 27.

Cyrus shared the album art on social media, which Pitchfork notes looks similar to album covers by punk band The Plasmatics, like their 1980 debut New Hope For The Wretched. She also shared an emotional note about the album, in which she addresses her house burning down in 2018.

Read Cyrus’ full statement below.

“If you’re reading this know that I f*cking LOVE + APPRECIATE you on the deepest level. I began this album over 2 years ago. Thought I had it all figured out. Not just the record — its songs/sounds but my whole f*cking life. NO ONE checks an ego like life itself.

Just when I thought the body of work was finished it was ALL erased. Including most of the music’s relevance. Because EVERYTHING had changed.

Nature did what I now see as a favor + destroyed what I couldn’t let go of for myself. I lost my house in a fire but found myself in its ashes.

My collaborators still had most of the music that was burned up in journals/computers filled with songs for the EP series I was working on at the time. But it never felt right to release ‘my story’ (each record being a continual autobiography) with a HUGE chapter missing. If it were a chapter in my book I guess I would call it — ‘The Beginning’ which usually when something is over we call it ‘The End.’ But it was far from that.

In triumph + gratitude I present to you my 7th studio record, Plastic Hearts. To be released 11/27/2020.

Well that’s ‘the plan’ anyway — Had one of those before…. But seriously — it’s really coming. Think you’ll love it — if you don’t — F*ck you.”

Plastic Hearts is out 11/27 via RCA. Pre-order it here.

Machine Gun Kelly received good amount of flack for his sudden change in sound after the rapper-turned-rocker jumped into the pop-punk lane for his latest album, Tickets To My Downfall. Whether the comments were warranted is up for debate, but none of that may matter to MGK as the project helped him earn his first No. 1 album. Riding high off the success of his fifth full-length release, the Cleveland native returns with a fiery visual alongside Halsey for their “Forget Me Too” collaboration.

The visual finds the two artists, literally drowning at times, in their post-breakup feelings and taking out their frustration on a number of items in the home the video takes place in. Despite many attempts to move on and continue their respective single lives, MGK and Halsey fail to accomplish this without running into thoughts of each other. Finally, after staying clear of each other for the better part of the video, MGK and Halsey run into near the video’s end. In a fit of rage, they take out their anger toward each other in a heated vocal match, one that finds Travis Barker rocking out on the drums behind them.

Machine Gun Kelly previously spoke on his shift in sound shortly after the release of Tickets To My Downfall. “I would like to normalize how we think about doing multiple types of music,” he said in an interview with HipHopDX. “I didn’t ‘switch genres’; I’m versatile, and the wall isn’t boxed in. … Limitations would cause you to believe that, because I’ve put out four albums that are rap, I shouldn’t put out a fifth album that’s not rap.”

Watch the “Forget Me Too” video above.

Jake Tapper’s response to the final presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden was simple: though the debate itself was far more civil than the first debate in late September, the rhetoric of the Trump campaign in the last days of the campaign will get a lot worse.

Tapper issued a warning to people on CNN on Thursday night in the aftermath of the debate, calling Trump’s campaign “disgusting” and calling it the “single most negative, sleazy campaign in American history.” The comments were in relation to largely the campaign Trump has ran online, both through his own Twitter account and surrogates elsewhere but also when speaking during debates and campaign appearances.

Tapper started by referencing some “code words” that Trump “spews” that make QAnon believers get excited, and also took a shot at Fox News host Sean Hannity in the process, then focused on the misinformation campaign that’s circulated online in various forms this election season.

“The president, even though he learned into it a little bit, he really didn’t go full bore. Which I think was wise, or at least not stupid,” Tapper said before bluntly criticizing the Trump campaign overall. “He’s running the single-most negative, sleazy campaign in American history for a major-party candidate.”

Tapper said the history here is clear: the disinformation from pro-Trump people and websites, and the rhetoric they’ve leaned into as they attempt to find things to criticize Biden about, has blown away any norms we’ve grown accustomed to in modern politics.

“It used to be people would be negative, and you could always say, ‘Well, don’t forget the campaign against (Michael) Dukakis’ or historians like (Michael) Beschloss could say ‘In 1800 Jefferson had pamphleteers who would accuse John Adams of being a hermaphrodite or whatever,” Tapper said. “The campaign that Trump and his allies in the media and members of his family and the Trump aligned-websites and such are leveling, with charges so heinous I’m not even going to say them. Just nonsense, crap, tied into QAnon, tied into Pizzagate, tied into the worst things you could say about a person. With no evidence, just completely made up is so disgusting and so beneath what this election should be.”

Tapper ended with a warning: what you’re likely to see online and in social media in the final days of the campaign will only get worse, and people need to be “ready” for what will show up on “their grandparents’ Facebook feeds.”

“I just want viewers at home to be ready. Because all of their grandparents’ Facebook feeds and all of the Twittersphere — it’s going to be so heinous over the next 11 days. And people should just be prepared for it,” Tapper said. “The president leaned into some of it, gently into some of the sleazier baseless allegations and accusations, not the worst. But it’s gonna get a lot worse.”

Social media has changed politics and how people gather news so considerably in recent years that it’s difficult to keep track of how much has changed. Which is why it’s interesting to see a member of the news media address disinformation like this, and its unprecedented nature, in real time as an election unfolds.

Van Jones later credited Tapper’s statement about the matter, calling it “disgusting” and pointing out that “good people” are trading in rumors and that spreading disinformation needs to stop. That last part happening seems unlikely as ever, but hearing it called out on national television is certainly something new, too.

For three consecutive years, Saweetie has inserted herself into the conversation for the song of the summer. In 2018 she entered the game with her “Icy Grl” single, one she followed up on with “My Type” in 2019. Keeping the streak alive, the Cali-native made some noise this past summer with “Tap In.” Unfortunately, the pandemic seized the true moment and overall exposure the song deserved but pushing ahead in her career, Saweetie returns with a new single with Jhene Aiko.

Bringing the warmth and carefree spirit of their California hometowns with them, Saweetie and Jhene Aiko unveil their new single, “Back To The Streets.” The song finds the two artists treating their love interests like a leased vehicle, enjoying the time they spend with them and making the most of it, all to return it and move on the to next new thing. The track is duo’s second collaboration after Jhene joined Saweetie’s “My Type” remix last year.

The “Back To The Streets” track is just the latest guest feature Jhene has done in 2020. This year, the Chilombo singer has appeared on Ty Dolla Sign’s “Be Yourself,” Big Sean’s “Body Language,” John Legend’s “U Move, I Move,” and Kehlani’s “Change Your Life.”

Listen to “Back To The Streets” in the video above.

Saweetie is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Ahead of her Saturday Night Live hosting debut on October 24, Adele and HER took part in a promotional video for SNL just a couple of days ahead of the show’s live taping. Joined by cast member Kate McKinnon, the video finds Adele using the opportunity to show off her American accent.

The result was a really good attempt, one that almost makes you forget her usual British accent. On the other hand, McKinnon then tried her hand at a British accent, but failed to stick the landing. The trio also pokes a little fun at HER’s stage name in the SNL teaser.

Adele revealed she would host the upcoming episode of SNL in an Instagram post that found her beyond excited at the impending opportunity. “Bloooooody hellllll I’m so excited about this!! And also absolutely terrified!” Adele exclaimed in the post. “I’ve always wanted to do it as a stand alone moment, so that I could roll up my sleeves and fully throw myself into it, but the time has never been right. But if there was ever a time for any of us to jump head first into the deep end with our eyes closed and hope for the best it’s 2020 right?” She also showed how excited to watch HER perform on the late-night show.

“I am besides myself that H.E.R will be the musical guest!! I love her SO much I can’t wait to melt into a flaming hot mess when she performs, then confuse myself while I laugh my arse off in between it all.”

You can watch the promo video above.

Following her Thank U, Next album in 2019, Ariana Grande told fans thanks she would “be chilling a lot more next year,” which was reasonable as she was just a year removed from her 2018 Sweetner release. Despite this claim, Ariana began to tease new music in August and soon after, she returned to say her sixth album would arrive at the end of October. True to her promise, Ariana begins the campaign for the album with her new single, “Positions.”

Paired with a matching visual, the video kicks off with Ariana at the head of a table at the White House for what looks like an important meeting. Emphasizing her message on the song, the video then transitions to present her in the kitchen as a chef while she promises to her lover that she will continue “switchin’ the positions for you.”

Grande first teased the album after celebrating two-year anniversary of Sweetener in January. Prior to an Instagram post that said, “happy second birthday to my favorite baby sweetener,” Grande shared one that jokingly teased the title for her upcoming album. “Was holdin my tiddies up with the other arm thats cropped out,” she said under a photo of herself wearing a bra. In the comments of that photo, she added, “ag6 title.”

If her new single tops the singles chart, it will be Grande’s third track in 2020 to reach No. 1. Her first chart-topping track of 2020 came with Justin Bieber on their “Stuck With U” collab. Her next No. 1 came by the way of her “Rain On Me” collaboration with Lady Gaga, which appeared on Gaga’s Chromatica album.

You can listen to “Positions” in the video above.

Rudy Giuliani’s shenanigans captured on film in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm hit the media before the film hit streaming services, which gave Sacha Baron Cohen the opportunity to use it in a promotional tweet about the movie’s release.

Giuliani, Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and a man who has tried to make the news for another high-profile reason this week, was caught on film in a compromising situation with the Baron Cohen character, who Giuliani may or may not still believe is a real person. While the rest of America will be able to see the scene for themselves on Friday, Baron Cohen tweeted a defense of Giuliani on Thursday night that poked fun at this appearance in the film, in which the former mayor of New York City appeared in a hotel room that Baron Cohen’s Borat burst into and claimed the person he was with was an underage girl.

“I (am) here to defend America’s mayor, Rudolph Giuliani,” said Baron Cohen, in character as Borat. “What was an innocent sexytime encounter between a consenting man and my 15-year-old daughter have been turned into something disgusting by fake news media.”

Borat makes a gesture with his hand, seeming to extend his nose and continuing a trope he often referenced in his first Borat movie. Then he issued a very tongue-in-cheek warning to anyone who might try to prank Giuliani in the future.

“I warn you, anyone else try this and Rudolph will not hesitate to reach into his legal briefs and whip out his sup-penis.”

Given the response on social media word of Giuliani’s appearance in the film got, it makes sense that Baron Cohen would address the scene directly in a video that doubles as an ad for the movie. Let’s just hope that Giuliani’s “legal briefs” are the only thing we see in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, and nothing more graphic.

After the second scheduled presidential debate of the year was canceled after president Donald Trump declined to hold the debate virtually following his coronavirus diagnosis. On Thursday, however, Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden took the stage once again for the final debate of the year. Unlike the first debate from late September, which was riddled with negative comments and left an ill taste in the mouths of many voters, Thursday’s night debate erred on the calmer side of things. Sharing their reactions to the debate, a number of names from the music world jumped on Twitter to deliver their thoughts.

Lady Gaga stressed the importance of voting saying, “YOU MUST VOTE. VOTING IS ESSENTIAL,” while Big Sean expressed his frustration with Trump and Biden’s inability to directly answer a question. “Politicians just can’t answer a question straight?!” he asked. “They dance around it n then kinda answer it, like sorta.”

In another tweet, Big Sean asked why Abraham Lincoln’s name was continuously brought up during the debate. “Did he say Abraham Lincoln?” he said. “What’s going on here?!!”

Lastly, producer Mike Dean opted to use the retweet function to share his thoughts as he reposted a tweet that said, “Spoiler alert: Trump doesn’t want to pay the workers in his hotels and clubs a higher minimum wage.”

You can find some more reactions from the music world below.

Estelle is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Video of Thursday night’s matchup between the Philadelphia Eagles and the New York Giants likely won’t be submitted for Hall of Fame consideration in Canton. However, the game did feature some intriguing moments, including a memorable 80-yard scamper by Daniel Jones that ended in hilarious fashion. Still, there was an actual NFL game in the balance and, when the Giants took a 21-10 lead with 6:21 to go in the fourth quarter, New York looked to be in a strong position to get a victory.

On cue, the Eagles scored a touchdown within two minutes, cutting the margin to 21-16 (failing a two-point conversion). Then, the Eagles were able to get a defensive stop with the help of a pivotal drop from Giants tight end Evan Engram on third down that would’ve potentially iced the game.

Carson Wentz and Philadelphia’s offense then took over 71 yards from the end zone with 2:29 remaining after a punt and a personal foul on New York. From there, the Eagles were able to zoom down the field with relative ease, entering the red zone with plenty of time.

Despite a seemingly untimely penalty to back Philadelphia up to first and goal from the 18-yard line, Wentz was able to find Boston Scott with a beautiful throw to give the home team the lead and, eventually, the win.

The game wasn’t over when Scott crossed the goal line, particularly given the fact that the Eagles failed on the two-point conversion attempt to keep the margin at 22-21. New York had 40 seconds to try to sneak into field goal range but, in on-brand fashion for this particular game, the contest ended on a sack by Brandon Graham and fumble from Jones.

With the win, the Eagles improve to 2-4-1 on the year and, somehow, that puts Philadelphia in a good spot with regard to the NFC East race. Make no mistake, the Eagles didn’t play well on this night, going just 3-of-8 in the red zone and generally underachieving throughout the game. Still, Philadelphia got the result they wanted, and the connection between Wentz and Scott may have changed the course of the playoff pursuit in the league’s shakiest division.