Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Step aside, Bob Woodward and Katie Couric. No journalist is making more headlines at the moment than Borat Sagdiyev, a racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, homophobic reporter from Kazakhstan who is also the star of the year's funniest movie.

``Borat'' is the creation of Sacha Baron Cohen, the British satirist behind TV's ``Da Ali G Show.'' Now working on a bigger screen and a broader canvas, Cohen has made a ``mockumentary'' that has already brought protests from the government of Kazakhstan and others who don't appreciate his brazen brand of humor.

The film's subtitle, ``Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,'' pretty much tells you what you're in for.

Fracturing the English language even more than George W. Bush, Borat and his obese producer Azamat Bagatov travel across the U.S. in a dilapidated ice-cream truck to meet everyday people for a documentary on life in America. Borat's other goal, after watching ``Baywatch'' on TV, is to marry Pamela Anderson when he gets to California.

Starting in New York City, where a live chicken falls out of his suitcase on a crowded subway car, Borat creates havoc wherever he goes. He outrages a panel of dour-faced feminists in New York, serves cheese made with his wife's breast milk to former congressman Bob Barr in Washington, and shocks a dinner party in Alabama by bringing a plastic bag filled with feces to the table.

Guns, Booze

Even more shocking are Borat's encounters with Americans who readily agree with his caveman view of the world.

At a rodeo in Virginia, he exchanges a high-five with a cowboy who concurs that homosexuals should be hanged and pumps up the crowd with his call for Bush ``to drink the blood of every man, woman and child in Iraq.'' Only when he butchers the ``Star- Spangled Banner'' with jingoistic lyrics from the Kazakh ``national anthem'' does the crowd start booing.

When Borat stops at a gun shop and asks for a good weapon to use against Jews, the salesman makes a recommendation with a straight face, as if he had been asked for his best deer-hunting rifle. And while hitchhiking in the Southwest, Borat is picked up by a group of frat boys in a van who proceed to get drunk with him and endorse his support of slavery.

Yes, they're all easy targets. But what's wrong with shining the spotlight on idiots who don't realize how ridiculous they sound? ``Borat'' doesn't sugarcoat prejudice, yet even without the sweet coating, his bigotry attracts the ignorant and fearful.

Nude Wrestling

Don't get the idea, though, that ``Borat'' is all political and social satire: The movie can also be supremely silly. Borat's pratfalls in an antique store are almost Chaplinesque, and his nude wrestling match with Azamat in their hotel room is like an X-rated Three Stooges routine.

The 82-minute film drags a bit toward the end, perhaps to give the audience a chance to catch its breath. Borat's participation in a Pentacostal revival meeting falls flat and his long-awaited meeting with Anderson at a book signing seems staged, even though the filmmakers insist that all the scenes were unscripted.

Cohen's genius is his ability to stay in character no matter how absurd the situation. Not a bad trait for a journalist, after all.

``Borat,'' from 20th Century Fox, opens today across the U.S. For more information, see http://www.boratmovie.com.

`Volver'

``Volver'' means ``to return'' or ``go back'' in Spanish -- a fitting title for Pedro Almodovar's fanciful story about the powerful role that memory plays in our lives.

Here, the recollections center on Spanish matriarch Irene, believed to have died in a fire that also killed her husband.

The couple had two daughters: Raimunda (Penelope Cruz), who now has a teenage daughter of her own along with a deadbeat husband who ends up stuffed in a freezer, and Sole (Lola Duenas), who runs a hairdressing salon out of her home. Two dying women also are central characters -- Aunt Paula and her neighbor, Agustina.

They're all shaken up when the supposedly dead Irene (Carmen Maura) returns with a scandalous secret. Some think she's a ghost, while others are convinced she's real. The mystery isn't hard to figure out, though that doesn't really matter because Almodovar is always more interested in character and symbolism than plot.

Cruz and Maura are back working with the director who helped make them famous, and the comfort level is obvious. Cruz, who's been misused or underused in most of her English-language movies, is enchanting as the down-to-earth beauty Raimunda. And Maura nails the film's most emotionally demanding scene, where she tells Raimunda the true story behind her disappearance.

Their return to Almodovar's whimsical universe is worth celebrating.

``Volver,'' from Sony Pictures Classics, opens today in New York. For more information, see http://www.sonyclassics.com/volver.

(Rick Warner is the movie critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this story: Rick Warner in New York at rwarner1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 3, 2006 00:12 EST