The movie features Aladeen (Cohen), a power-hungry Middle Eastern leader with actions that mirror a number of real-life dictators. After he is denied the ability to build nuclear weapons, he and his uncle Tamir (Kingsley) travel to New York to appease the United Nations.

Tamir, acting in his own self-interest, enlists a body double of Aladeen to carry out his wishes while the real Aladeen is shaven and stripped of any power. Aladeen has nowhere to go and is forced into working at a vegan co-op in Brooklyn. It’s at this co-op that Aladeen meets the super-liberal Zoey (Faris).

The eventual odd coupling of the ruthless Aladeen with the overly empathetic Zoey provides just one layer of political satire that is very prevalent in the film.

Much in the spirit of previous Cohen and Charles collaborations, very little is sacred. From Aladeen’s flirtations with Zoey while his hands are in another person’s body to the chilling parallels drawn between American society and the fake dictatorship of Wadiya, “The Dictator” isn’t afraid to cross the line and, at moments, make you gag.

The difference between “The Dictator” and other over-the-top comedy films is that Cohen commits to his character with an undying wit that, even at the film’s most outrageous moments, feels in some way authentic. As in previous films, he does not stray from his character during the movie.

With solid performances from its supporting cast as well as a politically relevant and daring plot, “The Dictator” succeeds in pushing buttons while remaining a focused and coherent film.

The Pitt News: I wanted to talk about the beginning of your career. How did you get into comedy?

Brian Regan: I went to college thinking I was going to be an accountant, and after a number of weeks of accounting classes, I knew I didn’t want to do that. I remember talking to my head football coach at Heidelberg College and he said you’re kind of funny on the football team, and recommended the communication and theater arts department. I changed majors, and that’s when I decided to be a comedian.

TPN: Had people always known you as a funny guy?

BR: I wasn’t the class clown. I was more like the small-circle-of-friends clown. I was funny, but I wasn’t super outgoing. It wasn’t even on my radar that I could be a comedian — it was something that I decided on my own while I was in college.

TPN: Comedy requires a lot of intelligence. Your stuff is observational humor, and that takes skill and a lot of intelligence.

BR: Certain kinds of comedy that some people just chalk up as silly — like a Steve Martin or a Jerry Lewis — I don’t think people really understand what’s going on there. There’s an intelligence to it. It’s more thought-out than you might think.

TPN: It’s not something you can just do on a whim, is it?

BR: You can work for a long time on a bit, honing words and changing little moments. You want to get to where it looks like it’s effortless.

TPN: On average, how long would you say it takes for you to come up with a bit?

BR: Sometimes you come up with a new idea and you try it on stage. Let’s say it does work, then you could spend as long as a year honing it. You find a word that works 1 percent better or a moment that works 1 percent better. You take a little pause here, a little pause there, a little eye gesture that from night to night makes it a little bit better.

TPN: It’s that intricate? A simple word can change everything?

BR: Words and the lack of words are crucial. I had heard years ago that Rodney Dangerfield used to take his jokes and take a black magic marker and scratch out every single word that wasn’t absolutely crucial to the joke, and I think about that when I’m doing the bit. Sometimes I feel like my act is an accordion: Sometimes you’re stretching it out, and other nights you’re like, let’s squeeze this baby together and see how tight I can make it.

TPN: There’s a lot of your peers out there selling their routines online. Louis C.K. and Aziz Ansari both streamed their shows live. How do you feel about pirating and how it affects your shows and sales?

BR: There’s a benefit to people out there trying to become fans, whether they’re buying it or not buying it, but I don’t completely condone pirating. What bugs me is when I look in the audience and I see a little red light on and they’re videotaping a bit in its infancy and then they can post that, and I don’t want that version out there. I don’t want someone to see a bit and be like, “well that’s not funny.” Well, it’s not done!

TPN: In regards to your newest work, All By Myself (exclusively on a CD available on your website), do you worry about people pirating and releasing that?

BR: One reason I got into comedy is because I love it, and I try not to let it get to the point where I replace the love with fear or worry. People are going to do what they’re going to do. I like the philosophy in comedy and in life; you can control what you can control and the rest you let go. It isn’t something that I lose any sleep over.

TPN: For a comedian like yourself, everyday experiences are your research.

BR: They say a formula for comedy is “comedy equals tragedy plus time” — tragedy meaning anything awkward or uncomfortable. It’s like you’re changing a tire in the rain. At the time, you’re furious and you’re cursing at the wind and then after some time passes you’re telling the story and everyone’s laughing.

TPN: It’s funny that you say “cursing at the wind” because most of your stand-up is completely clean.

BR: I like doing clean comedy. It’s fun for me. I like dirty comedy — I love Dave Chappelle, I love Chris Rock. Richard Pryor may be the greatest stand-up comedian who ever lived, and he certainly worked blue. So, different strokes for different folks, that’s all.

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, California University of Pennsylvania, part of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE), decided to include a light ribbon as part of the 2009 construction of its new convocation center.

The light ribbon, an electronic light display that spirals up a large tower structure, adds an attractive touch of flair to the new building. It complements nicely more than $586,000 worth of audio, visual, and camera equipment purchased by the university for various campus athletic and student buildings in recent years.

Given the dire financial straits of the state, this spending possibly comes off as irresponsible. Gov. Tom Corbett’s budget calls for a 20 percent cut in funding for PASSHE institutions, and although the state Senate has recently voted to limit these cuts, such behavior hardly aligns with the belt-tightening rhetoric so popular with university leaders.

Yet the great irony is that these increased capital expenditures are possibly the result of such cuts.

With increasingly smaller portions of University budgets coming from the government, schools are increasingly developing modern business practices to entice students and bump enrollment to fill budget gaps. Just as a restaurant or store must offer the newest facilities to keep up with competitors, state-related schools must continuously update their appearance if they want to increase revenue.

Thus, schools are increasingly spending money on capital projects designed primarily with this in mind. A survey of U.K. universities showed 79 percent had construction plans costing more than 5 million pounds, with most projects driven primarily by the goal for more applicants.

To an extent, this is good for students. At many schools, this competition is largely what has driven the new on-campus living options, for instance. Compare a spacious, modern Bouquet Gardens apartment to a 1960s-era Towers room and you can see how improved the modern experience has become.

But the downfall of appealing mainly to new students is that academic standards become less important. A recent high school graduate might not have any clear ideas about his or her individual academic direction. Even if one has a general academic plan outlined, however, it is hard to evaluate how a university’s funding practices toward specific departments or research labs will impact future benefits from the university.

Therefore, even if students make their college selections carefully, they can’t base them entirely on academics. Instead, they place disproportionate weight on what they know and understand: food, dorms, sports and buildings.

At schools like California University of Pennsylvania, this strategy has worked. Thanks largely to new buildings, enrollment at the school has increased 45 percent in the past decade — the largest increase of any of PASSHE’s 14 universities.

This business-first approach hasn’t completely ignored academics. Along with the new dorms and student centers, a new science building on campus and some other renovations have helped certain departments grow. Even the new screens and audio equipment may help to augment the school’s multimedia programs.

But undeniably, this new approach still emphasizes increasing revenue. As schools across the country continue to lose government support and higher education continues its transformation into a business, we can’t be surprised when schools shift funding away from academics and toward attracting students.

Last week, the country was surprised when President Barack Obama came out in support of the legalization of gay marriage. Despite being a socially liberal president, his previously ambiguous support toward gay marriage made his outright declaration unexpected. The announcement was particularly surprising because of the impending election, as his new stance could lose voters — especially in swing states that have laws banning gay marriage, such as Pennsylvania.

Another state outlawing gay marriage is Kentucky. And it is in Kentucky — a historically Republican state — that Obama might surprisinglyfind others like him. South of the Mason-Dixon Line, the president is just another unexpected supporter of the marriage equality movement.

Of course, I discovered this all by accident.

Kentucky, as it turns out, is only seven hours away from Pittsburgh. All that separates us from the bluegrass state is really just a sliver of West Virginia and about 200 miles of Ohio pavement. Armed with Google Maps printouts and dreaming of handsome southern frat boys, my roommates and I jumped in my mother’s old SUV and headed southwest for the Kentucky Derby at the Churchill Downs.

Nine hours and several missed turns later, we pulled into a Waffle House parking lot just outside of Louisville. Over grits and biscuits we celebrated our successful drive and prepared for the next segment of the journey: getting into the infield for the Kentucky Derby.

As rookies to the Triple Crown and horseracing in general, we were unsure of everything — all we knew was to pack some large hats. Various YouTube clips of the infield and years of watching the race on television had established in our minds only that the scene would include flowing bourbon and a large number of people in sundresses. But not even our tickets guaranteed that we would see any horses. The only guarantee was that our first trip to the Kentucky Derby would be a day full of surprises.

The first surprise came early, at the gates. Positioned in front of the entrance to the derby grounds was a group of fundamentalist Christians protesting the gambling, drinking and general debauchery in which the rest of us were  about to happily engage. The group threw various epithets at us. I was left wondering the meaning of “whoremonger.” In a state that has consistently voted Republican in presidential elections over the last half century — and given the particularly acidic context of contemporary American politics — I wasn’t surprised by the abrasive presence of this particular group.

In the South — where first cousins can get married but gays cannot — I was not surprised when the group’s leader declared the damnation of all homosexuals. Rather, the surprise was the reaction of the crowd. In immediate response to the preacher’s derogatory comments toward gays, the crowd broke out in widespread chants for equality. Various people chanted, “Tolerance for the gays!” One man dressed in nothing but a leather jacket and denim shorts shouted from his tobacco-filled mouth a request for the preacher to “Bring yo’ sweet thang over here!”

The people in this crowd were the people paying a few hours’ wages to get into the muddy infield, not the 1 percent sitting up in Millionaire’s Row. These were the people wearing denim overalls, not seersucker suits. These were the people sneaking bourbon in flasks and at the bottom of coolers, not buying $9 mint juleps in the stands. Indeed, this crowd was a group of working-class southerners. These were the people Northerners tend to stereotype as backward, socially conservative hicks. Yet here they were, openly supporting the very progressive notion of equality regardless of sexual orientation.

With North Carolina’s most recent passage of Amendment One, the South becomes the only region in the nation where all state constitutions include amendments that ban gay marriage. Many — like North Carolina and Kentucky — include passages that also ban civil unions. In the face of open discrimination against homosexual couples, we might become discouraged about the future of our nation, or even for all humanity. But if the unexpected support from a group of southern frat boys and Kentuckians is any indication, there is reason for hope. For it is unexpected support against anticipated critics that propels society forward. While we can be discouraged by the ignorant preacher, we can be far more inspired by his progressive challengers. Sometimes, those supporters come from the Oval Office. Other times they come dressed in overalls.

Contact Rosie at romckinley@gmail.com

Despite its many benefits, reading for pleasure has become decreasingly popular among young people over the past few decades. According to a study by the National Endowment for the Arts called “To Read or Not To Read,” the percentage of 18 to 24-year-olds who read a book not required for work or school decreased 12 percent between 1992 and 2002. The same study found that in 2006, 15 to 24-year-olds were only reading 7-10 minutes per day. In an equally surprising statistic, only 43 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds were reading literature in 2002 versus 60 percent in 1982.

There is a negative association between reading and boring schoolwork, especially for college students. Now, however, might be the time to increase those pleasure-reading percentages, as there are many benefits to reading casually that should be considered when choosing a summertime hobby.

Here are a few of those reasons:

1. Knowledge

Let’s be real here, we would not be required to read so much in school if we didn’t learn anything from it. Educational books can provide information on any subject we’re interested in to broaden our knowledge about the world. But even fictional books can expand our vocabulary or increase our storytelling skills. An awareness of the more popular works of literature can also deepen our conversational skills and allow us to discuss literary topics at a more educated level.

2. Relaxation and stress relief

During the summer, all we want to do is relax and blow off all the stress that has built up during the semester. What better way to do that than cuddling on a couch with a good book and lounging our days away? Instead of constantly moving around between places and activities, it serves us well to sit for a while and get lost in a book. The simple act of sitting still relaxes our bodies and minds, allowing us to to focus on only one story rather than on a variety of different things.

3. An escape

Along the same lines as relaxation, reading for pleasure can provide an escape from the monotonous stress of everyday life. Fiction books especially can transport their reader into another world, complete with richly colored places and events that are unlike anything we encounter in real life. Fictional worlds allow us to delve into a story for a while without bringing our real stresses and problems with us. Our imaginations grow wider when we allow ourselves to be taken in by a story and closely encounter the characters.

4. Entertainment

Books can offer the same gripping, exciting tales that we find in movies and on TV without the mind-numbing screen. Instead of destroying your eyesight by staring at the TV to get your fill of entertainment, why not pick up a book and save yourself from the physical damage? Reading also keeps your mind active while you’re being entertained rather than letting your mind sit idly while watching TV. Oftentimes, a book will also give a fuller and longer-lasting entertainment experience because there is more room for character development and intricate story lines in the pages of a book than in the limited time span of a movie or TV show.

5. Be part of a larger cultural world

Books connect readers to a larger community of people who have read the same books that they have, especially when the books have had a broad cultural impact. For example, all you have to do is mention Harry Potter in a college classroom and almost every student can launch into a discussion about the books and their childhoods. Even great older novels like “To Kill a Mockingbird” or plays like “Romeo and Juliet” can spark intelligent and intriguing conversation between those who have read them because of their impact on the world. Reading often and reading a variety of different types of literature automatically connects you to a community of like-minded and imaginative people with whom you can make a cultural impact.

Discover for yourself the many more reasons you should pick up a book or two this summer while you’re relaxing between semesters. Since the busy schedules of the academic year may not allow you time to read, take advantage of your free time during the summer and read a book. You’ll come back to school refreshed, renewed and ready to read a whole bunch more.