Brüno (Larry Charles, 2009)

[rs98762001]

Bono, Chris Martin, Sting and The Village People will appear on a parody charity song "Dove Of Peace" for the film.

Lame. The Simpsons did that with, uh, Sting back in like 1993.

[RagingNoodles]

The red band trailer.

[nsps]

So now Larry Charles is director? EDIT: Or at least credited as such…

[Antoine Doinel]

Bruno teabags Eminem at the MTV Movie Awards.

[MichaelB]

So now Larry Charles is director? EDIT: Or at least credited as such…

As with Borat, I'm not entirely convinced that the auteur theory has much validity here. Or rather, if there is a sole auteur, it ain't Larry Charles.

[jbeall]

Bruno teabags Eminem at the MTV Movie Awards.

and although you probably suspected this, yes, it was staged.

[JonathanM]

My problem with the Bruno character is that it is created in order to trap even easier targets than Borat.

Ali G trapped square people desperate to be cool and down wiv da kids.

Borta brought out sexism, racism and anti-Semitism.

Bruno brings out homophobia?

Surely that's not exactly difficult. Homophobia seems to be quite acceptable in mainstream American politics for example. You could probably send a straight guy to interview your average Republican and he'll wind up saying something homophobic.

Bruno worked best as a satire on the fashion industry but I'm not sure there's two hours in him making passes as right-wing Christians.

[Fiery Angel]

Bruno worked best as a satire on the fashion industry but I'm not sure there's two hours in him making passes as right-wing Christians.

It's only 88 minutes, if that helps.

[Antoine Doinel]

Let the lawsuits begin.

[Antoine Doinel]

Out of respect for the family, a scene involving LaToya Jackson has been cut.

[jsteffe]

Out of respect for the family, a scene involving LaToya Jackson has been cut.

Absolutely the right thing to do, IMHO.

I loved the tank mirrored like a disco ball at the Chinese Theater premiere! To say nothing of the Chanel weaponry...

[Highway 61]

I'm surprised by how much I preferred this to Borat. However, I don't think either film is as satirical as Cohen would like to believe they are. Most of the scenes in Brüno that supposedly address homophobia are really just very awkward (yet still hilarious) set pieces that happen to involve a gay character. That said, where the film's satire is undeniably effective is in its scathing attack on America's fixation on celebrity. The movie is at its best when it exposes the superficial and sometimes amoral depths that people will sink to in order to become famous. These scenes are the real representation of Cohen's talent, whereas the big trailer moments that everyone's talking about, like the Ron Paul interview, aren't nearly as satisfying, and feel as if they were left in the film simply because the concept is rather extraordinary, even though the eventual execution was disappointing.

And naturally I'm very curious to see where Cohen goes from here. I have no idea how someone with his act will be able to sustain a film career and stay artistically and commercially relevant. I hope he's able to channel his button-pushing humor and the fearlessness he displays in interviews into something more conventional, something less dependent on popular culture that will have a staying power that I think these films lack.

[Skritek]

Somehow I'd like to see him do something similar in Europe, as for example the celebrity fixation seems to reach almost equally absurd levels at least in some countries. That said, I have seen neither of these films, so maybe I'm not aware of the heights reached in the US.

[Finch]

Saw this today in a double bill with Claire Denis' 35 Shots of Rum. I'd agree that if Borat wasn't your cup of tea you needn't bother with this one. I thought Borat was side-splittingly funny in places but it felt too much like disparate sketches held together by a pretty thin storyline. This is even more so a problem in Bruno, and I think, this comes down to two things. 1) Sasha Baron Cohen is simply too well-known now to pull his stunts without going unrecognised for too long; 2) Bruno's character is less well-suited to this sort of prank comedy than Borat because people tended to feel more at ease with Borat, not least because they felt that they could afford to feel superior to him, and condescend to him as the guy from a third world country with no culture and education. Bruno, on the other hand, is openly and flamboyantly gay, and people put up their defenses very quickly. So because of these two factors, the new film feels a lot more scripted, less spontaneous and kind of clipped because they couldn't afford in most cases to draw out the prank for too long. That said, some of the stuff still works a treat: I laughed hardest during Bruno's stint at the army camp, and the two gay therapists more than deserved the ridicule. The uncomfortable and drawn-out silence that kicks in when Bruno tells the hunters around the campfire that there are so many handsome guys out there, drew some of the biggest laughter in my theater. And make no mistake, the final setpiece where Bruno and Lutz have sex in the wrestling cage while the crowd goes ballistic is an eye-opener for all the wrong reasons. Say what you will about the comedy but there are moments in the film where they really do an excellent job of exposing and shaming people for their irrational hatred of gays and lesbians.

That said, the film has plenty of dead spots and it's not going to convert those who needed to be shaken up. Does the film reinforce gay stereotypes? I was really concerned about this but having seen it now I think that for the most part, people will understand that SBC is doing an extreme caricature of a gay stereotype and that the film isn't anywhere near an accurate portrayal of the average gay man. The gay sex in the film is so over the top that surely only the most narrow-minded will not see it for the exaggeration it is. I have to admit that as a gay man who doesn't fall into the "feminine" category, I do feel a little annoyed/frustrated that yet again a studio film suggests that being gay is being effeminate, and there is a part of me that wishes for more films like Brokeback Mountain which despite its flaws was refreshingly different and accurate in portraying our relationships. Then again I realise that a film like Bruno with its satirical intent couldn't function without using the effiminate stereotype. Their reasoning, more or less rightly I think, seems to have been that you can only draw out the homophobia if you push their buttons in this particular way. I completely understand that some people can't put up with this sort of bullying/prankish humour, and I feel myself that resorting to stereotypes is a double-edged sword. In any case, I feel that the novelty is gone. Bruno is just about about funny enough if you can buy into that humour but I think it's clear that SBC won't be able to pull this off for a third time.

[colinr0380]

It said a lot that the Ali G character started out in segments on a programme called "The 11 O'Clock Show" on Channel 4, and the rest of that series was so terribly unfunny that even his intermittently smirk-worthy sections seemed wonderful by comparison. (It seemed to have originally been created as a vehicle for the pushed as a big new talent, but actually a punchable black hole of anti-charisma, Iain Lee. Much as Michael McIntyre is currently being promoted). The way the audience on the programme reacted to his sections was with wild excitement and elation, as if they had been crawling through the a parched desert and had suddenly found a glass of water that could let them continue struggling on for a little while longer.

So being the best element in an extremely crap series would seem to do wonders for your career! (It didn't harm Ricky Gervais much either, but his fame of course came later with The Office so he could brush over the terrible segments on this older series.)

I'd commend SBC for parlaying that into a couple of series of bland, barely memorable interview shows (the only Ali G TV interview that really stood out for me was the David Beckham interview, maybe because they were interacting on the same superfluous level, and the interviewee seemed to be enjoying his chat) and three films that repeat his schtick for a wider audience, but there would seem to be nowhere to go from here. Has he even got any more old TV characters left to use?

[Cde.]

Has he even got any more old TV characters left to use?

No.

[Antoine Doinel]

A slightly tamer edit of the film will be released in the UK and Ireland to bring in those all important teenage dollars.

[domino harvey]

I caught this yesterday and was surprised (embarrassed?) at how much I enjoyed it. The gay jokes wear thin pretty quickly, but there's such a hearty novelty to the sheer number of them that my resistance was ultimately worn away. Though really, somewhat surprisingly, by far the strongest segment of the film was the extended portion dealing with his adopted child. I was in tears at the child model questions ("How do you feel about amateur scientists?" still makes me laugh outloud to even think about) and his fearless baiting of the black audience. A lot of the pranks are flawed in that were a man and woman performing the various outrageous sexual acts, they'd still be embarrassing for lookers-on. One huge huge huge question: HOW IN THE WORLD DID THIS GET AN 'R'? It was definitely the most explicit mainstream film I've ever seen

[nsps]

A lot of the pranks are flawed in that were a man and woman performing the various outrageous sexual acts, they'd still be embarrassing for lookers-on. One huge huge huge question: HOW IN THE WORLD DID THIS GET AN 'R'? It was definitely the most explicit mainstream film I've ever seen

I have no idea what was in the originally submitted cut, but it seems that now if you put a black bar in front of the genitalia, anything goes. No black bar is needed if the genitals dance.

I thought the best moment in terms of the homosexual satire came not during a prank but during a staged scene showing Brüno and his boyfriend's normal, humdrum love live, which is basically a visualization of the homophobic fantasy of gay people in their homes.

The best prank was easily the interviews with parents of baby models.

Not that Borat had an intricate story or anything, but it had a much more satisfying structure overall. Brüno has a few too many abrupt shifts in tone, target and goal. This may simply be because too many of the material they shot wasn't working. Borat was also consistently funnier, but certainly not as confrontational.

[oldsheperd]

I was a bit surprised that the film got an R myself since there are unsimulated sex acts in the swingers scene albeit there are black bars.

[nsps]

I was a bit surprised that the film got an R myself since there are unsimulated sex acts in the swingers scene albeit there are black bars.

Yes, it surprised me that the black bars didn't cover anything other than penetration. Solondz ended up with a huge black box that covered both characters entirely back when Storytelling came out (no pun intended).

[oldsheperd]

I was listening to Thom Hartmann yesterday and he believes that Bruno will inflame anti-homosexual sentiment because it reinforces homosexual stereotypes. I'm on his poliitical side of the isle but I don't agree with that assessment. Those who will actually see it and believe it to be some sort of reinforcement of what gay people are actually like were already bigoted towards homosexuality in the first place. In addition I don't think folks who "who hate the gays" would be too quick to drop 10 bucks on a flick about a gay guy. I imagine most thinking people will see it apart from any true representation of homosexuality. Sometimes political correctness can get pretty insane. Reminds of those who thought Do The Right Thing would cause "those blacks" to riot.

[swo17]

black bars didn't cover anything other than penetration

From now on I'm going to have to be a lot more careful before clicking on one of these:

Spoiler

puppy dogs & ice cream

[Antoine Doinel]

Banned in the Ukraine.

Barbara Walters doesn't want to see any anal sex thank you very much.

[Finch]

Funny how some straight people get so disgusted about anal sex when the film indisputably proves that heteros (some of them anyway) engage in it as well.

Anyone know what had to be cut to get the 15 certificate?