The OtherArena

[corrado]

Here's news on sacha Baron Cohen's latest comedy. (Warning pretty graphic)

http://www.thewrap.com/article/2127

I've been looking forward to this movie for a while, and I hope this means that there'll been footage that'll be trimmed to get an R rating. While the NC-17 version is released on DVD.

But as much as this could be very funny, I dont think this will hold a candle to Borat.

[CTC]

You will see a man give a Rusty Trombone to a ghost.

And that's really a fairly low point when it comes to intentionally graphic moments. If cock bulges were explosions, people would think Brüno was a Michael Bay movie. And I'm honestly shocked the NC-17 rating didn't stick; if it weren't for strategically-placed black boxes, they would have shown heterosexual fucking on-screen (though, given the people who were fucking, I really hope those black boxes stay in place if the DVD is the NC-17 version).

corrado's 100% right that this doesn't touch Borat - but also 100% right that it's very funny. The review in the local paper mentioned that Cohen is picking on easy prey, and I tend to agree with that - making fun of Alabama/Arkansas rednecks is like playing tennis with the net down. So, on some level, this isn't any kind of revelation. But there are two things I did come away with: first, it really is quite impressive how far Cohen is willing to go to get a laugh, and second, it's equally sad that he managed to pull a fast one on this many people to get this movie made after Borat was such a hit.

But it does strike a nerve in regards to American culture and how hopelessly screwed-up the nation's sense of right and wrong is. I even found myself cringing or looking away after the dozenth gratuitous man-ass shot or the scene where his penis swings to and fro - and then I realized, "Hey, I guess that means the joke's on me, too." It's a shot across the bow at the very heart of bigotry, at a dysfunctional country full of people too afraid of what they don't - or can't - understand to accept anything that isn't sterilized and made palatable for the lowest common denominator. That the final scenes of the movie proper surround a fictitious MMA event is all the more thought-provoking: violence is OK, half-naked men rolling around and touching each other is OK - the crowd goes nuts for it, in fact - but the very idea of sex between two men is evil and disgusting and cause for a near-riot.

A part of me hopes this is the last such movie he makes, because there's a clear drop in how funny and satirical the whole of the film is...but a bigger part of me wants to see another one, just to see if he can pull it off.

[Tomer]

The best scene in the movie (for me): Bruno trying to get kidnapped by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. The look on Ayman Abu Aita's face after Bruno's insult of Osama bin Laden was priceless and I was shocked they allowed him to film the apartment (or didn't realize who he was) to begin with.

-Tomer
Also, the Israeli-Palestinian 'negotiations' and being chased by the Hasidic Jews in Jerusalem were up there as well.