1. Up – Married Life Montage: Four of the most memorable and moving minutes you’ll ever see. Most montages and flashbacks of this sort focus on what David Zucker lampooned so well in the “Naked Gun” films: the run-on-the-beach type of stuff. Director Pete Docter not only captured the harsh realities of life with a miscarriage and the tragedy of growing old, but also the small everyday moments that later become the most poignant. Docter’s real accomplishment, though, was in setting the early bar so high with these heartrending few minutes and then living up to them for the next 90. 

2. Inglourious Basterds –  Once Upon a Time… In Nazi-Occupied France:  After “Death Proof” I worried that one our great directors had started to buy into his own fanboy press that he could do no wrong. But the “Basterds” opening scene with “The Jew Hunter,” SS Officer Hans Landa (Christopher Waltz —  who must win the Oscar), psychologically destroying a French farmer, not only unnerved me completely but eased all my fears regarding Mr. Tarantino.

3. Watchmen — Death of the Comedian: Brutal macho carnage set to Nat King Cole’s “Unforgettable.” An extraordinary moment of poetic violence in a movie destined to be more appreciated in the years to come. 

4. The Hangover — End Credit Photographs: I was on the floor. An absolutely brilliant payoff to the first classic raunchy comedy since “American Pie” way back in 1999. Unfortunately, because this was such a monster hit, the Hollywood copycats are sure to get everything wrong in their attempt to recapture the lightening. ”The Hangover’s” success had nothing to do with raunch and everything to do with laughs that built one upon the other, a meticulous structure, and a 100 minute runtime that moved like Patton’s army.

5. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen — End Credits: Seeing this punishing, dreadful, 9 hour, soulless piece of dreck come to an end made me weep with joy like Papillon after a stretch in solitary. I get that Michael Bay’s sequel to a much better movie was the anti-Avatar — a pro-military, action-adventure with the Obama administration as the bad guys, but please Mr. Bay, don’t do me any more favors.

6. Bruno — Richard Bey Show: Now that he has a pretty serious flop on his hands, maybe some smart producer can get Sacha Baron Cohen under control and force him to tone down the off-putting raunch. You remove the pointless, fetishistic sex from Bruno and you’ve got a hands-down brilliant short film. Bruno and “Gayby” on “The Richard Bey Show” was an epic piece of social satire deflating more sacred cows than I could count.

7. Crazy Heart — Closing Scene: One of those quiet but still startling dénouements where nothing ends up as you expect but still as it should be.

8. Star Trek – Birth of Captain Kirk: J.J. Abrams’ opened his reboot with a mythological wowser. Too bad the whole thing would eventually devolve into a shaky-cammed, unfocussed mess starring an absurdly dull villain.

9. Hurt Locker — Sniper Duel: With an actual story and less military-bashing, Katherine Bigelow might have enjoyed the box-office comeback she deserves as opposed to the one she’s currently enjoying only within the small, cloistered critical community. But as a series of stand-alone scenes, Bigelow proves herself  a second-to-none director of men and action and slow-winding tension. The sniper duel might be her finest moment since the cast of Aliens walked into a shit-kicker bar.

10. Terminator: Salvation — Giant Robot Chase: One of the best action scenes of the franchise. An exhilerating chase involving a crumbling bridge and a Thing That Just Won’t Stop. When the tower of the Terminator releases the two motorcycles on its human prey you can feel the whole movie kick into gear – McG gets it! And then he doesn’t…

When it comes to humor I’m super picky. I physically cringed at all but one of the multiple fart jokes in Pixar’s Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. I still don’t get The Three Stooges. Call me uptight. Slapstick without redeeming intellectual humor, toilet jokes, sexual references, and ”shock” scenarios do nothing for me.  So how is it possible that I laughed myself sick while watching Bruno? That’s easy. Because, goofy as it pretends to be, it is a pretty smart film. 

You’ve probably heard that this film is about homophobia, but the story arc is about what it takes to become a celebrity.  Frankly, both facets are hilarious. 

This satire has real teeth, and it’s also fair. I completely disagree with the reviews that claim it mocks middle America, puts “innocent” people on the spot or casts them in a bad light. If anything this film ruthlessly savages Hollywood. The scenes with stage mothers are so appalling that the audience collectively gasped and groaned. One hopes that this exposure will, at the very least, lead to interventions from Social Services and cause us to rethink some of the “entertainment” exemptions from child labor laws. Cohen introduces us to women who are willing to have their babies/toddlers strung up on crucifixes, dressed like Nazis, subjected to bees/wasps, and driven in cars at high speeds without restraints. (Personally, I hope this leads to actual arrests). One toddler’s mother adds that she’s okay with all of that, “if he’s got the job.” 

Other fun includes exposing a Hollywood PR agency that doesn’t have a clue or a care about the causes they claim to promote. When Cohen posits that his cause will be “Dar-five” (as opposed to Darfur) the  reaction is priceless. 

But how do the average folks fare here? Pretty darn well, if you ask me, and this film doesn’t make much of them either way. Among the only average folks in this film are the hunters Bruno camps with, who, in my opinion, comport themselves admirably, despite the filmmaker’s best attempts to provoke a reaction. Is homophobia alive and well in America? This particular snapshot says not so much. Even the military seems at ease (almost shockingly so) with Cohen’s antics. 

While Paula Abdul uses a Mexican migrant worker as furniture (literally), the audience of a local Texas talk show demonstrates genuine concern for Bruno’s “adopted son,” OJ.  A social worker is called upon to intervene. 

Sure, Cohen exposes some disturbing trends east of Hollywood. The two reverends who claim to be able to “cure” homosexuality are as ripe for satire as any stage mom. They raise some flags, but frankly come off as tawdry and confused and somehow not quite as sinister as their California counterparts. 

The most disturbing scene in the film is the wrestling match in which Cohen takes on an entirely different character who is boldly anti-gay, and who then proceeds to…well, shock the audience at hand. This scene is far more tense and frightening than humorous, and made me fear for the safety of the camera crew, never mind the principle actors. This is the only scene that felt gratuitous, and yet on another level it was probably the most insightful. In other words, those who came off poorly deserved it. The hooting wrestling fans were truly scary. And if Cohen had been clocked with that metal folding chair by the crowd he deliberately riled? It would have been tough to argue that he didn’t deserve it. 

Another uncomfortable scene in the story is Ron Paul’s “interview.” This segment is part of the celebrity story arc (Bruno attempts to make a sex tape with Ron Paul to garner world fame), and Paul’s reaction has been described by some as homophobic. I thought the Congressman handled the situation surprisingly well, but judge for yourself. 

About that fine line between stupid and clever: Mike Long is on the right track when he invokes Bill Hicks and Howard Stern and Penn & Teller. Not because they ”break barriers,” which isn’t inherently funny. But because their work is smart. You don’t have to agree with Bill Hicks’s politics to understand that the guy could write a brilliant joke. You don’t need to enjoy the entire Howard Stern show to understand that he conducts celebrity interviews that put Rolling Stone to shame, and that he’s used his radio pulpit to defend the First Amendment more vociferously, and maybe more effectively, than almost anyone. And if you haven’t seen Penn & Teller’s brilliant program on Showtime, it’s your loss. 

But Bruno isn’t for everyone. If you enjoy smart, biting satire, and you aren’t put off by coarse language or sexual scenarios, you’ll love it. If you’re afraid that this film mocks middle America, or that it ambushes average people, a la Michael Moore — your fears are misplaced. 

Like most laugh-out-loud comedies, this is best appreciated in the theater. And if you enjoy comedy that reaches — even reaches a little further than it grasps — then I highly recommend that you buy the ticket and take the ride.

Well, I liked it. That’s no guarantee you will.

Years ago, I did stand-up. Learned a lot doing that. One thing you learn is that there’s often a difference between the craft of comedy and what it takes to reliably get laughs. Some of the most inventive, impressive comedy minds don’t sell a lot of tickets. (I could name them. You wouldn’t know them.) But one act you can almost always count on selling tickets—putting “butts in seats,” as a venue-owner will say—is one that is big and loud and shocking. That is, there is The Fine Art of Stand-up Comedy, and then there is Getting A Reaction Out of The Audience. (That’s why many comedians curse so much. That’s why I cursed so much.) Turns out the latter is almost always going to sell tickets, and people are going to laugh for much the same reason a baby laughs when you play peek-a-boo with him. I think most people laugh at Gallagher not because he’s particularly creative in busting that watermelon with a sledgehammer, but because he had the stones to drag the thing up there the first time and smash it at all. We are surprised, and all but the most unpleasant surprise begets laughter.

So “comedy”—rather, the getting of laughs—comes in two basic approaches, wit and shock. The former takes skill; the latter takes immodesty, but both are saleable and, to the vast majority of people, entertaining. (Hence the basis for the fact that the vector of quality for entertainment points ever downward.)

Sometimes, and it’s rare, you get wit and shock together. Borat was that. The problem with the combination is that a whole lot of people are so offended by the shock that they have no interest in digging through the muck to get to the wit. They may even deny that it’s there, or claim it’s not worth getting dirty to find it. Fair enough. But Borat did find that combination at times, and many controversial performers do (and did) find it fairly often:  Sam Kinison, Bill Hicks (both dead too young, bless ‘em), Howard Stern, Penn & Teller.

Bruno, though, is almost pure shock, and for that reason it will probably make more money than Borat. Bruno is pure raunch. As I said to a friend who saw it with me (my second viewing, I must admit), “If someone handed you this R-rated movie and asked you to make it NC-17, what could you possibly put in it to make it so?” I was stumped. So was he. Yet, as I said, shock is a pretty effective kind of entertainment. Bruno works if you don’t believe in the possibility of moral decline from an hour-and-a-half of immoral repose. I laughed. A whole lot. Sue me.

So what’s in the movie? Well, it’s mostly “gay fashionista” Bruno doing, describing, pantomiming, praising, parsing, and peeling back homo – and hetero-sexual, umm, acts, to the outrage of immediate onlookers, for the better (or worse) part of an hour and a half. It is explicit and vulgar and unflinching. Because of that, it is also riotously funny. It is tighter (sorry) than Borat; no scene simply marks time or advances the (almost non-existent) plot without incident. Unlike Borat, it tiptoes up to some of the sacred cows of the left, though it comes nowhere near tipping them over. It takes the easy shots at Alabama rednecks. (Memo to Sacha Baron Cohen: there are rural areas and rednecks outside every major city—New York, Washington, Chicago. Go there next time and expose the un-popped prejudices of some of your smug coastal fans.) It zaps stage parents. It digs at people too nice to dig back.

What it doesn’t do is preach about gay rights. I think the whole social consciousness shtick attached to this picture is nothing more than preventive marketing. Sacha Baron Cohen and director Larry Charles don’t have any political agenda that I can find, and I’ve dug through this thing twice (the second time to hear the jokes I laughed over the first time). They just want to get laughs. By any means necessary.

Mission accomplished.

Oh, big city critics loved them some “Borat,” which spent 95% if its screen time manipulating, editing and boiling down average, working class, not-bothering-anyone Americans (and Romanian peasants) into the worst possible caricature imaginable. How they laughed and found genius and insight into the machinated savaging of everyday folks just minding their own business. But listen to some of them squeal and squawk now that the satire is turned on someone other than us. Here’s a sampling:

San Francisco Chronicle: 

Imagine if a white comedian went into the Deep South, disguised in a very convincing blackface and started acting like Stepin Fetchit.

Hollywood Reporter:  

Consequently, the character’s gayness reads false. Baron Cohen needs to spend more time in certain gay bars if he wants to learn how to do “flamboyant” and “fabulous.” It’s a ghost of the real thing.

The New Yorker: 

You can’t honestly defend your principled lampooning of homophobia when nine out of every ten images that you project onscreen comply with the most threadbare cartoons of gay behavior.

New York Post:

Not to get all PC on you, but the straight, outrageously dressed Baron Cohen camps it up in what has legitimately been criticized as swishy gay equivalent of blackface.

So here’s the lesson: Preying on unsuspecting everyday people, misleading them, manipulating them, pushing them until you get the reaction you desire and then editing them into something even worse, is a-okay. But… An obvious, over-the-top satire of gay men crosses the line.

As I said in my review, the only thing that mitigates the mean-spiritedness of “Bruno” is that, unlike “Borat,” everyone’s taking satiric fire. But now that the guffaws aren’t so one-sided, some aren’t guffawing so much. Worse, someone who isn’t gay lampooning flamboyantly gay men finds himself tarnished as a kind of “blackface” comedian. How interesting, when…

Everyday — on the big screen and small — we see Christians, Southerners, Republicans, Pro-lifers, Red Staters and the working class, ridiculed and savaged by actors who are none of those things. Where’s the cry of “blackface” then?

Baron Cohen is obviously a very talented actor, but there was nothing “brave,” “illuminating” or “ballsy” about “Borat.” Trashing the “great unwashed” is what’s known as a resume enhancer in Hollywood and Manhattan — about as “ballsy” as bringing beer to a frat party. ”Bruno,” on the other hand, actually is somewhat brave for risking charges of “insensitivity” (and worse) from the usual suspects.   

Maybe this is just the beginning for Baron Cohen, maybe he’s working his way towards something truly “fresh” and “brave” … something where he sends a Christian into a GLAAD meeting, a cowboy into a La Raza gathering… We’ll see what happens to a parked car with a “NObama” sticker at NYU or MSNBC, or to a screenwriter pitching a pro-Bush script at a Hollywood studio… Better yet, a Berkeley student with a Palin t-shirt, or a white South African running for elected office in a Democrat primary as an “African-American.”

Now that truly would be an ”illuminating” look at American prejudices, and one that required much less editing than “Borat” to make its subjects look bad. But maybe that’s just my prejudice talking.

That was the best year for movies that I can recall. That summer alone we had “Forrest Gump,” “True Lies,” “Speed,” and everyone was eagerly awaiting the arrival of Cannes winner “Pulp Fiction.” And we also had “The Lion King.” I remember the critic for my campus newspaper, The Red & Black (Go Dawgs!), panned the film, noting that the “Circle of Life” song, sung by a gay man, was really about keeping groups of people, particularly minorities, in their place. I thought this was bizarre and brought it up with some of my classmates.

I was a drama major. Hellooooo! What was I thinking!

Turns out the movie was homophobic and racist. Scar, the villain, was clearly gay, I was told. I missed that. By missing it, i.e. not having an opinion on the sexual preference of a cartoon lion, I was also a homophobe. Huh? As for the charge of racism, the hyenas, famously voiced by Cheech Marin and Whoopi Goldberg, were stereotypes of blacks and Mexicans. But, as I pointed out, James Earl Jones, a black man, voiced the role of Mufasa. The response still floors me: Yes, but he wasn’t portrayed as a black person.

Did you catch that?

Because Mufasa’s not shucking and jiving, he’s not a black person. I can’t pretend to have called my friends on this; frankly, I was stunned. The PC mindset had led my friends to charge the film with racism, and in doing so they revealed themselves to be slaves to stereotypes. Racists? Probably not. But certainly not deserving of their pious attitude toward Uncle Walt and Company.

Which brings me back to “Borat.” I happen to agree with Christopher Hitchens, who notes that the film makes Americans look more tolerant than the left seems to believe. The sequence in a “black” Atlanta neighborhood doesn’t work as humor if the viewer doesn’t have some pre-conceived notions about black street culture. The elitists were falling all over themselves to point out the rodeo audience cheering Borat’s pro-Bush, pro-War on Terror speech–guess they didn’t notice the woman rolling her eyes. I bet there were more reactions like this…on the cutting room floor, of course.

The elitists’ favorite scene, though, was the one that made fun of them intolerant southerners. The one where Borat insulted the host, crapped in a bag, and, in a move that busted up the party, invited over a prostitute. To the elites, the fact that she was OBVIOUSLY a prostitute had NOTHING to do with her presence breaking up the party. You remember, she was black. And this crowd was clearly offended to be in the presence of a black woman.

I don’t think this is the case and the reaction reveals more about the elites than the scene itself reveals about the great unwashed southern masses. In the end, the Liberal elites had to interpret the movie in this way, if only to excuse themselves for embracing a movie with wall-to-wall juvenile poop and penis jokes. With “Brüno,” they’re taking the “Lion King” approach, embracing it less than they did “Borat” and pointing out the stereotypes. I can’t wait to see what it reveals about them.

The “right people,” naturally, are mostly coastal elites who loved watching the everyday folks they so loathe cynically set up and manipulated to a point where they could be edited into unappealing, buffoonish caricatures, which isn’t to say a few weren’t truly unappealing and buffoonish, or that when it wasn’t gross-out disgusting the adventures of Sacha Baron Cohen’s clueless foreigner didn’t serve up a few honestly-earned laughs. But just the thought of joining up with the superior, self-satisfied smugs imperiously chuckling from Hollywood Hills and Manhattan skyscrapers as their personal jester demeaned we peasants cast a mean-spirit over everything.  

With “Bruno,” and to his eternal credit, the Jester has turned on his masters and as we’ve seen in all those “Does ‘Bruno’ go too far?” articles, not surprisingly, many of them find turnabout unfair play. Because it’s now celebrity culture and other protected classes (gays and blacks) also facing Baron Cohen’s withering fire, suddenly what was once so daring, illuminating, brave and hilarious – guffaws at the expense of others – must now be met with beard scratching over “false gayness” and heavy, solemn pauses due to a “nasty streak.”

If you define politically incorrect as I do – having the guts to satirize the Left’s sacred cows (or everything Stewart, Letterman and Maher don’t do) - ”Bruno” hits the mark with an across the board ambush which, because everyone’s taking fire, goes a long way to mitigate the mean-spiritedness that made “Borat” such an exercise in elitist cruelty. The downside, and it’s a steep one, is that “Bruno” is relentlessly smutty and lewd, packed with full-frontal male nudity (much of it in close-up), outrageous but explicit portrayals of gay sex, and most disturbing, a swingers’ orgy with only the smallest of black dots to avoid an X-rating. This is easily the most off-putting film in years.  

A series of increasingly disturbing, ambush-style set pieces designed for uncomfortable laughter revolve around the thin plot of a flamboyantly gay Austrian television host who, with his faithful gay assistant Luntz, comes to America seeking fame, celebrity and to be the biggest “gay star since Arnold Schwarzenegger.” At first Bruno tries the conventional Hollywood route with an agent who helps to set up a pilot for a celebrity interview show. After this crashes and burns, Bruno starts to re-think the whole “gay” thing and hopes success can be found if he “man’s up” with, among other things, a stint in the National Guard, self-defense courses and a sexual re-orientation ministry.

There are some truly funny moments, dozens of them, in fact, and many of the situations are even inspired. Watching Bruno destroy a fashion show, take the adopted black baby he named O.J. on a Jerry Springer-ish talk show, get permission from degenerate stage mothers to put their young children in danger and criticize Osama bin Laden’s sense of fashion to one of his underlings, is to bear witness to moments of real comic genius. But for every one of these there are at least five seedy others that make you want to take a shower and go to confession.

There’s another comedy line breached that has nothing to do with the explicit content. Frequently the narrative gets lazy and asks us to consciously laugh only at the idea we’re being shocked – only at the idea of how explicit and revolting things get. You can almost hear the filmmakers bragging like children, “Can you believe we got an R-rating?”  

No. I can’t.

Over time the relentless nudity and crudity starts to wear. Even though you’re laughing, at the same time you’re hoping the next scene gives it a rest. But as the film rolls on things only get worse until – even though you’re still laughing – you can’t wait for it to come to an end.

As far as all the talk about whether or not “Bruno’s” homophobic , the answer is absolutely not. Unlike Baron Cohen’s victims, those everyday people who mind their own business, the Bruno character is fictional and obviously satiric. The only possible “homophobic” moment comes from former presidential candidate Ron Paul who calls Bruno a “queer” after the Austrian Fashionista makes a crude pass at him. Personally, I think GLAAD should award Paul a medal for tolerance. Gay or straight, Bruno deserved to get knocked on his ass.

I think it was Andy Warhol who said that after ten minutes of watching porn he wanted to have sex with everyone, but after an hour he never wanted to have sex again. That pretty well sums up sitting through “Bruno.”

Let me be the first to say it. My name is Steven Crowder and I happen to find blatant gayness funny. I mean really funny. I can remember my first “gay encounter” as a child. I was watching the Macy’s parade on Thanksgiving morning. Al Roker was interviewing Richard Simmons. As nothing more than a wide-eyed four-year-old, I was completely vexed. Here was a man on my television set, complete with chest-hair and quadriceps fuzz. He was just…“off” to me for some reason. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until the light bulb in my underdeveloped noggin turned on. “Hey Dad,” I asked. “Why does that man act like a woman?”

Surely enough, my dad erupted with laughter. He couldn’t help it. Maybe it was the childish innocence that did it, or maybe it was a nervous laugh stemming from the fact that he was going to have to provide a long, awkward explanation.

As a four year old, I harbored no hate for Richard Simmons. As a matter of fact I still find him to be quite endearing, but to deny the hilarity of the caricature that he is would be dishonest. To a straight man, the notion of walking around as a coiffed, waxed, nail-polish wearing, lispy dude is uproariously absurd. As people, we find absurdities funny. That’s our first step in making sense of them.

For example: If right now a duck were to walk into your room wearing pajamas, you’d most likely laugh… Because in your mind, there is no place in the natural world where ducks are seen wearing pajamas. The same applies to blatantly gay men in rhinestone tank-tops and hot-pants. Nowhere in the straight man’s natural realm does that occur, and so the absurdity of it is funny.

Now I’m completely aware that not all gay people are “flamers,” but there are some who are.  Just as Ned Flanders is a funny stereotype not representative of all Christians, the same can be said for “Bruno.”

Do you folks honestly believe that a “gay joke” automatically registers the joke-teller under the “homophobic” category? I say that instead of dealing with our differences through fear (i.e. tip toeing around the issue and handling it with care-knit gloves), we should allow ourselves to find the humor in everybody’s individuality.  “Humor not hatred,” is what I always say.

Now before you go and get on your high horse and start acting all offended, please take into consideration… even Sean Penn has probably told a few “no-homo” jokes in his day. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

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You can see the NSFW Red Band trailer here.

Politics shmolitics… Just take me away.

For we hopeless movie lovers, each year hope (if you’ll pardon the expression) springs eternal with a fresh offering of pull-out-the-stops-studio-balance-sheet-in-the-crosshairs slate of tent poles. And for that reason, this is my favorite part of the movie year because all I want for my ten bucks is to get lost for a couple hours, and from May 1st through the end of August filmdom at least attempts to put the political nonsense on hold to do just that.

So how does this summer’s slate look…

Well, we start by awarding major points for no films starring Nicole Kidman, Keira Knightley, Leonardo DiCaprio, or George Clooney. The result of this news is a hissing sound as some of the suck potential leaks out of the season. Obviously, Shia LeWhats-His-Name’s presence mitigates some of those warm fuzzies, but the Mighty Denzel Washington makes up for a lot. It’s also nice to see that most of the sequels are frontloaded in May as if the Schedule Gods took pity on us and decided to get them out of the way.

We’ll look at what’s coming up in a three-part series:

The Good:  Cinematic offerings worthy of anticipation and the emotional investment of hope (if you’ll pardon the expression).

The Bad: Those that if they don’t suck the impact could create a dangerous rip in time forever altering life as we know it.

The Maybe:  Those we can only hope (if you’ll pardon the expression) will be good.

And so today we start on a positive note, with those worth getting excited over:

May 21st: Terminator Salvation – I wrote about this the other day but let me just add that the real attraction is Christian Bale. When you’re dealing with a style-over-substance director like McG, the presence of Bale sends a signal that this won’t be “Charlie’s Angels 3: Look at all the Shiny Machines.” Bale’s exactly the kind of action star you want. He’s not some snob who refuses to do popcorn flicks, he just wants them to be good. In a way he reminds me of Harrison Ford when Harrison Ford was still Harrison Ford.

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June 12th: The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 – Gawd, I love the original and were it not for Denzel Washington’s presence I’d be pretty down on this. You can’t improve on the perfection of the 1974 version, and John Travolta can’t be Robert Shaw and Denzel can’t be Walter Matthau, but the concept is so fool-proof that if they make it their own and set it to David Shire’s same bad-ass score, very little can go wrong (he said naively with a dash of denial).

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July 1st: Public Enemies  – A Michael Mann film is always an event, but casting Christian Bale and Johnny Depp as Melvin Purvis and John Dillinger is the real draw. When it comes to modern actors dropped in this era, whether or not they can pull off looking credible in a fedora is the first test, and the publicity shots look promising. There’s also the promise of mucho machine-gun violence Mann-style.

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July 24th: Piranha 3-D – There are certain words that when spotted in a film title immediately earn my goodwill, one of them being piranha. Others include: death, aliens, snake, Navarone, vampire, women (when the context involves prison), guns, blood, gladiator, wizard, monkey, Tarzan, hot rod, zombie, and for some strange reason, frogmen.

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Aug. 21st: Inglorious Basterds - As I get older I’m finding my tolerance for violence has diminished considerably. I still love action, but the gory stuff makes me squirm, and not in a good way. Tarantino’s approach to blood is a notable exception. So over the top and cartoonish it’s like watching Daffy Duck get his beak blown off or Wile E. Coyote go over a cliff. Other than the abysmal “Death Proof,” I love Tarantino’s work. His enthusiams, raw talent and energy wins me over and there’s no film coming out this summer I’m more excited about than this wild man director’s enthusiastic take on the WWII, Man-on-a-Mission genre.

NOTE: Because I’ve already seen “Bruno” (7/10) and respect confidentiality agreements and the reasons behind them when it comes to a work-in-progress, I won’t say anything about the film until legitimate reviews (meaning, non-Roger Friedman-ish) start to roll out.

Coming Next… “The Bad: Those We Dread.” 

The second was the release of Keira Knightley’s new ad about domestic violence.

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Now these two videos have very little in common.  Cohen’s trailer is an outrageous piece of shock theater.  Knightley’s ad is a public service message designed to raise awareness of domestic abuse. 

But what both have in common is a willingness to cross all lines of good taste and judgment. 

It’s unfashionable these days to question artists’ taste.  The phrases “good taste” and “bad taste” seem to be out of style – we’re no longer allowed to ask whether pushing the envelope is morally questionable, or whether art can better flourish within particular limits.  We’re all supposed to buy into the idea that there’s a constitutional right to broadcast shows like Real Sex on HBO (there isn’t – the founders would have thrown the creators and purveyors in prison), and that censorship of such material is far worse than public airing of such material (it isn’t – did the country really suffer when hard core pornography had to be bought on the black market?).  We’re never supposed to question whether limits – even voluntary limits — ought to be placed on raunchy or sadistic material, particularly when such material is the subject of comedy or announcements of societal import.  

Watch the two videos.  Then tell me whether the public wouldn’t better be served by artists using some discretion. 

Let’s start with the Cohen video.  There’s no question this is incredibly disgusting material.  Some of it is hilarious, no question.  But it’s not exactly good taste to show a naked busty dominatrix whipping a faux gay fashion designer. 

Now there are those in the comic community who think that shock value is a good substitute for actual humor.  In fact, there are those who think that all of the best humor has to be shocking by definition.  Perhaps I’m more old-fashioned in my definition of comedy, but I believe that some of the best comedy doesn’t break boundaries – wittiness can be as funny as a fat hairy naked guy running around a hotel.  And not only that — comedy can question beliefs and parody points of view without forcing the viewer to retch.  Classic screwball comedies are still funny today.  And Lenny Bruce and George Carlin aren’t the beginning and end of all comedy. 

Then there are the “public service announcements.”  Try these on for size:

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If these don’t gross you out, you’ve been watching far too much Dexter.  Businesses focus on workplace safety because they’re afraid of being sued, not because they watch ads that feature dudes with poles sticking out of their chests.  Men who beat women aren’t going to stop beating women because they see Keira Knightley getting kicked in the stomach – in all likelihood, they’ll beat women more, fantasizing about Keira Knightley.  Pushing positive messages isn’t any more of a justification for showing unbelievably graphic material than doing comedy. 

If this makes me too Puritan, then I guess I’m too Puritan.  I’m not saying that Sacha Baron Cohen isn’t funny.  He’s hilarious.  Borat was hysterical when it wasn’t grotesque.  But I don’t think the question “is this good for our society?” ought to be completely ignored just because someone utters the word “art.”  I don’t think shock value is the only value.  Sometimes shock value is worthwhile (The Last King of Scotland) and/or funny (Tootsie).  But not all the time.  And I fear that when we lose sight of the fact that there are values other than shock value to be considered, we surrender to the basest instincts in both art and politics.