Bulls-Eye: ‘Bruno’ Hits Hollywood Hard

“It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever.” –David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap (1984) 

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.”  (more…)

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Tags: Bill Hicks, Bruno, Film, Gay, Howard Stern
Posted Jul 16th 2009 at 5:03 am in Entertainment, Featured Story, Politics | 18232262 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mflynn/2009/07/16/bulls-eye-bruno-hits-hollywood-hard/Bulls-Eye%3A+%27Bruno%27+Hits+Hollywood+Hard2009-07-16+12%3A03%3A38Maura+Flynn

Review: ‘Bruno’

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. (more…)

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Tags: Borat, Bruno, gay fashionista, larry charles, rednecks
Posted Jul 13th 2009 at 7:02 am in Reviews | 18171048 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mlong/2009/07/13/review-bruno-2/Review%3A+%27Bruno%272009-07-13+14%3A02%3A31Mike+Long

Critics: Sacha Baron Cohen’s a ‘Genius’ Only When He Ridicules ‘Those’ People

Bruno and “Gayby”

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:   (more…)

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Tags: Borat, Bruno, Hollywood Reporter, New York Post, Sacha Baron Cohen
Posted Jul 10th 2009 at 2:18 pm in Entertainment, Media Criticism | 18083482 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/07/10/sacha-baron-cohens-a-genius-only-when-he-ridicules-those-people/Critics%3A+Sacha+Baron+Cohen%27s+a+%27Genius%27+Only+When+He+Ridicules+%27Those%27+People2009-07-10+21%3A18%3A27John+Nolte

Review: ‘Bruno’

One of the great Hollywood con jobs of the last five years was in convincing a mostly indifferent American public that a film with fewer domestic ticket sales than “Click,” “Mission Impossible III,” “Over the Hedge” and “Superman Returns” was some sort of cultural phenomenon. Wildly profitable? Sure. But any reasonable analysis of a modest $127 million haul shouldn’t be described as anything nearing a “phenomenon.” Luckily for “Borat” (2006) the right people were on board to hype up this nonsense-machine.

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.   (more…)

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Tags: Borat, Bruno, celebrity, Gay, Sacha Baron Cohen
Posted Jul 8th 2009 at 6:04 pm in Featured Story, Reviews | 179590139 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/07/08/review-bruno/Review%3A+%27Bruno%272009-07-09+01%3A04%3A17John+Nolte

‘Bruno’ Hits Theatres July 10th

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You can see the NSFW Red Band trailer here.

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Tags: Austria, Bruno, Bruno trailer, O.J., Ron Paul
Posted Jun 18th 2009 at 10:32 am in Entertainment, Video | 164218One Commenthttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bighollywood/2009/06/18/bruno-trailer-i-gave-him-like-a-traditional-african-name-oj/%27Bruno%27+Hits+Theatres+July+10th2009-06-18+17%3A32%3A07Big+Hollywood

Borat, Keira Knightley, and the Case Against Shock Value

There were two big stories that emerged from Hollywood this week.  The first was the release of the first trailer for Bruno, Sacha Baron Cohen’s newest movie creation, a highly offensive faux documentary about a gay Austrian fashion critic touring America.

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.  (more…)

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Tags: "Real Sex", bad taste, Borat, Bruno, George Carlin
Posted Apr 6th 2009 at 12:02 pm in Entertainment, Politics | 9835484 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bshapiro/2009/04/06/borat-keira-knightley-and-the-case-against-shock-value/Borat%2C+Keira+Knightley%2C+and+the+Case+Against+Shock+Value2009-04-06+19%3A02%3A25Ben+Shapiro