BRÜNO Post-Release Discussion - Page 2

I'm still trying to make myself believe that the stage mother was faked. Please, please be fake!

How so? You mean because of the violent reactions from the crowd, right?

I don't think that was one of the staged parts, which is what made me groan.

God yes! I heard that people flipped out, but actually seeing it was crazy. The chair flying in and nearly missing them even made Cohen flinch for a moment.

The stage mother sequence was the only thing to make me squirm. I liked it but didn't love it. I don't think I'll ever watch it again, but that's a lesson I learned from Borat.

See I've seen Borat several times, most recently just last week and it still holds up as a damn funny film. This was funny, but I didn't really enjoy it very much, if that makes sense?

Those "pushy parents" were the most horrifying thing in the movie, "Can your child operate antiquated, heavy machinery?"

I saw two seperate people clamp their hands over their eyes during the sex scene with Diesel at the begining of the film, the champagne bottle totally killed me.

I think he used Mr Magourioum in that gag just so he could use the word "Wunderbar", that may have been my favourite joke.


I've heard a few people say all the best stuff is in the trailer which is a load of nonsense. There is no talking japs eye, none of the pushy parents, the best bits from the hunting trip (those awkward silences were great), nothing from the cage fight and no "Exclusive interview with Harrison Ford".

Bradolf Pittler is my favourite thing ever.

Yeah, that extended silence as they were watching the stars fucking killed in my theater. I don't even remember the last guy that was able to pull so many laughs from a scene this way.

I think Cohen gets shortchanged when people focus solely on the shocking bits of his movies, instead of how fucking impressive he is as a comedian.

That whole bit was wonderful.

It's going to be hard not to think of that while watching Inglourious Basterds.

Saw this Saturday afternoon, in a semi-crowded showing. Tons of laughs, and some awkward silences. Overall, the crowd really seemed to dig it.

I am on the fence between this and Borat. Borat got a steadier stream of laughs from me, but this got bigger ones.

For all the swinging cocks, innuendo, etc., I was only "offended" by those stage parents. I kept turning to my buddy and saying 'this can NOT be real'. I mean, the end sequence was brilliance, but you know-- I sort of expect that. I realize that there are intolerant folks in the world. I guess I just never opened up to the possibilities that some parents could be that obsessed. Mortifying.

Just some other thoughts [most already touched upon by others]:

- second preacher dude seemed like a closet case, for sure
- the Travolta/ Cruise/ Spacey thing bombed in my theater [I chuckled]
- Bruno being sad that he only had '9 friends left on MineSpace' got me rolling
- the 'bear ate my clothes' probably got the biggest laugh from me
- Harrison Ford !!!
-

I felt like it wasn't as smart as it wanted to be. I've only seen Borat the once, but I thought I remembered it exposing people's biases a lot more than this did. I'd like to see some more things like Straight Dave getting the group think rednecks to repeat after him, and then shocking them all but really for the most part it was some gonzo gags and trying desperately to get people to respond to him not because he happened to be gay but because he was a jackass.

I didn't hate it, it had some amazingly funny moments but I thought a lot of the people involved actually handled things really well all things considered.

What I think this film has over Borat is its ability to reveal the jackasses in the audience. I saw four people get up and walk out. When I saw Borat not a single person walked out.

This is a nice article I found regarding the filming of Bruno. He really is going to get killed someday if he keeps doing stuff like that.

Straight Dave ended in an hours long standoff? That sounds about right. Anthony Lane does that older critic thing where he he sees younger people's actions as trying desperately to one-up and outcool others. He says that Cohen only wants to ambush "little people," would be using his brain and not "Anglo-Freudian insistence on the genital and the anal" by trying to get them to say something worthwhile, and that talking penises are gross.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critic...?currentPage=1

Jesus... my grandparents and some of my other family live in Ft. Smith where Straight Dave's Man-Slammin took place. Ha ha.

Sounds very plausible, although I must say, there are a lot more nice people there than that piece of film leads you to believe. But the contingent in that area who would go to some low-rent ultimate fighting event? Oh boy...

Nice reading.

Tears...

I thought the seance was one of the funniest part of the movie. I remember him doing a very similar thing on the "extra shit" of season 2 of the Ali G show, so I was kind of thinking it would be a retread of the same sketch, but when he dropped to his knees and proceeded to give a full length fake blow job, my face hurt from laughing so much.

That and "the bear ate my clothes" were hilarious. There were so many funny parts that it's tought to pick a favorite.

Any one know if any of his UK work is going to be release on DVD? I would love to get a disc with more of this stuff...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU8nhHYlQ-I

For me, the seance was the funniest scene. This was very similar to Borat: Hilarious first half but it starts losing energy as it goes on.

Good read. The man is great because he's funny and quick and unpredictable and he never corpses and he never breaks character, but also because he has a borderline suicidal commitment to his art that is awesome to watch. In his own way he's like an in-prime Jackie Chan.

I also love that his characters have evolved from the simple but hilarious laughs of his 11 O'Clock Show segments (where he would basically make as many nob and tit and poo jokes as he could without the interviewee realizing), to actually messing with people's minds in rather cunning ways (that gay convertor's blinking discombobulated three second close-up is a classic animated message board avatar waiting to happen). If only Bruno had interviewed some deeply closeted politician, like that toilet tapper dude. Not that the Paul segment isn't great.

Anyway, still chuckling thinking about Bruno's visit to the swinger party. Him hopping about the room like a complete spaz as she tries to whip him into submission, then escaping out the window. Bruno working on that dude who just wants to screw his skank in peace, pestering away until he snaps.

WE DIDN'T COME HERE FOR ANY QUEER SHIT AM I RIGHT GUYS?

[nobody backs him up]

"Why should he look you in the eyes when there's pussy right here?"

"...For concentration?"

I didn't really like this. It had some funny moments, but as a whole it just didn't work. It didn't seem like a cohesive story, just random bits edited together. And the targets were random. It didn't seem like Bruno was making a statement on homophobia as half the "jokes" weren't even related to that issue. The PR ladies, the stage moms, the velcro suit, Paula Abdul, the military academy, the Richard Bey show... what do they have in common other than there are a lot of idiots in the world?

Also, I didn't get the set up for Bruno filming everything. In Borat, there was an over arching story that he was filming his experiences in the US for his TV show. But in Bruno, I just didn't get why he was filming. And when the talent agent talked to the camera, it just made me curious what he thought the filming was for.

Totally. Absolutely hilarious. Also, Paula Abdul talking about how passionate she is about human rights while sitting on the back of a Mexican laborer = pure gold.

Thanks! Answers some of my questions.

I agree, the further I get from the film the more I dislike it. The targets were way too easy, and I particularly didn't like the focus group segment. Everyone else kinda sorta deserves what they got, but those people were blindsided. Sure, there's lots to laugh about in BRÜNO but for the most part, but I disliked the film as a whole and I can't put my finger on why that is. PUN NOT INTENTIONAL

I thought all the focus group people were actors, and that Bruno was only "getting" the agent and the network guy in that scene. Whatever, love when he says the last bit was his agent's idea.

That's another thing, I wasn't keeping up with who were actors and who weren't. I was just watching it as a movie. It's tough to assume those things because BORAT was mostly regular people, and I was applying those same standards to BRÜNO. If the focus group were actors it's news to me. If they were, I missed the point of the joke then because it's not clear who's supposed to be "gotten" in that part, the group, the agents, or everyone.

Blindsided by what? Homosexuality? I guarantee if the video they were shown was of a naked woman, straight or lesbian, doing the exact same thing, their reactions would have been much, much, different . I think that is kind of the point he is making(in a very extreme way), that it's ok for women to be naked or scantily clad but as soon as it is a naked gay guy it becomes "the most disgusting thing I have ever seen".

I mean how many tv shows are on right now that have straight AND lesbian women in similar situations, and are praised for it? The International Sexy Ladies Show on G4 is the most recent one I can think of.

Bullshit. When people, straight or gay, old, young, whatever, are just given without warning full frontal nudity like that - in the guise of watching a TV pilot no less, which tends to not have explicit nudity - they have every right to be disgusted. There were women and men in the room, and it looked like all of them were shocked by it. No "scantily clad" here.

I thought it was funny, myself. But people have their own boundaries when it comes to sex. I don't have a problem with most things, but some people do. People seem to equate offended with innate bigotry, and that's simply not true.

Wow. You are stretching so much it's not even funny. If they showed naked women to the focus group first and there was no reaction, you might have a point. Instead, that scene played like most of the others. Bruno getting a reaction not because he's gay but because he's a jackass trying to push people's buttons.

And your example of this being acceptable is a show on a channel that most of the country doesn't have, and 90% of the people who do have it have never tuned it in.

You don't get to run up to a stranger, drop trou and shake your wang in his face and then accuse him of being a homophobe when he doesn't laugh, but that essentially seemed to be the message for too much of this movie. There were opportunities, and some of them even paid off (mostly the Straight Dave finale) but a lot of them were just weak.

Put it much better than I did. Thanks.

I think it is entirely possible to change a channel and randomly run into something offensive(by the standards you are projecting on to these people). I mean you have MANswers, pretty much any reality show on VH1, TMZ, Girls Next Door, South Park, The Real World, NYPD Blue(back in the day), Gossip Girl, etc. The list goes on based on how you define offensive.

When you watch tv does someone introduce the show to you and give you a chance to be prepared for what you are about to see? Not unless you DVR everything you watch. Most of the time you are randomly flipping channels and the potential to be offended is definitely something that is very possible for those that are not ready for certain topics. Most people are not offended when they see a half naked girl spread across a car in a bikini, but see a gay person flaunting their sexualitly clearly elicits a much stronger response. It's getting one from you now....

Like I said, this is clearly an extreme example, but his point definitely comes across.

How does a gay person flaunting their sexuality = spinning penis? A clue: it doesn't. And how do you know what offends most people? You're making just as bad an assumption as you claim A-Pathetic is.

I am not claiming to know what offends people, but there are plenty of topics that many people would consider taboo, that you can find on tv right now, that can be stumbled across(by simply flipping up or down a channel) much in the way that these people volunteered to see a new tv show without knowing what the show was about. What is offensive is different for each person, the point is how offended these people got by being shown the Bruno show.

Actually the spinning penis is more comedic than sexual, yet just the sight of a penis is shocking to a lot of people. Look at how those people reacted... If anything, you almost never see a penis in a sexual way(comedic, yes) unless it is in porn. You see fully naked women all the time in mainstream movies, in many different scenarios, and no one bats an eye.

You're missing a key point: context. Most nudity in film and television does have a context about it, whether sexual in nature or something else. I equate this a little bit to the TRANSFORMERS 2 film in that like the Turturroass/Deceptitesticles there wasn't any warning for the sudden appearance of nudity, and in the context of what they were seeing they weren't prepared for it. It's not fair to milk that for laughs - of course they're shocked.

The point is that nothing was really revealed about the focus group. Bruno went for the cheap shock value. It made me laugh, yes, but it was cheap. It's distinctly possible that people in that focus group would have had embarrassing biases revealed, but rather than make an effort at showing that he went for the easy score.

Your example of seeing a "half naked" woman accidentally on TV is also way off. If we'd been watching oiled up guys playing beach volleyball, that may have been a good comparison. The number of times I've accidentally happened upon a naked and spread eagle woman on TV can be counted on no hands though. That would really be the equivalent to what Bruno showed the focus group. He wasn't trying to show the difference between male and female nudity and acceptance with American audiences. He was supposedly showing people uncomfortable with homosexuality. Again, all he showed was that people react if you're a big enough jackass pushing their buttons.

Heck, I thought where the movie missed it's mark the most was with the redneck hunters. Bruno is trying so hard, and these guys obviously have issues with homosexuality and yet they actually treat him pretty well. They're overcoming their biases to be decent to him. So he pushes harder, in what is a pretty unfair situation. If there is a man among us who will be polite to an annoying foreigner who just woke us up in the woods at 1 am, he's a better man than I am. Yet the hunter was still fairly civil all things considered. 2 hours later, he has to try to push that much harder and shows up at the tent naked. It's funny, but it's funny in the Jackass "extreme stunt" sort of a way and not because we should be pointing and laughing at the backwards thinking of the hunters.

I do see what you are saying, and that is why I say it is an extreme example, but I don't think it makes how the people reacted entirely irrelevant.

I was shocked when I saw it, but I knew it was just a penis spinning around on a string and got over it. Some people don't have as thick of skin and while it was clearly staged to elicit a strong response(I think the people were completely justified in having the opinions they did) the gag wouldn't have worked if what was being presented to them didn't carry some sort of social stigma with it.

I haven't seen Transformers 2, but in comparison to what we are talking about, since their was robot pissing in the first movie I would not be surprised to see robot balls in the second. As a result, it is surprising that fans of the first movie would be shocked to see the 2nd one throw in a similar joke, since the first Transformers did kind of set the precedent that their was a few lines it was willing to cross in the toilet humor arena.

The first time Bruno goes to the tent I thought it was funny. The second time? I thought it was a miracle he didn't get shot. And you're right, the fact that Cohen had to go to such extremes to get a reaction just makes the hunters look better in that light. If a naked guy tried to get in my tent in the middle of the night, gay or no, he's going at the very least get a foot to the balls. I suspect that scene probably wasn't real, but again, I don't know what was staged and what wasn't.

I see what you are saying, too, and I do agree that he did push it to the point where people are forced to react in some situations, but again it all comes back to what they are reacting to.

I think the comparison of stumbling onto half naked women is fair due to the sheer volume of it on television compared to the almost non-existent fetishizing of men. Men are not sexualized to the extent that women are so the reaction to seeing the Bruno show elicits are much angrier response then if a woman was talking coyly to the camera and standing naked.

I mean I just googled "women jumping on trampolines" and both men and women not only enjoy it but encourage it:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...2064014AADN4Hf

Now by contrast lets compare the responses to "how do you feel about homosexuality on tv". This is a much more mixed bag of both very positive and extremely negative...

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...2093113AAW195q

4th response:
"i feel homosexuality is on tv is forced on children . Granted I do not care if you love the same sex but do not force on the children that is watching tv . Do not have it in the Cartoons , and other Tv shows. I FEEL OUR CHILDREN HAS ENOUGH GOING ON TO TURN THE TV ON AND SEE A MAN DRESS AS A WOMAN IN ON DISNEY CHANNEL . "

5th response:
lets put it this way. if any fag came into my house, they would not walk out. i think that the fags should be banned from tele and we should send them to mental hospitals

It should be noted that he was presenting himself, when he first met them, as "all about the vageena". It wasn't until the camp fire that he started letting them in on the fact that he was gay.

If someone came to my tent naked, I would tell them to leave, but I wouldn't go so far as to hit or punch them, and I think that is some of the anger he was tapping into. If he jumped on me, then I would consider it, but he did leave after the camper asked him to, and didn't enter the tent...

He was acting incredibly effeminate and the rednecks weren't exactly fooled by his vageena talk. He ramped it up around the camp fire but it's not like he was really coming out of left field at that point.

To me, that's the reason the Straight Dave scene works and this scene doesn't on a large scale. For the most part they're aimed at the same target (it's not hard to see the redneck hunters at the cheap cage fighting). With the hunters, though, he's obviously gay from the beginning and they're dealing with it. It's not until he really forces himself in the direction of one of the hunters that he gets anything close to a satisfying reaction.

With the Straight Dave scene it's just misdirection and it's not aimed at any person in particular. Get some rednecks drunk, set an expectation for cheap violence, then disappoint them and see if they act like mature adults who probably roll their eyes and leave or if they feel the need to stare, cry, and lash out that homosexuality broke out in the middle of their supposed hetero fest.

I think you are assuming these hunters are as smart enough, or homophobic enough, to say for certain he is gay. I don't think they are 100% sure he is gay until he says the line about the stars. The reason that part is so funny is because after he says it, and they are sitting in silence, you actually can see them thinking about everything they did with Bruno early in the day and partially wondering if they crossed any personal lines and also if they should get angry at him for fooling them, since they were clearly having a great time shooting rabbits and shit with him. To their credit, they did not get visibly upset until he got naked, but they were definitely uncomfortable.

Anyone who wears a "My asshole is only for shitting" T-Shirt out in public deserves EVERYTHING that happens to them.

I believe the production handed those shirts out. It doesn't make the point any less true though.

Just came back from this and loved it. I still think Borat is the better movie but damn if I didn't laugh almost the entire time. Somehow the staged fight with the SM lady almost killed me completely. She didn't hold back on the whippings that for sure!

qft.

I loved this one, actually, and I'm pretty sure it's my favorite of the year so far. I think a lot of people assign intentions to Cohen that aren't explicitly there, largely as a result of the big scenes in Borat, where he is clearly targeting individuals for their bigotry. There's just as many scenes where that's not the joke. Bringing your dinner hosts shit in a napkin won't tell us anything about their prejudices, but it's probably going to result in a funny reaction, and making someone uncomfortable doesn't imply judgement.

This sense of discomfort seems to be more what Cohen is after. Very little of this movie is finger pointing at homophobes, almost none of it, actually. The most damning bit is the stage parents sequence, and it has nothing to do with homophobia.

I wish it were doing better with audiences in general, though my Greenwich Village Saturday night audience completely ate this up.

Precisely.

Also, one of my favorite parts is when they're showing the video during the focus group. The teases for the upcoming Harrison Ford interview and the dancing.......had me hunched over in my seat from laughing so hard.

I can see that, although I would argue that Borat shed light on bias and occasionally found humor in unrelated ways while Bruno is almost the polar opposite. I can buy that I went into it with an expectation that just didn't get met though. It just seemed like it thought that it was smarter than it actually was to me.

Baron Cohen has picked on Alabama quite a few times, and they're usually the most accomodating. There was a sequence they shot at a Huntsville ballroom dancing studio that included a makeout session with Bruno's man-lover, but it didn't make the cutting-room floor.


I don't live far from where the "hunting" sequence was shot, and the audience I saw it with had a great time. I was expecting a few people to walk out but no one did. An older couple behind me were in stitches.

What's with all this talk about the hunters being accommodating? What did you expect them to do, shoot him in front of the camera crew? They ended up pulling their guns out on them anyway.