[movie] Sacha Baron Cohen's "Bruno" to open May '09

My favorite Bruno episode was when he had two tv fashion "experts" (I've seen them before, but don't know their names) on his "tv show" to comment on fashion. The guys would say some things and Bruno would stop them and tell them they needed to be harsher. The guys completely changed what they had originally said. Clothes they liked, they now hated. It just goes to show how phoney many of the "experts" are on tv and how easily they can be manipulated.

 

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1214726208899&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

Borat's alter ego dupes a former Mossad agent


Jul. 4, 2008
David Brinn , THE JERUSALEM POST

It's unclear whether his Mossad retirement benefit card will be confiscated, but former spy and current political analyst Yossi Alpher is certainly feeling sheepish after being fooled by actor Sacha Baron Cohen, aka Borat.

Cohen was in Jerusalem two weeks ago filming scenes for his next movie, Bruno, based on a character the British comedian played in his Da Ali G Show. In that show, Cohen played Bruno as a flamboyant Austrian fashion and celebrity journalist, regularly interviewing unwitting members of the public who weren't aware he wasn't a real person.

Cohen's producers contacted Alpher, a writer on Israel-related strategic issues and co-editor of the Israeli-Palestinian political Web site Bitterlemons, and asked him to be interviewed along with a Palestinian for a documentary that would explain the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the youth of the world.

"The producers explained that our interviewer, a German rock star, was the perfect person to establish strong communication with our audience," Alpher wrote in a column that appeared in The Forward.

Alpher - who served in the Israel Defense Forces as an intelligence officer, followed by 12 years' service in the Mossad and senior positions at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University and the American Jewish Committee's Israel/Middle East office - realized something might not be quite kosher when the "rock star" interviewee brought up Hamas:

"Vait, vait. Vat's zee connection between a political movement and food? Vy humous?" asked the interviewer in heavily accented English, echoing the obsession with the chickpea spread shared by Adam Sandler's Zohan. "Yesterday I had to throw away my pita bread because it vas dripping humous. Unt it's too high in carbohydrates."

The absurd Hamas-humous confusion went on for several minutes, and Alpher began to smell a rat, but stuck with the interview nonetheless - thus joining the long list of prominent figures down the years who have sought to maintain their gravitas while being tricked by one of Cohen's ridiculous personas.

It got worse, Alpher acknowledged: "Then the interviewer declared, 'Your conflict is not so bad. Jennifer-Angelina is worse.'"

Alpher and his Palestinian partner exchanged puzzled glances at the comparison of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie fighting over Brad Pitt, but because they had both received a fee for their appearance, and still hadn't completely internalized that their interviewer was not exactly who he seemed, they soldiered on.

"We played it straight and square... We smiled at the idiotic questions and answered them patiently... We knew something ludicrous was happening but couldn't quite figure it out," Alpher wrote. "Our rock-star host concluded with a mind-boggling song about the epic Middle East conflict between 'Jews and Hindus.' At the crescendo, he grabbed our hands and joined them with his."

Only after the completion of the interview did Alpher realize he'd been had, and that Cohen in the guise of Bruno had struck again.

Alpher had signed a release form before being filmed for the movie, due to be released in May 2009, so he won't likely be filing a lawsuit against Cohen like some of the comedian's patsies in 2006's smash hit Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

Trying to make the best of the experience, Alpher asserted, "We ourselves were not being ridiculed - only the conflict that occupies and preoccupies us."

 

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0708081bruno1.html

"Bruno" Pranks It Up
Arkansas cage fights turn gay for new Sacha Baron Cohen movie

JULY 8--Lured by $1 beer and the prospect of "hot chicks" and "hardcore fights," thousands of Arkansans were duped last month into appearing as extras in comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's latest staged mayhem. Cohen and his confederates organized cage fighting programs on consecutive days in Texarkana and Fort Smith.

Both cards ended with two male grapplers (one was identified as "Straight Dave" and wore camouflage) tearing each other's clothes off and, while in underwear, kissing down their opponent's chest. This man-on-man action triggered Fort Smith fans to throw chairs and beer at the ring, according to one cop present at the city's Convention Center. Cohen is currently filming a follow-up, of sorts, to his smash 2006 film featuring Borat, his fictional Kazakh journalist.

The new film stars another of Cohen's creations, Bruno, a gay Austrian journalist who interviews subjects about fashion and entertainment. It is reportedly titled, "Brüno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt." The June 6 matches in Fort Smith were dubbed "Blue Collar Brawlin'" and were advertised with the poster seen below.

Ads on Craigslist--like this one--noted that attendees had to be over 21 and suggested that fans arrive early "for $1 BEERS!" "Blue Collar Brawlin'" drew about 1500 fans, who were greeted by signs stating that the event was being filmed. Attendees were also not allowed in with cameras or cell phones and some were asked to sign releases. The "Blue Collar Brawlin'" web site (fortsmithfight.com) was registered two weeks before the event in the name of "Peto Philer" of Algeria. The site, which remains live but has been stripped of all content, appears to be currently hosted on servers in Los Angeles.

 

Apparently the movie has been leaked online. Anyone found it yet?

 

I just hope this isn't staged as much as Borat was (ie: Pam Anderson "kidnapping"). You would think there would be enough good material where they wouldn't have to do that.

 

Disturbing. NSFW.

Spoiler

I told you.