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June 18, 2009

Pardon my inability to get the embed code for this, but click the link and watch Bruno march upon a London crowd at the UK premiere of “Bruno.”

Link to The Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/video/2009/jun/18/bruno-sacha-baron-cohen-london-premiere

Apparently American journalists have been sworn to secrecy, and are forbidden from reviewing “Bruno” until a day before the North American premiere. But here’s an early glimpse of the film from a British perspective:

Brüno charges, or rather minces, into some of the least advisable situations imaginable – attempting to seduce a confused Republican congressman Ron Paul, telling a gayness-curing evangelist he has “blowjob lips”, parading through an ultra-orthodox area of Jerusalem in Hasidic-inspired hotpants (if there’s one thing Brüno does that Borat can’t, it’s costume).

And again, he lures the unsuspecting into shameful acts – getting Latoya Jackson to eat sushi off a naked Mexican gardener, for example, or gaining showbiz moms’ consent to dress their children as Nazis.

Beneath the idiocy, Baron Cohen is also a politically astute agent who’s devised an ingenious way to confront and expose serious social issues – and indulge his own exhibitionism.

Brüno is funniest, though, when it’s at its most politically incorrect, especially when it comes to homosexuality. There’s an eye-popping montage of extreme gay sex practices (imaginary, one hopes), a surfeit of waving penises, dildos, fetish gear, anal bleaching, and an excruciating mime in which Brüno fellates the ghost of a deceased member of Milli Vanilli in front of a psychic.

Much of it is unavoidably hilarious, but is he lampooning homophobia or perpetuating it?

 

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