We went and saw Bruno last night. Peter liked it much better than I did. I'm not against it reflexively--some of the viler participants really did seem to deserve what they got. But overall, it just wasn't that funny.
Partly that's because Baron-Cohen's schtick is wearing a little thin. Yes, you've proven that if you put people in weird situations, they will usually go along to be polite. But the sight of normal people awkwardly complying with Cohen's antics seems less amusing than it did five years ago.
But I suspect that the deeper problem is that most Americans just aren't as openly homophobic as he and director Larry Charles were clearly expecting. Baron-Cohen is funniest when he gets one of two reactions: genuinely horrible people say genuinely horrible things, or he gets people to go along with his non-horrible, but utterly surreal questions.
But there's little of the former, and almost nothing of the latter, which is what's always charmed me about him. They are forced to resort to provoking people by being complete jerks: fondling people inappropriately, showing them "surprise" sexually explicit video, and if all else fails, grabbing their stuff. And the responses to people being complete jerks are not particularly surprising or interesting, and therefore, not really very funny.
A lot of the jokes, for example, rely on making very, very explicit passes at straight conservative men. But the men all behave pretty well. Though one target throws around the word "queer" in a way that made me like him less than I already do, no one says anything nastily homophobic; they just tell "Bruno" to knock it off. The tension as these scenes build up is occasionally interesting, but the weakness of the denouement means they never pay off. I haven't laughed so weakly at a movie in years. Plus there's always the disturbing knowledge that I'd be deeply, deeply offended if any straight man approached me the way he went after those men.
Even the folks carrying the "God hates fags" signs are barely good for a half-hearted smile. Cohen is reduced to grabbing onto their signs, since they declined to provide him with the verbal fireworks he was expecting. That's true in much of the movie--he's forced into actual physical slapstick, which he's not very good at, because people don't give him the dialogue he's trying to provoke. A number of the funniest scenes are, in retrospect, obviously staged. But while they'd be funny if they actually happened, none of them rise to the standards of fictional comedy.
In the end, it just didn't work at any level. There were a few chuckles along the way, and one genuinely funny and charming moment. But mostly, it feels like an amateurish college video. After the trailers, I was expecting a lot more.
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As is usually the case, the right response to Cohen's antics comes from a South Park episode.
"Our kids didn't hate gay people. They just hated being taught by this asshole!" - Randy Marsh, from "The Death Camp of Tolerance", referring to Mr. Garrison and Mr. Slave.
I never understood what people thought was so great about Borat, which was a 2 hour long Polish joke that somehow, because there was an artsy purpose to it, became acceptable to mainstream Hollywood.
His stunt with Eminem at the Grammys was equally dumb. No, it's not homophobic to object to having a nearly naked guy's ass dropped in your face.
Cohen's shtick has worn thin mostly because in the year or two after Borat, he was ripped off like mad by every no talent hack grasping on to the edges of the entertainment industry.
That said, I am embarrassed that I laughed at the Borat movie. His entire repertoire consists of using people's better nature against them. Asking for the help of strangers and then, when help is given, make them look stupid and laugh at their humiliation. Cohen is truly the bottom of the barrel. Sorry, I won't be paying for that again, not in this lifetime.
I wonder if people are a bit more desensitized to his schtick now. Like the guy with the "God hates fags" sign. I'm betting he was thinking in the back of his mind that this had to be some sort of joke movie/TV thing so I should keep quiet. If I saw something as outrageous as that on the street my first thought would be "somebody has to be making a movie"
His Buzz Aldrin interview as Ali G was classic stuff. When you do comedy with an unsuspecting normal person as your straight man, you've got to provide the laugh lines yourself. Cohen's talent is for posing as a caricature of an idiot, not provoking idiocy in others. And even if he could do the latter, it still wouldn't be half as funny.
Seems like he either got bored with the schtick that actually worked, or else misunderstood what was funny about it.
I think the problem was that he had already done an Ali G movie, though it was set in Britain and was released before he became big here. You're right though, the interview with Buzz Aldrin was great (e.g., "What was it like to be the first man to walk on the sun?")
Some of the Bruno stuff was funny on the HBO show, particularly the bit where he encouraged a bunch of kids on Spring Break in Florida do engage in drunken nonsense, wrestle with each other, etc., and then they get offended at the end when he thanks them on behalf of "Gay Austrian TV" or something like that. But it's true that, generally, Americans are too polite to give him the reaction he's trying to provoke, whichever character he's playing. Often he's forced to up the ante and become truly offensive and disgusting (e.g., when he defecated in the plastic bag as Borat at the fancy dinner) which is more awkward than funny. Though sometimes awkward can be funny too, e.g., when Borat served Bob Barr a piece of cheese and then, when Barr was already chewing it, told him it was made from his wife's breast milk.
Yeah, but how funny was The Hangover?
As an Austrian movie, do you rate it above or below The Sound of Music?
Haven't seen the movie yet, but I've seen a clip Ron Paul's reaction to being ambushed. Is Megan talking about him?
One reason I prefer libertarians over conservatives - Ron Paul is a blatant bigot, but his political beliefs prevent him from acting too strongly on his bigotry. So it's kind of difficult to put him in the same category as, say, Alan Keyes.
Homosexuals would probably be better off in a world of Ron Paul homophobes than in one of homophobes of any other political color.
Sascha Baron Cohen is a vile racist.