I also had some rednecks scream at the screen, "Why are they showing the penis' but not the tits." It was extremely funny..just wanted to put that in there.

I think some parts of the country just are not fully prepared for this type of movie.

I found it quite interesting that people didn't walk out until the South began to be parodied. In fact, when Bruno encounters Southerners holding signs saying "God Hates Fags," I heard a couple of people shout "that's right" at the screen before storming out yelling "this movie is for fags."

In my mind. The parody of homosexuals and the response of bigoted Americans was a very real commentary on our times. Good/Should Cohen cut down on the "filth"? Possibly. Still, I found the film shocking, extreme, timely, astute, disturbing and a lot of fun + more importantly, I laughed my ass off for about 70 of 82 minutes.

It sounds like we have a disagreement on intent, which is sort of hard to argue since neither of us can really say, but I do think Borat had a much larger social commentary than you are giving it credit for… especially compared to Bruno.

Then the more extreme supporters of GLAAD or End H8 will watch Bruno and say *again, not an actual quote*. ‘See, I knew it! Bigots are annoying, self indulgent, intolerable, and the world would be a more peaceful place without them.’

I have not seen Bruno and I do not plan to. My reason being that Cohen’s work breeds a cultural divide, an Us vs Them mentality with little room for understanding or acceptance. At a time when the President of the United States is traveling the world in an attempt unite people despite fundamental differences in belief, lifestyle, appearance, and a whole bunch of other issues; I find it difficult to see Bruno as anything other than an unfortunate step backwards.

Overall, I think if you've got a comedy where you've been laughing pretty much non-stop…it's worked. I was laughing non-stop, so I'd say it works. Now… whether it excelled or not is another matter. Bruno didn't, frankly, but I still thought it was absolutely worth the money and the permanent mental scarring that was incurred.

Disagree. This is actually fully intended, if you went ahead and used those universally necessary elements for a movie to be "Good" (good for a film buff like us that is), it just wouldn't have the same impact as the format used in this particular movie style.

"Borat was funniest when Cohen's character was poking fun at American insecurities and stereotypes, but Bruno finds common ground with Borat in this respect only a couple of times. The rest of the time his actions are so outrageous they approach the point of being in-your-face exhibitionism and by no means reflect the behavior of a person who just happens to be gay, which pretty much eliminates what appears to be the point of the exercise."

Agree, but. I understand your point at the beginning of the paragraph and do agree with it, mostly because that's perhaps one of the things I liked the most about Borat, but yeah, this might just be our personal taste, no?. Now the but, Remember this is not your every day gay person, Bruno is a "fashonista" from Austria and his personality "could" be accepted as such, the point of the exercise might just be very present.

"To put it plainly, Bruno tries too hard and even then ultimately comes up empty."

If this is true, I'll probably walk out of the movie sightly disappointed :(

"The Paula Abdul stuff."
Well, remember Paula Abdul is a public figure, she might have been caught off guard at the beginning and didn't process the human being as a chair and sat down without thinking about it, but she has an image to keep regardless, I assume that the interview was carried away and they do have the footage, but when Paula signed the release, her public relation people or w/e might have asked to remove the interview (it was probably a short interview anyway) and just show the beginning and the end, which wouldn't paint Paula as a person who would actually sit on a human during an entire interview. Would the movie had been better with the interview? maybe, maybe not, your point on why it would have, makes a lot of sense but you'd really have to see the whole movie with and without it. Then again this whole paragraph is an assumption, quiet logical if you ask me, but an assumption nevertheless.

"It's funny because the material is shocking and people are watching it as if it is legitimate, but its value to the film's overall narrative is limited."

Same as my first paragraph. Borat's narrative was necessary, Bruno's maybe not so much.

"but Bruno doesn't even come close to living up to either of its predecessors. While some of the moments in Bruno may live on forever, they will live on forever on YouTube where they would have best been suited in the first place."

Well the predecessors are ironically no joke, they are really good no questions. But, remember Bruno was on youtube, I believe Bruno's popularity as a matter of fact raised a lot more on youtube than on the alig show, some of the elements of the movie do intend to relate to what you see in youtube and what you would concider youtube material but this is not necessarily coincidence.