BRÜNO ist vergnügt!

I don't know of many leading men in film today that are as polarizing as Sacha Baron Cohen. You either loved BORAT or you absolutely despised it. As for me, well, BORAT was a true side-splitter, and the highly anticipated follow-up BRUNO was certainly no let-down.

BRÜNO (2009)

Buttons are pushed. People are mad. Dildos are inserted.

BRUNO goes there.

The follow up to Sacha Baron Cohen's 2006 smash-hit mockumentary BORAT, BRUNO is both a resounding triumph of jocosity as well as another perspicacious look into the naiveté of overly-conservative culture. Looking for a new highway to fame after a disastrous fashion show incident, Bruno heads off for America looking to start fresh as an A-lister. After some utterly outlandish attempts for quick fame fall to the wayside — including a talk show where Paula Abdul sits on Mexicans, an uncomfortably funny spinning and talking wiener, and the adoption of an African baby named O.J. — Bruno realizes that going straight is the only alternative, seeking the help of some sidesplitting confrontations with "gay converting" priests, good ol' boy hunters, and an arena full of bloodthirsty hicks at a cage match.

There are quite a bit of incommodious moments in BRUNO that are sure to weed out those who are easily offended by such antics. BRUNO makes no qualms to push the button in terms of what folks find socially and morally acceptable straight from the get-go, including a completely absurd montage involving an exercise bike turned into a dildo inserter. A film for the squeamish BRUNO ain't, but beyond all of the excessive homosexuality, penises in strange suction cups, and ridiculous gay caricatures, BRUNO is a film that, like BORAT, is an eye-opener into how the supposedly culturally liberal West is, in fact, quite the opposite.

BRUNO is lewd, shocking, and downright hilarious. And let's face it, if we were talking about BARBARA instead of BRUNO and audiences were being barraged with boobs instead of balls, not nearly as many common folk would walk out of the theaters with their panties in a bunch. That's why BRUNO is genius — the people that Sacha Baron Cohen is making fun of are exactly the type of people that are offended by his provocative and shocking commentaries.

Bravo, Mr. Cohen. You know how to make me laugh.

Though I should probably be in the hospital getting the ulcer I undoubtedly got from the 80 minutes of laughter that BRUNO gave me, I'm going to give a mid-year run-down of the few films that interested me enough to go see:

1. UP
2. BRUNO
3. WATCHMEN
4. TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN
5. PUBLIC ENEMIES

Next up is DISTRICT 9 on August 14, but since Judd Apatow really knows how to tickle my private parts, I'm sure I'll be catching FUNNY PEOPLE at some point prior to the release of DISTRICT 9. I'm okay with that. *shrug*

PUBLIC ENEMIES disappoints

Though the summer movie season is hitting the halfway mark, only a couple films slated for summer release remain marked on my schedule. I knocked off one tonight, PUBLIC ENEMIES, and while so much about it seemed promising, the end result was a tremendous disappointment.

PUBLIC ENEMIES (2009)

Let's pretend that somehow, by the grace of god almighty, you've just caught wind of a pristine, untouched gold mine in the middle of nowhere. You gather your equipment, your crew (if you so choose), and you head out to pillage this cave of unforeseen fortune and happiness. You get there, ready to behold a new life of affluence and opulence, only to find that inside this supposedly prosperous mine is actually a room full of freshly pinched turds. Big. Brown. Turds.

That's PUBLIC ENEMIES.

Director Michael Mann's take on 1930's bank robber John Dillinger is a wonky flick, one that suffers from an erratic narrative that floats for two hours on a flimsy story. Depsite the fact that PUBLIC ENEMIES seems to be fairly heavily derailed from actual historical events, ENEMIES tells its tale in three pieces: Christian Bale (playing Melvin Purvis) talks, Christian Bale sends men with guns to some place, Christian Bale and Johnny Depp (as Dillinger) shoot at each other. Rather, rinse, repeat for 140 minutes and you have a movie as dull as PUBLIC ENEMIES.

Though Mann has never been one for an overtly polished aesthetic, it's taken to an entirely new level in PUBLIC ENEMIES, choosing to forgo standard film in favor of (largely) handheld, digital video. Whilst Mann's intentions to give the film a more realistic and documentary feel are understandable, the end result is a cheap and amateur aesthetic that is nearly impossible to fall for. Ugly and meretricious, PUBLIC ENEMIES never sells its pseudo-documentary look, instead distracting from a story that's already razor-thin to begin with.

To make matters worse, the Ali/Frazier collision of acting superpowers is grievously disheartening. Those that aren't too fond of Christian Bale won't be particularly wooed by PUBLIC ENEMIES as Bale's protagonist, fed investigator Melvin Purvis, is a flavorless, empty potato sack of a character that expounds all previous complaints about Bale's traditionally callous screen presence. Depp suffices as Dillinger, though it's not enough to create anything particularly memorable. Dillinger's character arc is equally as unimpressive, despite some terribly lame tropes that try to move it forward. The real star here is Marion Cotillard... simply because she's hot.

Bland, visually uninteresting, and suffering from a shoddy story and uninspired acting, PUBLIC ENEMIES ends up being colossally disappointing as well as terribly frustrating. At least I can take solace knowing that I got to see Marion Cotillard with a blurred-out nipple. Is that weird? Where's that gold mine again?



In significantly better news, the theatrical trailer for the Peter Jackson produced DISTRICT 9 hit the interweb today. After UP, DISTRICT 9 was the only other summer film that I really had my eyes on. Check it out.