By Debbie Schlussel

These are my two favorite scenes in the movie, “Bruno,” in theaters today:

* Harrison Ford saying “F-ck Off!” and rushing away in response to Sacha Baron Cohen’s ambush attempt to try to interview him outside a restaurant; and

* Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem chasing Cohen away (and, believe me, he runs in fear in this scene).

Yes, my fellow co-religionists have it right, and the draft-dodger alter ego of Han Solo and Indiana Jones earns new-found respect from me.

These are the only people who had the guts to just say no to Cohen, this time dressed up as “Bruno,” a gay Austrian who was fired from his fashion TV show and is seeking to become a famous celebrity in America. It’s basically a re-run of “Borat” (read my review), with an overtly gay Austrian stereotype with zero editing button or shame substituted for the anti-Semitic, racist, bigoted Kazakh stereotype with zero editing button or shame.

In fact, the problem with this extremely vile, disgusting movie, which has some very humorous parts to it, is that no-one in America has the guts to say no to this vulgar pig, Sacha Baron Cohen. Even a supposedly “brave” terrorist, Ayman Abu Aita, the head of the Palestinian terrorist group and homicide bombing cretins, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, doesn’t have the guts to tell Cohen to “F- Off!” This true coward sits and takes it from a comedian dressed as an over the top flamboyantly gay man.

This movie is more of the same shock, only upped several notches. We see prolongued close-up shots of a talking penis and a penis swinging around. Is that funny to you? ‘Cuz it wasn’t funny to me. I also cringed at shots of Cohen’s penis in a dustbuster vacuum cylinder . . . while the vacuum is on. Why isn’t this NC-17, at the very least? Did I need to see his stereotypical gay Filipino boyfriend with a champagne bottle up his naked rear end and pouring champagne into glasses from it? If you need to do that to be funny, you just aren’t funny.

The same goes for multiple shots of some Southern hicks in live sex orgies at a swingers party in Mississipi or Alabama (I forget which). Is this typical of Americans? Hell no, but it is typical of the way Cohen portrays us as he lives in our midst and makes gazillions off of hating on us.

If I were Bin Laden I’d say, “Na’am [yes]! Now, we can stop producing those cumbersone recruitment videos and just show ‘Bruno.'” It shows a tiny fringe of America and presents our country at its worst. And it’s just sickening.
And there’s more of the same mocking of Middle America and conservative politicians, as Cohen entraps Ron Paul and pulls his (Cohen’s) pants down, goes camping with some Alabamans and tries to invade their tents in the middle of night, stark naked. And then there are the many Southerners at a “Straight Dave” rally with t-shirt slogans I won’t repeat here. He then shocks them by making out with his male Austrian assistant. Haha, funny. More like cringe-worthy.

And then there were the very funny scenes that were hilarious, but not enough to make up for the rampant vile shocks throughout the rest of the movie.

Cohen’s “Bruno” rents out a swanky home in Hollywood, in which he plans to interview celebrities for a TV show. But there is no furniture. Cohen enlists the house’s illegal alien gardeners and pool boys to be the furniture. Soon Paula Abdul arrives and is droning on and on about her charity work . . . while she and Cohen are sitting on Mexicans. The irony and comedy of all of this simply doesn’t occur to Abdul until the sushi hors d’oeuvres come out . . . on a table consisting of a fat, naked Mexican. Did we really need to see this guy’s penis sticking out from the food?

At this point Abdul finally acquires a brain cell and realizes that she should walk out. Word has spread through her publicist and the other celebs Cohen planned to interview won’t be coming through. That includes “Brad-olph Pitt-ler” and “Der Fuhrer” (a photo of America’s most famous Nazi, Mel Gibson, is shown). Yes, Bruno has been “schwarz-listed.” (In case you don’t know, schwarz or schwartz are German for black.)

Cohen’s “Bruno,” desperately seeking to become famous decides to get his own charity. The absolute cluelessness of the celebrity charity consultants (who are identical twins and dress alike even in “adulthood”) is typical. They stress that “global warming” is really in right now (shocker!) and that maybe he might be interested in this place in Africa–“duhfuh . . . daafaa . . . dafaar . . . what is it called? . . . you know that place?”)

Bruno adopts a Black baby, a la Madonna and Angelina Jolie and brings it to America. The scenes involving the baby are hilarious and a great social commentary on the celebs who use Black infants as accessories. “Bruno” carries this joke all the way.

Bruno’s audition interviews with starstruck Hollywood stage parents (seeking to have their babies get jobs posing in photos with his baby) comprise more great material for the Bin Ladens, Ahmadinejads, and Nasrallahs of the world.
There are echoes of Lynn Spears (mom of Britney) and Kathy Hilton (parental pimp of Paris) as there is nothing these desperate and valueless parents won’t allow their kids to do. One woman tells Cohen that her baby weighs thirty pounds, but agrees to force the baby to lose 10 pounds in a week or two or get liposuction if that doesn’t work. Parents agree to have their babies pose nailed from crosses and in Nazi SS uniforms shown putting a Jewish baby into an oven. Yes, some people–far too many parents–in America will do anything in their quest for fame and fortune for their kids and themselves. On Eight Mile in Detroit there’s a name for that: pimp.

And those are the highlights–and very many lowlights!–of “Bruno.” Like I said, it’s extremely vile, vulgar, and full of gay sex contraptions and sex toys . . . many of which are demonstrated on-screen. If you’ve ever thought of the initials TMI, this is the onscreen version.

While there were some very funny scenes, the movie is just so disgusting and filthy, you don’t need to be a prude to recognize that this foreign comedian’s exercise in self-flagellation is utter trash.

Gays are worried about how this movie mocks them. Trust me, it mocks straight, Red-State Americans far more. Not to mention, it’s depraved. To say this movie is in bad taste is the understatement of the year.

FOUR MARXES PLUS

***

I also had the displeasure of seeing possibly the worst movie of the year right before I saw “Bruno.” “I Love You, Beth Cooper” gets zero love from me. More like HATE, as in “I HATED This Movie.” An utter and complete waste of time, this stupid, schlocky, low-class movie is about two sex-starved dorky high school graduates (one of them gay) and their quest for sex. The main character is a geeky, hideous high school valedictorian, who declares his love for fellow grad Beth Cooper (the very average Hayden Panettiere) in his high school graduation valedictory speech. It’s downhill–or, in this case, down sand-grain–from there. The movie is not only low-class with horrid actors, but it’s just slow, stupid, and a complete rip-off of ten dollars. Just dumb.

Ironically, the father figure in this silver screen stupidity is Alan Ruck, whowas a co-star in a great teen movie, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Now, that was how a classic teen buddy flick was made. I guess times are tough for him since then, and he’ll do anything for a paycheck. This was absolutely awful.

SKIP. AT. ALL. COST.
FOUR MARXES PLUS