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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Author
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Topic: Bruno (2009)
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Michael McGovern
Film Handler
Posts: 57
From: New Britain, CT, USA
Registered: May 2008
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posted 07-10-2009 08:46 PM
I saw this tonight at the National Amusements theater in Southington, CT
Let me preface this by saying holy cow, I've seen some scratched prints in my day, but this was amongst the all time worst I've ever seen. I can't even fathom how a film print that has only run for three or four shows total so far, could look as bad as this one did. From beginning to end there were black and green scratches all over the place, I can't even begin to figure out what kind of monkeys this place has running their booth, and what they could have possibly done to scratch the 35mm print in such a way.
I could see maybe someone misses a roller and you get one black scratch, it's inexcusable, but understandable. This print however had several deep scratches all over it throughout the entire film. It went far past the point where you could blame it on faulty equipment, someone who very obviously had no idea how to thread a projector was running this thing, and did everything you could possibly do wrong, and did it multiple times. Quentin Tarentino needs to track down the projectionist at this place and hire him to do post production on the next Grindhouse film, it was that bad. If I was the projectionist or manager of this place, I would have been embarrassed to even continue running the print, it made the movie almost completely unwatchable.
As for the movie, as has been said, it's no Borat. There are many laugh out loud scenes, but the laughs aren't as hard and don't come as often as they did in the last film. This film also seemed to lack any sort of discernible plot, and seemed more like a series inane scenarios each revolving around a different gag based on the same premise. Cohen clearly seemed to have a much more difficult time shooting the kind of material he was looking for, and it showed, as most of the people he was trying to fool seemed to catch on pretty quick.
It was a decent enough follow up, but Cohen would have been better off trying his shtick in a different locale. I'm sure there are plenty of funny ideas that could come from Borat in Japan or Bruno in Africa. Overall I give it a 7/10
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Evans A Criswell
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1579
From: Huntsville, AL, USA
Registered: Mar 2000
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posted 07-11-2009 12:42 PM
Attendance: 2009/07/10 Friday Night 19:30, Carmike Century Cinema 8, Decatur, AL, Auditorium 8, Digital projection, MONO audio
I haven't seen Borat yet, so I don't have it to compare with.
This movie was one of the strangest I've ever seen. I went into it knowing nothing other than a few previews I'd seen on TV, which seemed funny to me, and the sentence that appeared as a description in the local "Go" magazine supplement in the Huntsville Times, which was "Sacha Baron Cohen is a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashion correspendent who repeatedly shocks people guy shocks people with his flamboyant gayness". The redundancy in that description (two uses of the "flamboyantly gay") applies to the movie, and the "repeatedly" is not an understatement.
I can understand why some gay people would be upset about this movie. Imagine how upset black people would be if someone made a movie with a black character that had all of the stereotypical traits from the common racist statements and black jokes and put them into the character. That's what this movie does with homosexuality, and is little more than a collection of flamboyant gay stereotypes and jokes carried to an extreme.
This movie really has no plot and simply relies on shock value and the character offending nearly everyone he comes in contact with, and failing at everything as a result. In Decatur where I saw this, the audience laughed at some things, but not as loudly as I've heard in many comedies. I could tell that people found the material shocking more than funny and the laughs came often, but they were rather quiet laughs. Maybe in Huntsville it went over better, since I don't imagine the Decatur folks being much into a gay-themed movie, and am surprised that 70 people turned out to see it at that showing, even on Friday night. I'd say around 5 walked out on it at some point.
The movie did not seem very long, but when it was over, I was glad. I wasn't able to predict when the end would come because it seemed to be a collection of sketches more than a movie.
Now back to the homosexuality and the Bruno character... I can see that gay people would not want people to think of that kind of person, or anything close, as what comes to mind when thinking about what a gay person is like. Maybe 1 in 1000 or 10000 gay people are anything nearly that flamboyant and annoying, with nearly every gay joke stereotype thrown in?
This is a movie that should probably have never been made, but will probably make a good bit of money on DVD when a more "unedited" or "unrated" version comes out that people will buy simply out of morbid curiosity.
As for the presentation -- it was great. This is the first presentation I'd seen at this location since their switch to digital. It made a HUGE difference. This theatre used to have the shittiest presentation quality of any theatre in the Huntsville-Decatur area and was one of the old Fairlane-Litchfield locations that Carmike had neglected for many years. Their presentations were dim, unevenly lit, and lifeless and the projection was often problematic. The image last night was the brightest, most colorful I've ever seen at this theatre (or really, any theatre). It was razor sharp and brilliant and fit the screen masking perfectly. The only defect I saw was "smearing" of brightness when a bright object appeared at certain screen positons on a dark background (dirty lens, reflection?) New seats with cup holders had been installed since my last visit, but these did not have backs high enough to rest your head like the old ones did. The auditorium decorations looked the same and the screen was the same with seams visible. The audio was still mono (no surround speakers). Still, the audio was far, far better than what I heard from the optical film soundtracks that used to play in there.
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Galen Murphy-Fahlgren
Master Film Handler
Posts: 405
From: Canton, MI, USA
Registered: Oct 2007
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posted 07-18-2009 04:41 PM
Brüno missed the marks set by Borat, Ali G Indahouse, and even the Brüno segment on Da Ali G Show. If exposing homophobia and bias was the goal of Brüno as exposing racism and misplaced nationalism and general idiocy was the goal of Borat, then Brüno failed miserably. If the goal was to portray humorous characters behaving ridiculously as per Ali G, Brüno failed yet again. If, on the other hand, the goal was to make money with relatively low production values and gratuitous penis "comedy," then Brüno was successful.
Personally, I had higher, perhaps idealistic, hopes. Sacha Baron Cohen has always said something before, but Brüno seemed oddly silent, metaphorically speaking of course. The few moments when Baron Cohen uses his highly successful method of letting other people makes fools of themselves, he is successful. The problem is that he never applied this toolset to exposing homophobia or anything other than stupid fame-seeking moms. The few instances where he comes close, his subjects turn out to be quite reasonable, and the enterprise backfires on him. The end result is that if I didn't already know that homophobia was a major issue, I would have left the theater more than a little confused about the nature of prejudice. This ranks as Baron Cohen's worst work.
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