Bruno on the Today Show
A lot can be said about actor Sacha Baron Cohen, but it can’t be denied that the man knows how to make a stir. He’s at it again, commanding attention for his film “Bruno,” which hits theaters tomorrow.
Just as he stayed in character as Borat while promoting his last movie, Cohen played Bruno on the Today Show during his interview with Matt Lauer. His marketing strategy draws fans further into the illusion that he’s creating with his characters, and it attracts a lot of attention, both good and bad, kind of like payday loans in the UK.
A hilarious juxtaposition
Of course, Matt Lauer’s never-ending professionalism only made Bruno’s out-of-this world ridiculousness even more hilarious. Lauer, of course, remained cool as Bruno commented that Americans are so nice to gay Austrians that “they made one of them governor in California.”
Even Lauer had to chuckle, though, when Bruno mused “Why did Leonardo Dicaprio paint the Mona Lisa?” Lauer also laughed when Bruno said he wanted to be “an internationally respected figure like Heidi Montag from The Hills.” I tried to keep track of funny highlights while I watched the interview, but there were just too many. Watch it here.
Market saturation
Bruno, er, Cohen knows his audience, too. Movie trailers for “Bruno” have popped up nonstop on facebook and MySpace for weeks. When “Borat” came out, fans flocked to the box office, and the film made $129 million in the U.S. alone.
Just as there were protests and boycotts with “Borat,” the same is the case with “Bruno.” Watch the video of Bruno on the Today Show to find out some highly negative reactions from Austrian representatives and certain factions of the gay community.
“Bruno” reviews
As Lauer points out in the interview with Bruno on The Today Show, the film has been called “everything from vulgar to brilliant.” Overall, the movie is being well-received by those who choose to watch it. Here are some professional opinions from critics on Rotten Tomatoes:
Like many other dangerous and controversial comedians (Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce, Howard Stern), the role-playing guerrilla satirist Sacha Baron Cohen knows how to draw an audience into a conspiratorial relationship with him — and then make you squirm anyway. Brüno, his new quasi-documentary stunt comedy, is, if anything, a crazier, funnier, and even pricklier pincushion of a movie than Borat.
-Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
Sacha Baron Cohen returns with Brüno to mock the shallow, consumerist, attention-craving, celeb-worshipping, gay-fearing heart of American pop culture. Thank you, we needed that. Make the shameless, sidesplitting Brüno numero uno on your funny-time list.
-Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
Staged or not, Cohen still displays a fearlessness and commitment to character unparalleled in the comedy world today, and that’s what elevates his stunts from the level of Jackass-type flinch fodder to something considerably more outrageous.
-William Goss, Orlando Weekly
Of course, you can’t win ‘em all
Bruno is a one-joke character in a one-joke movie, and it’s a joke Baron Cohen beats into the ground. He’s a flamboyantly homosexual Austrian fashion correspondent who repeatedly shocks people with his flamboyant homosexuality. The end.
-Christy Lemire, Associated Press
Extraordinarily raunchy, occasionally funny, “Bruno” takes everything “Borat” did so well three years ago and pushes it further, swapping one primary target (American anti-Semitism) for another (American homophobia). But comic nerve has little to do with sheer excess. The fashionista at the center of “Bruno” is a pretty tedious fellow, and there’s a calculated stridency to the material in Sacha Baron Cohen’s new guerrilla lark, directed (as was “Borat”) by Larry Charles.
-Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
Discussion of Bruno, on Today Show, Stays in Character to Promote Movie