Oops, he did it again!

When the girlfriend of the Video Shop owner infront of my building excitedly told me Borat has got another movie out, I wasn’t overly optimistic in it’s ability to impress me. When Borat invaded “the great US&A” not more than 4 years ago, no one knew of either him nor Sacha Baron Cohen’s other alter ego, Ali G. So people were tricked into behaving the same way they did in their living room, with in the safe company of their family & friends on tv. Which was too bad for them, but fun to watch for the rest of us 8) . Now, not only do people know who Borat is, but are well informed regarding all the lawsuits the actor went through because of him.

So I was sure the show would either be a collection of stuff not included on the original video or people screaming ‘wait a minute, you are that guy from Kazahkstan’. An hour through “Borat’s Guide to Britain”, my fear felt almost justified. “This is what happens when people get addicted to fame, and Hollywood does a Sequel to superb movies” I grumbled “Ideas get mutilated and if a writer grabs a pain, it would be to sign cheques”.

Then … Bruno walked in.

Brüno is “a gay Austrian fashion show presenter”, who often “lures his subjects into unwittingly making provocative statements and engaging in embarrassing behaviour, as well as leading them to contradict themselves, often in the same interview. .. Baron Cohen often uses the Bruno character to highlight the pretentiousness and superficiality of his interviewees in the fashion world.”

And so it was!! In the space of about 20 minutes, Bruno did about 6 interviews with six individuals involved in fashion, who gave themselves out in one way or another. There was a man who used to be a representaitve of Calvin Cline who thought Barbra Streisand should be kept away. A “Trailer/white trash kindda” show organizer who agreed the beauty of fashion was that you can make profit off poor people and not give them a penny. A man who was convinced Bin Laden was the best dressed guy in the world, Hitler the neatest, that Jesus would perhaps shop at a posh yet down-to-earth part of hollywood and if Ghandi (“him being a minimalist”) got himself a sack and put a rope on it, he’d look quite at home. And ofcourse Jonathan Antin 🙂 (owner of two Los Angeles hair salons whom I’ve noticed is given to more tears than a pregnant woman, in this case his fiancee).

Here is Wikipedia’s version of what happened on that interview:

Antin opens the segment by describing himself as “a troubled, crazy, fuckin’ maniac that has a lot of a feelings and a lot of emotion and a lot of craziness.” After Bruno observes that “all of the evil people in the world” such as Saddam Hussein, Adolf Hitler, and Josef Stalin had mustaches, Antin concedes that not all Middle Easterners are crazy, but agrees with his interviewer that most of them are “a little fucking nuts, a little weird.” Bruno follows up by noting that on the other hand, all the good people in the world, like Jesus, Rod Stewart, and hippies, had long hair. Antin responds that he is “very impressed” that Bruno “brought these issues up,” because Antin had thought he was the only one who had ever noticed such a coincidence. Antin goes on to point out that Moses and God also had long hair and “didn’t care so much about their look.” When prodded on by Bruno to say something controversial, Antin delivers the following warning: “You motherfuckers in the Middle East, God help you if I ever come over there, ’cause I’ll take all you cocksuckers out.”

The following interview, however, is by far the funniest, not to mention embarassing. Ich think so, anyway!

For more on Bruno, check out his website.