Seems Sasha Baron Cohen’s Bruno – the followup to his mockumentary style movie Borat – has been stamped with the dreaded NC-17 rating for controversial sexual scenes. Like we had any doubt that Bruno wouldn’t push the limits for a reaction. But we know this was going to get the MPAA first in line for said reactions and now they will edit the movie down and to sneak in an R.
Like the quote at Latino Review mentions, its not the rating, but that this will reveal some of the intelligent bits from the movie.
In one scene showed at the festival, Bruno auditioned children for a subversive movie with a number of offensive acts. Clueless stage moms agreed to the increasingly absurd requirements set forth by the actor, including one woman admitting that her infant daughter could lose seven pounds in a week to fit the part.
Finally, Bruno told her about the scene, in which the child had to dress as a Nazi pushing someone into an oven.
I have said before that I have not been anticipating this film at all because it sounded like it was just going to be Bruno gay-ing people into shock and horror to illustrate the intolerance of other lifestyles. Funny for about a minute then its the same gag over and over.
But he appears to be hitting up different contraversies as well and I hope that it has the same hidden brilliance that Borat had. In its lowbrow appeal there was some deeply intellectual messages and from what I was seeing from Bruno, it felt like those elements were missing. But now I get a glimmer that it will still be as smart.
I can hope.
