In this deleted scene from the Bruno movie, recently leaked to promote the DVD release on November 17th, baseball great Pete Rose is subjected to the same here-sit-on-my-Mexican stunt that Bruno used on Paula Abdul. To his credit, Rose doesn’t squirm or complain, he just settles in and starts talkin’ baseball. At one point the crew tries to rattle Rose when his chair starts acting uncomfortable. But Rose is unflappable.
“He don’t seem to understand that this is very uncomfortable for this guy. So get another guy here, because this guy’s uncomfortable.”
And then they swap Mexicans. See? The first step toward a post racial society is to treat every minority as an individual. Just because one Mexican isn’t good at being a chair, that’s no reason to assume that a different Mexican wouldn’t be better. Well done, Pete Rose, it seems this is not your first time sitting on a Mexican. Ahh, good times. It’s like my junior high experience in reverse.
[via /Film]
Sacha Baron Cohen has signed on to star in Borat writer Dan Mazer’s film about the Eurovision song contest, which he’s been developing since 2007. The Eurovision song contest is basically like Miss Universe meets American Idol meets Sprockets, where groups representing European countries compete with comically overproduced song and dance numbers. Past winners include Abba, and a Finnish goth band who dress like orcs (video after the jump).
Sacha Baron Cohen has signed on to join “Eurovision: The Movie,” in which he will portray a singer who enters the competition. A source said: “Mazer and Cohen thought it would be better if Sacha dreamt up another character, and the scope for another oddball creation is huge.”
The new movie is expected to be another fake documentary in the style of “Bruno” and “Borat.” The script has already been written and the film is expected to appear in theaters by 2011. [WorstPreviews]
Well the source material is certainly rife. Or is it ripe? Probably both. Anyway, the only problem I see is that most of the Eurovision entries are already so ridiculous that it’s almost impossible to do a parody version funnier than the original. Nonetheless, it’s hard to predict how Cohen’s entry will fare - tentatively titled Two Dudes Having Sex with the Holocaust.
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It’s a sad commentary on the state of terrorism when a former member of a group whose mission statement includes suicide bombing calls someone a liar and threatens with a lawsuit.
Ayman Abu Aita, who is labeled in the Brüno movie as a “terrorist group leader,” slammed Sacha Baron Cohen as a “big liar” who “made up stories” when describing to CBS’s David Letterman last week [above, via WarmingGlow] the way he met Aita at an undisclosed location. Aita said he is pursuing legal action.
Apparently Aita is offended at being labeled a “terrorist”, because although he served in the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades from 2000 until 2003, he says he’s reformed after a two-year stint in Israeli prison, and is currently a representative in the Palestinian Authority, in President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party.
“I thought I needed security,” Baron Cohen told Letterman. “It was in the West Bank. The guy picks this secret location. … The terrorist comes in with his bodyguard.” Aita, however, says the interview took place at a private section of a popular restaurant called Everest in the town of Beit Jala, which is in a section in the West Bank under Israeli control. [WND via /Film]
Let’s not split hairs here: Cohen called him a terrorist, and clearly, he used to be a terrorist. Does that mean he can’t still be called a terrorist? Try telling Danny Trejo he’s not gangster. He’ll cut your belly open, I’ve seen him do it. As for calling the restaurant a “secret location,” to be fair, Zagat did call it “the West Bank’s best-kept secret.” Though they weren’t huge fans of the Falafel, which they called “decent, but nothing to blow yourself up for.”
Brüno recently did a photoshoot for the latest issue of GQ in which goofed around with L.A.’s Birmingham high school football team. Now the school superindendent is angry about it because… uh… it takes the attention away from the fact that most of his students can’t read?
The stunt has incensed Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, adding fuel to a debate over whether Birmingham, in Lake Balboa, should be allowed to convert to a charter school. The charter conversion is up for a vote before the school board Wednesday. “This recent GQ thing has not helped matters,” Cortines said today. “We’ve allowed our students to be used, and not in the most glamorous circumstances, either.” [LATimes]
Actually, the students used you. Namely your jerseys. Wait, what’s this about charter school?
[Birmingham HS] has broken away from the nation’s second-largest school district. The move came one day after officials with the Los Angeles Unified School District disciplined two administrators over violating the district’s policy on using the school’s name in the film. The charter proposal ends the district’s authority over school employees, so the disciplinary action will be moot. [Yahoo]
Wow, so a school gets one magazine spread and suddenly it’s too good to hang with the schools it grew up with? Sounds like L.A. alright. Stay tuned for next week, when Birmingham High develops an eating disorder and f*cks David Spade.
NY Mag recently obtained some production notes from Brüno, which for once are actually interesting (production notes are usually just a collection of the cast and crew’s embarrassing, sycophantic praise for each other, like a daisy chain in print form). You can check them all out over there (and some are spoilery), but this is undisputed highlight:
According to whoever wrote the production notes, it was “stunningly easy” to get both Paula Abdul and LaToya Jackson to use Mexican gardeners (who were really actors) as chairs, despite Abdul’s claims to the contrary. “Both were very game,” allegedly.
Of course they were. I try to avoid American Idol as much as humanly possible, but every time I hear Paula Abdul talk she sounds like Kirk Douglas on a whippet binge, which is generally a good indication that a person’s taking a stiff cocktail of reality-avoidance pills (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Bottom line, if you can’t feel your face, you’re probably not going to feel a Mexican’s shame. Poor guy. Sources say he was so embarrassed that he told Abdul, “Ju can seet right here long as ju want, chica,” while pointing at his crotch and making kissing sounds. True story.
