Barbara Walters went to see Bruno, and Tuesday she told “View” viewers just what they could expect from the film.
Joy Behar had told the audience during a previous show how funny she had found the film. Not Barbara, who especially wanted to …
Posts Tagged ‘Bruno’
Studio plans teen-friendly Bruno
July 14th, 2009 |
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Universal Pictures will release a slightly shorter and marginally less explicit cut of the 18-certificate Sacha Baron Cohen comedy on 24 July
As if one Bruno was not enough for UK cinemagoers, the studio behind Sacha Baron Cohen’s flouncing comedy creation is now poised to introduce another. Happily, reports suggest that the second Bruno will be less offensive, more mild of manner and marginally shorter. Where the original Bruno comes with a prohibitive 18 certificate, the second is rated a teen-friendly 15.
Universal Pictures is planning to unveil the alternative Bruno on 24 July as a means to mop up younger viewers. “We saw an opportunity to service the audience,” explained David Kosse, president of Universal Pictures International. “And it should also help the gross.” Kosse claims that this marks the first time that two versions of the same film are screened simultaneously in the UK.
Baron Cohen’s film has earned a reported £5m at UK cinemas since it opened last Friday – the second-biggest opening ever in Britain for an 18-certificate movie. However, there have been reports of hundreds of teenaged viewers being refused entry to cinemas, leading studio executives to conclude that there remains a large, untapped market for the picture.
The 15-certificate Bruno will run 1min 50sec shorter than the original version. Editors have trimmed several of the more sexually explicit moments, including a visit to a swingers’ party and a sequence in which the hero visits a medium and simulates oral and anal sex with a ghost. “A lot of that scene” has been edited out, says Kosse.
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Film Weekly: the power behind Soul Power
July 11th, 2009 |
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Soul and funk take centre stage in this week’s podcast as Jason Solomons gets down with Stewart Levine. The legendary music producer is the man behind Soul Power, an extraordinary documentary chronicling the three-day festival in Kinshasa, Zaire pegged to the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle fight between Ali and Foreman. Levine shares how he got the idea for the concert, and how he and Hugh Masekela put together a dream ticket of performers (including Miriam Makeba, Bill Withers, BB King, Celia Cruz and main attraction James Brown) and crew (including producer Leon Gast and cameraman Albert Maysles). He explains how the venture survived the news that the fight had been postponed, and how the 450,000 feet of film footage was distilled into this joyous film.
Xan Brooks then joins Jason to review the week’s key releases: Claire Denis’s haunting 35 Shots of Rum; Bruno, Sacha Baron Cohen’s followup to Borat; and Paul Schrader’s cool biopic of the Japanese author, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters.
And finally, Jason meets Rebecca Miller and Robin Wright Penn to talk about The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, Miller’s movie of her novel. Miller, who also wrote and directed the film, tells Jason how she managed to change Alan Arkin’s mind about playing the part of an elderly publisher who betrays his perfect wife, while Wright Penn shares what it was like to work with the veteran actor.