Bruno

Black Friday is approaching, fellow readers. No, I'm not talking about some sort of economic free-fall or any apocalyptic event that we might see in 2012 . I'm talking about the shopper's paradise/nightmare that is the day after Thanksgiving, where all the hot holiday items are paraded about with slashed prices galore.  

Paramount Pictures Anton Yelchin, Chis Pine, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban, John Cho and Zoe Saldana are shown in a scene from "Star Trek." Although the film may seem a bit confusing at first -- the plot involves an alternate reality and time-travel through a black hole – if you bear with it, you're going to end up enjoying one of the best popcorn movies of the year. Although it may wander, the action revolves around the crew of the Enterprise before they became shipmates.  

Despite some harsh early reviews that the Edward-Bella romance is a bore, New Moon is still expected to earn more than $85 million during its first weekend (it has run up the biggest advance sales of any film in history). Opening in 4,024 locations, the vampire romance began its run with 3,500 performances at 12:01 a.m. Friday.  

British satirist Sacha Baron Cohen rarely does interviews, at least as himself, for his confrontational comedy. He occasionally will talk to the media "in character" as Ali G or Borat or Bruno. That either adds to the mystique or accelerates the madness of each character.

This movie obviously was testing the limits of what people found acceptable in terms of sexuality   -Sacha Baron Cohen

 

WITH APOLOGIES to Sacha Baron Cohen and "Bruno," it's "Star Trek" week on DVD, with two versions of the early summer hit available. The $30 single disc includes the theatrical release and some special features -- commentary from J.J. Abrams, a "production secrets" documentary, and a gag reel of blown takes. The $37 two-disc special edition is larded with special features -- five behind-the-scenes documentaries, deleted scenes and a trial version of the "Star Trek" video game.  

I admit, I went into JJ Abrams' reboot of Star Trek (Paramount, Rated PG-13, Blu-Ray-$39.99 SRP) not wanting to like it, based on my less than enthusiastic view of Abrams' previous work and a healthy level of fondness for Trek (when it was done right - not in the crap Berman/Braga/ Voyager / Enterprise /latter-day films era). So yes, I had to be won over to the whole reboot-in-continuity thing, and I must say - overall, I *was* won over. I still think that wrapping it all in the flag of Nimoy's Spock was  

Bruno (2009, Universal, R, $30) Guerilla comic Sacha Baron Cohen ("Borat") goes undercover as the titular fashionista, a gay TV talk show host who arrives in the U.S. with hopes of becoming "the biggest Austrian superstar since Hitler." He pulls the wool over the eyes of politiciansand celebrities, tries to broker peace in the Middle East, and nearly incites a riot at a wrestling match. It's haphazard but occasionally hilarious.  

When Sacha Baron Cohen and Larry Charles hit the comedic bull's-eye with 2006's "Borat," it was because Cohen's Kazakh provocateur was consistently and painfully funny, capable of prying real anger and complete honesty from unsuspecting rubes. For "Bruno," the duo enlisted another side character from Cohen's " Da Ali G Show ," an Austrian fashionista bent on American cultural domination. And the result is anticomedy.