We’re done with Sacha Baron Cohen’s most famous creations, cinematically speaking. When Da Ali G show hit it was a sensation in England, and a cult hit in America, and ignitied some stateside interest in this great prankster. On the show he played the daft Ali G (which was turned into the film Ali G Indahouse, released DTV stateside), the foreigner Borat (which was turned into runaway hit Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan) and the gay German fashionista Bruno (turned into Bruno). With the huge success of Borat, the possibility of Cohen being able to prank people got smaller and smaller, and so Bruno is the last shot until Cohen turns himself into something new, or hides for a while. My review of Bruno after the jump.

For future reference, if you’re clearly being punk’d by one of Sacha Baron Cohen’s characters (or really anyone that’s trying to put you into an uncomfortable situation on camera), just play into it.  The whole point of the comedy is having a person realize that they’re not in on the joke and thus they become the butt of it.

Disgraced baseball player Pete Rose was able to realize the prank Cohen’s ultra-gay alter-ego “Bruno” played so easily on the not-very-bright/somewhat-insane Paula Abdul.  The premise is whether or not a celebrity would have an interview while sitting on Mexican laborers.  It’s not as funny when A) no one thinks the subject is stupid; and B) when the subject isn’t stupid and realizes this is a prank.  That’s probably why this is a deleted scene on the upcoming “Bruno” DVD which hits stores on November 17^th.  You can watch it after the jump and wonder why Cohen just doesn’t mention the whole gambling-on-baseball thing.

With only hours to go before Hollywood’s golden season draws to a close, I thought it was a good time to do the post-mortem on the summer of 2009.  By now you may have heard that this summer was Hollywood’s most-profitable ever with grosses topping $4.3 billion. But has it felt like the biggest summer ever?  Not really.  Blockbusters like “Transformers 2″ and “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” aside, 2009 was a season of expensive movies that didn’t live up to the hype and cheap movies that performed above all expectations.  Follow me now into the murky world of box office number crunching to see just how huge Hollywood’s hugest summer really was.

I’ll admit that the astonishing first day success of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” had me believing in magic.  A week ago I would have happily settled for seeing the sixth installment in Warner’s wizarding-world franchise outperform its predecessor - “The Order of the Phoenix”.  But then came that record-breaking midnight debut, followed by the “second-only to Tf2″ Wednesday total and suddenly my head was filled with headlines that trumpeted Potter’s $200 million success by Monday.  Sadly, it was not to be.  But just because those breathlessly elevated estimates haven’t quite panned out doesn’t mean that “Half-Blood Prince” has any reason to feel ashamed.  Both the weekend take of nearly $80 million and its five-day total of just under $160 million are series’ bests for Potter…

“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” was easily the top movie at the domestic box office on its first Friday in release, though Warner Brother’s dreams of seeing the sixth installment in the franchise come close to the $201 million five-day total of “Transformers 2″ now seem hopelessly out of reach.  “Harry Potter 6″ did have a record-breaking $104 million opening on Wednesday - combining a $58.2 million American haul with worldwide receipts of $45.8 million.  Thursday saw Harry’s box office fall 62% stateside to $22 million, however, and with Friday estimates coming in at $26 million, “Half-Blood” has almost no chance of catching up to “Revenge of the Fallen” by Sunday.  The good news for Potter fans, however, is that the film still has an IMAX debut to look forward to as well as overwhelmingly positive reviews to give it legs - something that was conspicuously absent as “Transformers 2″ clawed its way to the top.  And speaking of being on top, check out last week’s number one film “Brüno”, now down an enormous 81% from last Friday for a fourth place finish.  Check back tomorrow for box office estimates on the entire weekend…

The weekend belonged to Sacha Baron Cohen and “Brüno” - had it gone down differently it would have made the last ten months of tireless promotion seem kind of over the top.  Though “Brüno” was the clear winner with $30 million in its first three days, this is not exactly the win that Universal may have hoped for when it picked up the rights to Baron Cohen’s latest mockumentary.  Not only did “Brüno” fail to blow those “Borat” percentages out of the water, but the prospects of the film showing “Borat” sized legs through the coming weeks is almost non-existent… unless watching two men, er, kiss suddenly becomes a lot more acceptable in the heartland.

After months of anticipation, Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Brüno” has finally arrived in theatres - looking for fame, fortune and, ideally, an audience who doesn’t mind lots of really gay sex.  The hyper-sexual Austrian fashionista opened with a strong $14.2 million from 2,755 locations - “Hard” R-rating and all.  Universal had predicted a $30 million weekend for “Brüno” but yesterday’s opening now puts the film’s prospects more in the $36 million range.  Meanwhile, don’t bother looking for Fox’s new teen-romance “I Love You, Beth Cooper” in the top five.  The film starring “Heroes” star Hayden Panettiere underwhelmed on opening day with only $2.3 million from 1,858 theatres - and from what I’ve heard they were lucky to get that.  Check back tomorrow to see if “Brüno” can improve on its projections or if the combination of icky gay sex and Baron Cohen fatigue will set in early at the box office…

“Borat” was a cultural phenomenon in 2006.  Created by Sacha Baron Cohen and developed from his “Ali G” television show, the film was a broad, gross-out comedy that still managed to deliver eviscerating satire about American attitudes towards race, homosexuality, and other prejudices.  Yes, you could have a man bring a bag of his own shit to the dinner table but if that table is in Alabama, then bringing over a black prostitute is right out.  Even stranger, “Borat” had a sweet center where we realize the character isn’t hateful but just painfully ignorant and his quest across the nation is to win the heart of Pamela Anderson (who he then proceeds to put into a sack).  Cohen has returned this summer as “Brüno” and while the gross-out gags still work, the film misses a major opportunity to expose American attitudes towards fame and homosexuality and instead just goes for the easy dick or gay joke.

Opening on July 10th is “Bruno” and Sacha Baron Cohen is once again going to shock some audiences. The reason I say some, is unlike “Borat” - which came completely out of left field - “Bruno” isn’t as shocking as we’ve seen a lot of it before. Scenes of Bruno doing and saying things to unsuspecting people is straight out of “Borat”, but that’s not to say I didn’t find it funny, as I laughed a lot and one scene had me in tears. While I definitely recommend “Bruno”, I wouldn’t call it a home-run.

Anyway, to help promote the film, Universal has just given us 4 clips from the movie and they’re after the jump. Take a look and judge “Bruno” for yourself:

In an interesting piece from the New York Times, author Brooks Barnes focuses on the question of whether or not Sacha Baron Cohen’s upcoming comedy, “Brüno” will reveal stereotypes and cause audiences to face their own latent homophobia or if audiences are too stupid to grasp that this is satire and that it will re-enforce their attitude towards homosexuals.

Now before you cry, “How could anyone be so stupid to not see this is as parody?” I would direct you to a recent study conducted by Ohio State University which found that conservatives thought that Stephen Colbert wasn’t a caricature but saying what he actually believed and that the joke was on liberals in the audience.

I haven’t seen “Brüno” but it’s one of my most anticipated films of the summer.  I will say that I don’t think the film will re-enforce homophobia especially since Cohen has already tested the waters with “Borat” and while that film got him sued a lot, there wasn’t a rash of antisemitism after the film came out.  Of course, the key difference is that Brüno is a homosexual while the idiot character of Borat isn’t Jewish; he just openly despises Jews.   Still, it’s hard to side with the man who brings a bag of his own shit to the dinner table.

Click here to read the full article (although it contains some minor spoilers so be warned) and leave your thoughts in the comments below. “Brüno” hits theatres on July 10th.

I know I’m going to get tired of these ads for “Bruno” not because I don’t find them funny, but because I expect they’re showing us the five minutes of footage from the film they can get past the sponsors.  Seeing that same five minutes over and over isn’t bad but I want to know more about how you defend against a man with TWO dildos (Boom.)  Sadly, that is not to be on primetime TV so I’ll hope for a second red-band trailer or something along those lines and until then, will try to enjoy these three new TV spots for the upcoming comedy.

Check out these new ads after the jump.  “Bruno” hits theatres on July 10th.