>

On March 22 a Kansas newspaper reported that had to remove a film crew from the local airport after some “inappropriate behaviour” took place. Apparently a film crew had paid the airport $1,050 to shoot a documentary about a European man visiting America on their premises and while airport officials agreed to the rather tame request, they were shocked when the crew showed up wearing hot pants and started kissing each other. Although airline officials admitted that nothing illegal occurred, they still asked the crew to leave once the lewd behavior began. While neither the paper nor the officials made claims that this was in fact the work of Sacha Baron Cohen, the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming. This is the exact type of homoerotic behavior that Cohen exploits for laughs with Bruno. Unless an actual production team for a European gay news team came to Kansas that day, there’s no way that it wasn’t the work of the Bruno crew.

Less than a week later another Kansas news report appeared about a suspicious film crew. This time the target was Church hosting an Easter pageant. Pastor Greg Smith was quoted as saying that he agreed to the filming because he was told that the film would be used to spread the “gospal story in Europe, where they need it.” (you know…because there’s never been any Christianity in Europe). However, the crew apparently showed up with their host in chains hoping to perform some sort of Passion Of The Christ reenactment. Pastor Smith quickly realized that he had been duped and immediately shut down the pageant before escorting the camera crew out of the building. He now feels that God protected him from embarrassment. Several other churches also complained of similar experiences over Easter, with one church even hanging up on the producers after they mentioned the Borat movie during an initial phone conversation.

While no official information is currently available about the production, it’s impossible that these incidents are not tied to the Bruno movie. Other websites familiar with the Bruno character have reported seeing Cohen filming various segments including some fake commercial auditions for child actors. The subject matter of just these leaked stories (Post 9-11 airports, Southern churches, child actors) suggests that Sacha Baron Cohen has in no way lost his edge. The comedian continues to mine taboo topics for laughs laced with commentary. He is undeniably one of the most exciting and original voices in comedy today and as his fame and popularity rise it will become increasingly difficult to produce his patented guerrilla comedy sketches with unsuspecting interviewees. With no characters left in Cohen’s back catalogue for feature film treatment, Bruno might be his last attempt at this style of comedy. Audiences can only hope this outing will be as unrelentingly hilarious as Borat. –PB, News Extensions