The Smoking Gun website has posted copies of ads used to lure thousands of Arkansans to staged events in Texarkana and Fort Smith for Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest movie, Bruno, based on his TV character, a gay Austrian interviewer who specializes in entertainment and fashion topics.

The ads promised one-dollar beer, “hot chicks” and “hardcore fights.” As TSG reported, both events ended with two male wrestlers “tearing each other’s clothes off and, while in underwear, kissing down their opponent’s chest.”

The display, said TSG, “triggered Fort Smith fans to throw chairs and beer at the ring.” Cohen’s “Blue Collar Brawlin’” website, which promoted the events, shuttered after the filming. TSG discovered they they were registered to Peto Philer of Algeria.

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WENN

Box office hit Borat appears not to have translated to the Middle East after Sacha Baron Cohen duped a former Mossad agent into giving an interview.

The Cambridge graduate was in the guise of his Austrian TV personality character, Bruno, and managed to convince Yossi Alpher, a former operative of the Israeli intelligence agency into being interviewed for a new spoof documentary.

Ghassam Khalib, a Palestinian academic, was also tricked into the interview, which could be seen in the final film after its May 2009 release.

In the interview, Bruno, a gay Austrian fashion show presenter, asked: “What’s the connection between a political movement and food? Why hummus?”

Alpher stepped in to explain: “Hamas is a Palestinian Islamist political movement. Hummus is a food.”

However, Baron Cohen’s character continued to discuss the chickpea-based dip, adding:: “Yesterday I threw away my pitta bread because it was dripping hummus. And it’s too high in carbohydrates.”

Bruno also told his guests: “Your conflict is not so bad”, and compared the political tension between Israel and Palestine to the alleged feud between Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie.

“Why don’t you Jews and Arabs settle the conflict with a time-share on the land?” he added.

“When will you Jews return the pyramids? Why can’t Jews and Hindus get along?” Bruno continued.

Alpher told the Haaretz newspaper: “We knew something ludicrous was happening but couldn’t quite figure it out.

“Besides, we ourselves were not being ridiculed – only the conflict that occupies and preoccupies us.”

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WENN

Sacha Baron Cohen has claimed his first victim as part of his new prankster movie – setting up an Israeli analyst for an outrageous interview about the Middle East conflict.

Cohen famously lured unwitting members of the public into appearing in his hit 2006 comedy Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan.

Now the British comic is filming a follow-up – Brüno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt.

The movie will feature another of Cohen’s creations, Bruno, an Austrian fashion journalist, and Israeli expert Yossi Alpher admits he has already been targeted by the funnyman and his undercover movie crew.

Alpher was invited to be interviewed about the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but instead found himself being asked ludicrous questions confusing Gaza’s ruling Hammas group to savory starter hummus – and comparing the political situation in the region to Brad Pitt’s love life.

He says, “One of us mentioned Hammas, and the exchange that ensued went something like this: ‘Vait, vait. Vat’s zee connection between a political movement and food. Vy hummus?’

“‘Hamas,’ we explained, ‘is a Palestinian Islamist political movement. Hummus is a food.’ Then, the interviewer declared, ‘Your conflict is not so bad. Jennifer-Angelina is worse.’”

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WENN

Sacha Baron Cohen’s Bruno, the follow-up to his massively successful Borat movie, is to be released by Universal on May 15th, 2009.

It is thought that Angels and Demons, the mystery drama starring Tom Hanks, would be the only movie to present Bruno with any serious competition in such a release slot, reports Reuters.

Bruno will follow the exploits of gay Austrian fashion journalist, a character that was taken from Baron Cohen’s former HBO series, Da Ali G Show.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the film’s full title will be Bruno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt.

Universal is now hoping that the success of Borat will ensure that Bruno can be a hit among the high profile summer release season.

Source

WENN

A judge has tossed out a defamation lawsuit brought by a businessman shown in the movie “Borat” as he is chased down Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.

Federal Judge Loretta Preska says the term “newsworthy” — defined in its most liberal and far reaching terms — can be applied to the 2006 hit movie.

The lawsuit had sought unspecified damages for Jeffrey Lemerond, a Dartmouth College graduate and financial analyst.

Messages for comment left with lawyers on both sides were not immediately returned Wednesday.

In the movie, Lemerond is shown running and yelling “Go away!” as Cohen’s character, a phony Kazakhstan journalist, chases him in an attempt to hug strangers.

The judge concedes that the movie employs a brand of humor that appeals to the most childish and vulgar in its viewers. But she says it also attempts an ironic commentary.

WENN

Sacha Baron Cohen is going crazy in Kansas! Well, not literally, but they don’t know that.

Apparently, he stripped down to a pair of hotpants and was terrorizing the locals. It’s for a movie, of course.

He’s currently there filming his new movie Bruno, a mockumentary about a homosexual Austrian TV presenter. He is gathering footage of his interaction with locals, but it hasn’t gone down too well with respectable Kansans. The local newspapers have reported that a “European man” was “putting security on red alert” by “stripped down to tight shorts and dancing in the lobby of Wichita airport.

It doesn’t stop there, either. Cohen and his crew are reported to have disrupted an Easter play at a Kansas church by turning up in chains.

Can’t wait to see how that fits into the movie.

WENN

Isla Fisher is reportedly pregnant with fiancé Sacha Baron Cohen’s baby.

The ‘Wedding Crashers’ actress reportedly announced the couple’s happy news in Los Angeles’ the Cat and Fiddle pub.

A source is quoted by Britain’s Daily Star newspaper as saying: “Isla called everyone to a toast and gushed, ‘We have got good news. I am pregnant.’

“ The Australian star sparked rumours she is expecting the Borat star’s child when she wore a jacket and loose-fitting dress to the premiere of her new movie ‘The Lookout’, in what appeared to be an attempt to hide her baby bump.

However, Isla’s representative has refused to confirm the pregnancy, saying: “If or when Isla becomes pregnant, she and her fiancé will decide if an announcement is necessary.” In ‘The Lookout’, the 31-year-old Australian star plays a stripper who seduces a brain-damaged man.

Isla revealed her role as an obsessive girlfriend in ‘Wedding Crashers’ has left men terrified of her.

She told USA Today newspaper: “Men didn’t hit on me afterwards, they were terrified. I was once in a grocery store, and I laughed and this guy literally jumped in the air. He said, ‘I’m really sorry, but you have the same laugh as the girl from ‘Wedding Crashers’ and you really scared me.”