[Bruno-Turany, Czech Republic; September 27. Image via Getty]

Lesbian girls protest for their free marriage during their silence demonstration as Pope Benedict XVI celebrates a Pontifical Mass at the local airport of Brno-Turany on September 27, 2009. Pope Benedict XVI called Sunday for hope and a renewal of faith in the former communist Czech Republic, as he served a large open-air mass in Brno, watched by some 120,000 faithful. The pope is paying his first visit to the Czech Republic ahead of the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution that toppled Communism in former Czechoslovakia in 1989. AFP PHOTO/ ATTILA KISBENEDEK (Photo credit should read ATTILA KISBENEDEK/AFP/Getty Images)

Brüno, which opens tomorrow, is similar to Sacha Baron Cohen's first film Borat, but according to the reviews it's more mean-spirited and has even less of a plot. The fake working title: 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 pretty much says it all. Adapted from a character on The Ali G. Show, Brüno is a fixture in the European fashion world until he commits a major runway faux pas and is fired from his Austrian talk show. Along with his assistant Lutz (Gustaf Hammaresten), he sets out for America with the hope of becoming "the biggest Austrian superstar since Hitler." This leads to a series of sketches in which he foists his absurdly flamboyant gayness on unsuspecting Americans, from Ron Paul, to a "gay deprogrammer," to a group of aggressively heterosexual deer hunters he compares to the ladies on Sex and the City.

A scene filmed with La Toya Jackson in which Brüno gets her to eat off the body of a Mexican laborer and tries to get Michael Jackson's phone number was cut by the studio on the day Michael died, but other than MJ nothing is too sacred for a good penis joke. Many critics were shocked that the film was only rated R, since Brüno is shown pantomiming oral sex in great detail and using a fire extinguisher and a Champagne bottle while having sex with another man. Almost every critic was unperturbed by the film's ridiculous depiction of gay men, which they reasoned was OK since the film is actually mocking homophobic people (though it's still getting a laugh out of gay stereotypes). Their biggest complaints were that it seemed some of the "real" Americans were actually actors, and the film wasn't quite as funny as Borat. Below, we check out the reviews for Brüno.

Rolling Stone

Baron Cohen takes justifiable relish in ambushing the gullible and the guilty - clueless stars eager to latch on to a fashionable charity (since George Clooney has Darfur, Brüno wants Darfive), mothers who'd starve their kids for a modeling gig, kinky swingers into all kinds of sex except same-sex, bogus efforts to bring peace to the Middle East (Brüno confuses Hamas with hummus), and the adoption of babies as accessories (Brüno swaps his iPod for little black OJ and loses custody until he throws in a MacBook Pro). And you haven't lived till you see Bono, Elton, Sting, Snoop Dogg and Chris Martin sing Brüno's "We Are the World" anthem. The lyrics urging North and South Korea to stop fighting since they both look Chinese haunt me still.

The NY Post

The humor is more mean-spirited [than in Borat] and sometimes forced, a few bits don't work at all, and there's an inescapable feeling that director Larry Charles, returning from Borat, has staged some scenes with scripted actors serving as Bruno's victims... Bruno mincingly walks a fine line in exposing homophobic behavior and perpetuating wince-inducing gay stereotypes. Not to get all PC on you, but the straight, outrageously dressed Baron Cohen camps it up in what has legitimately been criticized as swishy gay equivalent of blackface.

Reel Views

Some moments of discomfort within Brüno result from a sense that the filmmakers are not playing fair. The spontaneity of Boratis largely absent and, although some sequences are undoubtedly unrehearsed, there are indications that some were staged. The difficulty in telling one from the other speaks to the craft used to assemble the production, but it also robs Brünoof a key element - the belief that Baron Cohen is using "real" Americans to illustrate his points. The "reality" embraced by Brüno is no less artificial than the one embraced by many so-called "reality" television shows. When it comes to making viewers laugh, however, Brüno hits a home run - provided the viewer is not easily offended.

To say that Brüno pushes the proverbial envelope is to understate the situation. The only things separating this movie from a hard NC-17 are some well-placed black rectangles that hide potentially graphic content. Even with that consideration in place, it's hard to imagine why the normally prudish MPAA did not slap this film with its harshest rating. An extreme pantomime of oral sex would normally be enough to prohibit anyone under 18 from seeing this with or without an accompanying parent or guardian. And that's far from the most outrageous scene in the film. When it came to matters sexual, Borat was hardly restrained or in good taste, but Brünomakes it look like a morality play with puritanical values. Some of this content is hard-core (in more ways than one). It is also at times laugh-aloud hysterical - funnier and raunchier than anything presented in the summer's surprise hit, The Hangover.

The New Yorker

Could that be Baron Cohen's cunning plan? Might he actually be in the business of revealing our cauterized senses, and the wound where our finer judgments are meant to be? A nice idea, but I'm afraid that Brüno feels hopelessly complicit in the prejudices that it presumes to deride. You can't honestly defend your principled lampooning of homophobia when nine out of every ten images that you project onscreen comply with the most threadbare cartoons of gay behavior. A schoolboy who watches a pirated DVD of this film will look at the prancing Austrian and find more, not fewer, reasons to beat up the kid on the playground who doesn't like girls. There is, on the evidence of this movie, no such thing as gay love; there is only gay sex, a superheated substitute for love, with its own code of vulcanized calisthenics whose aim is not so much to sate the participants as to embarrass onlookers from the straight-and therefore straitlaced-society beyond.

Variety

The humor — and it keeps on coming — carries with it an almost immediate sour aftertaste, as Bruno's intentions, and necessarily Cohen's along with them, appear far from honorable. As in Borat, Bruno's pranks are designed to expose people's presumed latent prejudices. But while the previous film got away with this high-wire act for most people, Bruno is more erratic, partly since one is more aware of the game being rigged but also because Bruno himself comes off as someone the world scarcely needs another example of — a self-absorbed narcissist for whom fame is the only goal. Cohen is critiquing this attitude, of course, but the film comes to share too much of this anything-for-effect mindset.

NY Magazine

Underlying all these gags-the funny, the crude, the funny and crude-is a hard truth: Flagrant gay behavior drives a lot of heteros insane. To be honest, I'm uncomfortable watching two guys with tongues down each other's throats, too, but at least I know the problem is mine, not theirs. When the hushed, arty Brokeback Mountaincame out, its couplings set against purple mountains majesty, many right-wing commentators announced that they couldn't bear to watch such abominations. To them-and to those who'll see Brünobecause it's the latest gross-out comedy sensation-Baron Cohen is proclaiming, "Suck on this!"

The Hollywood Reporter

Bruno's adopted African baby paraded before a black audience is not funny. It's embarrassing, as is any joke that bombs, yet the comic keeps going back to it nevertheless. This is one of several instances where an audience might experience both exasperation and tedium with the comic's relentless act of running a joke into the ground... We sense, as we never did with Borat, the comic behind the character. Especially when his accent keeps changing — from an unconvincing Austrian to his own British and even to a whisper of Borat himself.

Entertainment Weekly

The more uncomfortable Brüno makes people, the more he draws attention to their petty churlishness and homophobia. When
 he ambushes the maverick politician Ron Paul with a go-go dance, you can forgive a visibly shaken Paul for thinking Brüno is nuts - though that's hardly an excuse for calling him ''queer.'' Yet is Brüno the scurrilous man-tramp himself a homophobic caricature? My honest answer is: yes and no. Baron Cohen's portrayal certainly feeds into a stereotype of haughty flamboyance. But if one condemns the movie on that basis, then shouldn't we toss Christopher Guest's sublime turn in Waiting for Guffman, Robin Williams' inspired camping in The Birdcage, and so many others onto the bonfire, too? The bottom line is that Baron Cohen, even at his most scathing, makes Brüno gleefully unapologetic about who he is.

The NY Times

The film demonstrates, at a fairly high level of conceptual sophistication, that lampooning homophobia has become an acceptable, almost unavoidable form of homophobic humor, or at least a way of licensing gags that would otherwise be out of bounds. An early sequence that graphically shows Brüno and his lover exerting themselves in various positions and with the assistance of, among other things, a Champagne bottle, a fire extinguisher and a specially modified exercise machine, derives its humor less from the extremity of their practices than from the assumption that sex between men is inherently weird, gross and comical. The same sequence with a man and a woman - or for that matter, two women - would play, most likely on the Internet rather than in the multiplex, as inventive, moderately kinky pornography rather than as icky, gasp-inducing farce.

Obviously, we care about gay marriage. It's just unfortunate that the latest installment in the pro/anti debate was spurred in the most ridiculous manner possible: a standoff between a celebrity blogger and a beauty queen. Now, even celebs who remained silent during discussions of state propositions that would have actually, like, changed something, are sharing their opinions on same-sex marriage. And of course, Carrie Prejean's inalienable right to give a prejudiced answer at a beauty pageant must be defended. Below, we break down the flurry of celebrity responses - whether for PR or for parity - to Miss California's answer. Even if this isn't the case for Hollywood C-listers, consider this the last we have to say on the subject.

Anti-Carrie Prejean, Pro-Gay Marriage

• E! News anchor Giuliana Rancic Twittered on Tuesday that "I know i'm a journalist, and i should be objective ... but she is an ignorant disgrace and she makes me sick to my stomach." [Fox News]
• Perez Hilton's fellow judge and former Miss Nevada, journalist Alicia Jacobs blogged: "I can tell you that it GREATLY affected me & the final score I gave Carrie Prejean. ...Personally, I was STUNNED on several levels. First, how could this young woman NOT know her audience and judges? Let's not forget that the person asking the question is an openly gay man, at least 2 people on the judges panel are openly gay. Another judge has a sister in a gay marriage. Her very own state pageant director, KEITH LEWIS is an openly gay man who has been a very generous benefactor of hers...in many ways. Did I mention I was STUNNED? I was also personally insulted & hurt. [Alicia Jacob's Stage 3 Blog]

Pro-Carrie Prejean, Pro-Gay Marriage

• Though California pageant co-chair Keith Lewis initially criticized Prejean, he now says, "I support Carrie's right to express her personal beliefs, even if they do not coincide with my own." [Fox News]
• Miss Kansas Emily Deaver was asked the same marriage equality question once in a pageant. She says beauty pageant questions are hard, but, "I answered that I believe people should have the choice on who they marry." [Kansas CW]
• Kristen Dalton, the newly crowned Miss USA says, "I'm proud of [Miss California] for speaking from her heart, and she's passionate and what she believes in, and she's proud of herself," but "I think that all couples should be able to be recognized legally, and they should be able to enter into a union. Whether or not it should be defined as marriage, I don't know, I'll leave that up to the politicians." [Perez Hilton]
• Former Miss USA Shanna Moakler wrote on her MySpace blog that she doesn't hate Miss California, but, "She lost the crown because she wasn't able to convey compassion for ALL the people that as MISS USA she would be representing. and if YOU like it or not, gays and lesbians make up this country as well. THIS is why we have judges so they can find the RIGHT woman who obtains these qualities." [Shanna Moakler's MySpace]

No Comment On Carrie Prejean, Pro-Gay Marriage

• Perez Hilton's fellow pageant judge Holly Madison twittered in reponse to Moakler "[Y]ou did a great job tonight mama! where is the party now, cause I am so upset." [Fox News]
• In response to Perez Hilton asking what she thought of gay marriage via Twitter, Britney Spears tweeted: "Love is love! People should be able to do whatever makes them happy!" [@BritneySpears]
• Heidi Montag responded to Perez Hilton, tweeting: "God says in the bible that we should love our neighbor and he created us all as equals. I know in my heart that gays and lesbians should have the same government rights that Spencer and I will when we get married. So, yes, this blonde Christian believes in gay marriage and I hope to one day go to YOUR wedding, Perez!!!" [Perez Hilton]
• Miley Cyrus reponded with the following tweets: "i second that!!! wow heidi is smart!!! shes amazing." Then, "Jesus loves you AND your partner and wants you to know how much he cares! thats like a daddy not loving his lil boy cuz hes gay and that is WRONG and very sad! like i said everyone deserves to be happy." And finally: "i am a christian and i love you [Perez] - gay or not. BECAUSE you are no different that anyone else! we are all gods children! i am not saying this so would be nice on your site (though that would be nice jk;) but because the LORD has spoken 'love cuz god loves'." [Perez Hilton]
• Jewel, in response to Perez Hilton: "I believe in liberty and freedom for all I believe in gay marriage and the right to bare arms and tabacco! Each free to choose" [@jeweljk]
• Joel Madden tweets: "P! I believe everyone on this planet deserves Equal rights to their own pursuit of happiness." [@JoelMadden]
• DJ AM tweets: "I am 100% FOR gay marriage. It should just be called "marriage" I don't even understand why it has EVER been a question."[@DJ_AM]
• Miss Vermont Brooke Werner: "Everyone has the right to their own actions, but I totally disagree with Carrie. I have a very different perspective on gay marriage and I would never have said what she said." [Fox News]

Pro-Carrie Prejean, Anti-Gay Marriage

• Former Miss Delaware and president of The National Black Pro-Life Union, Day Gardner, says that "The judge should have applauded the fact that Carrie spoke her honest opinion rather than lie about her views." [Christian News Wire]
• Bill O'Reilly supports and agrees with Carrie Prejean. Shocking. [Perez]
• Alabama state representative Jay Love, plus every member of the Alabama House Republican Caucus and some Democrats: Drafted and/or signed a resolution priaising Carrie Prejean for standing by her beliefs. [Montgomery Advertiser]

Earlier: Miss California Doesn't "Believe" In Gay Marriage ("No Offense")
War Of Words: Miss California Vs. Perez Hilton

Controversy broke out this month at George Tomlinson primary school when some parents pulled their children out of lessons on homosexual relationships. The school told parents that if they pulled their children from class, the absence would be counted as truanting. Now members of the Westboro Baptist church in Topeka, Kansas say they will picket the school this week. The group's founder, Reverend Fred Phelps, was already barred from entering the U.K. last month when he tried to picket a play about a homophobic killing. A spokesman for the school's council said, "We are supporting teachers and schools in taking positive and innovative steps to develop children's ability to respect people's differences." [The Guardian]

• A cat has survived being walled in under a bathtub for 7 weeks in Berlin after the feline crept under a bathtub that was being installed. • More stories of survival: A tortoise narrowly escaped being buried under 50 tons of trash at a landfill after his owners accidentallly threw him in the garbage. • Lunatica Desuna has complied a gallery of the different depictions of the Mona Lisa by famous artists like Andy Warhol, Keith Herring, and Marcel Duchamp. • Jeremy Paxman, a TV-presenter on the BBC network, whines that "the worst thing you can be [in the television industry] is a middle-class white male". • A 21-year-old mother undergoing treatment for cervical cancer has been denied Ondansetron, an anti-sickness drug, because it is supposedly too expensive. • Women at the National Theater in London are getting a chance to shine behind the scenes as art directors, designers, and playwrights by giving over the largest stage to a living female playwright's play, a first for the theater • Child rape is rising in Afghanistan's northern provinces (as the government's control begins to be lost to insurgents). • A 47-year-old man in Scarborough, Ontario has claimed to have seen a vision of the Virgin Mary in his neighbor's tree. • More than 1/3rd of women between the ages of 18-44 have admitted to sharing prescription drugs in a recent study. • Wooser, Tibet's most famous female writer and blogger, has been arrested by police after being accused of photographing military installations. • Cheerleaders in Monroe, Ohio have been banned from wearing their cheerleading uniforms to school because the short skirts violate a new district-wide dress code on skirt length. •

[Image via Cafe Press]

• Women taking antidepressants and experiencing a hard time achieving orgasm as a side effect of the medication may benefit from taking Viagra.

• "Grammar Girl" is out to get rid of bad grammar. • A former Muslim sex slave who was targeted for her ethnicity when Serbs attacked tells her heartbreaking story to CNN. • Southern New Hampshire towns are reporting an increase in domestic abuse calls and arrests, which police says is linked to the poor economy. • A self-instructional program on reproductive health and sex-education for teen girls with diabetes will help them understand the risks of unplanned pregnancy while diabetic. • Inflation, high security at hotels and popular venues, and traffic jams have made weddings a real bummer in Sri Lanka. • A weak baby dolphin that was caught in Japanese fishermen's nets has regained its ability to swim after being outfitted with a special lifejacket. • Meet Rampa Rattanarithikul, a Thai mosquito scientist who has researched and collected mosquitoes for 50 years. • Two dogs that were allegedly trained to have sex with their female owner have been accepted into a no-kill animal sanctuary in Utah. • Cute puppy news! Look at this newborn french bulldog set to Chopin. (Image via She Cards.)