Sacha Baron Cohen's highly-anticipated new movie "Bruno" opens this weekend and more tidbits are leaking out.
In one scene from his Middle East adventure, Bruno tried to get himself kidnapped in the West Bank.
Cohen tells David Letterman that he set up an interview with a Palestinian "terrorist" in Bethlehem and tried to convince the guy to kidnap him so he could be famous.
"I want to be famous, and I want the best guys in the business to kidnap me," Bruno tells Ayman Abu Aita, identified as a leader of the Fatah-affiliated Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. "Al Qaeda are so 2001."
Bruno goes on to bestow some fashion advice to the Palestinian with a mustache: Lose the beards.
"Because your King Osama looks like a kind of dirty wizard or a homeless Santa," he says before being told it would be a good idea for him to leave...
On Letterman, Cohen cast his interview as a dangerous journey into a dark underworld that required the aid of a CIA agent to help them locate the "terrorist." Cohen says he had trouble finding a security company to protect him and that he wasn't sure if the guy he was interviewing had weapons or not.
That makes for a good story. (One that is apparently being touted by the movie-makers in production notes given out to reviewers.)
But the truth is a lot less nefarious.
Bethlehem is one of the most sedate West Bank cities and leaders of militant groups like Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade routinely talk to reporters. They're not hard to find.
And Abu Aita, a Christian Palestinian, is more like a one-time militant leader who locals say doesn't lead Al Aqsa anymore.
Cohen's provocative questions no doubt required some extra security, but chances of him being kidnapped in Bethlehem were pretty slim.
Meanwhile, Gawker has discovered a NYC double standard at a newsstand that finds it fine to display a naked cover shot of Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli, but not a satirical one of Cohen.
Here's what at least one NY newsstand doesn't want you to see:
the only way the arts may play a role in defusing wound up nerves, is if the Pope could be convinced to do a Larry King live show from the inner sanctums of downtown jerusalem
Posted by: am | July 10, 2009 at 07:14 PM