Review: 'Brüno'

"Brüno," in which Sacha Baron Cohen plays a vehemently gay Austrian fashionista, is his follow-up to "Borat," and I'm guessing lightning won't strike twice at the box office. I thought "Borat" was laugh-out-loud funny, but I realize there are many spoilsports out there who wish Cohen had been struck by lightning. It's no use railing against his movies for being in bad – make that execrable – taste. That's like complaining that the Three Stooges aren't Elizabethan minstrels. But there's good bad taste and then there's just plain bad bad, which is what describes most of "Brüno." I wish I could be more specific, but modesty, and the strictures of a family newspaper, prevent me. Suffice to say, compared to "Brüno," "Borat" is "The Muppet Movie." You've been warned. Grade: C (Rated R for pervasive strong and crude sexual content, graphic nudity, and language.)