The sudden death of Michael Jackson has left filmmakers scrambling to tweak or delete any scenes involving the pop star. Such was the case with "Bruno," where a Jackson-related sketch ended up getting cut just hours before the Los Angeles premiere.

After much discussion, Universal Pictures removed a scene from the movie where Bruno, the flamboyant Austrian journalist played by Sacha Baron Cohen, interviews an unsuspecting Latoya Jackson about several topics, including her brother.

The sketch included jokes about Jackson’s high-pitched voice and his trademark white glove.

I mean, basically, the movie is really over-the-top anyway, so had Jackson not died, the scene probably wouldn’t have been that outrageous. But I’m glad they took it out, because that would have been in really poor taste.

Any thoughts on this? Should filmmakers cut inappropriate Michael Jackson scenes from upcoming movies?

Image Credits: © Universal Studios; Bauer-Griffin

What must it be like being the girlfriend of Sacha Baron Cohen? I wonder if Isla Fisher ever gets tired of his multiple personalities. Or who knows, maybe he’s actually really normal in real life. Word has it they’re both too busy to get married, though they have a baby daughter together, Olive.

But not too busy to promote their respective movies. The two attended the UK premiere of “Bruno,” the freaky comedy starring Cohen as a flamboyant Austrian fashionista who comes to America seeking fame and fortune. Or something.

Here are a few images from the premiere, held at the Empire Leicester Square in London last week.

More pics after the jump…

Read more

Sacha Baron Cohen is one of those actor-comedians you either get or you don’t. Well, maybe that’s too cut and dried for him, because there were some parts of "Borat" that I thought were hysterically funny (two naked guys fighting in a hotel hallway, anyone?), but there were also parts of that movie that didn’t really strike me as funny. And maybe they’re not supposed to.

Anyway, he’s back in "Bruno," playing a flamboyant Austrian fashionista who comes to America and shakes things up. Frequent collaborator Larry Charles is directing. It’s rated R and opens in U.S. theaters July 10, 2009. See what you think of the trailer (thanks to MTV for the embed code)!

Are you a Sacha Baron Cohen fan? Sometimes I think he’s hysterically funny, and sometimes just freaky and weird. He wrote, produced and stars in “Bruno,” with frequent collaborator Larry Charles directing (he directed “Borat,” among others).

The story follows Cohen’s character of Bruno, a flamboyant Austrian fashionista who comes to America seeking … something, I’m not sure what! It’s rated R and opens in U.S. theaters July 10, 2009.

What do you think of these images? Freaky? Make you want to go see the movie?

Read more

“Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa” is Too.Much.Fun! I love that they didn’t make us wait for the “Move it, Move It” song, and jumped right into it at the beginning. My kids and I loved everything about it from beginning to end. We all agreed that it’s even better than the first movie. And a third movie is on the way for 2011, so we’ve got that to look forward to.

All the originals are back — Alex the lion (voiced by Ben Stiller), Marty the zebra (Chris Rock), Melman the giraffe (David Schwimmer), and Gloria the hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith). It begins on the distant shores of Madagascar, where we last left our fun-loving group. They’ve finally figured out a way to get back to New York City and their beloved Central Park Zoo. The resourceful penguins have repaired a dilapidated WWII plane and turned it into Air Penguin.

Read more