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Internet Explorer 6; launched way, way back in 2001 with the original Windows XP, it has been a nightmare to web developers and even the end user for the past nine years. Little did Microsoft know that when they let it fail all the W3 standards and ignore such problems such as making PNGs transparent, that they would unleash hell on the Internet world. Nine years later; we’re trying to get rid of it.
Don’t think it’s just us web developers who are being picky about what browsers we choose to support, major companies across Europe, and even Microsoft themselves, are forcing visitors of their respective websites who are using Internet Explorer 6 to upgrade by displaying banners at the top of pages. The former, however, has in some cases taken things even further: ignoring Internet Explorer 6 users, disregarding their user experience and even denying them access to their websites all together.
Why do I mention this? Well, even though I hate the browser that it has outstayed it’s welcome, I do acknowledge that 1/5 of Internet users are still using it. It is for that reason alone, that I cannot ignore these people. Just think of companies such as Amazon and eBay loosing 1/5 of their income and customers just because they don’t want to work that little harder and include little hacks and tweaks for Internet Explorer 6 users? It seems an incredibly stubborn thing to do – however it could be argued at the people still using that browser are stubborn, but I must point out that’s in mainly end users who are using it. Meaning they don’t care or don’t even know about the damage they are causing to the Internet world.
To cut a long story short, I’ve always been against blocking Internet Explorer users from viewing websites, (unless it’s a serious problem such as software incompatibility), but I have ignored them for a while on this site. So whilst editing, tweaking and improving this theme in order to submit to Theme Forest, (an online market place to buy and sell all sorts of web design platforms such as plain HTML and Wordpress), I decided to bite the bullet and include conditional tags, hacks and tweaks to make my website nine year old compatible.
So, if you’re using the dreaded, outdate, awful, incompatible Internet Explorer 6 to view this website amongst many others, please, please upgrade to at least Internet Explorer 8 – or if you’re really, really good: Firefox. Don’t think I’m asking that to make my job easier, as it will also make your life, much, much easier as well.
Steven – Administrator.
Published on July 14th 2009 / Filed under Internet, Website News
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Vassup?
Sacha Baron Cohen is back – this time as a homosexual fashion reporter from Austria named Brüno. After the surprise global success of Cohen’s previous film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, the steaks are high for Brüno. For a second, lets forget the endless publicity, interviews and newspaper articles, instead lets ask: does it succeed?
First of all, I’m going to write the plot of the film so you can get an idea of what it’s about, then I’ll write up my conclusion and opinions afterwards. I’ve also included pictures, some of which are screen grabs from various trailers so the quality won’t be great when enlarged.
If you’re viewing this post on the homepage, you will only be shown the first section of this review, that is because it takes up too much room to have it all displayed at once. You can continue reading the rest of the review via a link you will come across at the end of this excerpt. Anyway, lets begin.
Brüno, the star.
The film starts with Brüno being perceived as a top fashion guru in Austria – he has his own talk show where he discusses topics with celebrities, one feature being ‘In or out’, the items being discussed are why Autism is so ‘in’ and why Chlamydia is so ‘out’. He has boyfriend, the two engage in dangerous sex, such as lodging a champagne bottle in his boyfriends anus and pouring himself a glass, squirting a fire extinguisher down his anus and making a make-shift catapult to fire him quickly onto his penis.
For his show, Brüno must report on the Milan Fashion Week, Bruno decides to turn up in a suit made ‘entirely out of Velcro’, shortly after interviewing one model and poking fun at her by saying how ‘difficult’ modelling can be, (i.e. put your right leg in front of your left leg and so fourth), Brüno is asked to leave as he raises suspicions, but instead he falls backwards onto a huge sheet of fabric and stumbles into a clothes rack – all of which stick onto his suit. While the security try to escort him outside the building, he makes a break for it and crashes the cat walk. Brüno sees this as a chance to become famous, and he acts like a model and walks up the stage for a few seconds while the audience boos him. The lights are turned of and he’s arrested. Subsequently, he is fired from his talk show.
Off to America and beyond, to find fame.
For that reason, Brüno becomes ‘out’ and his boyfriend decides to break up with him. Brüno decides he must go to America in order to become a famous celebrity. He and his new assistant Lutz jet of to America. When the two land in American, Brüno covers himself up with a black piece of cloth and asks the press not to take any photos. There are no press however, and Brüno realises he isn’t as famous in America has he once thought.
Brüno decides to make another talk show. When rehearsing for the pilot of the show, he interviews American Idol judge Paula Abdul. The interview consists of making her sit down on hunched over Mexican workers due to the lack of furniture, Brüno then proceeds to offer her sushi which is laid all over another naked Mexican. She and her agent storm out, leaving Brüno pleading for them to come back. While attempting to get more celebrities onto his pilot show, it appears that Paula’s agent has blacklisted Brüno production company, meaning no-one will come onto his show. Brüno calls his agent in the middle of getting his anus bleached and waxed, the agent orders the camera crew to replay what Brüno just said.
He does however find someone, and the pilot is recorded. The pilot is shown to a board of TV producers from different networks, while Brüno hides behind a two-way mirror to see what they think. The pilot consists of Brüno asking reality TV star Brittny Gastineau weather Jamie Lynn Spears should either keep or abort her baby, to which she says ‘abort’, then Brüno dances in his underwear, (seemingly with an errection), and points the camera in awkward angles towards his body. Then there’s a 30 second stint of seeing Brüno’s un-covered penis dance and swizzle, until ultimately singing ‘Ich bin Brüno!’. The producers watching the pilot are shocked and disgusted throughout, making some of them leave. Brüno sees their reactions, goes into the room to which the producers are shocked to see, and pleads to be given a chance before desperately dancing to get their attention. Brüno’s pilot was not picked up, he did however take note of the comments left by the producers, one being ‘The only way this guy will ever be famous is through a sex tape’, so he decides to make one.
Brüno scores an interview with presidential candidate Ron Paul, (who Brüno confuses with drag-queen RuPaul), the interview starts but one of the light bulbs blows and the production team suggest they both wait in the other room. Ron walks around the room, picks up a magazine and begins to read, oblivious to the fact that secret cameras have been installed around the room. Brüno proceeds to flirt with Ron, lights candles and asks him if he’s ever been with another man. Ron becomes visibly uncomfortable, Brüno drops his trousers and blocks the door. He tries to touch Ron who storms out the room and calls Brüno a ‘fucking queer’.
Brüno, still determined to become famous, decides to support a charity. He arranges a meeting with two advisors, who make themselves look stupid by seemingly not knowing anything about charity work. He decides to sort out Israeli-Palestinian conflict and heads over to Jerusalem. Within moments of arriving in the country, he is chased by an angry mob after walking in public wearing a next-to-noting mock Rabbi outfit. He ignores this as a threat, and goes to his meeting. At his meeting, he talks to former Mossad agent Yossi Alpher and Palestinian Politian Ghassan Khatib. Brüno’s first order of business is to discuss hummas, which he gets confused with hummus; after both sides ‘agree’ that hummus is a bean based dish, Brüno thinks he has completed his goal in getting the two sides to agree about something. He then proceeds to sing a song to them both with offensive lyrics such as ‘Don’t fight North and South Korea, you’re basically both Chinese anyway’, and makes them hold hands.
After realising that peace meeting didn’t make him famous, he heads over to Lebanon in an attempt to get kidnapped as Ghassan Khatib told him that the kidnappers videos get broadcasted on all American and British TV stations. Brüno arranges an interview with the leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, a recognised terrorist organisation. He tells the terrorist, ‘I’m going to tell you something that is going to really insult you so you kidnap and shoot me in the head’ and proceeds to insult the terrorists hair, but Brüno is quickly and coldly asked to leave after calling his ‘King Osama’ a ‘dirty wizard’ and a ‘homeless Santa’.
Failing to get kidnapped, Brüno and Lutz return to America and collect parts of an elephant off the airport convenor belt, such as tusks and feet. Finally a box which is labelled as ‘fragile’, gets collected by Brüno. He says ‘Madonna has one, Angelia has one, and now, Brüno has one!’. He opens up the box to reveal a black baby to the stunned surprise of the other travellers.
Brüno decides to set up a photography shoot for his new baby, to do this, he needs other babies to accompany his in the photos. He interviews parents willing to have their children on T.V, Brüno asks extreme questions to test how little these parents actually care for the babies safety, among the questions are ‘Is your baby comfortable around dead or dying animals?’ to which the parent responds with ‘Yes’. He even asks one mother is her baby could loose 10 pounds in a week, she agrees and said she’ll consider using lipo-suction in order to make sure her baby is chosen by Bruno.
Lutz tells Brüno that he’s got him a place on an American talk show called Today with Richard Bey, Brüno is introduced by Richard. He gets the audience on his side at first by proclaiming that African-American’s are the best US citizens. However, the audience turn on him when he wishes to find the right man for him. They start to boo Brüno and tell him that he needs to sort himself out. Richard cuts in and asks Brüno about his new baby, he proclaims that he ‘swapped him for an iPod’ while in Africa. The audience continue to boo Brüno and then Richard asks if they can see the baby. The baby is wheeled in his pram by a member of the crew, to the shock the all-black audience as the baby is black and wearing a top saying Gayby, when asked what the baby’s name is, Brüno proclaims ‘I chose a traditional African name… O.J’, the crowd gasp, scream and shout at Brüno. An audience member asks Brüno if he see’s O.J as an accessory, he agrees and says ‘Yes, he’s a total dick magnet’.
Once again, Richard cuts in and asks to see the photos from the aforementioned shoot. The audience are shown a slide show of baby O.J covered in bee’s, nailed on a cross with baby Nazi’s poking him with spikes, in a hot tub with Brüno and two other guys and a variation of the latter picture, Brüno holding O.J while one of them men is licking the others anus. Richard introduces a worker for the child protection agency onto the stage, she straight away says that O.J is in America illegally and will be taken into custardy. The audience cheer and whoop, with Brüno being dragged out by security, screaming and shouting for O.J which attacking the security guards.
As a result of loosing O.J, Brüno develops severe depression. He is later found by Lutz at a diner eating massive amounts ice cream, he says he’s committing ‘Carbicide’, Lutz tries to talk Brüno out of it, saying that he has got so much to live for. Lutz ultimately carries Brüno home on his back.
The further downfall of Brüno.
The next day, it is revealed that Brüno and Lutz had sex. They are secured together with aid of an elaborate bondage mechanism, complete with a toilet brush in Lutz’s mouth. Brüno realises that they have lost the key to unlock the mechanism, and they call the hotel staff into the room. Of course, they refuse to help them after Brüno asks one of the staff to remove the T.V remote from his anus and they are ordered to leave. They decide to go to a mall to find a locksmith, on their way they pass an anti-gay protest. The protestors taking part were chanting ‘God hates fags’ while walking past the two. Still locked together, they accidentally push over and land on one of the protestors. En route they are arrested after travelling on a bus in the contraption. They are released from police custody – now unlocked – Lutz tells Brüno that he has never had so much fun in a day, he expresses his love, but Brüno doesn’t want to hear it and calls him an ‘average man’ who’s ‘out’, Lutz decides to leave Brüno by himself.
Now without money, no assistant and no hotel to stay in, Brüno pushes a trolley connected to five racks of clothes through the pouring rain. He trips and all his clothes become damaged, sitting in the middle of pavement, Brüno, after watching T.V, realises that all successful male celebrities are straight, citing people such as Tom Cruise, Kevin Spacey and John Travolta. As a result of this, Brüno decides that if he wants to become successful, then he must become straight.
Being converted… and not being killed.
Brüno travels alone to Alabama and visits a self proclaimed ‘Gay Convertor’ and man of God in order to become straight. The convertor tells Bruno what activities to do that would help him become straight, such as joining the national guard, going hunting, learning karate and going to a swingers party. The convertor also advices Brüno to stay away from the flute if it reminds him of performing oral sex on another male. At various points through his advice, Brüno asks the convertor if he himself has ever been gay, saying that he has ‘blowjob lips’ and after a long winded speech about Jesus, asks him if he was hitting on him. The latter question is met with the converters eyes twitching and fists clenching.
Taking the convertors advice, Brüno decides to join the national guard. Trying his best to wear ‘straight clothes’, he is met by a sergeant. The sergeant asks him to make his bed, to which Brüno asks him if he could help. As a result, he’s asked to do press ups and another sergeant joins them. After being shouted out, Brüno tells one the sergeants ‘But sir, she’s shouting at me!’, the other sergeant shouts at Brüno saying ‘Did you just call me a she?’, Brüno carries on being offensive saying ‘You should get a medal for lovely skin’, (to which the sergeant takes it as a racial slur as he’s black) and ‘You should be leader of the bitch prograde’ ending with calling them both ‘fuhrers’. Brüno is commanded to take a shower, which he does in his man-thong and blatantly looks sexually towards the other men.
After his stint at the national guard fails to make him straight, Brüno decides to go camping. He secures a trip with three other men. During the day, Brüno talks about having sex with women, shooting animals and acting straight as to not let onto the fact that he’s actually gay. However, when night time comes and they are all around a fire, Brüno leans back and comments on how beautiful the sky is, he then says ‘I wish men were as beautiful’, there is a 30 second silence as Brüno looks at the other men knowing that they were becoming aware that he is gay. He asks if they can all sleep in the same tent together, they decline. He then states that they are like the ‘Sex and the City girls’. At 2:23am, Brüno sneaks up to another one of the mans tent, undoes the zip and says ‘I’m pretty sure that Donny is a homosexual’, he tells him to ‘fuck off’ and go into his own tent. One hour later at 3:23am, Brüno goes to the same tent completely naked. Once again he undoes the zip and says, ‘A bear ate all my clothes, I only have this condom left’, once again, he tells Brüno to ‘fuck off’. The other men become aware that he’s gay and they attack the camera crew.
Brüno thinks that he is irresistible to ‘gay guys’ and attends a karate lesson in order to defend himself against a homosexual. The starts talking to the instructor, asking him how to spot a homosexual, who is oblivious to the fact that Brüno himself his gay. The instructor says they are generally nicer to new people but can be deceptive as they look the same as ‘you and I’ and that they would ‘attack from behind’. Brüno pulls out a dildo and asks, ‘how can you protect yourself from a dildo?’ the instructor shows him some moves to disable the dildo. Brüno then asks, ‘is it harder to protect yourself from a black dildo?’, the instructor says no. Brüno pulls out a bigger black dildo and the instructor again shows him how to disable the attacker. More dildo action comes as Brüno asks ‘how do you protect yourself from two dildos?’, the instructor teaches him a slightly more complicated move to do this. Finally, Brüno asks ‘how do you protect yourself if his penis is already out’, he puts in a strap-on dildo whilst holding the other two dildos. He ‘attacks’ the instructor from behind, who tells Brüno to kick the attacker in the penis and use the previous moves to disable the dildos.
Finally, Brüno engages his last attempt to become straight: he attends a swingers party. After meeting the two couples taking part, he asks one of them to come outside with him. It is there that Brüno admits he doesn’t know how to have sex with a woman and asks the man for advice. The man shows Brüno sex positions using him as the women. Again, they have no idea that Brüno is actually gay. After the advice, he watches two swingers engage in sex. He tells the man that he’s ‘doing a good job’ and starts to touch him. Brüno then goes into another room and again watches the other two swingers engage in sex. He gets the man to high five him while Brüno compliments him on his performance. However, the man gets annoyed when Brüno asks him to look at him during sex to aid his concentration. The man says ‘I’m not into any queer shit. This is a swingers party, right guys?’ and follows it up with ‘If you want to do any queer shit you can get the fuck out’. On his way out, Brüno is pulled into a bedroom by a women. She orders him to take of his clothes, but gets impatient and rips off his T-shirt instead. Brüno is visibly scared and tries to put of having sex by saying he needs to fold his clothes and that they should get to know each other first. The woman ignores this and whips Brüno with his belt and orders him to take his trousers off. He does so, but she whips him a lot more. She then orders him to take of his underwear, and he does, but only to reveal another set of underwear underneath. Brüno takes them off and is completely naked, she chases him around the room wiping him over and over again until he trips and falls out of the window. Brüno then runs away to his car saying ‘Brüno is going to be straight, you’ll see!’.
Straight Dave. Has Brüno changed?
We join Brüno 8 months later at a cage fight. He’s now grown a full beard and is wearing camouflage clothes, he’s now known as Straight Dave and is invited into the cage. Brüno gives a long winded speech about how good it is to be straight, declaring ‘My arse is just for shitting!’ as he rips of the clothes of the two women standing beside him. He begins to ask the crowd of 1,500 people if they want to see some cage fighting. They scream ‘Yes!’ and Brüno says ‘I’m straight!’, when the cheering stops, someone shouts ‘faggot’, Brüno declares whoever called him a faggot to come into the cage with him so he can beat him up.
That someone turns out to be Lutz, who is still distraught over what Brüno said months again. The two begin to fight, they punch each other in the face, kick each other until they are in the corner of the cage. They look into each others eyes while the crowd is getting confused. They begin to kiss erotically and the crowd start to boo and throw cups and glasses into the cage. Brüno and Lutz carry on kissing, they then proceed to undress and lick each other all over. One of the crowd throws a fold up metal chair into a cage which narrowly misses Brüno’s head. The camera’s cut to see the reactions of the crowd: they are booing, screaming, shouting, throwing things into a cage and some are even on the verge of crying. The scene ends with Brüno and Lutz still licking and kissing each other with the cage completely filled with rubbish.
Brüno has got just what he wanted, local and national news stations report on the cage fighting story and they are now both famous. Brüno and Lutz decide to get married, however, knowing the laws they try to make Lutz look like a women by dressing him up in a wedding dress. The vicar catches on and storms out saying that the can’t marry two men. However, this doesn’t matter now as they live together and have gotten O.J back, (however it did cost them a MacBook Pro this time). Brüno announces that he is recording a charity music video, using the same song that he used during the Israeli-Palestinian peace talk in Jerusalem. The closing credits show the the charity music video with cameo performances from Bono, Elton John, Snoop Dogg, Chris Martin, Sting and Slash.
My finale thoughts.
As I initially said, the steaks are certainly high for Brüno to be bigger and better than Borat. I personally, think it does succeed in this. The situations are better, the risk his higher, the rewards are greater, the humour is more offensive, the language is more explicit, the amount of real-life sex is boiling over the edge and the work that must of gone into getting everything sorted must have been incredible. You really do wonder how Sacha Baron Cohen wasn’t killed during his basically suicide stunts such as offending and being chased by the entire Jewish community in Jerusalem. There is one negative point I will pick up on, the camera angles used in Borat made it obvious that 99% of what wasn’t staged. What lacks in Brüno is just that. I have no doubt that it wasn’t staged, but it does however come across a little fake at times.
So, after that 3,600 word long review. This is what it boils down to: can a homophobic, racist, pornographic, sexist, anti-religion, holocaust praising, Hitler promoting, dildo heavy anal penetration filled-film can actually be funny? Yes, yes it can. I hope you have enjoyed by review of Brüno.
There are some pictures below that I couldn’t get into the article, you can browse through them below. Infact, the are all linked up so you can view them as a slideshow kind of thing by clicking next, cool uh?
Steven – Administrator.
Published on July 12th 2009 / Filed under Blessays, Films
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What usually happens when you want a replacement for a faulty good? You dig out month old receipts, make out the faded number and call up the hotline. You know that you will inevitably be waiting for ages just to end up speaking to different people who’s accents you can’t make out, speaking to people who don’t understand the issue and fob you off that you’re faulty good isn’t covered by your warranty. You hang up, resenting your product even more because you just know you could get a replacement if the company just cared about its customers. This however, is not how Apple rolls.
I recently had a run in with the Apple Store replacement service today; and it was impeccable. So much so I decided to blog about it. So, my iPod Touch, (16GB, second generation), had a light leak on the right hand side, this was subsequently letting in dust which hampered the viewing experience of the screen when dealing with films, TV shows, internet browsing, applications; well, you get the idea, it hampers everything that uses the screen. I decided to ask for a replacement as it was still within warranty, I fired up Firefox and headed over to the Milton Keynes Apple Store mini-site. I quickly booked an appointment within around three minutes. This was much, much better than what usually happens as described in the first paragraph.
The next day, I headed over to Milton Keynes a good half an hour before my appointment – not because you have to be, but because I wasn’t going to the Apple Store and not play around on all of the Apple gadgets, was I? Anyway, appointment time. A smiley employee makes sure you are seen to, after a little wait you’re called up to explain your problem to the ‘Genius’, (I’m not paying the workers a compliment, it’s what they’re called). I was still waiting to be fobbed off with an excuse because I’m pessimistic about these things, but no: without any hesitation, quibbling, questions or hassle, the Genius simply examined then took away my defected iPod Touch, handed me a packaged up new one, and asked me to sign a release. And that was that.
I left the store feeling like Apple cared, that they understand that the customer wants the best from their product and that it shouldn’t be any other way. Thank you Apple, thank you for being human.
Steven – Administrator.
Published on July 11th 2009 / Filed under Apple
