Oh, Sasha, what have you done?You can make a pretty good case that Sasha Baron Cohen is essentially a one trick pony and that his Bruno is essentially just Borat with a gay makeover. This is true. He is. And you can make the point that all Cohen has proven able to do in his features so far is make fun of America. And this is also true but, hell, there are a lot of things worth making fun of when it comes to our southerly neighbors.  And, hell, you can also make the point that with his humor based in large point on shock value eventually Cohen's well is going to have to run dry, things will stop being shocking and therefore stop being funny. And this is also true, but it hasn't happened yet.

Word began circulating last week that Cohen's Bruno, his sophomore feature, this one based on his gay fashion reporter character, had gone before the MPAA. The MPAA felt so strongly about Cohen's latest creation that they slapped it with an NC-17 rating. Sasha, what have you wrought? Eyebrows were raised when Borat landed an R rating, a pretty significant accomplishment for the moc-doc comedy. Brows raised even higher when the naked wrestling sequence that earned the rating was seared on to our retinas. This begs the question, of course, of just what has Cohen done to earn this even harsher rating? How much farther is there to go? The answer is apparently graphic gay sex and while I'm sure there will be a bit of nipping and tucking and massaging until Bruno manages to slip just inside the R line, but anyone afraid that Cohen would simply rest on past accomplishments obviously has no reason to fear. He's still out there and still pushing the line.

But is it funny? Oh, hell yes. The trailer is painfully funny and not just in the extreme moments. OJ Simpson? Dildo defense? Velcro suit? Oh, lord ... and this is just the stuff that can be shown in public. Bring it.