Every single day of the week, a new Graboid appears on this site for you to guess the name of the film, share with your officemates, or discuss on our message boards. Sometimes the graboid will be very easy (like today’s) and sometimes it’ll be as obscure as obscure gets (from relatively mainstream films). So read the news, read the daily RON, and now enjoy a screencap each and every day for your guessing pleasure. I have the first 75 of these done already, so no requests please.

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STUDIO: Miramax
MSRP: $29.99
RATED: PG
RUNNING TIME: 88 min.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
• French Audio Track
• English Subtitles

Cheek Vision is not for everyone. If you experience discomfort or melting face, consult a doctor.

The Package

"The kid is not my son!"

The Lowdown

"I hear and obey."

The saving grace is Ron Silver. Over-the-top or no, he’s great fun to watch– he was probably happy not to be playing yet another lawyer or psychiatrist. His Bobby Riggs is a publicity addict, a shameless hustler, but always a flicker of desperation away from admitting that tennis is the only thing he ever did well in his life. He has a beautiful moment early on: having found himself required to explain to a young Jimmy Connors how his career was derailed by a little thing called World War II, he mutters, “He didn’t know there was a war? It was a big war…”

“You had to be there.”

We’ve all said it. We’ve all heard it – when something is so funny, but cannot be adequately expressed to someone else. The real phrase shouldn’t be “You had to be there,” it should be “I can’t tell it.”

That, at the core, is what The Aristocrats is all about. On the surface it’s a movie about the dirtiest joke in the world (and it is abhorrent and repellant and hilarious) being told by about a hundred different comedians, but what makes the joke really special isn’t the punchline – which is weak – but the teller. "The Aristocrats" is a joke that’s unique because it changes completely with each person telling it.

The set up of the joke is simple: A guy walks into a talent agent’s office and says that he has a fantastic act with his family. The agent asks what they do. The man proceeds to reel off a list of the most disgusting perversions possible. The agent asks what they call themselves. “The Aristocrats!” is the answer.

It’s the middle part where the magic lies, and each of the hundred or so comedians in the film brings their own twisted take to that part. It’s a freeform joke, and the movie goes out of its way to explain to us that it’s like jazz, and that the beauty of the joke is that it’s all about the singer, not the song.

That’s obviously also the key to all comedy. It isn’t until you sit and watch this sheer number of comics delivering the joke that you begin to really understand how it isn’t what’s being said but how it’s being said that makes the thing so damn funny.

And it’s funny. This is a funny movie. I’m going to go so far as to say this is one of the funniest movies. Ever. I walked out of The Aristocrats hurting – my lungs wheezed from all the laughing I had done. My throat burned. My brain ached from the sheer tirade of filth that had been unleashed upon me.

It’s important to note that while everyone in the film remains clothed (especially Phyllis Diller, thank God, who claims to have fainted the first time she heard the joke), and while there is no violence, the film itself is stuffed to the gills with bestiality, incest, scat, murder, necrophilia, child abuse, 9/11 jokes, racial humor and more things that are sure to upset both right wing and left wing zealots. It’s not a film for people who don’t see the inherent humor of fucking an infant.

One of the joys of the film is seeing comedians who fell off the map at some point after the comedy boom. Jake Johanssen shows up, as does Emo Phillips. You may be astonished to see The Amazing Johnathan. Merrill Markoe may bring back memories, and Paul Krassner’s grizzled features may bring back dinner. Howie Mandell will reinforce why he’s not famous anymore.

There are some astonishing highlights as well – Gilbert Gottfried, who told the joke at the Friar’s Club Roast for Hugh Hefner weeks after 9/11 after a plane crashing into the Empire State Building joke fell flat, has been getting the most press. His bit is great, although I do think the most notable part of it is the puzzled look on Hef’s face.

But while Gottfried is good, Bob Saget is magic. Yes, that Bob Saget. Before getting into family TV shows, Saget was renowned as one of the filthiest comics on Earth, and here he gets a chance to really let loose with stuff that horrifies even himself. It’s a tour de force bit, watching a man who seems to have controlled Tourrette’s launch into a tirade of depravity as he can’t stop from cracking himself up. Actually, the finest moment in the film may well be Billy the Mime doing the joke. Surreal and amazing.

I knew the film would be funny. I had gotten past the fact that the premise looks bad on paper, I had come to the conclusion that it would work on film. I just didn’t expect a film as deep as this one, a film that carefully considers the meaning of comedy and its inner workings, all without taking a break from constant laughter. Director Paul Provenza (he worked with burly comedian Penn Jillette, whose voice can often be heard off camera) has assembled hundreds of hours of video into a movie that flows like a great performance should, peaking and ebbing at just the right moments to keep you hooked but not exhaust you.

It’s not often that I get a chance to say this and mean it, but The Aristocrats is a brilliant film.

9.4 out of 10

I was in Los Angeles when the New York press day for Don Roos’ nice new film Happy Endings took place, so I missed it when one of the reporters asked Maggie Gyllenhaal about her comments on 9/11 – which prompted Maggie’s publicist to whisk her the fuck out of the room.

Gyllenhaal, who lives on New York’s Lower East Side (which is relatively near the World Trade Center site), made some comments when being asked about her film The Great New Wonderful, which is set against the backdrop of the immediate days after 9/11 – which any New Yorker can tell you were some of the scariest, weirdest and most stressful days in history. And which of course means they’re great dramatic fodder. At any rate, this is what Gyllenhaal said to local news channel New York 1:

"I think what’s good about the movie is that it deals with 9/11 in such a subtle, open way that I think it allows it to be more complicated than just, ‘Oh, look at these poor New Yorkers and how hard it was for them.. Because I think America has done reprehensible things and is responsible in some way and so I think the delicacy with which it’s dealt allows that to sort of creep in."

So what got people all pissed off was the idea that maybe America didn’t get totally suckerpunched, and that maybe 9/11 was another horrible moment in a long continuum of violence and hate. I know, I know, that kind of talk is crazy talk! Fuck causality, I heard it hates America!

So where am I getting with this long ass intro? It seems that while Maggie’s publicist doesn’t want people asking her 9/11 questions, the actress herself is trying to force the issue. She’s signed on to star in the new 9/11 film from Oliver Stone*.

Gyllenhaal will star alongside Mario Bello as wives of two Transit Authority police officers who were trapped in the collapse of the World Trade Center and who were miraculously rescued. Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena have been cast as the cops. The movie is expected to start shooting in the fall, here in lovely New York City.

So will she do any press for this thing? I mean, the first question out of everyone’s mouth is going to be about her 9/11 statements. What’s annoying is that everyone will ask that question no matter how many times she has answered it. Like she’s going to give a different answer to you.

*It should be noted that I have been watching the director’s cut of Alexander for review on this very website, and Stone’s commentary reveals a man who has been defeated. The new cut has been crafted not to make the film better but to answer criticisms, a terrible idea for any artist. What will this new, crushed Stone bring to this 9/11 movie? I was hoping he would be able to elevate it above schmaltz, but after listening to that commentary, I have my doubts.

Clint Eastwood is putting together a fighting force for his WWII film, Flags of Our Fathers, and the latest dogface to sign up is the human slab of void, Paul Walker. Walker, one of the single worst and least interesting actors of his species, will play Hank Hansen, one of the guys who raised the flag on Iwo Jima.

The film is based on the book of the same title by James Bradley and Ron Powers, and it tells the story of the battle for Iwo Jima from Bradley’s point of view – he didn’t realize until years later that his dad was one of the flag raisers, and a bona fide hero.

Ryan Phillipe, who shocked America by not being the worst thing in Crash, also stars, along with Jesse Bradford and Adam Beach. Paul Haggis, the offending party behind Crash, which is tied with Batman Begins as the movie that most thoroughly annoyed me, has written the script for Flags of Our Fathers.

Meanwhile, production has begun in LA on the gay porn version of the film, which has the same title – minus one "L."

Howdy folks.

1 M MOSS LEFT IN STOCK
2 S MOSS LEFT IN STOCK

You have to admit, workaholic Nic Cage doesn’t do the same thing twice.  He’s got Gore Verbinski’s family drama The Weather Man on the way, he’s playing flame-faced comic character Ghost Rider, but first he’s dealing arms in Lord of War.

The flick features Cage as a Machiavellian gunrunner in post-Cold War Europe who finds himself constantly dodging a tenacious Interpol agent and dealing with the consequences of his lifestyle. His wife is played by the delicious Bridget Moynahan, and they’re joined by a pretty swell cast that includes Jared Leto, Ethan Hawke, Eamonn Walker and Ian Holm.

The trailer’s sorta giving me a vibe somewhere between Blow and Deal of the Century, which could provide some peculiar fun if the tone doesn’t end up smashed all over the place.  The movie comes from writer/director Andrew Niccol, who nearly nullified the achievement of Gattaca with the disastrous S1m0ne.

CHECK OUT THE TRAILER HERE!

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Remember when milky-skinned siren Nicole Kidman made a few interesting film choices before latching onto high-concept projects and remakes?

Those were the days… back before she decided to join the latest update of the classic sci-fi suspense tale Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which she basically sort of already remade (rather poorly) with last year’s disastrous redo of The Stepford Wives. 

For those who haven’t seen the classic paranoia tale from the 1950s, or the outstandingly creepy 70s version with Donald Sutherland, or even the perfectly serviceable 1993 version by Abel Ferrara, the story (based on an old Jack Finney novel) revolves around a community whose citizens are being replaced one-by-one with personality-free alien duplicates known as “pod people”.  Oliver Hirschbiegel (Das Experiment) directs the latest variation, simply titled Invasion, from a script by Dave Kajganich.

On the plus side, Kidman will offset this dubious decision by appearing in The Lady From Russia, the upcoming film from Wong Kar-Wai (In the Mood For Love).

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