Can it be? Two good movies open in one weekend!

Filmmaker Arnaud Despleshin made one of my favorite films (and best named films) of the nineties, "My Sex Life (Or How I Got Into an Argument)." The movie followed a group of friends in their late twenties/early thirties who hadn't really settled into life yet. It included an impossibly hilarious scene about a professor, a radiator and a monkey.

His latest movie, "Kings and Queen" is at the Oak Street this week. It's essentially about a similar talky, upper middle class group of French folks. This one centers around the lovely Nora and her boyish former boyfriend, Ismael. Nora has moved onto a life of privelege (she's about to get hitched to a very rich man) while sometimes taking time out to care for her dying father. Ismael has moved into a mental ward and his musical career has stalled out.

The first two-thirds of the movie meander in an entertaining manner and it seems to be commentary on contemporary Parisian life. It's a blend of comedy, melodrama and long speeches about different French people's life philosophy. Catherine Deneuve shows up to make all women feel insecure about their looks. Actor Hippolyte Girardot does a comic scene almost as funny as the aforementioned monkey-radiator scene. Then Despleshin takes the movie off the rails in a biting, hard-to-take plot turn. You have to rethink the entire movie that you've been watching. It's a great movie. Go see it.

I planned on seeing "The Aristocrats" last night, but I am my neighborhood menace. We own a house with an apple tree that has dropped hundreds of small, rotting apples. Wasps, flies and other small flying creatures now hover above my property. So, last night, instead of seeing an obscene film, I shoveled festering apples off my driveway and sidewalk.

Luckily, Euan Kerr has seen the film. Here's what he had to say:

"The Aristocrats" is a really sick film. Sick, sick, sick. And yet I find myself telling several of my pals that they will probably find it interesting. The film is about a joke which many comedians seem to know, but don't tell in public. This is a joke they tell only at comedian parties. (Now, there's a slightly scary image.) It's not a particularly funny joke, but that's not the point. The idea is to be as inventively and horribly crude as possible in describing a bizarre stage act being pitched to a theatrical agent. It's not a question of whether to 'go blue' as some comics put it. These guys go blue, and then enter a whole other rainbow of horrific colors.

The film, made by magician-provocateur Penn Jillette and comedian Paul Provenza, features literally dozens of the U.S.'s top comics, from George Carlin and Jon Stewart, to Howie Mandel and Phyllis Diller. Many tell their version of the joke. They explain its origins, speculate as to it's meaning and implications. Most of the film is obscene (although as the film makers point out, there is no nudity.) Parts are truly, disturbingly, funny. I laughed out loud several times and immediately felt guilty. Others parts are just disturbing. It's no secret that most jokes involve someone getting hurt in someway. Humans also have an amazing capability to laugh in the face of horror. "The Aristocrats" will disgust many people. I know it will stick with anyone who sees it. I know personally I understand the dark side of humor in a whole new way.

Addendum: New adventures in movie going. Last night I went to see 'Broken Flowers' with Bill Murray. It's well worth seeing. Anyway, I was sitting next to a family (father, mother, adult daughter,) who had only talked a little during the film. Then, near the end, as Bill Murray launched the philosophical denouement scene, 'Mom' (sitting next to me) reaches into her bag, pulls out an Emery board, and goes to work on a fingernail. Suddenly the carefully constructed meaningful pauses in the dialog are filled with sounds reminiscent of a carpenters workshop. I am just about to say something when the daughter leans across and hisses 'Mom! Stop that.' The filing ceases immediately, and my attention reverts to the screen. But moments later, the sound of sandpaper on nail resumes. 'MOM!' A hand snakes out of the darkness and grabs at the file. Mom reaches out to take it back, when Daughters hand lashes out again and slaps her fingers. Silence resumes. Who says going to the movies isn't dramatic nowadays?

Sadly, television seems to have turned the average theater into a giant living room, where anything goes. I once asked a neighbor to stop talking, only to be invited to step outside for a physical resolution of his right of free speech versus my right to enjoy the film. There used to be sufficient civil consciousness to prevent such contretemps, but violence and abuse now seems to be the norm, encouraged not least by the movies themselves.