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Jimmy Kimmel, in perhaps a coming out party for Mel Gibson, pulled a hilarious stunt on his after-Oscar show.

Gibson, who has largely avoided the spotlight since a 2006 drunken anti-Semitic tirade, appeared on Jimmy Kimmel live and showed an “exclusive clip” from what he and Kimmel played up as his latest top-secret film project about a Civil War officer who loses everything.

That actually got us on IMDB for a second.

Instead, the video shows Gibson coming into his bedroom to see his dying wife surrounded by chickens. She’s clutching “the original recipe.” In a fit of vengeance, he vows that “Kentucky shall fry.” Then we see Gibson with shiny black shoes, a white suit and a black southern tie — Colonel Sanders.

Kimmel also did this hilarious promo with Tom Cruise.

You should also remember last year’s after-Oscar hilarity with a cast of Hollywood A-list stars including Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford singing “I’m fucking Ben Affleck.”

“Valkyrie” could be the continuation of Tom Cruise’s comeback that began in his hysterical supporting role as a chubby, balding film exec in “Tropic Thunder.”

Its plot, about the last known assassination attempt on Adolph Hitler during World War II, is a plot that doesn’t seem like it can support its own weight until it does.

The tumultuous journey of rotating release dates and studios backing the film left many wondering if “Valkyrie” would ever reach the public eye. But, finally, it has, and it turns out it was a strong movie after all.

“Valkyrie” is an action thriller that holds its suspense throughout the entirety of the film, even though every viewer is armed with the clandestine knowledge that Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg’s (Cruise) attempt to kill Hitler is unsuccessful. It’s hard not to hold your breath tightly locked inside your chest as the movie reaches its climax and wish that, for once, history was wrong about how things ended.

One of the most interesting aspects of the film was how director Bryan Singer handled incorporating the character of Adolph Hitler into the film. Other than in “Indiana Jones and the last Crusade” and “Little Nicky,” Hitler is a physical presence not often scene in modern films. What Singer started to do, and which would have been so much more effective had he been able to continue it through the entirety of the movie, was only film David Bamber, who plays Hitler with chilling accuracy in the film, from behind. This allowed Singer to show the horror and awe that the Nazis felt before their Fuhrer without giving a face in the movie to a face that will be printed in history text books well into the future. However, Singer didn’t, and Hitler became a fictional character instead of a permeating historical memory.

The biggest flaw with the film was the dialogue. Though all the characters are supposed to be speaking in German, they speak English throughout the entirety of the film. This is supposed to be solved neatly at the beginning of the film when the title, “Valkyrie,” and opening text is shown in German and then shifts to be in English. Even Cruise opens out the film speaking in German and then dubbing over himself in English, until he finally he is only speaking in English. It’s a great idea, but instead of having just one English accent, Cruise speaks in a blunt American accent, Bill Nighy and Kenneth Branaugh talk with a British twang, and Hitler and his lackey’s all talk with hints of German in their voice. Minor details, but the dialect messed with the continuity of the film and became down right annoying and distracting.

Cruise, however, was enthralling as von Stauffenberg, a German who, from the beginning, is against everything Hitler stands for. Stauffenberg shows himself to be an intriguing historical figure that is rarely touched upon in World War II history and one that very nearly could have ended that war and seized control of Germany in the aftermath of Hitler’s assassination.

It is in the , directed by Newton Thomas Sigel, that “Valkyrie” really shines. The usage of grey, black and white hues make the film look very drastic and bleak, but the incorporation of red into the film, like in the Nazi flags, makes the film very intriguing to watch visually. The cinematography is stunning, especially during a show of the siege of Berlin when Stauffenberg’s soldiers march into a government building through a courtyard filled with Nazi flags.

A lot of effort went in to making “Valkyrie” a near-flawless film, and the effort shows. From its acting to visuals to historic significance, “Valkyrie” is engaging on all ends. Though it may not be the most heart-warming movie to be released Christmas day, it is the perfect movie for Oscar season.

Hot grandma

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes celebrated their two year anniversary on November 18. Scientists marked the occasion by continuing to ponder life’s great mystery: Why does she look so freakin’ old?

Ben Stiller might not act in the greatest movies, but he sure knows how to write and direct them. With ‘Tropic Thunder’, Stiller creates an explosive new comedy that’s sure to blow anyone’s socks off.

‘Thunder’ starts off right from what its trailer sets up: director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) wants to create the greatest war movie of all time, but his lead actors in his film-based-on-a-book-based-on-a-true-story (but is it?) don’t have the emotional scope needed to understand the complexities behind the Vietnam War.

After some difficult struggles with his prima donna actors: Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.), Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black) and Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), Cockburn is convinced by the author of the book Four Leaf Tayback (Nick Nolte) to drop the actors in the middle of Vietnam and shoot the movie ‘guerilla-style’. Both the film and the book in the movie are named ‘Tropic Thunder’, which is where the title of the actual film comes from.

It takes about 20 minutes for Lazarus, Portnoy, Speedman, Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson) and Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel) to be stranded in the middle of nowhere in Vietnam, thinking that they are filming a movie that had suddenly become very real. The movie just becomes funnier as it goes along, with the actors never being quite sure whether or not they are actually in a movie or not.

Also, as a slightly-spoilerish warning, the ad you will see for “Booty Sweat” is not the cinema going insane, but rather marks the completely inventive and perfectly hysterical introduction to “Tropic Thunder”. You have been warned.

While not as outlandish as ‘Zoolander’ was, ‘Tropic Thunder’ is set outside our reality in a way that everyone can understand. Ben Stiller has said in previous interviews that he wrote ‘Thunder’ as a parody of the movie business and, even if no one in the audience understood it, it would still be hysterical to him. Well Ben, we get it, and it’s still pretty funny.

Unexpected were the many cameos, both big and small, made by some of Hollywood’s biggest actors. Matthew McConaughey has a surprisingly big role as Speedman’s agent, and Tom Cruise definitely deserves all the buzz he’s been getting as the big-time film executive behind ‘Tropic Thunder’. Danny McBride was hysterical as the pyromaniac effects guy Cody. Also keep an eye out for Bill Hader, Tyra Banks, Maria Menunos, Jason Bateman, Lance Bass, Alicia Silverstone, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jon Voight, Christine Taylor and an I-can’t-believe-he-did-that Tobey Maguire (don’t be late or you’ll miss that one). Oh yeah, Stiller got them all.

Sure it may not be the most outright intelligent film to make a mockery of Hollywood, but there is plenty of insider humor that can be relished by all. The scene where Lazarus explains to Speedman why he didn’t get an Oscar for his role as the mentally retarded boy Jack in his film ‘Simple Jack’ because he went “full retard” was one of the funniest scenes in the film.

Downey was hysterical as Lazarus who becomes so immersed in his role that he changed his skin color in order to become more in character. Black was very two dimensional and not funny as Portnoy, the heroine-addicted fat guy. And Stiller was, well, Stiller.

The most break-out role in the film was hands-down Jay Baruchel, who many will recognize from “Knocked Up” and “Million Dollar Baby” but who has not landed a leading role since Judd Aptow’s lesser known but just as short-lived TV series, “Undeclared”. Baruchel’s character Kevin Sandusky is very similar to Baruchel in real life: he is an actor who has gotten his first big role and is playing everything by the book, like going to the boot camp training that had been assigned and learning how to read a map, while his fellow actors just brushed everything off. As the only one with a lick of common sense, Baruchel has some definite potential and it seems like we can expect big things from him in the future.

‘Tropic Thunder’ so far has been the best comedy of 2008, and it very much deserves that title. While the movie will keep audiences laughing well into the credits, it brings about two important questions: Why hasn’t Ben Stiller written and directed more movies, and will this be Tom Cruise’s big comeback (in more than one way)?

The not-so-viral stunt that made going to see “Tropic Thunder” a must. This clip is property of MTV Networks, no copyright infringement intended.

Oh yeah, Carl makes a cameo too. See if you can spot him!