Mel Gibson

Started by MacGuffin, December 07, 2005, 01:58:47 PM

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MacGuffin

Swayze joins Jodie Foster in defending Gibson

Patrick Swayze became the latest actor to defend Mel Gibson, saying on Monday his friend was not anti-Semitic and that too much had been made of his controversial outburst blaming Jews for starting all wars.

Gibson's widely reported remarks, made to a sheriff's deputy when drunk last month on the Californian Coast, have divided Hollywood, with several film executives criticizing the star and one actor vowing he would never work with him.

But in an interview on British television, Swayze joined actress Jodie Foster in urging people to be more understanding.

"I feel really bad for Mel," Swayze told GMTV. "He's a good guy, we have been in each other's lives for a long time.

"He is not anti-Semitic. People say stupid things when they happen to have a few (drinks), and especially if you don't drink anymore, or have limited your drinking for a long time.

"Everybody else gets to be allowed to have a stupid moment and nobody knows about it or cares the next day," he said. "So it makes it difficult when your life is under the microscope."

Foster has also came out in Gibson's defense.

"Someone told me what had happened, and I said, 'That is just so not true'," she was quoted as saying in the Los Angeles Times on Friday.

"Is he an anti-Semite? Absolutely not," Foster said. "But it's no secret that he has always fought a terrible battle with alcoholism. I just wish I had been there, that I had been able to say, 'Don't do it. Don't take that drink'."

Asked if he thought Gibson's career had effectively been ended by his remarks, Swayze said: "No way, are you kidding me? A man that talented? You don't put somebody down like that, you can try -- they've tried in my world."

Gibson, who holds strong conservative Catholic religious and political views and whose father is a Holocaust denier, has apologized for the outburst and entered a rehabilitation program to treat alcoholism.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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MacGuffin

Mel Gibson Pleads No Contest in DUI Case

Mel Gibson pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor drunken-driving charge Thursday and was sentenced to three years' probation, the district attorney's office said.

Gibson did not appear but entered the plea through his attorney before Superior Court Judge Lawrence Mira, Deputy District Attorney Gina Satriano said in a statement.

Two counts in the original three-count complaint were dismissed, and Gibson volunteered to do public-service announcements on the hazards of drinking and driving, and to immediately enter rehabilitation, Satriano said. 

The arraignment was originally scheduled for Sept. 28 but was moved up at the request of Gibson's attorney.

Gibson was stopped around 2:30 a.m. on July 28 while driving on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu and made anti-Semitic remarks to the arresting deputy, plunging Gibson into a scandal that forced him to later apologize for what he called "belligerent behavior" and "despicable" remarks.

Gibson was charged with misdemeanor driving under the influence of alcohol, driving while having a 0.08 percent or higher blood-alcohol level, and the infraction of possessing an open container of alcohol while driving.

The first and third counts were dismissed in the deal.

"This was an appropriate outcome which addresses all the public safety concerns of drinking and driving," Satriano said.

The judge ordered Gibson to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings five times a week for 4 1/2 months and three AA meetings per week for another 7 1/2 months.

The district attorney's office also said he was ordered to enroll in an alcohol-abuse program for three months, fined a total of $1,300 and had his license restricted for 90 days.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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matt35mm

Quote from: MacGuffin on August 17, 2006, 03:08:37 PM
The judge ordered Gibson to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings...
That's a pretty fucking ridiculous idea.  Shouldn't he be attending Alcoholics We All Know Exactly Who You Are?

GIBSON:  Hi.  I'm Mel, and I'm an alcoholic.

SOME GUY'S THOUGHTS: Hey, that's Mel Gibson!

GIBSON: I feel like I can trust you guys with all the demons that I need to purge in order to successfully deal with my problem.

SOME GUY THOUGHTS: What's the tabloid magazine's phone number?

MacGuffin

Gibson takes redemption tour to 'GMA'

Mel Gibson's redemption tour is heading to TV. The embattled 50-year-old actor-director, whose high-profile drunken-driving arrest and subsequent anti-Semitic tirade made international headlines over the summer, is set to appear on "Good Morning America" next week.

This follows other efforts by Gibson to mend his personal and professional life, including participating in a recovery program, attending court-ordered alcohol-rehabilitation classes and meeting privately with Jewish leaders to understand the source of his "vicious words," as he described them.

These steps will be followed by the Dec. 8 Disney release of Gibson's new film, "Apocalypto."

Gibson spoke with Diane Sawyer somewhere in Southern California recently for a two-part TV interview scheduled to air on Disney-owned ABC's "Good Morning America" on Oct. 12 and 13. This is the first time he has talked to the media since his arrest.

The interview "will be a segment in the show," said ABC news spokeswoman Bridgette Maney. "It's not going to be the entire `Good Morning America'."

As for what to expect during the discussion, Gibson's publicist, Alan Nierob, would only say, "We'll have to wait and see."

Gibson has made few public appearances since his July 28 arrest in Malibu, when he told the arresting officer: "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world," and asked him, "Are you a Jew?" He also made sexist comments to a female deputy. Gibson later apologized for what he called "vitriolic and harmful words."

Media outlets have clamored for access to the "Lethal Weapon" actor since his arrest. Maney would not address the significance to the show of the interview or how it was secured. Sawyer interviewed Gibson in 2004 about his controversial movie "The Passion of the Christ."

Gibson quietly stepped back into the public eye late last month. He attended two screenings of his new movie in Oklahoma on Sept. 21 and 22. He arrived at the first wearing a mask and wig. He did not speak to reporters.

The actor-director also appeared at a film festival in Austin, Texas, on Sept. 22 where he showed footage from "Apocalypto." He answered questions from fans, who did not ask about his arrest or recovery.

Disney spokesman Dennis Rice would not offer specifics about Gibson's or the studio's plans to market the movie, which chronicles the decline of the Mayan civilization. The subtitled film features a cast of unknown stars speaking in an ancient Mayan language.

"We look at each movie on its own merits and devise a plan from the ground up," he said. "Hopefully it is the best plan that will maximize the opportunity of each picture, and `Apocalypto' is no different."

Some have criticized Gibson, who issued two apologies for his conduct following his arrest, for not doing more outreach toward the Jewish community — especially in light of his recent promotional appearances.

"You would think that he would also find time to say that he wants to address his terrible statements," Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, told The Associated Press this week. "His remarks were so anti-Semitic and so hurtful to Jews. You can't make amends for that by talking on the phone to 12 Jews you know from Hollywood."

Nierob said Gibson has met privately with several Jewish leaders, who have been "welcoming and supportive."

Veteran Hollywood publicist David Brokaw said that if Gibson is "really convincing and engaging" during the Sawyer interview, "he could turn it around."

"Mel Gibson, in some form or another, will always be a big star," Brokaw said. "The question is how prophylactic he can or should be about what's happened."

Gibson pleaded no contest to charges of drunken driving on Aug. 17 under a deal in which he'll serve three years' probation, pay a fine and attend alcohol rehabilitation classes. He also volunteered to make a public-service announcement about the hazards of drinking and driving.

He is scheduled to appear in court Jan. 17 for a progress report.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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MacGuffin

Fresh off 'Apocalypto,' Mel Gibson considers shooting movie in Panama

PANAMA CITY, Panama (AP): Mel Gibson, fresh off his Mexico-based epic "Apocalypto," is thinking of heading south to film a movie in Panama, tourism officials said Monday.

Gibson, accompanied on his visit by his 24-year-old son, Edward, dined Sunday night with tourism spokesman and singer Ruben Blades, who suggested he do a remake of the 1950 film noir "Panic in the Streets," in Panama, the Panama Tourism Bureau said in a news release.

Panamanian filmmaker Jose Severino was quoted in Monday editions of the daily newspaper La Prensa as saying that he was in negotiations with Gibson to produce a movie about Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa, the first European to see the Pacific Ocean from its eastern shore.

The tourism bureau said Gibson and Blades spoke of the actor-director's experience directing "Apocalypto," an epic movie about the demise of the Mayan civilization, in the jungles of the Gulf coast state of Veracruz. The movie was released last year.

Members of the crew "became ill from the heat, insects and tropical snakes," the tourism bureau's news release said.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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MacGuffin

Polish priest wants Mel
Source: The Age

Controversial Polish cleric Father Henryk Jankowski, the former top chaplain of the anti-communist Solidarity trade union, said today he wants Hollywood star Mel Gibson to film his life story.

In an interview published in the right-wing daily Dziennik, 70-year-old Jankowski said Gibson was well-placed to direct his biopic.

Gibson is "a great man and an honest Catholic," Jankowski said.

"He's also a distinguished artist. His (film) Passion was a real masterpiece. We have never met face to face, but the opportunity is coming up," Jankowski added, noting that he planned a meeting with Gibson in September.

The Henryk Jankowski Institute, founded and run by the cleric's colleagues, plans to launch a range of Jankowski T-shirts, cigarette-lighters and other gadgets to help finance a potential film.

Jankowski, who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the opposition Solidarity movement in the 1980s, has regularly sparked controversy over the past two decades with his violently anti-communist rhetoric and what critics charge are anti-Semitic remarks.

He is also known as a lover of luxury, and for his commercial interests.

Jankowski markets a brand of wine called Monsignore - he is pictured on its label - and is planning to open a chain of bars across Poland.

His views and lifestyle led the archbishop of Gdansk, the northern port which is Jankowski's stamping ground, to fire him in 2004 from his longstanding position as rector of the city's renowned St Brigid's parish.

Gibson, a fundamentalist Catholic, has himself courted controversy.

He stirred heated debate in the United States and abroad because of the alleged anti-Semitism and excessive violence of his 2004 blockbuster, The Passion of the Christ.

His reputation was left in tatters last year following an anti-Semitic tirade launched at a Jewish police policeman when he was arrested for drink driving in Los Angeles.

Gibson later apologised for the outburst.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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MacGuffin

MEL MOVES TO JUNGLE TO TAME WILD LIFE 
Source: The Daily Express

HOLLYWOOD hell-raiser Mel Gibson is about to put his hard-drinking days behind him and head for a quiet life in a tropical paradise.

A year after a drunken outburst almost put an end to his glittering career, the film actor and director will be seeking solitude on a remote ranch in Central America.

The star has sold two of his houses in the United States in what is thought to be preparation for a move to Costa Rica, where he recently bought a £12million 400-acre ranch.

"Mel loves the country and the people and feels he can live there out of the spotlight and away from trouble," a source said. "He's planning to live there for much of the year."

The ranch is well away from temptation, located more than 300 miles from Costa Rica's capital, San Jose.

The country's president, Oscar Arias, has already welcomed Gibson personally. They met in July to discuss a donation the star is offering to help native groups.

Gibson is planning to return later this month to make the final arrangements.

He has visited Costa Rica several times in recent years and last month was pictured enjoying himself in a bar in the town of Nicoya. The visit came while he was scouting locations for his next film, an epic about the Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez De Balboa.

Gibson's move will endear him to a nation that is big on conservation. Costa Rica is  famed for the richness and variety of its rainforest and wildlife and is home to five per cent of the world's flora and fauna.
     
The Central American jungle was the setting for Gibson's Oscar-nominated film Apocalypto, which was released shortly after his infamous run-in with police in Los Angeles last summer.

Gibson, who achieved Hollywood stardom playing a detective in the Lethal Weapon series, is still serving probation following his arrest for drink-driving, during which he unleashed an anti-Semitic tirade and verbally abused a policewoman.

Although the incident – which also saw him ordered to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings for a year – has not damaged his reputation as a film-maker, he appears to be distancing himself from the movie capital.

The Braveheart star has sold his home in Malibu, which he bought in 2005, for £15million – pocketing a £3million profit in the process.  The six-bedroom house boasts a swimming pool, library, gym and wine cellar and sits on 155ft of Pacific beachfront.

The sale comes just a few months after Gibson sold his 28-room Tudor-style mansion in Connecticut for £20 million.
The move is a further sign that the star is losing interest in keeping up his status as an A-list leading man and is beginning to turn his back on Hollywood.

It is five years since his last appearance as a leading actor in Signs, and he has no projects lined up for the immediate future. The success of The Passion of the Christ, which grossed more than £300million, means Gibson no longer has to rely on Hollywood's big pay cheques, enabling him to focus on his true love, directing.

He financed Apocalypto, an epic about the Mayan civilisation and his last film as director, entirely from his own pocket.

Gibson, who has seven children with his wife of 27 years, Robyn Moore, still owns a California mansion and a ranch in Australia. He also owns Mago, a private island near Fiji, which he bought in 2004 from Japan's Tokyu Corporation for £9million.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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MacGuffin

Mel Gibson returns for 'Darkness'
Actor back onscreen with 'Edge'
Source: Variety

Mel Gibson has committed to star in "Edge of Darkness," marking his first starring role in a feature film since he headlined "Signs" and "We Were Soldiers" in 2002.

Martin Campbell will direct the feature adaptation of the six-hour 1985 BBC miniseries, which Campbell also helmed.

William Monahan wrote the script, and Graham King is producing through his GK Films banner. Michael Wearing, who produced the original, will also produce, and the BBC will be involved in a producing capacity.

Campbell, who last directed "Casino Royale," developed the project and brought it to King a year ago. He enlisted Monahan for a page one rewrite; the scribe worked with King on "The Departed." King is self-financing the project and is committed to an August production start in Boston. It is unclear whether he will fully finance through production or enlist a studio.

Gibson will play a straitlaced police investigator whose activist daughter is killed. He plunges into the case and uncovers systemic corruption that led to his daughter's death.

Gibson had long been a fan of the mini and was receptive when King and Campbell approached him several months ago.

Before "Signs" and "We Were Soldiers," Gibson starred in 2000's "What Women Want" and "The Patriot." Subsequently, he concentrated on directing, with "The Passion of the Christ" in 2004 and "Apocalypto" in 2006.

While Gibson has stayed under the radar after controversy sparked when he made anti-Semitic comments to a police officer during a DUI arrest in Malibu, he has continued to be offered acting vehicles, and he came close to accepting on several occasions, including "Under and Alone," a fact-based drama still in development at Warner Bros.

At a time when supposedly proven stars aren't translating to opening weekends, films that Gibson starred in and directed have grossed north of $5 billion worldwide.

King and Monahan won Oscars for "The Departed," and the producer recently made a first-look deal with the writer, who has taken residence in GK headquarters. Among the projects on which Monahan and King are collaborating is the Paramount-based true story of Jim Keene, who traded a prison sentence to go undercover at a maximum-security hospital for the criminally insane. King will produce that film with Alexandra Milchan, based on an upcoming Playboy magazine article by Keene and writer Hillel Levin.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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MacGuffin

DiCaprio set for Gibson's Viking drama
Monahan to pen untitled period drama
Source: Variety

Mel Gibson will direct and Leonardo DiCaprio will star in an untitled period drama about Viking culture. William Monahan is writing the script.

Graham King will produce with Gibson and Tim Headington in a co-production of King's GK Films and Gibson's Icon Prods. Shooting is expected to begin in fall 2010, meaning that if everything falls into place, it would be the next directing effort for Gibson.

There is no distributor at the moment, but Gibson and King often make their films outside the studio system and secure distribution later.

The principals confirmed the project but would not divulge many details. DiCaprio, who has long been fascinated by Viking culture, will play one in a storyline that will be as unsparing as Gibson's other period directing efforts, "Braveheart," "The Passion of the Christ" and "Apocalypto."

The connective tissue is King.

The producer teamed with DiCaprio and Monahan in the Oscar-winning drama "The Departed" and just worked with Gibson and Monahan in the Martin Campbell-directed drama "Edge of Darkness." King also just produced Monahan's directorial debut, "London Boulevard," the Monahan-scripted adaptation of the Ken Bruen novel, with Colin Farrell and Keira Knightley starring.

The Viking film will be DiCaprio's first picture with Gibson.

"This will be an awe-inspiring story, created with some of the industry's finest cinematic talent, and I am just over the moon to be making this film with Mel, Leo and Bill," King said in a statement after the principals confirmed the project to Daily Variety.

Aside from "London Boulevard," King and his GK Films just completed "The Rum Diary" with Johnny Depp and Aaron Eckhart and Emily Blunt starrer "The Young Victoria," latter of which is being released this month by Bob Berney's Apparition.

DiCaprio will likely take a film before putting on the Viking horns. He just completed the Christopher Nolan-directed "Inception" for Warner Bros. and will next be seen in the Martin Scorsese-directed "Shutter Island," which Paramount releases Feb. 19. Gibson just completed the Jodie Foster-directed "The Beaver." Gibson and Monahan are repped by WME, DiCaprio by Rick Yorn and Jennifer Killoran.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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Gold Trumpet

I'm a fan of what Mel Gibson tries to do with his movies, but he has yet to fully engage me. Braveheart was his first historical epic and it shows. It has signs of something more, but is mainly a historical romance novel that only differentiates itself with insane battle sequences. I think the combination of a romantic affair done to brutality seemed engaging because it was mixing story elements that weren't common, but the filmmaking is static, the story is typical for its allusions to love and its personal relevance to William Wallace. If there wasn't a brutal decor to Wallace's characterization in the film, he would come off as almost as typical as any other romance novel leading figure. It's just this movie has history to use an an umbrella for the story to make it all seem more interesting and relevant.

The Passion of the Christ was an admirable misfire. The technical accomplishment was mostly there, but Gibson hollowed out Christ's suffering because he believed in a literal translation of a two sentence quote taken from a religious text that insinuated the importance of Christ's death came in his physical anguish. That allowed Gibson to find truth in the images of brutality. He took the guts of the battle scenes from Braveheart and tried to transform them into an aesthetic. Considering better filmmakers have done it with more gore, it's not an impossible feat, but Gibson put his film up to competition with major works like The Gospel According to St. Matthew. Like Gibson's film, that also was a personal interpretation of a religious text, but it was more directed in elevating Christ's spiritual relevance. That allowed for possible resonance with a nonbeliever viewer, but the Passion of the Christ is an Amish take on Christ because it allows a minuscule quote to supercede all other notions and philosophies about Christ. Pasolini was a nonbeliever himself so he patterns the story on events about Christ that draw many different reactions from a viewer, but Gibson is a hermit with what the truth about Christ is. If the audience doesn't believe the significance of what he is doing (meaning they have to be believers too), then he wants them to feel a single thing about what Christ's last days were like. Considering his approach is one that many Christians disagree with, it's a self fulfilling take because Gibson has little interest in a greater spirituality.

Apocalypto is almost complete. There is a basic love story at its core, but Gibson makes better decisions to limit any over embellishment. He learned from Braveheart and Apocalypto is told from a story that does try to understand the characters for their norms, ideologies and customary ugliness in the times. He is even technically better with the filmmaking. It's one thing to say Passion of the Christ was brutally realistic with its photography (so what?) but the main problem is that the cinematography was one note. It all had a dusty direness and the film operated on one note of grizzly effect. The fatalistic tone of the filmmaking is there from step one. It makes a lot of later scenes feel uneventful. The only surprise is how graphic the violence gets, but the look always remains the same. Apocalypto had different tones throughout and it allowed later scenes that involved immense violence to be sincerely startling, but the film lacks because it tries to do too much. Gibson not only wants a personal story of a Native in desperate hunt for his woman, but he always want to paint his story with larger brush marks. Maybe it is common for historical epics to do that, but I wanted a more diligent approach to the realities of the time period. Gibson's graphic filmmaking begged it, but he kept removing us from this reality by going back to scenes that were about the greater world at hand, but my feeling on that could have been singular.


I want to believe that this new project will be another development for Gibson. Over the course of each of his three films, major strides have been made in each one, but I simply return to this quote to fear it will not be.

Quote from: MacGuffin on December 14, 2009, 01:01:25 AM
William Monahan is writing the script.

That really is disappointing. Let's hope Gibson has no stage fright of rewriting scripts.

Alexandro

what would be awesome (and in many instances almost imperative) is that di caprio got fat and bulky for his viking role.

polkablues

I can't wait to hear the accent Leo tries to pull off for this one.
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Gold Trumpet

Quote from: polkablues on December 15, 2009, 04:41:24 AM
I can't wait to hear the accent Leo tries to pull off for this one.

That's a good point because his every attempt at foreign so far has been almost laughable. Matt Damon cleared a hurdle recently when he made a South African accent sound credible (at least in the trailers), but DiCaprio has yet to scale that bar. I hope for the best, but so far DiCaprio has been unable to lose the basics of his elocution in roles.

Alexandro

I thought his australian accent in blood diamond was fine. and i liked the "combining accents" they all did in gangs.

RegularKarate

Quote from: Alexandro on December 15, 2009, 10:37:32 AM
I thought his australian accent in blood diamond was fine.

haha... way to go, DiCaprio