Apocalypto
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anonymous1980
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I saw Gibson's movie last night, and I liked it. It's not nearly as gruesome as some would have us believe. Gibson cuts away from most of the really bad stuff, although that is not to say it isn't violent. There is blood and gore. Just not like some of the recent horror movies which seem to revel in shocking us with gore. The director gets a bad rap for using some violent images in his movies, but i rarely hear anyone making noise about the truly disgusting horror movies out there. A double-standard?
Rudy Youngblood was an effective choice to be the hero of the movie. We sympathize with his desire to save his family throughout. Some of the images are beautiful, like the waterfall scene and several others.
Several sequences are exciting. Chases through the jungle, the scene where the captives are let loose only to have to outrun arrows. There is humor, most of it early, and perhaps a bit juvenile, but funny nevertheless.
The theater I went to was surprisingly pretty full seeing this film. And the audience seemed to enjoy it. Not just older folks who might be expected to see foreign language films (although that's a generalization, as I have found older folks who are quite stubborn about what they watch), but younger viewers as well. Not just teenaged men, but also young women too. A fair cross-section of interested film-goers.
It's not a masterpeice, but it is an exciting, well-made action movie. Mel Gibson may be a little nutty and he may have suffered mentally from being brought up by an anti-semite father, but he is a terrific filmmaker.
Rudy Youngblood was an effective choice to be the hero of the movie. We sympathize with his desire to save his family throughout. Some of the images are beautiful, like the waterfall scene and several others.
Several sequences are exciting. Chases through the jungle, the scene where the captives are let loose only to have to outrun arrows. There is humor, most of it early, and perhaps a bit juvenile, but funny nevertheless.
The theater I went to was surprisingly pretty full seeing this film. And the audience seemed to enjoy it. Not just older folks who might be expected to see foreign language films (although that's a generalization, as I have found older folks who are quite stubborn about what they watch), but younger viewers as well. Not just teenaged men, but also young women too. A fair cross-section of interested film-goers.
It's not a masterpeice, but it is an exciting, well-made action movie. Mel Gibson may be a little nutty and he may have suffered mentally from being brought up by an anti-semite father, but he is a terrific filmmaker.
"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021
Nobody's seen it? Nobody? Well as the Jewiest poster on this board, I'll chime in...
(SPOILERS)
'Apocalypto' is the work of a godless man. Mel Gibson doesn't know this. He thinks he's saying something else entirely, but there it is. He sees these people's religions, shows them as the root of all needless evil on the planet, shows them recoiling in awe and horror as something fundamentally arbitrary is received as an omen, and the film ends with the passage of time ready to sweep over them. This is a metaphor for ALL religions, not just the kooky Mayans, and in a way that's what makes the movie so fascinating. Mel Gibson does not hold these people in any substantial degree of reverence past their bookmarked place in history, only that for all intents and purposes they're just like us, and he ends up something something about them (and us) far more interesting than William Wallace or Jesus Christ.
Mel Gibson is also fascinated with ritual decapitation and disembowelment, but it's different from in times prior. The film is nowhere near as insane as the trailer makes it sound; it's actually fairly conventional, however the spectacle of bloody, gruesome, soulless killing says outright that these people are bags of meat between the pages of history (except of course for MAN, WIFE, and CHILD). If this is empty violence, it's the most pointed empty violence I've seen in a while. He stops short of treating them like out-and-out freaks, and the end result is a people who appear to be huddling towars the sky, high on their own superiority - again, he doesn't mean to say it, BUT...
'Apocalypto' gets off to a really rocky start, and it feels like a Mayan episode of 'The Three Stooges' at the start. For a while, I was actively disliking it; the first act is ripe with problems. Clunky tone, forced attempts at humanization and humor, and then an abduction that has the feel of Hollywood cliché. I'm no fan of 'Blood Diamond', but that movie captured the horror of the situation no matter how much at odds with the rest of the feature those powerful scenes were. 'Apocalypto' tries valiantly, but it feels thrown together at the start. It doesn't help matters that the film's cinematography is really quite ugly and at times I thought it was cross-format filmmaking, both film and digital; fairly distracting and not helped by the fact that Mel Gibson is no visionary, which is what this film really needed. His compositions have never been stronger, though.
By the end of the first act, the film becomes much stronger as Jaguar Paw and his tribe are carried to the Mayan city. The second act of 'Apocalypto' is outstanding, an eye-popping travelogue and really the most assured filmmaking Mel Gibson has ever done within the confines of a conventional yet totally satisfying formula script. Before becoming a glorified chase, I was entertained enough by 'Apocalypto' as it meshes the conventional with the extraordinary and ends up as the strongest piece of filmmaking Mel Gibson has ever done. A limited but surprising success.
Edited By Sabin on 1166415706
(SPOILERS)
'Apocalypto' is the work of a godless man. Mel Gibson doesn't know this. He thinks he's saying something else entirely, but there it is. He sees these people's religions, shows them as the root of all needless evil on the planet, shows them recoiling in awe and horror as something fundamentally arbitrary is received as an omen, and the film ends with the passage of time ready to sweep over them. This is a metaphor for ALL religions, not just the kooky Mayans, and in a way that's what makes the movie so fascinating. Mel Gibson does not hold these people in any substantial degree of reverence past their bookmarked place in history, only that for all intents and purposes they're just like us, and he ends up something something about them (and us) far more interesting than William Wallace or Jesus Christ.
Mel Gibson is also fascinated with ritual decapitation and disembowelment, but it's different from in times prior. The film is nowhere near as insane as the trailer makes it sound; it's actually fairly conventional, however the spectacle of bloody, gruesome, soulless killing says outright that these people are bags of meat between the pages of history (except of course for MAN, WIFE, and CHILD). If this is empty violence, it's the most pointed empty violence I've seen in a while. He stops short of treating them like out-and-out freaks, and the end result is a people who appear to be huddling towars the sky, high on their own superiority - again, he doesn't mean to say it, BUT...
'Apocalypto' gets off to a really rocky start, and it feels like a Mayan episode of 'The Three Stooges' at the start. For a while, I was actively disliking it; the first act is ripe with problems. Clunky tone, forced attempts at humanization and humor, and then an abduction that has the feel of Hollywood cliché. I'm no fan of 'Blood Diamond', but that movie captured the horror of the situation no matter how much at odds with the rest of the feature those powerful scenes were. 'Apocalypto' tries valiantly, but it feels thrown together at the start. It doesn't help matters that the film's cinematography is really quite ugly and at times I thought it was cross-format filmmaking, both film and digital; fairly distracting and not helped by the fact that Mel Gibson is no visionary, which is what this film really needed. His compositions have never been stronger, though.
By the end of the first act, the film becomes much stronger as Jaguar Paw and his tribe are carried to the Mayan city. The second act of 'Apocalypto' is outstanding, an eye-popping travelogue and really the most assured filmmaking Mel Gibson has ever done within the confines of a conventional yet totally satisfying formula script. Before becoming a glorified chase, I was entertained enough by 'Apocalypto' as it meshes the conventional with the extraordinary and ends up as the strongest piece of filmmaking Mel Gibson has ever done. A limited but surprising success.
Edited By Sabin on 1166415706
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Big Magilla
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Interesting commentary from Archaeology magazine:
Is "Apocalypto" Pornography? December 5, 2006
by Traci Ardren
A scholar challenges Mel Gibson's use of the ancient Maya culture as a metaphor for his vision of today's world.
Traci Ardren, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Miami, knows the Maya well. She has studied Classic Maya society for over 20 years while living in the modern Maya villages of Yaxuna, Chunchucmil, and Espita in the Mexican state of Yucatan. Her credentials include contributing to and editing Ancient Maya Women (2002) and The Social Experience of Childhood in Ancient Mesoamerica (2006). Ardren's reaction to the new film "Apocalypto," follows. Scholars are well aware that some aspects of Maya culture were violent, but Ardren finds fault with what she sees as a pervasive colonial attitude in the film.
With great trepidation I went to an advance screening of "Apocalypto" last night in Miami. No one really expects historical dramas to be accurate, so I was not so much concerned with whether or not the film would accurately represent what we know of Classic period Maya history as I was concerned about the message Mel Gibson wanted to convey through the film. After Jared Diamond's best-selling book Collapse, it has become fashionable to use the so-called Maya collapse as a metaphor for Western society's environmental and political excesses. Setting aside the fact that the Maya lived for more than a thousand years in a fragile tropical environment before their cities were abandoned, while here in the U.S, we have polluted our urban environments in less than 200, I anticipated a heavy-handed cautionary tale wrapped up in Native American costume.
What I saw was much worse than this. The thrill of hearing melodic Yucatec Maya spoken by familiar faces (although the five lead actors are not Yucatec Maya but other talented Native American actors) during the first ten minutes of the movie is swiftly and brutally replaced with stomach churning panic at the graphic Maya-on-Maya violence depicted in a village raid scene of nearly 15 minutes. From then on the entire movie never ceases to utilize every possible excuse to depict more violence. It is unrelenting. Our hero, Jaguar Paw, played by the charismatic Cree actor Rudy Youngblood, has one hellavuh bad couple of days. Captured for sacrifice, forced to march to the putrid city nearby, he endures every tropical jungle attack conceivable and that is after he escapes the relentless brutality of the elites. I am told this part of the movie is completely derivative of the 1966 film "The Naked Prey." Pure action flick, with one ridiculous encounter after another, filmed beautifully in the way that only Hollywood blockbusters can afford, this is the part of the movie that will draw in audiences and demonstrates Gibson's skill as a cinematic storyteller.
But I find the visual appeal of the film one of the most disturbing aspects of "Apocalypto." The jungles of Veracruz and Costa Rica have never looked better, the masked priests on the temple jump right off a Classic Maya vase, and the people are gorgeous. The fact that this film was made in Mexico and filmed in the Yucatec Maya language coupled with its visual appeal makes it all the more dangerous. It looks authentic; viewers will be captivated by the crazy, exotic mess of the city and the howler monkeys in the jungle. And who really cares that the Maya were not living in cities when the Spanish arrived? Yes, Gibson includes the arrival of clearly Christian missionaries (these guys are too clean to be conquistadors) in the last five minutes of the story (in the real world the Spanish arrived 300 years after the last Maya city was abandoned). It is one of the few calm moments in an otherwise aggressively paced film. The message? The end is near and the savior has come. Gibson's efforts at authenticity of location and language might, for some viewers, mask his blatantly colonial message that the Maya needed saving because they were rotten at the core. Using the decline of Classic urbanism as his backdrop, Gibson communicates that there was absolutely nothing redeemable about Maya culture, especially elite culture which is depicted as a disgusting feast of blood and excess.
Before anyone thinks I have forgotten my Metamucil this morning, I am not a compulsively politically correct type who sees the Maya as the epitome of goodness and light. I know the Maya practiced brutal violence upon one another, and I have studied child sacrifice during the Classic period. But in "Apocalypto," no mention is made of the achievements in science and art, the profound spirituality and connection to agricultural cycles, or the engineering feats of Maya cities. Instead, Gibson replays, in glorious big-budget technicolor, an offensive and racist notion that Maya people were brutal to one another long before the arrival of Europeans and thus they deserve, in fact they needed, rescue. This same idea was used for 500 years to justify the subjugation of Maya people and it has been thoroughly deconstructed and rejected by Maya intellectuals and community leaders throughout the Maya area today. In fact, Maya intellectuals have demonstrated convincingly that such ideas were manipulated by the Guatemalan army to justify the genocidal civil war of the 1970-1990s. To see this same trope about who indigenous people were (and are today?) used as the basis for entertainment (and I use the term loosely) is truly embarrassing. How can we continue to produce such one-sided and clearly exploitative messages about the indigenous people of the New World?
I loved Gibson's film "Braveheart," I really did. But there is something very different about portraying a group of people, who are now recovering from 500 years of colonization, as violent and brutal. These are people who are living with the very real effects of persistent racism that at its heart sees them as less than human. To think that a movie about the 1,000 ways a Maya can kill a Maya--when only 10 years ago Maya people were systematically being exterminated in Guatemala just for being Maya--is in any way okay, entertaining, or helpful is the epitome of a Western fantasy of supremacy that I find sad and ultimately pornographic. It is surely no surprise that "Apolcalypto" has very little to do with Maya culture and instead is Gibson's comment on the excesses he perceives in modern Western society. I just wish he had been honest enough to say this. Instead he has created a beautiful and disturbing portrait that satisfies his need for comment but does violence to one of the most impressive of Native American cultures.
Is "Apocalypto" Pornography? December 5, 2006
by Traci Ardren
A scholar challenges Mel Gibson's use of the ancient Maya culture as a metaphor for his vision of today's world.
Traci Ardren, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Miami, knows the Maya well. She has studied Classic Maya society for over 20 years while living in the modern Maya villages of Yaxuna, Chunchucmil, and Espita in the Mexican state of Yucatan. Her credentials include contributing to and editing Ancient Maya Women (2002) and The Social Experience of Childhood in Ancient Mesoamerica (2006). Ardren's reaction to the new film "Apocalypto," follows. Scholars are well aware that some aspects of Maya culture were violent, but Ardren finds fault with what she sees as a pervasive colonial attitude in the film.
With great trepidation I went to an advance screening of "Apocalypto" last night in Miami. No one really expects historical dramas to be accurate, so I was not so much concerned with whether or not the film would accurately represent what we know of Classic period Maya history as I was concerned about the message Mel Gibson wanted to convey through the film. After Jared Diamond's best-selling book Collapse, it has become fashionable to use the so-called Maya collapse as a metaphor for Western society's environmental and political excesses. Setting aside the fact that the Maya lived for more than a thousand years in a fragile tropical environment before their cities were abandoned, while here in the U.S, we have polluted our urban environments in less than 200, I anticipated a heavy-handed cautionary tale wrapped up in Native American costume.
What I saw was much worse than this. The thrill of hearing melodic Yucatec Maya spoken by familiar faces (although the five lead actors are not Yucatec Maya but other talented Native American actors) during the first ten minutes of the movie is swiftly and brutally replaced with stomach churning panic at the graphic Maya-on-Maya violence depicted in a village raid scene of nearly 15 minutes. From then on the entire movie never ceases to utilize every possible excuse to depict more violence. It is unrelenting. Our hero, Jaguar Paw, played by the charismatic Cree actor Rudy Youngblood, has one hellavuh bad couple of days. Captured for sacrifice, forced to march to the putrid city nearby, he endures every tropical jungle attack conceivable and that is after he escapes the relentless brutality of the elites. I am told this part of the movie is completely derivative of the 1966 film "The Naked Prey." Pure action flick, with one ridiculous encounter after another, filmed beautifully in the way that only Hollywood blockbusters can afford, this is the part of the movie that will draw in audiences and demonstrates Gibson's skill as a cinematic storyteller.
But I find the visual appeal of the film one of the most disturbing aspects of "Apocalypto." The jungles of Veracruz and Costa Rica have never looked better, the masked priests on the temple jump right off a Classic Maya vase, and the people are gorgeous. The fact that this film was made in Mexico and filmed in the Yucatec Maya language coupled with its visual appeal makes it all the more dangerous. It looks authentic; viewers will be captivated by the crazy, exotic mess of the city and the howler monkeys in the jungle. And who really cares that the Maya were not living in cities when the Spanish arrived? Yes, Gibson includes the arrival of clearly Christian missionaries (these guys are too clean to be conquistadors) in the last five minutes of the story (in the real world the Spanish arrived 300 years after the last Maya city was abandoned). It is one of the few calm moments in an otherwise aggressively paced film. The message? The end is near and the savior has come. Gibson's efforts at authenticity of location and language might, for some viewers, mask his blatantly colonial message that the Maya needed saving because they were rotten at the core. Using the decline of Classic urbanism as his backdrop, Gibson communicates that there was absolutely nothing redeemable about Maya culture, especially elite culture which is depicted as a disgusting feast of blood and excess.
Before anyone thinks I have forgotten my Metamucil this morning, I am not a compulsively politically correct type who sees the Maya as the epitome of goodness and light. I know the Maya practiced brutal violence upon one another, and I have studied child sacrifice during the Classic period. But in "Apocalypto," no mention is made of the achievements in science and art, the profound spirituality and connection to agricultural cycles, or the engineering feats of Maya cities. Instead, Gibson replays, in glorious big-budget technicolor, an offensive and racist notion that Maya people were brutal to one another long before the arrival of Europeans and thus they deserve, in fact they needed, rescue. This same idea was used for 500 years to justify the subjugation of Maya people and it has been thoroughly deconstructed and rejected by Maya intellectuals and community leaders throughout the Maya area today. In fact, Maya intellectuals have demonstrated convincingly that such ideas were manipulated by the Guatemalan army to justify the genocidal civil war of the 1970-1990s. To see this same trope about who indigenous people were (and are today?) used as the basis for entertainment (and I use the term loosely) is truly embarrassing. How can we continue to produce such one-sided and clearly exploitative messages about the indigenous people of the New World?
I loved Gibson's film "Braveheart," I really did. But there is something very different about portraying a group of people, who are now recovering from 500 years of colonization, as violent and brutal. These are people who are living with the very real effects of persistent racism that at its heart sees them as less than human. To think that a movie about the 1,000 ways a Maya can kill a Maya--when only 10 years ago Maya people were systematically being exterminated in Guatemala just for being Maya--is in any way okay, entertaining, or helpful is the epitome of a Western fantasy of supremacy that I find sad and ultimately pornographic. It is surely no surprise that "Apolcalypto" has very little to do with Maya culture and instead is Gibson's comment on the excesses he perceives in modern Western society. I just wish he had been honest enough to say this. Instead he has created a beautiful and disturbing portrait that satisfies his need for comment but does violence to one of the most impressive of Native American cultures.
The Times-Picayune review was no surprise to me: Mel made an intruguing film that is well cast, has good performances, an interesting and entertaining story, and outstanding in all its technical aspects (music, sound, costumes, sets, cinematography, etc.). But the review is overall negative because of the needlessly intense blood and gore. Sounds like Mel's last film.
Compelling 'Apocalypto' undermined by excesses
Friday, December 08, 2006
By Michael H. Kleinschrodt
A compelling story and slick filmmaking make Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto" an interesting movie, but Gibson's lack of self-restraint when it comes to violence and gore mars the film.
The bloodbath will come as no surprise to fans who have followed Gibson's films, including "Braveheart," "The Patriot" and "The Passion of the Christ." It's disappointing, though, that Gibson never seems to learn that less can be more.
In "Apocalypto," the organ removals and decapitations proliferate so quickly that the violence becomes cartoonish toward the end, so inured has the audience become. By the time a spurting head wound is gloriously backlit to brighten the red of the blood, you almost have to laugh.
The seriousness of the film, entirely in Yucatec Maya, also is undermined by jokey subtitles. A certain amount of humor might be welcome, but "Apocalypto" goes too far when it has a character frightened by a falling tree echo Ratso Rizzo's "I'm walking here!" about 500 years before "Midnight Cowboy" was filmed.
Otherwise, the movie has much in its favor, starting with a compelling story.
The kingdom of the Maya is in turmoil. Crops have failed, leading to unrest. City dwellers are preying upon forest dwellers to provide high priests with candidates for human sacrifice, meant to appease the gods and restore prosperity.
Heads roll down a ceremonial pyramid at the base of which are men with nets, catching the heads as if they were lacrosse balls.
One potential sacrifice, Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), defies the establishment and flees into the jungle to save his family.
The movie's great irony is that the more refined the civilization, the more barbaric its inhabitants. This point is hammered home in a final scene depicting the arrival of Spanish conquistadors, a development history has shown ends badly for the Maya.
On the other hand, Gibson opens his film with a quote from Will Durant suggesting that no great civilization can be conquered by outsiders without first having rotted at its core. Whose side is Gibson on?
The message might be muddled, but the filmmaking is a thing of beauty. The film is well-paced, lushly photographed (using a digital camera) and features striking costumes and makeup. James Horner ("Titanic") has composed an evocative score, heavy on percussion and native instruments.
Also of note is the film's effective use of sound to establish setting and mood. A long opening shot is accompanied by bird calls and monkey cries. Gradually, the buzzing of insects becomes the predominant sound, lending an aura of menace and decay to the jungle greenery.
APOCALYPTO
(STAR)(STAR)½
Plot: One man attempts a desperate flight to save his family during a time of turmoil in the kingdom of the Maya.
What works: The splendidly photographed story is compelling.
What doesn't: The nonstop violence ultimately becomes cartoonish, and jokey subtitles undermine the seriousness of the film.
Compelling 'Apocalypto' undermined by excesses
Friday, December 08, 2006
By Michael H. Kleinschrodt
A compelling story and slick filmmaking make Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto" an interesting movie, but Gibson's lack of self-restraint when it comes to violence and gore mars the film.
The bloodbath will come as no surprise to fans who have followed Gibson's films, including "Braveheart," "The Patriot" and "The Passion of the Christ." It's disappointing, though, that Gibson never seems to learn that less can be more.
In "Apocalypto," the organ removals and decapitations proliferate so quickly that the violence becomes cartoonish toward the end, so inured has the audience become. By the time a spurting head wound is gloriously backlit to brighten the red of the blood, you almost have to laugh.
The seriousness of the film, entirely in Yucatec Maya, also is undermined by jokey subtitles. A certain amount of humor might be welcome, but "Apocalypto" goes too far when it has a character frightened by a falling tree echo Ratso Rizzo's "I'm walking here!" about 500 years before "Midnight Cowboy" was filmed.
Otherwise, the movie has much in its favor, starting with a compelling story.
The kingdom of the Maya is in turmoil. Crops have failed, leading to unrest. City dwellers are preying upon forest dwellers to provide high priests with candidates for human sacrifice, meant to appease the gods and restore prosperity.
Heads roll down a ceremonial pyramid at the base of which are men with nets, catching the heads as if they were lacrosse balls.
One potential sacrifice, Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), defies the establishment and flees into the jungle to save his family.
The movie's great irony is that the more refined the civilization, the more barbaric its inhabitants. This point is hammered home in a final scene depicting the arrival of Spanish conquistadors, a development history has shown ends badly for the Maya.
On the other hand, Gibson opens his film with a quote from Will Durant suggesting that no great civilization can be conquered by outsiders without first having rotted at its core. Whose side is Gibson on?
The message might be muddled, but the filmmaking is a thing of beauty. The film is well-paced, lushly photographed (using a digital camera) and features striking costumes and makeup. James Horner ("Titanic") has composed an evocative score, heavy on percussion and native instruments.
Also of note is the film's effective use of sound to establish setting and mood. A long opening shot is accompanied by bird calls and monkey cries. Gradually, the buzzing of insects becomes the predominant sound, lending an aura of menace and decay to the jungle greenery.
APOCALYPTO
(STAR)(STAR)½
Plot: One man attempts a desperate flight to save his family during a time of turmoil in the kingdom of the Maya.
What works: The splendidly photographed story is compelling.
What doesn't: The nonstop violence ultimately becomes cartoonish, and jokey subtitles undermine the seriousness of the film.
The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving. It's faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth living. Oliver Wendell Holmes
I am not convinced that he is himself an anti-semite, but that there is a residual affect from being raised by one. There is a difference I think.
I'll let Oscar Hammerstein II respond to this:
You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.
You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.
You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!
"...it is the weak who are cruel, and...gentleness is only to be expected from the strong." - Leo Reston
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
I love how you describe the denial of the Holocaust as "unusual" as opposed to something like "abhorrent", "deplorable" or "inexcusable". Your description makes it sounds like Gibson was one of the Gilbreth children in the original "Cheaper by the Dozen" family. "Oh, little Mel lives down the lane in that oh-so-eccentric anti-Semitic household!"criddic3 wrote:Gibson does not come across as a bad guy, but he was obviously brought up in an unusual household. I am not convinced that he is himself an anti-semite, but that there is a residual affect from being raised by one. There is a difference I think.
In defending him I think you've reached some new lows, criddic.
"The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely in her shoulders. She was twenty five and looked it."
-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
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Then again, you do lack certain qualifications to be any sort of arbiter on this matter.criddic3 wrote:I am not convinced that he is himself an anti-semite.
Apocalypto, is now down to 60% and that's probably where it's going to stay, give or take a point. I'm going to change my Travers ballot. And the descriptions I've read of the violence is so off-putting, I'm gonna skip this one too. You did it again, Mel.
"What the hell?"
Win Butler
Win Butler
Damien wrote:criddic3 wrote:The biggest draw will be for people who want to show their support for Gibson
Oh yes, the KKK/kike-hating contingent. That's a demographic any filmmaker would be proud to attract. Next week, a revival of Jud Süss!!!!
No, the people who have watched Gibson for the last two decades and liked him or his work. Gibson does not come across as a bad guy, but he was obviously brought up in an unusual household. I am not convinced that he is himself an anti-semite, but that there is a residual affect from being raised by one. There is a difference I think.
And magilla, bootlegging is still a concern regardless of what language the film is in. It is a big release in a major season for movies. I'm sure someone somewhere can make money off of a copy.
"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021