Saturday, December 04, 2010

Mel Gibson Returns As ... The Beaver?

It could be said that two-time Academy Award winner Mel Gibson has made his share of bad choices in recent years. That said, it might be a good time to remind his detractors, that between the drunken binges and the alleged phone recordings with his paramour and all the rest, he hasn't behaved any worse than any other Hollywood bad boy. No one boycotts a movie with Charlie Sheen or Sean Penn in it just because they mistreat women or trash hotel rooms.

But Mel is open about his Catholicism, and apparently this makes us want to hold him to a higher standard. Does anyone do this to Tom Cruise because of his Scientology? Or does Scientology make allowances for being a jerk? Is Gibson any more of a jerk than Cruise? If so, does that make Scientology a lower standard by which one is to be measured? And if not ...

But never mind all that. This time, Mel is coming back, in a film that may be uniquely suited to him at present. Another two-time Academy Award winner, Jodie Foster, directs and co-stars with Gibson in THE BEAVER -- an emotional story about a man on a journey to re-discover his family and re-start his life. Plagued by his own demons, Walter Black was once a successful toy executive and family man who now suffers from depression. No matter what he tries, Walter can't seem to get himself back on track ... until a beaver hand puppet enters his life.

It's also a chance for Gibson to let his Australian accent hang out.

POSTSCRIPT: "T.G." writes: "I just can't shake the image out of my head, 'Well, gosh dad, Lumpy's folks let him punch Russian gold diggers in the mouth all the time.'"
 

1 comment:

TTC said...

I wish Mel Gibson would just go away.