Mel Gibson
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“I Was Getting Hate Mail Before I Even Started Shooting”: Keith Gordon on The Singing Detective
Writer-director Keith Gordon had one of the best film schools imaginable in the late ’70s and early ’80s, when he broke into the business as an actor and appeared in several now classic movies including All That Jazz, Dressed to Kill, and Christine. He must have learned quite a bit watching the likes of Fosse, De Palma, and Carpenter direct, because his own filmography is one of the most consistent in all of contemporary American cinema. Gordon has directed five features to date, every single one of which is an uncompromised treasure – and each one is different from the […]
by Jim Hemphill on Aug 12, 2015 -
Watch: Mel Gibson and George Miller Talk Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, 1985
Given how much public perception of Mel Gibson has shifted in the last 30 years, this 1985 interview with the star and director George Miller is kind of a trip. Sitting down together to discuss/promote Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, the duo are first asked to describe each other’s strengths. Gibson says Miller is so focused you could drive nails through his feet while he was working and he wouldn’t notice; for his part, the director says Mad Mel is an actor, not just a “personality.” It’s a relaxed, collegial sitdown. Other highlights: Gibson on getting into a harness and discussing the finer […]
by Vadim Rizov on May 7, 2015 -
VON TRIER AT CANNES: FRENCH HYPOCRISY AT ITS WORST
The controversy that has resulted in the Cannes Film Festival — which shows itself to be the spineless tool of a government uniquely, like many of its citizens, obsessed with self-image — declaring Lars von Trier persona non grata on account of his comments that began with his upbringing as a Jew is a despicable, hypocritical mountain made from a molehill. (Would The Producers be banned here? Hardly. Will I lose my accreditation in the future for writing this? I would not put it past them.) Laws about expressing antisemitism are strict here (six months in prison, clearly related to […]
by Howard Feinstein on May 20, 2011 -
A FAITH-BASED CINEMA?
Opus Zine links to this article by Barbara Nicolosi in Christianity Today in which the author discusses the advice she gives to young Christian artists who want to be “the next Mel Gibson.” The advice contained in the article, itself an adaptation of material from her book Behind the Screen: Hollywood Insiders on Faith, Film and Culture, is not what you’d expect. She disses A Walk to Remember (“…a banal, predictable story with underdeveloped characters, pedestrian acting, and saccharine dialogue”), praises In the Bedroom (which “deals with the spiritual and psychological urgency of forgiveness”) and offers — after answering the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 18, 2006
