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11 NOVEMBER 2006.- "APOCALYPTO" BACK IN THE OSCAR DERBY???
Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto" is "brilliant," proclaims Variety editor Peter Bart, who questions whether Mel Gibson's work will be judged fairly by academy members. Bart writes: "The word has seeped out: From Mel Gibson's dark, troubled mind has emerged yet another brilliant exercise in filmmaking, extremely violent, yet compelling," Bart reports. "The inner demons that play havoc with his personal life continue to energize his creative vision." But Bart also notes a few drawbacks "Apocalypto" has,: "The film itself represents a defiantly maverick voice. Subtitles run throughout. The cast is totally non-professional. The action is virtually nonstop and the confrontations brutal." That brutality may be a serious issue since academy members are notoriously squeamish and usually swing back at violent films by excluding them, but not always. Mel surmounted the problem with "Braveheart" Bart's predictions are probably accurate, if gloomy: "A fiercely original work like this normally would be screened and promoted for Oscar nominations and critics plaudits. This will not be the case with Gibson's film." |
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11 NOVEMBER 2006.- "FAIRY TALE; A TRUE STORY"
Do you remember "Fairy Tale; A True Story" ???
Well, this is the TRUE STORY behind Frances and Elsie´s fantastic adventure…
"On a Sunday afternoon in 1917 in the Yorkshire village of Cottingley, fifteen-year-old Elsie Wright and her nine-year old cousin Griffiths arrived home late for tea. The reason, they said, was that they had been playing with fairies. This explanation met the predictable response, but the girls said that they could prove it. Elsie, who has worked briefly for a photographer, borrowed a box camera from her father and used it to take a photograph of Frace in the woods with three of the little people. Then Frances snapped a picture of Elsie, playing with a gnome.
The girls parents were more annoyed than impressed by the prank, and there the matter might have ended. But word of the fairy pictures spread, and what had begun as a minor domestic event quickly became a celebrated supernatural story in the British press.
Accounts of the Cottingley fairy pictures soon reached members of Britain´s thriving Spiritualist movement. Prominent in these circles was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the supremely rational detective Sherlock Holmes but himself ready to accept almost
any claim of paranormal doings. He wrote up the case in a breathless article in a national magazine, then published a second article when the cousin supplied three more pixie shots.
Not only did Sir Arthur consider the photographs genuine, he speculated at length on how certain people could tune in on "a race of beings which were constructed in material which threw out shorter or longer vibrations."
His articles brought the cousins enduring celebrity, nurtured by their coy evasion of questions about their woodland picture talking. Not until 1982 was a serious analysis of the pictures done, by British photo expert Geoffrey Crawley. His inferences came so close to the mark that in 1983 the cousins came clean- sixty-six years after the fact. They had , they said, simply created cutouts of fairies and held them in place with hatpins.The status of photography in 1917 had aided in the illusion- and it appeared some retouching, by unknown hands along the way had also helped keep alive belief in the girls´ spurious tea time adventure."
In Icon Productions "Fairy Tale; A True Story", Mel Gibson played an important but small role that consisted of only two lines of dialogue.
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Well, this is the TRUE STORY behind Frances and Elsie´s fantastic adventure…
"On a Sunday afternoon in 1917 in the Yorkshire village of Cottingley, fifteen-year-old Elsie Wright and her nine-year old cousin Griffiths arrived home late for tea. The reason, they said, was that they had been playing with fairies. This explanation met the predictable response, but the girls said that they could prove it. Elsie, who has worked briefly for a photographer, borrowed a box camera from her father and used it to take a photograph of Frace in the woods with three of the little people. Then Frances snapped a picture of Elsie, playing with a gnome.
The girls parents were more annoyed than impressed by the prank, and there the matter might have ended. But word of the fairy pictures spread, and what had begun as a minor domestic event quickly became a celebrated supernatural story in the British press.
Accounts of the Cottingley fairy pictures soon reached members of Britain´s thriving Spiritualist movement. Prominent in these circles was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the supremely rational detective Sherlock Holmes but himself ready to accept almost any claim of paranormal doings. He wrote up the case in a breathless article in a national magazine, then published a second article when the cousin supplied three more pixie shots.
Not only did Sir Arthur consider the photographs genuine, he speculated at length on how certain people could tune in on "a race of beings which were constructed in material which threw out shorter or longer vibrations."
His articles brought the cousins enduring celebrity, nurtured by their coy evasion of questions about their woodland picture talking. Not until 1982 was a serious analysis of the pictures done, by British photo expert Geoffrey Crawley. His inferences came so close to the mark that in 1983 the cousins came clean- sixty-six years after the fact. They had , they said, simply created cutouts of fairies and held them in place with hatpins.The status of photography in 1917 had aided in the illusion- and it appeared some retouching, by unknown hands along the way had also helped keep alive belief in the girls´ spurious tea time adventure."
In Icon Productions "Fairy Tale; A True Story", Mel Gibson played an important but small role that consisted of only two lines of dialogue.
12 NOVEMBER 2006.- THIS AND THAT
- ONE OF THE EFFECTS OF "APOCALYPTO.
Next December a television station in Quintana Roo (Mexico) will broadcast a series of programmes in Mayan language, which will serve as introduction of similar projects
INAH has informed that their objective is to recover, preserve and spread an ancient language. Every year twenty-six dialects/languages cease being spoken in the world.
The episode pilot is entitled Jaaj T'aan (mother language).
- CINEMA´S MOST ACCOMPLISHED WAR FILMS.
Canadian newspapers have just published a list of "Cinema's most accomplished war films."
And the winners are…
- 1.- APOCALYPSE NOW
- 2.- SAVING PRIVATE RYAN
- 3.- FULL METAL JACKET
- 4.- PLATOON
- 5.- THE THIN RED LINE
- 6.- COURAGE UNDER FIRE
- 7.- EMPIRE OF THE SUN
- 8.- GLORY
- 9.- THREE KINGS
- 10.- GALLIPOLI
"GALLIPOLI".- Featuring a then-unknown Mel Gibson, this sad, stark 1981 film concerns two Australian best friends - Gibson and Mark Lee - who abandon their dreams to become soldiers in the First World War. The movie follows the pair as they enlist and are sent to Gallipoli, where they're hopelessly pitted against the far greater Turkish army. One of the early directorial efforts of Peter Weir, who went on to make The Year of Living Dangerously, Witness and Dead Poet's Society.
See More GALLIPOLI
- ONE OF THE EFFECTS OF "APOCALYPTO.
Next December a television station in Quintana Roo (Mexico) will broadcast a series of programmes in Mayan language, which will serve as introduction of similar projects
INAH has informed that their objective is to recover, preserve and spread an ancient language. Every year twenty-six dialects/languages cease being spoken in the world.
The episode pilot is entitled Jaaj T'aan (mother language).
- CINEMA´S MOST ACCOMPLISHED WAR FILMS.
Canadian newspapers have just published a list of "Cinema's most accomplished war films."
And the winners are…
- 1.- APOCALYPSE NOW
- 2.- SAVING PRIVATE RYAN
- 3.- FULL METAL JACKET
- 4.- PLATOON
- 5.- THE THIN RED LINE
- 6.- COURAGE UNDER FIRE
- 7.- EMPIRE OF THE SUN
- 8.- GLORY
- 9.- THREE KINGS
- 10.- GALLIPOLI
"GALLIPOLI".- Featuring a then-unknown Mel Gibson, this sad, stark 1981 film concerns two Australian best friends - Gibson and Mark Lee - who abandon their dreams to become soldiers in the First World War. The movie follows the pair as they enlist and are sent to Gallipoli, where they're hopelessly pitted against the far greater Turkish army. One of the early directorial efforts of Peter Weir, who went on to make The Year of Living Dangerously, Witness and Dead Poet's Society.
See More GALLIPOLI - CINEMA´S MOST ACCOMPLISHED WAR FILMS.
13 NOVEMBER 2006.- APOCALYPTO AND HOW TO SELL IT
From SouthFlorida.com
Jhane Myers certainly wasn't expecting a personal phone call from Mel Gibson.
"He said, 'Hello, Jhane, I know you don't know me. This is Mel Gibson, and I really would like to have you call me back,' " Myers recalled. When she did, the Oklahoma City public relations executive found herself enlisted in Gibson's grass-roots marketing campaign for his new film, "Mel Gibson's Apocalypto," due in theaters Dec. 8.
Two years ago, Gibson reached out to Christians with a carefully orchestrated campaign that helped his film "The Passion of the Christ" become one of the most successful movies of all time, grossing $611 million worldwide. With "Apocalypto" - his visually sumptuous retelling of the fall of the Maya civilization - Gibson is hoping to strike box-office gold once again by wooing Latinos and Native Americans such as Myers, hoping they will identify with his tale of an indigenous culture.
Myers, a member of the Comanche nation, arranged to screen "Apocalypto" five times over a three-day period in late September for Native Americans and Latinos in Oklahoma City and Lawton, Okla., as well as Austin, Texas. Guests were treated to surprise Q&A sessions with the Academy Award-winning director of "Braveheart" and star of dozens of Hollywood films, and Gibson was able to gauge audience reaction first-hand to an early cut of the film.
While Gibson has been toiling in the editing room, putting the final touches on the film, he and Disney have also been aggressively screening the movie before select audiences in the Latino community, including L.A. politicians and businessmen. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has been among those invited to an advance screening, but he has yet to see the film, a Disney spokesman confirmed.
Sources say Gibson is taking an unusual risk by showing an unfinished version of the film to audiences that aren't normally used to seeing movies without final tweaking of color, sound, music and the like but noted that Gibson felt it was important to receive their input before the film was complete.
As with "Passion," which contained brutal scenes of Christ's torture at the hands of Roman soldiers, there are scenes of bloody violence in "Apocalypto" - in this case, human sacrifices in which heads roll - that are sure to make audiences squirm in their seats.
Disney spokesman Dennis Rice said the violence is "no more so than in any R-rated picture. For some, they will be fine with it. For others, it may not be exactly their cup of tea. But there hasn't been one person who has said this isn't a powerful movie and that once again, 'Mel has done it.' "
As an Anglo telling a Maya story with a largely non-Anglo cast and crew, Gibson will be under pressure to deliver a film that doesn't insult Maya culture or divert too drastically from historical facts.
At the same time, Disney and Gibson's company, Icon Productions, know that the marketing task ahead for them is difficult. After all, the film features a cast of unknowns, depicting a period of Latin American history of which U.S. citizens may have only passing knowledge, and characters speaking in an ancient Mayan dialect with English subtitles.
And, of course, threatening to overshadow the film and its marketing effort is Gibson himself.
No one yet knows how much impact that headline-grabbing arrest could have on his movie. Some people, particularly those in the Jewish community, can't help recalling the controversy that surrounded "Passion," which some critics said was infused with anti-Semitism. But there are others, including a few who have seen "Apocalypto," who say the film should not suffer just because of the director's personal mistakes.
One of those is actor Edward James Olmos, a leading voice in Latino cultural affairs, who said he was invited by Gibson to an early screening. Olmos, who brought along his grown son, Bodie, said he was unprepared for what he saw.
"I was totally caught off guard," Olmos said in a recent phone interview from the set of "Battlestar Galactica" in Vancouver, Canada. "It's arguably the best movie I've seen in years. I was blown away."
Olmos said he was not briefed beforehand by Gibson on the film. "I just kind of sat down and bingo! It wasn't even in a screening room. It was like an office.... The screen drops down from the ceiling. I was sitting at an oval table."
Olmos noted that the film tells the story of "first-nation" people - those who were here long before Europeans landed on their shores. Olmos said the story is "just breathtaking."
As for Gibson's outburst and arrest, Olmos said that what director Elia Kazan did in the days of the Hollywood blacklist never made him avoid Kazan's brilliant films.
"Basically, if you watch Elia Kazan's movies, I could surely watch Mel Gibson's movie," Olmos said. "I think more damage was done understanding what Elia Kazan did [during the McCarthy era] than what Mel Gibson did. That's his problem and he has to live with it."
When the arrest occurred, some wondered if Disney would abandon "Apocalypto," but the studio decided to stick with Gibson.
To cultivate awareness for the film in the Latino community, Disney has relied on the Arenas Group, headed by Santiago Pozo. The Beverly Hills-based company is one of the oldest Latino marketing agencies in entertainment; clients have included Disney and ABC Entertainment, Universal, PBS and DreamWorks.
Arenas has had a long-standing relationship with Disney, working on some 10 pictures a year, many of them family films. Disney, like all major studios, has come to recognize the moviegoing habits of Latino audiences and fully integrates them into their marketing efforts. On some films, Latinos represent as much as 40% of the moviegoing public, industry sources say.
It was Arenas, sources say, that reached out to Los Angeles' Latin Business Assn., whose chairman, Rick Sarmiento, came away so impressed after seeing "Apocalypto" that he persuaded his board to confer the Chairman's Visionary Award on Gibson at the group's Latino Global Business Conference and Digital Expo at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills. Gibson appeared at the Nov. 2 luncheon to accept the award and, after a Q&A session with Sarmiento before the luncheon crowd, screened about 10 minutes of his film to resounding applause.
Don Martinez, a founder and board member of the LBA and a senior marketing partner at the Domar Group, an executive-search firm focusing on bilingual and multicultural hiring, was among those in the audience who came away impressed and believing that the Latino community would embrace it.
"Just looking at brief parts of the film, I will tell you, it gave me goosebumps," he said. As for Gibson's anti-Semitic tirade, he added: "I look at it this way. He's a human being just like you and me. Regardless of what happened, we need to move on.... People do make mistakes. He screwed up. So what? Move on. This is an opportunity to move forward."
Ernie Gomez, development director at the Latino Community Development Agency in Oklahoma City, said he attended an early screening and although he thought the scenes of human sacrifice may be off-putting for some, they accurately reflect what he knows about Maya culture. "It's pretty graphic in terms of the killings," Gomez said, "but you know that is part of our culture."
As for Sarmiento, he said that it was both "critical and honorable" that Gibson had reached out to the Latino community. "Rather than going to the masses, he's gone to the Latino community to see what they think.... It's a no-brainer. I think he's a smart businessman." He added that he is "amazed" that Hollywood doesn't do more of this kind of marketing.
Myers, who set up the Oklahoma and Texas screenings, said "easily 500" people attended, including officials of the Comanche tribal council and the Chickasaw Nation.
Why Gibson chose Oklahoma, she said, was twofold: First, there is a large Native American population in Oklahoma, and second, Rudy Youngblood, a Comanche, stars in the movie as a central character named Jaguar Paw. She said the appearances of Gibson and Youngblood were kept secret from the audience prior to the screenings.
Myers said the governor of the Chickasaws hosted a reception for Gibson that was attended by tribal legislators, and Comanche tribal council members had lunch with Gibson and Youngblood. Also invited to screenings, she said, were groups such as the Oklahoma City Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and a group called United National Indian Tribal Youth, which is made up of high school and college-age youths.
"What a great thing it was for them," she said. "They might never have had an opportunity to see the movie, let alone meet Mel Gibson or Rudy Youngblood."
Disney's Rice said the early screenings for Latino and Native American audiences do not mean that the studio is relying on that segment of the population to market the movie.
"First of all, this is a movie made with an all-indigenous cast, which is pretty unique in Hollywood," he said. "The movie is about the Mayan culture and anyone who has a connection to that, particularly Mexican Americans, hopefully it will be well-received by them.
"On the other hand, it's a flat-out action picture. College kids will want to see it."
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Jhane Myers certainly wasn't expecting a personal phone call from Mel Gibson.
"He said, 'Hello, Jhane, I know you don't know me. This is Mel Gibson, and I really would like to have you call me back,' " Myers recalled. When she did, the Oklahoma City public relations executive found herself enlisted in Gibson's grass-roots marketing campaign for his new film, "Mel Gibson's Apocalypto," due in theaters Dec. 8.
Two years ago, Gibson reached out to Christians with a carefully orchestrated campaign that helped his film "The Passion of the Christ" become one of the most successful movies of all time, grossing $611 million worldwide. With "Apocalypto" - his visually sumptuous retelling of the fall of the Maya civilization - Gibson is hoping to strike box-office gold once again by wooing Latinos and Native Americans such as Myers, hoping they will identify with his tale of an indigenous culture.
Myers, a member of the Comanche nation, arranged to screen "Apocalypto" five times over a three-day period in late September for Native Americans and Latinos in Oklahoma City and Lawton, Okla., as well as Austin, Texas. Guests were treated to surprise Q&A sessions with the Academy Award-winning director of "Braveheart" and star of dozens of Hollywood films, and Gibson was able to gauge audience reaction first-hand to an early cut of the film.
While Gibson has been toiling in the editing room, putting the final touches on the film, he and Disney have also been aggressively screening the movie before select audiences in the Latino community, including L.A. politicians and businessmen. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has been among those invited to an advance screening, but he has yet to see the film, a Disney spokesman confirmed.
Sources say Gibson is taking an unusual risk by showing an unfinished version of the film to audiences that aren't normally used to seeing movies without final tweaking of color, sound, music and the like but noted that Gibson felt it was important to receive their input before the film was complete.
|
|
As with "Passion," which contained brutal scenes of Christ's torture at the hands of Roman soldiers, there are scenes of bloody violence in "Apocalypto" - in this case, human sacrifices in which heads roll - that are sure to make audiences squirm in their seats.
Disney spokesman Dennis Rice said the violence is "no more so than in any R-rated picture. For some, they will be fine with it. For others, it may not be exactly their cup of tea. But there hasn't been one person who has said this isn't a powerful movie and that once again, 'Mel has done it.' "
As an Anglo telling a Maya story with a largely non-Anglo cast and crew, Gibson will be under pressure to deliver a film that doesn't insult Maya culture or divert too drastically from historical facts.
At the same time, Disney and Gibson's company, Icon Productions, know that the marketing task ahead for them is difficult. After all, the film features a cast of unknowns, depicting a period of Latin American history of which U.S. citizens may have only passing knowledge, and characters speaking in an ancient Mayan dialect with English subtitles.
And, of course, threatening to overshadow the film and its marketing effort is Gibson himself.
No one yet knows how much impact that headline-grabbing arrest could have on his movie. Some people, particularly those in the Jewish community, can't help recalling the controversy that surrounded "Passion," which some critics said was infused with anti-Semitism. But there are others, including a few who have seen "Apocalypto," who say the film should not suffer just because of the director's personal mistakes.
One of those is actor Edward James Olmos, a leading voice in Latino cultural affairs, who said he was invited by Gibson to an early screening. Olmos, who brought along his grown son, Bodie, said he was unprepared for what he saw.
"I was totally caught off guard," Olmos said in a recent phone interview from the set of "Battlestar Galactica" in Vancouver, Canada. "It's arguably the best movie I've seen in years. I was blown away." Olmos said he was not briefed beforehand by Gibson on the film. "I just kind of sat down and bingo! It wasn't even in a screening room. It was like an office.... The screen drops down from the ceiling. I was sitting at an oval table."
Olmos noted that the film tells the story of "first-nation" people - those who were here long before Europeans landed on their shores. Olmos said the story is "just breathtaking."
As for Gibson's outburst and arrest, Olmos said that what director Elia Kazan did in the days of the Hollywood blacklist never made him avoid Kazan's brilliant films.
"Basically, if you watch Elia Kazan's movies, I could surely watch Mel Gibson's movie," Olmos said. "I think more damage was done understanding what Elia Kazan did [during the McCarthy era] than what Mel Gibson did. That's his problem and he has to live with it."
|
|
When the arrest occurred, some wondered if Disney would abandon "Apocalypto," but the studio decided to stick with Gibson.
To cultivate awareness for the film in the Latino community, Disney has relied on the Arenas Group, headed by Santiago Pozo. The Beverly Hills-based company is one of the oldest Latino marketing agencies in entertainment; clients have included Disney and ABC Entertainment, Universal, PBS and DreamWorks. Arenas has had a long-standing relationship with Disney, working on some 10 pictures a year, many of them family films. Disney, like all major studios, has come to recognize the moviegoing habits of Latino audiences and fully integrates them into their marketing efforts. On some films, Latinos represent as much as 40% of the moviegoing public, industry sources say.
It was Arenas, sources say, that reached out to Los Angeles' Latin Business Assn., whose chairman, Rick Sarmiento, came away so impressed after seeing "Apocalypto" that he persuaded his board to confer the Chairman's Visionary Award on Gibson at the group's Latino Global Business Conference and Digital Expo at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills. Gibson appeared at the Nov. 2 luncheon to accept the award and, after a Q&A session with Sarmiento before the luncheon crowd, screened about 10 minutes of his film to resounding applause.
Don Martinez, a founder and board member of the LBA and a senior marketing partner at the Domar Group, an executive-search firm focusing on bilingual and multicultural hiring, was among those in the audience who came away impressed and believing that the Latino community would embrace it.
"Just looking at brief parts of the film, I will tell you, it gave me goosebumps," he said. As for Gibson's anti-Semitic tirade, he added: "I look at it this way. He's a human being just like you and me. Regardless of what happened, we need to move on.... People do make mistakes. He screwed up. So what? Move on. This is an opportunity to move forward."
Ernie Gomez, development director at the Latino Community Development Agency in Oklahoma City, said he attended an early screening and although he thought the scenes of human sacrifice may be off-putting for some, they accurately reflect what he knows about Maya culture. "It's pretty graphic in terms of the killings," Gomez said, "but you know that is part of our culture."
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|
As for Sarmiento, he said that it was both "critical and honorable" that Gibson had reached out to the Latino community. "Rather than going to the masses, he's gone to the Latino community to see what they think.... It's a no-brainer. I think he's a smart businessman." He added that he is "amazed" that Hollywood doesn't do more of this kind of marketing.
Myers, who set up the Oklahoma and Texas screenings, said "easily 500" people attended, including officials of the Comanche tribal council and the Chickasaw Nation.
Why Gibson chose Oklahoma, she said, was twofold: First, there is a large Native American population in Oklahoma, and second, Rudy Youngblood, a Comanche, stars in the movie as a central character named Jaguar Paw. She said the appearances of Gibson and Youngblood were kept secret from the audience prior to the screenings.
Myers said the governor of the Chickasaws hosted a reception for Gibson that was attended by tribal legislators, and Comanche tribal council members had lunch with Gibson and Youngblood. Also invited to screenings, she said, were groups such as the Oklahoma City Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and a group called United National Indian Tribal Youth, which is made up of high school and college-age youths.
"What a great thing it was for them," she said. "They might never have had an opportunity to see the movie, let alone meet Mel Gibson or Rudy Youngblood."
Disney's Rice said the early screenings for Latino and Native American audiences do not mean that the studio is relying on that segment of the population to market the movie.
"First of all, this is a movie made with an all-indigenous cast, which is pretty unique in Hollywood," he said. "The movie is about the Mayan culture and anyone who has a connection to that, particularly Mexican Americans, hopefully it will be well-received by them.
"On the other hand, it's a flat-out action picture. College kids will want to see it."
13 NOVEMBER 2006.- COLLAGE, "SPIRIT OF THE JUNGLE"
SEE COLLAGE
Click Here
Our thanks to Coco for this wonderful collage. THANK YOU on behalf of everybody here!!!!
SEE COLLAGE
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Our thanks to Coco for this wonderful collage. THANK YOU on behalf of everybody here!!!!
15 NOVEMBER 2006.- SCOOTER, MEL AND "APOCALYPTO"
SEE INTERVIEW AND PHOTOS
Click Here
SEE INTERVIEW AND PHOTOS |
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