The Dictator, Mel Gibson, History and Comedy

The Dictator is an outstanding satire which is not burning up the box office in America as it should and has gotten temped ratings on rotten tomatoes. Too bad. A movie that swings for the fences will impress those it was meant to impress (people like myself who find it refreshing) and will alienate people who are either strict formalists who insist a movie can only be a satire or a rom-com. It will also annoy morons, but we'll leave that aside. I love the fact that this is both a satire and a somewhat disingenuous rom-com with a protagonist who gets to do heroic deeds and still has a back-story and attitudes that are off-putting. Too many movies are running for office. This movie expects you to know when it is giving movies the finger. Some people don't get it. I got it and appreciate it. This is the sort of movie I would like to be doing. Get the Gringo appears to be released somewhere and I like what I am hearing about it, that it has the quips of a Lethal Weapon and it has a tone like Robert Rodriguez flicks. I look forward to Machete Kills, in which Mel Gibson is supposed to play a bad guy. This all happens around the same time Joe Eszterhas is coming out with an e-book called Heaven and Mel which will fine-tune his own spin on the creative falling out he had with the actor-director over the Maccabee script. I have only the other day heard that he released audio of Mel's alleged rant to him in Costa Rica, but it is clearly from another room and kind of low key as rants go. Mel yells at him for not writing a darn thing over 14 months of being employed to do a screenplay, then yells "Who wants dinner? Yum!" or something. No big deal. He also apparently appeared on Jay Leno and (appropriately) made light of it. It is a shame. I have a copy of Basic Instinct which is entertaining. I also have a book, "The Devil's Guide to Hollywood," wherein one presumes our guide is Joe. After the downbeat visit to Costa Rica (where another writer was having better luck writing with Mel, one Randall Wallace who wrote Braveheart and directed Mel in We Were Soldiers) Joe did finally whip-up a screenplay draft. But it was apparently slip-shot and not reflective enough of what Mel wanted. Warners rejected it and then Mel rejected it. Warners had already paid Joe for the work thus far. Now without Joe's spin, it is the tale of a screenwriter who hasn't cranked anything out since An Allan Smithee Film, Burn, Hollywood, Burn in 1997 if you don't count the 2006 foreign polo film Children of Glory which has three other credited screenwriters and I've never heard of it. Getting his draft of the Maccabee script rejected by Warners would be such a blow to this latter phase of his career he knows his posterity is at stake so he has to make something else of it. Why Mel or Warners chose him to work on this material is unknown. Maybe this time-honored story of Jewish history needed a "Showgirls" touch. Joe wants to amp up the perception that Mel Gibson is not only a lunatic but anti-Semitic. Is The Passion of the Christ a slam against Jews? I didn't feel it as such when I watched it. And it didn't motivate anyone to go out and commit acts of violence against Jews either. It is a very contemplative film. I don't know if Hindus deny that Hindus killed Gandhi or whether the Nation of Islam says their members had nothing to do with killing Malcolm X. The facts don't seem to be much in dispute. People see evil done do Jews OSTENSIBLY for the killing of Christ and therefore can't suffer the fact that not only a Jew named Jesus got crucified and that some high-ranking Jews insisted on it but that crucifixion was common, as was public flogging. I have not heard any dispute of the line "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do" spoken supposedly by Jesus, which would (one thinks) wipe the slate clean for all of JC's persecutors. But even then to not know "what they do" is to assume they don't realize they are killing the Son of God but believe they are merely torturing and killing an ordinary person for blasphemy. So any way you slice it, people have been barbaric and stupid throughout history. Hopefully we will get to see Randall Wallace's Viking film which might very well push Viking violence to the limit. It's a little too easy for people to whine that they don't agree with their employer. It creates a climate where famous employers can't write you a letter or an e-mail without fear that you will release it to the public. I likely will read Joe's e-book, but I already don't respect it. Sascha Baron Cohen (The Dictator himself) has made a couple of digs against Mel Gibson but they are inspired digs. I can respect both in that case. Gibson is made an easy target for accusations of racism. Hopefully meanwhile I will soon find a copy of Get the Gringo. Apparently it is in theaters overseas.

The Passion of the Mel

Oksana says Mel Gibson is "trivializing" domestic violence by charging her with extortion over the audio clips of phone conversations that were sold to the internet by her sister. She says she recoded the messages because she thought she wouldn't make it through the night. Of course she is saying this to RadarOnline, the webside that bought and posted the rants and which along with TMZ will hopefully have a special place in internet Hell when they are finally toppled.

If she honestly felt she wouldn't last the night she would have called the cops, especially after the rose garden threat. But she remains calm and is quite cold for these clips, and I have heard all 6 she is in and the 7th which is actually just a voice-mail from Mel. If the tapes were intended for cops Oksana would have handed them over right away. Instead she let her sister access them and field bids from newspapers and websites, settling on RadarOnline.

There is no doubt that Mel was angry. As a less creative person I might say "I should KILL you!" to someone, but Mel being used to speeches instead said something one of his characters would have said. Frankly, I give it no more weight than the average person saying I should kill you. The spectre of OJ Simpson of course is there, because nobody exepcted him to snap. But again, whatever he said to get her to start recording should have also spurred her to call the police and then let him rant.

The fact that her stated fear for her life was not great enough to call the police and that there is ZERO fear in her smug voice in these clips shows the tapes were for extortion and/or inevitable humiliation. Because even if Mel paid or agreed to a rotten custory revision Oksana's sister would have still been able to release the audio. Charging someone with extortion does not "trivialize" domestic violence, but even her claim if it is very suspect considering the underhanded way she operates.

News sources, such as they are, say that Mel Gibson's Viking epic was due to start filming in the Fall and also say that there is no script yet and it is just an idea. The one thing they easily make up their collective mind about is that Mel Gibson is the anti-Christ because he yelled at his ex-girlfriend. He also (forgetting context for a minute) used the n-word, which apparently nullifies any and all handshakes and friendshakes with black people and marks him as much as a racist as telling the story of Christ marks him (and I suppose any and all of us raised Catholic or Christian) as anti-Semites. It depends who you ask. Unfortunately journalists don't seem to have the enthusiasm they once did for verification of facts. Or maybe I'm romanticising the past and it was always about sensation and immediate gut reaction and fact-free knee-jerk judgements.

Some say he is staying in America to shoot The Beaver and How I Spent My Summer Vacation, therefore he has no plans to skip the country for Australia. But his acting in those two projects is completed already. Privately, I'd like to see him take over Mad Max: Fury Road if George Miller will have him back in the role. I understand that even though Gibson is not supposed to be in it (after dropping out of the planned 2004 shoot) Icon Productions is involved. The real kick in the pants hasn't happened yet. Bruce Davey his longtime producer and former accountant at Icon hasn't jumped ship yet. But I can see that even on the level of reporage limited to production plans the entertainment news media doesn't seem to bother cross-checking its facts.

Firstly, according to People, Mel Gibson has finished shooting on How I Spent My Summer Vacation before the infamous leakage of phone rants. People magazine remarked on how Mel got along with everyone on the set, and also there had been several news items about the controversy of displacing prisoners to shoot that prison film in Mexico. I don't know what kinds of clashes he had with Hispanics, but reportedly there were demonstrations against the film so his "wetbacks" comments don't come quite from out of the blue. Also, The Beaver was only $5 according to Mel the last time he was on Jimmy Kimmel. Certain influential people in the media, and Ari Emanuel the head of his former agency have applied negative pressure against him for years. In this case, I can't blame Leo for bailing from the Viking movie because there is so much hate and nary a word about Manic Depressive Disorder which is as much a disease as alcoholism. This does not mean his peers actually hate Mel. In an industry where people live in public and watch their every joke, trying to avoid nuance and irony (like Oliver Stone's overly candid jokes while trying to defend Mel), when people are having a PRIVATE conversation the floodgates open almost like a secret handshake. And that doesn't mean they are all racist. It just means that when you are dissing someone or someone's maid or painting a picture of what the local thugs might call each other and what their attitude is (losers with chips on their shoulder and a slavery complex ie: the n-word) you just spew. Especially if you are venting to someone you once loved who has now administered a damaging blow to your reputation (by reporting the scuffle over the baby from January).

Violence especially against women is of course despised as is racism, but then there are people gleefully and mindlessly throwing around words like "anti-Semetism" which have an ever-broadening definition. I can love Spielberg, Harrison Ford, Richard Donner, and be moved by the Shylock speech scenes Mel Gibson performs in The Man Without a Face, love Mel Brooks as much and still be called an anti-Semite if I think David Geffin and Ari Emanuel were tacky in holding a grudge over The Passion of the Christ. That movie by the way is not anti-Semetic. Mel's own hands hammer in the nails. Humanity and each individual of a Catholic or Christian congregation crucifies Jesus and is forgiven as good and evil fight it out in each person's heart. It is not about Jews, no matter what the idiot Ciaphas says. JC said (of his own Crucifixion and every unjust crucifixion and flogging and stoning that happened on a regular basis and was attended by locals) "Forgive them, they know not what they do."

Even if Mel Gibson doesn't bounce back from this right away, I think a lot of people will be ashamed. Sure Manic Depressive disorder is not cool and yelling and screaming and swearing and threatening may not be cool, but they are as much a part of the "trunk" and go-to language Mel is used to in almost ALL of his characters. Just as persecution (accusations of anti-Semetism) he endured in 2006 when reports anticipated Disney dumping Apocalypto caused him to fall off the wagon and drive drunk naturally lead to jewish slander being part of his ramblings. Next step will be that perhaps Mel will meet someone who transcribes or tape records whatever he says as he talks in his sleep. Then THOSE ramblings will also be taken as "the truth" and the "mask removed."

Thank God Darlene Love and Whoopie Goldberg have spoken up and Robert DeNiro has wished him luck getting through this ordeal. Burt Reynolds movies are still entertaining years after he hit Loni Anderson, even though he was wrong. It may not be particular to Mel Gibson but there may be quirks and flashpoints here that a lot of Hollywood people secretly recognize.

I also think a LOT of people including myself would like to see TMZ and RadarOnline and the like utterly destroyed. If Mel Gibson kills himself over this humiliation I hope RadarOnline staff get prison for manslaughter.

All We Hear is Radio Gaza

My language and my favourite movies are a hodgepodge of other people's work. If I go into a food court, I might like to have both a bagel and a falafel on my tray with no dirty looks from opposing restaurants. When Muslim extremists crashed planes on 9/11 2001 the first response from North America was to fill the rest of our buildings with Muslim security guards; that way any further attack would be against their own.

Lately we all confront those big Facebook battlefield choices: to join the board that on friend has joined supporting Israel or to join the one from another who is critical of it. So do I invest hours reading 14-page documents so I know which group to click? Do I then consider myself informed? Or do I take the "love your enemy" Christian position and support nothing? A pattern of clear black and clear white up close becomes grey from a distance, and I have preferred to keep it that way.

So far the most inflammatory post I've seen, on a "no politics or religion allowed" screenplay discussion board, says outright that the ultimate goal of Jews is to become the equivalent of Nazis but substituting Arabs and Muslims for themselves. Without knowing anything about any specific facts and not knowing what is a reliable source, I'd rather look at the principle. It sounds terrible. Not something anyone I know accepts. Not a plan.
So we're in agreement then? No extermination of all Palestinians. But my first gut reaction to that was that psychologically it seems plausible. Chillingly so. Any reasonable person can agree that the Holocaust or Shoah was a terrible event in human history, even if we have only experienced it safely through Schindler's List or Sophie's Choice and hundreds of other books, movies or testimonials. But was it a one-time-only event? Try comparing anything to it - even to extract a principle from an anthropological stand point - and the person suggesting it will be asked to apologize from someone official. Burma, Darfur, Tibet, Rwanda and the list goes on with abusive authority, propaganda, ethnic cleansing, and a message of "mind your own business, rest of the world" sound like at least mini variations on the same humanitarian catastrophe that we would like to think happens only once and then we are all too civilized to let happen again.

Spielberg had some project giving Israel and Palestinian children video cameras to do their own home movies and then trade the tapes with each other to show similarities. I haven't heard how that turned out, but it was after Munich was done. People have an impulse to fall in love with one horrible event (holocaust, 9/11) and there is no other crime that can compare and it is offensive to suggest similar patterns.

That's because being vigilant is work. It's easier to care a lot about ONE thing that we had no responsibility for than to maintain awareness of the changing and unchanging world around us. I can't comment on Gaza because I haven't taken the time to read the facts. I have Jewish friends, a few of my favourite filmmakers and comics are obviously Jewish, and most of the security guards I interact with on a regular basis are Arab or Muslim and some are also my friends. Here's what I know without knowing anything:

The LEADERS of both camps must be held accountable. The average Joe Palestinian or Joe Israeli only cares about the big picture to the extent that they are told to care about it. It's always about someone else "winning." And it is not for the glory of any God worth worshipping let alone being inspired by. It is a bunch of bean counters and sociopaths. That's my judgement without looking up the details. Some people say killing your personal enemy is wrong but going off to fight a war because the machine says so is right. A personal enemy threatens your specific life and survival. The official "enemy" is arbitrary, in this case dictated by real estate claims. That said, some might say it is morally wrong or mad to condone sending "Rambo" into Burma and having him kill off their military and leadership one by one, but that is an idea that I endorse unofficially but it would have to be covert.

There is supposedly a rule about not kidnapping or killing the leader of the enemy force, which to me is nonsense. That is precisely the core problem. Leaders on both sides of the Gaza conflict should be replaced by Scott Bacula's character from Quantum Leap until the situation is cooled down. But then who backs down first? Who gets to seem weak? Which leader do you puppet first into saying just the right peaceful thing?

It's difficult to say I want to impost my food court philosophy on the world. I can only selfishly say I'd like to be able to have Chinese food today and Japanese food tomorrow without having to agitate or endorse anybody's long-standing homeland hatreds. I don't have to respect those hatreds. Even when they come to us in viral form over the inter-net, I'm not sure there is an action to take. If Canada, the U.S., or the World Food Court actually function it's because something has to be left behind. There isn't much of a mental border patrol and we don't put our personal and psychological baggage through a mental detector, but I don't have to know any details to know that I don't want either Jewish or Muslim kids and bystanders endangered - especially by crap their parents feel some obligation to perpetuate. Put Moses, Mohammad and Jesus in a room and don't let them come out until they have a solution. Everybody else can crank up the a/c and watch the Simpsons.