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.

Kickstarter

They still need more money for the Burning Man intergenerational flick:

I've been introduced to this new site to help filmmakers get some seed money for their projects.

http://kck.st/90rJJY

Kickstarter is the name. The link is for a friend's flick I've just put a thousand dollars into. Big step for me, because I don't help anyone.

Oddly, one of their producers is someone who did The Corporation and a Noam Chomsky film.

Cinemerde: Were I've Gone Wrong

This is going to be the title for a new blog I plan to start, focusing on problems encountered in making short films or attempting to set up features.

It should be self-depricating but will also pull no punches in giving discredit where it is due, even if that means changing the names of the guilty.

thanks for your attention

Just a quick thanks to the millions of people who check my blog every day. For them, I have to take the time to at least make this one entry whether I have anything to say or not.

Spiritually, if I take the time to think about it, I'm staring into the abyss.

I don't have enough authority and influence to merely insist that my films get made, but I do have the certainty and understanding of the world to know when to say no.

Suppose a "producer-director" wants to take over one of my projects. The logic of some might be that it is worth his/her "in" as a producer to "make it happen" to give up the position of director. But I know that - apart from established movie stars and those way out of reach - any producer worth having must be a PRODUCER, provider, logistics-oriented. That doesn't mean that they get to "play" as director just because it is considered more of an "artistic expression." It is RARE that an excellent director is also an excellent producer.

I was randomly musing as I left the subway today how silly it is that people persist with the "don't look a gift horse in the mouth" message they apparently get from The Trojan Horse story. I've said this before, but I say DEFINITELY look a gift horse in the mouth. If there are no soldiers inside waiting to attack your castle once they arfe through the gate, cool. Your ally won't be offended that you have a head on your shoulders.

And even though I have other scripts and other projects I could end up directing, guess what? I'm choosing the BEST one to focus on first. I'm going through all of them and giving them another run through the word processer, because it feels like a more fertile or desperate time of my life when I might really focus and fight and not assume that because I wrote it and it took a long time it must be good. Most if not all of the scripts I read from undiscovered peers are naive -- often including those that have been celebrated and boosted by screenwriting circles or circle-jerks.

My bios around 2001 used to say "writer-director-security guard." I'm not sure they all do now, since nine years later it isn't as funny or benign.

I'm starting to REALLY rely on the handful of people who like my shorts and join my team to make movies. And I owe them. I didn't move to Toronto and reduce contact with my parents and siblings to be a security guard. I want to take the mediocre film industry and uneven film festivals and grab them by the caller and bash their heads against something. Nothing but money stops people from making a movie; it's just a matter of the quality and what kind of performance is captured. I know I can't do my next short - let alone feature - under the same compromised conditions. People can't be persuaded to participate because it "won't take long." I know I want to get through it fast because I expect it to fall apart like one of my projects in 2005 did. People have to be committed and informed about the time that might be needed. There is NOTHING I can do about lines not being learned or people deciding they can't show up for a rehearsal -- other than re-cast, which is something that must be on the table from the start.

As confident as I am about writing and directing, I am not so confident about producing. And by producing I don't mean throwing money at problems. Too many people may think this is about wanting to avoid leg work. Of COURSE I want to avoid leg work. If we have a producer for a feature, that person should be able to do leg work more quickly and efficiently than I can. Just like an EDITOR if it is someone other than me, or the cinematographer had better KNOW THE TOOLS better than I do. That really isn't asking much. Moreover, if I am right brain, they must be left brain and vice versa. There is no point having a bunch of daydreamers who can't screw in a lightbulb.

James Cameron and Steven Spielberg can produce and direct, yes. And they are unique people. But I know I'm not a genius. I'm more of a savant. I can write and rewrite, as long as mediocrity isn't calling the shots. And I can direct, although I'd rather not pay to bump the production values and be a half-ass producer and ultimately shoot myself in the foot again. If you see my name as a producer, that means the show has been compromised. I haven't done my taxes yet in May when I only have two pieces of paper to submit and some TTC passes, yet I'll never give up on my scripts.

G8 controversy on paying for abortion

Reading this article. . .

http://news.ca.msn.com/top-stories/cbc-article.aspx?cp-documentid=24037654

I just find it interesting that Bob Rae argues that Canada should extend "our" Canadian laws to third world countries, I suppose minus P.E.I. and any Canadian who isn't a big fan of abortion. If the G8 were to lump abortion in with contraception under the "birth control" banner, would it pay for sex sellection abortions as well? Because that seems to be a norm in the third world. At what point are we imposing our values on a culture and not just money? I think it's one thing to keep abortion legal where it is already legal in Canada; the genie is already out of the bottle. It may be another thing to allocate funds overseas for abortion unless the goal is to thin out the herd. I can see many Canadians just leaving the third world off the scope and figuring the more abortions the better over there. Reminds me of the MacLean and MacLean song, a choir prayer, "Keep it over there, Lord, keep it over there
Famine and diseases, keep them over there."

scandals and Easter

Happy Easter. If you are very retro, I suppose Happy Ester.

I don't know about scandals. I hear about them, read about them, but come away knowing nothing. There is the "church cover-up" of child sexual abuse by priests, which gets a lot of press. But not much about the other end of it. This is not to put any responsibily on the head of any victim or victim's parent. I can't put responsibility there, because it already IS there. If you have been abused, report it TO THE POLICE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You press charges, give whatever testimony you can, and see what happens. The church, or whatever institution an abuser belongs to, can't "cover-up" that. In fact, it'll likely hit the press without much filtration - from police report pretty much to the headline - so you are likely to get lots of satisfaction as the alleged abuser is pretty much tried and convicted in the court of public opinion ASAP. You can argue that gee, if priests were married they wouldn't be diddlers, which I don't know to be a fact. Aren't there married pedophiles? Aren't there hockey coaches and trainers and babysitters who are like that? I don't know how it is all on the head of the church. Yes, they ordained someone who turned out to be unfit. For that they bear some responsibility. But this business of cover-up? Versus what? I'm not sure publication of names of people who were accused merely in WHISPER CAMPAIGNS and NOT CHARGED by POLICE is something an organiation has any obligatin to do. If they have reason to believe someone on their staff is a pervert, moving them on to another community may be terrible and irresponsible. But WHAT reason do they have to turn someone over to the police if they haven't witnessed anything. It still must be a conflict between accused and victim. Why should the church be the middle-man? The parents presumably are also involved, so why can't THEY press charges or speak to police? If I were a Bishop and what I'm told is that a priest in my area has been accused of wrongdoing, I would ask why the wrongdoing isn't reported to the police if it so clearly happened. How is the Bishop, let alone the Vatican, involved in the conversation at that level except if a priest can't show up for work because he is being interviewed by police or behind bars? Anyway, I just think there are sharks who smell blood and want the church to go down one way or another. One picket says, "It is time for God to step down," which is either ironic or delusional. I'm not sure.

I don't know about celebrity scandals either. I recall a proonged story about an action-movie star who was "accused" by a fan of having a gay interlude. No names, because this movie star has been bashed enough. He responded with a defamation suit and won. The fan moped that he would never watch that star's movies again. Poor baby. I say accusation because the wrongdoing on the part of the star would be infidelity to his wife and lying to his wife. The accusation of a gay tryst actually says nothing concrete about the actor but tells us something about the accuser:
The accuser in this case is one of two things, either a liar or a backstabber. If he is telling the truth, he is recklessly jeopardising the career and fortune of someone who did him no harm and with whom he was intimate. Even though the shadow cast by this kind of scandal remains, the actor still has a degree of box office draw and respect. Even if the accusation were true, he would still be cool. But the would-be fan creating the scandal would still be a scumbag. Even if gossip and scandal come from ostensibly liberal sources, I think they are inherently catty and conservative in the worst way and it still is another version of the tall poppy syndrom - cutting someone down for being outstanding.

I don't know if these issues are well-served in the sound-byte culture. Too many levels. Too many granedes lobbed into a crowd by people with hidden agendas. If a priest compares the strain of churc scandal to the strain of anti-Semetism, of COURSE that is going to be a big story. I would have compared it more to the way TTC workers feel the day after subway and bus fares go up or the day after a striked that messes up thousands of lives to ensure the workers get better than merely twice our wages and three times the benefits but something absurdly more. I think the Pope could have slapped the scandals of the church down a long time ago. The abuse story is front and center, but we are still talking about a church with more mundane mess-ups on its plate. They went out of the way around 2005 to suggest girls should not be encouraged to be altar servers. Well, I used to work as a Sacristan in a church between the ages of 12 and 17 and told a girl to suit up as often as a boy, and one can hand wine to the priest as well as the other. The old boys' club is the problem. But as for who "covers-up" a scandal, I don't know if it's anyone but the victim. Some of them waited until 20 years passed before they went to police and got closure. Had they and/or their parents gone straight to police, instead of imagining there was some sort of internal policing, maybe there would be earlier publicity and fewer abuses. If a teacher abuses a student, would they and the parently merely go to the Principal? Or would they speak to police? I don't know.

I don't know

That could be the new title of my blog, or my autobiography which I should write and keep on hand in case I get famous and someone asks for it. Because if I had to write it when famous I might be too busy having fun. I say I don't know because though they say write about what you know I think I fill more space by focusing on what I don't know.

I don't know about the word respect. Is it regard? Is it acknowledgement that a person or thing exists? Because I hear people "respect" each other many times who have not earned, say, admiration which is the main word I think respect means. I don't like to throw that word around. How can I "respect" an obstreperous A-hole and have my respect for Nelson Mandela not be devalued?

I don't know about homophobia. Who was the first to coin the term? If I'm writing a script that takes place in 1942, can a character say "homophobic"? I don't know where it comes from. I'm sure the break down has been done before. It doesn't mean fear of same, or fear of people or men fearing men. There are guys I might fear, but not because they are men. I've heard a guy called homophobic because his first fear about going to jail is being sodomized by another inmate. If a woman fears being raped I don't know if anyone would pipe up and call her heterophobic. They might regard the context - say walking alone down a dark street filled with thugs - and give her some credit. But a guy gets the third degree if he fears being raped? I don't know. I thought prejudice was unfairly painting people with a wide brush, and yet I see that go on a lot - by some gay people. Canadian playwright Brad Fraser deleted me from his Facebook because I defended Mel Gibson. When Edge of Darkness was released, Brad posted at least four status updates on his page that were slamming Mel. That's in one day, along with other random updates. I'm lucky if I update my facebook status once a day. But I understand in the case of a high profile playwright it is marketing - he must want everyone to know how brilliant his plays will be if we get around to actually seeing them. In this case, I don't know from brilliant. He didn't seem capable of engaging in reasonable debate. As far as he is concerned Mel is an alcoholic and anti-Semite and don't confuse him with the facts. And so I find Brad Fraser annoying, yet I don't fear him. So is it homoannoya? The folks who run Defamer or TMZ or Out Magazine (assuming that still exists) or even GLAAD seem very willing to disregard the rights and privacy of others, pulling celebrities out of a "closet" even if they are action stars. I don't know if Tom Cruise is gay, but in any case I still consider him cool and responsible as a businessmam. Jodie Foster was right to keep her personal life to herself all those years. It's none of her business, and she has NO obligation to show up at parades and be someone's role model. What if someone's personal kick is the secrecy if being "on the down low"? Who is to say they have a civic responsibility to pay lip service to GLAAD and or any other brand of gossip monger? Jerry Lewis attends a golf tournament in Australia and makes gay joke, so GLAAD asks him to. . .what? Recant what he said? To pretend he doesn't laugh at non-PC jokes. at fat jokes, at fart jokes, at gay jokes? And is a member of the Rat Pack really all that concerned with whether his rainbow stripes are in the right order? How many Dean Martin or Sinatra fans are supposed to give a rat's ass? Hypothetically, what would it serve a movie star with a business and a production company to run to suddenly faunt a love life that heartland America - a sizable market - has not granted equality let alone embraced? Or are they expected to make a mea culpa for all the years they dated the opposite gender? I sense that a lot of these people who claim to be all about personal freedom are quite nasty, rubbing someone's nose in shit, just loving it when Family Values icon Gibson falls off the wagon and sputters incoherent drunken rantings about his own media persecutors (in that case David Geffin and some anonymous rabi and random uninformed yahoos on Youtube). Neil Patrick Harris became cool in Harold and Kumar Go to Whitecastle, and frankly stayed cool after outing himself. Ellen DeGeneres is terrific. They're also not Brad Fraser. They're not annoying. But I don't know. Maybe they do the same thing he does and I just don't hear about it because I'm not paying attention. Maybe they do a variation of writing a letter to a theater who has rejected a play and trying to find out why it has been rejected. . .gradually trying to back the theater's aquisitions person into dismissing him for a non PC reason when frankly all they have to say is that his work is generally boring and pretty much peaked with the line "Honey, I'm Home - o!" 20 years ago. Now if, because of this, I am called homophobic, it will just be more laziness. It's an easy accusation because it's tough to refute. So it's over used and barely has meaning. There is a big difference between someone getting beaten up in Timmons for "being gay" and someone lingering and prancing in the health club shower hoping to cruise someone and causing some guys to wait it out frozen by the lockers until he leaves. The latter is actually a reasonable and healthy discomfort over someone being rude. As for how someone gets beaten up for being gay, I don't think that means he sand a Shania Twain song in front of the courthouse. I'm assuming it was unprovoked, and hateful prejudiced bullies descended and swarmed the poor little guy. He might have made fun of their plaid shirts or their low I.Q. (those involved in the attack, not the population of Timmons). But I don't know.

I don't know about pro-life and pro-choice on abortion. Some Family organization bought air time during the Superbown on CBS to run a carefully crafted spot promiting what was ostensibly a pro-life message, but I don't know if I get it. I had been told all along was that the pro-life position was "against abortion unless the mother's life is at risk." Notice I'm not even saying health, because that's a legal wording from back in the day. The pro-life position still put the mother's LIFE first. That's just common sense. A bird in the hand. . . But the main thrust of this Superbowl ad was that an NFL player would not have been born if his mother had listened to the doctors (plural) who told her not to go full term. And these presumably weren't abortion providers angling for a gig. So the ad throws out a significant pro-life point. What about the choice part? The mother CHOSE to ignore the doctors because it was her own life to risk. So it was a pro-choice ad, and I haven't seen anyone on the left give CBS credit for being so subversive. They helped write the ad. They were afraid of offending anyone. On the one hand you have the visual reinforcement that gestating fetuses can grow up to be mediocre football players. That has kind of a poor man's Save-Sarah-Connor-So-John-Connor-Can-Be-Born vibe, like the great pro-life movie The Terminator. But how many millions in contributions did that Family Values banner organization spend to promote the choice of the mother to ignore doctors and to under-value the pro-life message by turning ii into something other than a sane and relatable acknowledgement of gestating human beings AND their HOST organism? Was the message intended for any confused young women watching the football game that day? No, it was just for idiots to mark territory and piss off other idiots. Why? I don't know.