Posted on Wednesday, December 28th, 2011 by Angie Han
Maybe it’s just because I got a cat this year — the first living, breathing creature I’ve owned since I failed to keep a hamster alive circa 1995 — but I couldn’t help noticing that the films of 2011 featured some damn great animals. Some were the stars of their films, like Rango (Johnny Depp) in Rango, while others played second fiddle to less interesting, or at least less adorable, human stars, like Rosie (Tai) in Water for Elephants, but all deserve special mention in my book.
And yeah, okay, the fact that they also serve as a convenient excuse to post cute animal photos during a slow news week happens to a nice little bonus as well. Read on after the jump.
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Posted on Tuesday, September 13th, 2011 by David Chen
This week, Dave, Devindra, and Adam discuss Mel Gibson’s next sure-to-be-controversial product, praise the brilliance of Children’s Hospital, get disappointed by the studio feel of Warrior, and wonder whether or not Attack the Block is a perfect movie. Guest Alison Willmore joins us from Movieline and AV Club.
You can always e-mail us at slashfilmcast(AT)gmail(DOT)com, or call and leave a voicemail at 781-583-1993. Tune in on Sunday night (9/18) at Slashfilm’s live page at 10 PM EST / 7 PM PST as we review Drive.
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Is this an expression of genuine artistic interest, a motion of real penance, or a calculated move? Mel Gibson, a man who in 2006 told a cop “the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,” is teaming with Showgirls writer Joe Eszterhas on a script about Jewish hero Judah Maccabee. Depending upon how that script turns out, Gibson may direct and act in the resulting film. Read More »
The Beaver may not have been quite the comeback that Mel Gibson wanted, but it was probably the comeback that he deserved. Still, signs point to the fact that the film’s relative under-performance is due less to disdain for the actor and more towards a general sense of disinterest and lack of awareness about the film. For real comeback action Mel Gibson will probably have to work in a genre that has more potential for audience impact. How about some form of buddy comedy — that being the format that defined one stage of his career thanks to the Lethal Weapon films? Indeed, he is now in talks to join the buddy heist comedy Sleight of Hand, which has Kiefer Sutherland, Gerard Depardieu and Thomas Jane set for smaller roles. Read More »
Remember The Beaver? First-time writer Kyle Killen‘s spec screenplay created all sorts of buzz around Hollywood, ended up on the 2008 Black List (a list of the hottest unproduced screenplays of the year), and gained the interest of Steve Carell and director Jay Roach. A lot of people, including former /Film writer Brendon Connelly called the screenplay “one of the few very best screenplays” he had “ever read.”
Roach and Carell left the project, and Jodie Foster (who directed Little Man Tate and Home for the Holidays) came aboard to helm the project with Mel Gibson in the leading role. Gibson’s problems in his personal life have caused this film to sit on the shelf, while Foster has tried to fine tune the film’s tone, and Summit Entertainment brainstorms ways to market a movie starring an actor who has made anti-Semitic and racist remarks. But the studio has been quietly positioning the film to be Gibson’s comeback project.
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Summit Entertainment must have gotten some pretty good buzz from early screenings of their controversial Jodie Foster/Mel Gibson film The Beaver because, according to Box Office Mojo, they bumped it back from its original March 23 release date. It’ll now open limited on the much more desirable summer date of May 6 before expanding on May 20. That will put it in direct competition on its limited weekend with Thor and on its wide weekend with Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.
Directed by Foster and starring Gibson and Foster, The Beaver will have its first public premiere at South by Southwest next month. If you haven’t seen the trailer, you can watch it after the jump. Read More »
SXSW announced today that a handful of additional titles were being added to the line-up for the 2011 SXSW Film Festival, including Jodie Foster‘s Mel Gibson dramedy The Beaver, Greg Mottola‘s sci-fi comedy Paul starring Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Seth Rogen, and Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop, a documentary that follows behind-the-scenes of O’Brien’s summer tour, among others. Read the full press release after the jump.
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The headline gags just seem to write themselves, but calm down — this is purely a release date post. Summit has announced a date for Jodie Foster‘s film The Beaver, in which Mel Gibson plays a family man who goes down a dark, angry road before being led back into the family fold by a plush beaver puppet. The film will hit some markets on March 23 2011, and then expand on April 8, with the number of theaters for April 8 likely to be determined based in part on the film’s critical and box office performance in the first limited weekend.
So can Mel Gibson sell the story of a guy who cracks up and then finds redemption? Is it completely crazy that the plot for his first post-rant film seems to reflect his own life so closely? Or can you look at The Beaver as just another movie, totally divorced from any real life goings-on? Sound off after the break. Read More »
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