I'm Sorry Mel, I forgot! ;-(

"My hope is that this movie will affect people on a very profound level and reach them with a message of faith, hope, love and forgiveness." Mel Gibson

The Passion of the Christ (Two-Disc Definitive Edition) is now at available. It came out Tuesday.

I can't believe I forgot. http://www.amazon.com/

I'm So Proud of Him

Mel's Mayan epic "Apocalypto" launched impressively in Mexico for Fox with a first-place $2.7 million at 465. It also led in openings in Taiwan, with $336,000 at 56, and in Brazil, with $207,000 at 48, pushing the foreign film past $40 million.

This is so cool!

Blu-ray Payback

April 10.2007 Payback Straight Up: the Director's Cut will also be available on Blu-ray.

Apocalypto Opens in Mexico

Twentieth Century Fox Mexico bows Mel Gibson's Mayan epic "Apocalypto" today in Mexico. Fox is releasing the film on 300 prints -- midsized for the market -- and expects to nab the No. 1 spot and 15 million pesos ($1.4 million) in the opening weekend.

Fox estimated the pic would earn less than $4 million during its run, but exhibs were more optimistic, expecting it to earn more than $6 million.

Film managed to nab a B-15 rating, which requires kids younger than 15 be accompanied by an adult, after distribs feared landing a C rating (similar to R) due to the pic's graphic violence.

Mexico is the first Latin American market to see the film and should provide a litmus test for other markets with populations of indigenous peoples and pre-Colombian cultures. Fox has rights for the entire region.
Francisco Lopez, Fox Latam's regional marketing manager, said the distrib is marketing the film more as an action film in some markets -- including Mexico -- and would play up the cultural aspect in campaigns in the more European-centered markets such as Argentina and Chile, which have tiny indigenous populations.

Oscar Nominees

Sound Mixing: "Apocalypto," "Blood Diamond," "Dreamgirls," "Flags of Our Fathers," "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest."

Sound Editing: "Apocalypto," "Blood Diamond," "Flags of Our Fathers," "Letters From Iwo Jima," "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest."

Makeup:"Apocalypto," "Click," "Pan's Labyrinth."

What I think Apocalypto should have been nominated for.

Cinematography, Costume, Foreign Language Film, Directing

Okay Mel, take a moment, go on a long vacation, then come back with another kick ass movie. Your fans, we understand the big machine that is Hollywood. We are not as stupid as they think we are.

Apocalypto Going Strong

Mel's "Apocalypto" 1 in Spain with an estimated $1.8 million from 280 screens. In the U.K., where Gibson's Icon Film Distribution is handling the title, the third weekend tally was an estimated $800,000 from 316 sites, for a market cume of $7.1 million.

Apocalypto Update

Foreign Total for http://apocalypto.movies.go.com/ as of Jan. 14, 2007:
$28,482,348
Domestic Total as of Jan. 16, 2007: $49,120,051

I'm so glad that people are turning out to see this movie. Golden Globe or not, it's a winner in my book.

And it continues...

Mel is due to appear in a Malibu court today for a court ordered progress report in his druken-driving case.The case stems from an incident last July in which sheriff's deputies arrested Gibson on suspicion of drunken driving.

America Still Loves Mel

Move over, Tom Hanks - America has a new favorite movie star. Denzel Washington has bumped the "Forrest Gump" star over to second place even though Denzel Washington.

The late John Wayne maintained his third-place position from the previous year, while another movie cowboy, Clint Eastwood, rose two spots to No. 4, according to Harris Online.
Will Smith makes his debut in fifth place, most likely due to the film "The Pursuit of Happyness," tying Julia Roberts for the honor.
"Pirates of the Caribbean" star Johnny Depp and "Apocalypto" director Mel Gibson tie for seventh place, while George Clooney took ninth place. Harrison Ford came in at No. 10 after holding the third spot last year.

(I would of ranked him number 1, but that's just me)

Mel Gibson Insists He's Moved On, But Others Won't

Los Angeles, CA (BANG) - Mel Gibson knows he's made some mistakes in the past, however, he insists things are different now and wishes people would simply cut him some slack.
Mel doesn't care if some people won't forgive him for his anti-Semitic remarks that were made last summer.
The "Apocalypto" director - who said, "Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world" after being stopped by police for drunk driving last July - says if people cannot forgive and forget it's not his problem.
He insisted, "I have moved on and some folks won't, and that's not my problem. A lot of people were very understanding and kind. It was a good lesson, and I'm thankful for it. The outcome has been positive out of a lot of negativity."
The "Lethal Weapon" actor is also unhappy with people trying to analyze his beliefs and mental state after the event.
He said in an interview with Britain's The Times newspaper, "It's very private and personal. My life has been misrepresented and dragged out in a public manner, with everyone being a dime-store analyst. I don't want to help them in that because they have no ides. I am a work-in-progress, just like the rest of the f***ing human race. If they want to point the finger, they can think about themselves a little first."

**He's so cool!**

Mel in Mexico

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Actor and producer Mel Gibson hit back on Monday at accusations his "Apocalypto" film misrepresents Mayan Indians as savages, accusing opponents of not doing their research.
"Those who criticise the movie should do their homework. I did," Gibson told reporters at a screening of the film in Mexico City.
Indigenous activists in Guatemala, once home to a large part of the former Mayan empire in southern Mexico and northern Central America, say "Apocalypto" is racist.

The film has yet to open in Mexico and Guatemala but pirated DVDs are available on the streets and heart-pounding trailers have been shown in movie theaters.
Mayan critics of "Apocalypto" say scenes of scary-looking Indians with bone piercings and scarred faces hurling spears and sacrificing humans promote stereotypes about their culture.
He produced and co-wrote the movie, which revolves around one man's quest to save himself from human sacrifice in the ancient civilization.
Spoken entirely in the Yucatec Mayan language, "Apocalypto" led the North American box office with three-day ticket sales of $14.2 million (7.2 million pounds) in its first weekend in December.

MLK

STAND FOR SOMETHING

Am I paranoid?

The Golden Globes are tonight, which on the average predicts the Oscar race http://www.oscars.org/, now all of a sudden I'm noticing old articles popping up on the internet from 2004 about the Passion of the Christ, Why?

I went to Google, (love google) typed in Mel Gibson, clicked on news, sort by date (which is suppose to give you the most current new stories) and what appears on my computer screen articles about the Passion of The Christ from 2004, again I ask why?

I know that as a Mel Gibson fan, I am bound to think that some of his treatment is unfair, but this just can't be with paranoid thoughts is it?

Just Because

I have nothing to blog, I just wanted to post this picture of Mel.

(Give me a break okay, I'm trying to finish my story and I have writers block and I needed a distraction for a minute)

Mel up for more awards

Mel Gibson and Bruce Davey are just two of the nominations for Britain's top film awards, the BAFTA. British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards which are equivalent to the Oscars.

Mel and fellow producer Davey have been nominated in the category for films not in the English language for their historical action/drama Apocalypto. Its biggest competition would appear to be Spanish director Pedro Almodovar's Volver.

The awards will be announced on Feb 11 at a ceremony at London's Royal Opera House.

Russia Love Mel

Apocalypto has now taken in $4.5 million in the cold country. The Russian box office makes up roughly half of the film’s international take of $9.6 million.
Foreign Total as of Dec. 31, 2006:$9,675,507
Domestic Total as of Jan. 10, 2007: $47,844,327

Me will travel to Mexico next week for the Mexican premiere of his new movie Apocalypto, about ancient Mayans, his publicist said.
Apocalypto tells the story of the Mayan people — who built a civilization in Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras — and is in a Mayan language. Gibson employed Mayans for the film and has said he wants to make the Mayan language "cool" again and encourage young people "to speak it with pride."
Publicist Alan Nierob confirmed that Gibson will attend the premiere on Monday.
Apocalypto has broken box-office records for foreign-language films in its opening weekends in several countries, including Britain. It has also earned a Golden Globe nomination for best foreign-language film.

Gibson on Apocalypto

A contrite Mel Gibson puts the past behind him with an ambitious new epic, Apocalypto, which hits Australian screens today.
He's contrite, but Mel Gibson is moving on from his drunken diatribe with typical epic zeal
It would be an understatement to say that Mel Gibson, Oscar-winning director and Hollywood star of more than two decades, has not had the best 12 months.
Yet as Gibson chats en route to his office in Los Angeles, he is talkative and clearly keen to put the alcohol-induced tirade of last July behind him. He remains genuinely contrite, but matter-of-fact, as he calmly and sincerely discusses what happened in his only Australian interview.
"I got a skinful and mouthed off, which is not coming from a good place, but I'm moving on from that," he says.
However, he looks at that experience, "as a gift, because it's made me really scratch my head and focus on a couple of things that I needed to".
"It's working out real positive, and hopefully that's reflected in other lives that I'll touch."
Yet the actor/director feels the press focuses excessively on the transgressions of the rich and famous.
"Everybody screws up and I tell you, if you ask everybody in the world to raise their hand if they never said something vicious, something that they regretted or something stupid, there wouldn't be many people who would be able to raise those hands."
Gibson - whose latest directorial feature, Apocalypto, opens today - is no stranger to controversy, thanks to 2004's The Passion Of The Christ.
Much to Gibson's surprise, Passion resulted in unexpected box office gold, which Gibson says, "told me pretty clearly that there's an appetite for something kind of different out there. So I said, OK, I'll give them something different again.
"But that kind of success encourages me that there is the hunger and appetite for people who really want to be taken somewhere else, so that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to provide them with a visceral and sense experience, so that by the time they walk into the temple (in the film's sacrifice scene) they are hopefully going out of their minds."
Which brings us to Apocalypto - another subtitled Gibson film, this one set in the Mayan civilisation at a time when it is facing decline.
For now, Gibson has elected to turn his back on mainstream American cinema to make films that challenge him as an artist. But he insists he is not intentionally shunning the major studios.
"I really don't think in those terms. I've just been financing the stuff myself because only a lunatic would do that," he laughs.
"There's a gamble aspect to it, in that you could fall flat on your face, which is always a possibility, but at some point you've got to try and put your money where your mouth is and say, 'I can do this'."
Gibson had his actors speak in a little-known ancient Mayan dialect, a symptom of his zeal for history.
"There's always this conceit amongst historians, particularly European historians, that history only began when they arrived, which of course is not the case.
"I thought that it would be interesting to tell a story from the perspective that wasn't told from the New World point of view.
"There's so much mystery surrounding the temples and the archeological findings, that it just really fires your imagination."
Gibson's epics, including his Oscar-winning Braveheart, tend to explore characters or societies facing social and moral dilemmas.
"Those crisis times are when the best stories surface, because people are asked to do things in times of crisis that go beyond their usual realm of experience. To me, those are the really interesting focal points. So I think you're looking for a story that's compelling and therefore you have to set it in a time and place where you see it happening, where you can inspect or investigate the nature of the human spirit in those particular circumstances."
Following his successes in such Hollywood blockbusters as the Lethal Weapon series, Gibson is in no rush to return to acting, despite the rumours.
"I just haven't felt the pressing desire to hop in front of the camera and tap dance," he says.
"It's not that I don't want to do it, it's just that it hasn't been on the menu for me for a while. When I was younger I used to think: boy, what would happen if I didn't work again and gee whiz that'd be terrible, but I since realised that it's not terrible at all."
He admits he enjoys "exploring the backside of the industry from a production and directorial point of view".
"I think the best thing I will have gleaned from all this is that whenever I do get in front of the camera again I'll be able to empathise with any director, no matter who it is, in order to help him with his vision."
Following a rocky year personally and an intense one creatively, Gibson says he is now "looking forward to just doing a little fishing and contemplating my own navel".
He won't disclose the location of his hunting waters, but he does hope to return to Australia at some point to work.
The last time Gibson was in front of an Australian camera was in 1985's Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.
"I think you have to find a worthy project to do there, and I think to actually work in Australia means that you can't just take any great story and move it there.
"Rather you need one that's somehow connected to the place, because I think there's such a soul in the ground."
Beyond fishing, Gibson says he has no idea what is in store for him professionally.
"I think I'll probably cook up some other weird idea, but I'm hoping that it won't be too bizarre and maybe something in the English language."
* Apocalypto opens today in Australia* read the original article here

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,21042702-5001026,00.html

Passion of The Christ

Passion of The Christ - Definitive EditionTwo-Disc Special

THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST - Definitive Edition. Debuting on DVD on January 30, 2007, the two-disc Definitive Edition includes several commentaries including a first ever one with Director Mel Gibson. The set also includes an alternative version of the film, Passion: Re-Cut.

Disc one contains the Feature film and the Passion Re-Cut (seamlessly branched); Filmmaker Commentary with Mel Gibson, Caleb Deschanel and John Wright (original cut only), Production Commentary with Stephen McEveety, Ted Rae and Keith Vanderlan (original cut only); Theologian Commentary with Mel Gibson, Father William J. Fulco, Gerry Matatics and Father John Bartunek (original cut only); and Music Commentary with John Debney.

Disc two includes By His Wounds We Are Healed: The Making of the Passion of The Christ; Deleted Scenes, Galleries and the Theatrical Trailer.

DVD Price: $26.98 U.S.Street Date: January 30, 2007Total Running Time: 142 minutes U.S. Rating R Closed Captioned: Yes

The Passion of The Christ – Definitive Edition DVD is available in 1.88:1 anamorphic widescreen and is presented in Aramaic DTS 5.1 and Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound with English and Spanish subtitles.

Mel Breaks UK Box Office Record

Mel Gibson's new movie Apocalypto has claimed the box office record for the biggest opening weekend for a foreign language film in the UK.The movie, which is spoken in the Mayan dialect and estimated to have cost £20m to make, has taken £1.3m since its release on Friday.It opened in 385 cinemas in the UK.
The film beat the previous record-holder Hero, which took £1.05m in 2004 during its opening weekend. Takings also dwarf those of opening other titles such as the acclaimed Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (£696,000) and Amelie (£559,000).Gibson's fourth film as director is set during the decline of the Mayan civilisation in Mexico and features a cast of largely unknowns.It has received mixed reviews from critics, who say violence is shown in extreme detail with throats cut, people beheaded and still-beating hearts ripped from the victims of human sacrifice. Two years ago, The Passion Of The Christ, Gibson's controversial retelling of the final 12 hours of Jesus Christ's life, became a commercial phenomenon.

Italy Court slap age ban on Apocalypto

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian court has barred youths under 14 from seeing Mel Gibson's gory new film, "Apocalypto", overthrowing a decision by the country's censors who had deemed the movie fit for children.

The censors drew widespread criticism from politicians and parents' associations last week when they failed to impose any age restriction on the film, unlike most countries where it has been released.

The court's ban is temporary pending a January 17 hearing, a lawyer for Codacons, the consumer group which brought the case in favour of setting an age-limit, said on Monday.

"Even before hearing our arguments, they've slapped the ban to safeguard minors," Codacons lawyer Marco Ramadori told Reuters.

After Italy's court ban, only Russia is screening the film without an age restriction. The film is R-rated in the United States and has an age-18 certification in Britain and Germany.

Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli, who had written to the film's distributor in Italy recommending they alert the public to the violence of some of the scenes, met the censorship commission on Monday to review current standards.

Apocalypto, which hit Italian theatres on Friday, was the second most viewed film at the weekend after James Bond's latest adventure "Casino Royale".

Read the entire article here

Payback Back Again

January 5, 2007 - On April 10, 2007, Paramount Home Entertainment will release Payback (Straight Up: The Director's Cut) on DVD. The double dip of the Mel Gibson revenge action-black comedy will feature tons of bonus materials and extra features, although they are currently to be announced. It will be available for the MSRP (Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price) of $19.99.Final content information is currently unavailable, but check out the artwork for the Payback (Straight Up: The Director's Cut) DVD link to the page here:

No age limit for Apocalypto in Italy

"It's a work of art. It's a beautiful movie that tells the story without hiding anything. Wars are a part of life," said Gian Paolo Cugno, an Italian director who was among the board members who voted in favor of not giving the movie an age limit.

Italy's cinema review board has ruled, bucking a trend to impose age limits on the movie across Europe and prompting a consumer group Thursday to say it would appeal the decision in court.

Read the article here:

51

Happy Birthday Mel!!!!

A New Beginning

The year ended pretty well, Apocalypto was released and went to number 1. It also is the highest-grossing foreign-language movie of 2006 in the U.S. The media for the most part has stopped the Mel bashing and beginning to realize that we all make mistakes so get over it.
As for me:
I'm learning all about all kinds of crap trying to make this blog look the way I want. My New Years resolution, is too stay true to myself reguardless of what others may say or think.