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DancingDaffodils (18)
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producer Gaston Pavlovich: first cut is beautiful
HR editor John Gilbert interview (15 min video)
HR wins top MPSE Golden Reel Awards
Lorenzo the Magnificent next directing gig?
Mel confirmed for Daddy's Home 2
Greetings from a migrating imdb user
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It was especially nice to see Kevin O'Connell finally win an Oscar after 21 nominations.
Here's a nice video about the Hacksaw Ridge sound featuring three of the Hacksaw Oscar winners: editor John Gilbert and sound mixers Robert Mackenzie and Andrew Wright.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RjaXIhVz3s
QUOTE: "He got Abe Foxman to help sell the movie, and got the media to give him free coverage by saying something outrageous whenever the stories were beginning to die down."
RESPONSE: As someone who followed the controversy in real time, I can say with confidence that your accusation is completely false.
The first clue of Passion controversy was when Gibson went on the O'Reilly Factor from the set of The Passion to express displeasure that the NYT was interviewing his octogenarian father. Shortly thereafter, Rabbi Marvin Hier and the ADL accused the script of The Passion of being anti-Semitic. This was around March 2013, in the middle of production, almost a year before release. Team Gibson released a written statement around addressing the accusation from Foxman and Hier. Nothing Gibson said was outrageous or controversial. Gibson also did some innocuous print interviews with Zenit, a Catholic news agency, and EWTN televised interviews with Raymond Arroyo. These interviews, which were aimed at religious Catholic audiences, were not controversial. Mel Gibson has never been attributed as saying anything outrageous about Foxman or Hier. The only "outrageous" remark he made was the off the cuff remark he made about Frank Rich to Peter Boyer of the New Yorker, which obviously reflected genuine anger rather than a cynical attempt to stoke outrage. All the while, despite not having seen the film, Foxman, Hier, and Rich were frequently criticizing The Passion in the press. As Gibson has repeatedly pointed out, the controversy died way as soon as the film opened. He remained bitter over the experience, and cited it as one reason behind his anti-Semitic rant to the arresting cop in 2006.
Mel Gibson took the same approach with Joe Eszterhas: issuing a written statement and then going quiet. It shouldn't be a surprise that Gibson has a consistent PR approach: he's had the same publicist for over 20 years.
4. Suddenly, we're in a beautiful outdoor space on the edge of a cliff — where?! — and the enshrouded body is atop a funeral pyre. The wish is fulfilled, the body is disposed of by burning, and there's thrilling, charming singing and dancing. Clues: Too pretty, too perfect, too over-the-top, too wish-fulfulling. All are forgiven. All are happy.
5. We're in the San Francisco airport, seeing off the ashes, into a toilet (as the mother had requested), and seeing off the oldest boy — except he's not going to college (as was his plan all along thus far), he says he's going to Namibia (which is entirely random and therefore more likely to be a figment of his father's mind (the father had never liked the idea of his going to college)).
6. And lastly, we see the family resettled in some kind of beautiful compromise. The bus has been repurposed into a chicken coop, and the children are gathering eggs and the father is preparing bag lunches: They go to real school now. There's a real house for them to live in. It's perfectly wholesome. And the movie ends with them not scrambling to get to the school bus they're told is coming. They settle in for what looks like the eternal breakfast. All are quiet. The children are reading. The most rebellious son pours cereal for his father — a sign that the younger generation is now self-sufficient — and the father's face goes through 10 different expressions as he seems to be involved in an elaborate mental exercise of absorbing what is happening. A telling, precise detail is that he's drinking yerba mate....
Ann Althouse wrote at length about the ending being a fantasy. I highly recommend her blog, which is mostly political. Here are the supporting points she made:
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2017/02/commenter-without-realizing-it-takes-my.html
1. The children emerge from under the floorboards of the bus. Evidence that this is fantasy: How could 6 kids have fit in that compartment and kept quiet enough not to be noticed? How could they fit in that space (which we saw earlier in the movie as the place where they kept the Noam Chomsky poster)? How could they look fresh and unrumpled after they climbed out of that dark, tight space? Why didn't the grandfather — who seemed chummy with the police and intent on getting his way — not get after the father who was driving in a very conspicuous vehicle (a painted schoolbus)?
2. After the children confront him with their need for a mission, we see them in the graveyard digging up the mother's body. Evidence that this is fantasy: Earlier the children had convinced him not to go to the burial ceremony, which he had wanted to disrupt. That was his wish, his wish to fulfill her wish. Suddenly, the children are all in. How could the flashlight-waving group escape detection in a cemetery for the time it would take to dig up the body? Why was the headstone already etched and in place? Why was there no concrete slab blocking access to the casket?
3. We're back on the bus, there's unworldly lighting and music, and we see the children around the opened casket communing with the still-beautiful corpse. They have beatific smiles as they're transported by the beauty of her death. Unlike in earlier scenes, no child takes a dissident view. It's all very weird and all strangely perfect.
Another way to increase board traffic would be to add links to movie boards at the top of the box office and to those opening soon.
Since the Oscars are this weekend, maybe temporarily add links to the nominated movies and people.
Can I suggest another update?
In the absence of IMDb's filmographies and film credits, it would be great if the individual boards had clickable links to the individual boards of related people and/or movies. For example, the "La La Land" board would have links to the boards for Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling, and Damien Chazelle.
This suggestion is probably very labor intensive, but it would increase activity in the individual boards.
The Aussie filmmaking community seems like a tight knit group. You'll be happy to hear that the odds at Goldderby favor Hacksaw's Australian sound team to win the Oscar for Sound Editing.
History vs. Hollywood doesn't provide the fate of the real Sergeant Howell.
http://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/hacksaw-ridge/
Vince Vaughn has said in interviews that his character was a combination of several real people. For example, Desmond Doss used a rifle and blanket to make a stretcher during the Battle of Leyte, not Okinawa.
Here's the video of Mel accepting the Italia Fest award:
https://youtu.be/TZuckL2GLq8
At the 1 min mark he talks about wanting to make more films in Italy. Unfortunately the clapping obscures what he says.
@TeaWithHoney - I hope Mel doesn't hold a grudge against Leo. After all, Mel is one of the few people who has been in Leo's position of being an A+ movie star with more quality offers than he has time to accept. Over the years Mel has had lots of projects that he was attached to as a star that fell apart.
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