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| The Beaver; Official thread | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 16 2011, 10:55 AM (3,943 Views) | |
| clarice | Mar 16 2011, 10:55 AM Post #1 |
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I thought we needed a Beaver thread, now that it's finally coming out! Here's an article I found today: Jodie Foster: 'I Hope People See Mel Gibson as the Great Artist He Is' Charlie Sheen's wild antics have been hogging all of the Hollywood headlines that previously went to Mel Gibson's rants and raves. But Gibson will soon be back in the news for his big screen return in The Beaver, directed by Jodie Foster. Parade's Jeanne Wolf talked to Jodie Foster, who also co-stars with Gibson, as she tried to explain why audiences should leave their prejudices about the actor at the door of this unique and twisted dramedy. The Beaver will become a test of whether moviegoers can separate themselves from the man and view his performance as one of his finest. “I hope people see Mel Gibson as the great artist he is,” Foster told Jeanne Wolf after an early limited screening. “He didn’t bring what he was going through in real life to the set, but he didn’t hold back from showing every side of depression. I think you should forget the face you saw in the tabloids and what you heard on TV and give him a chance because he trusted me and I trusted him. We love each other. He gave it everything he had.” “I guess the one-sentence synopsis for the film is: ‘A man who walks around with a puppet that he talks to,” Foster said. “They’re going to think, ‘Oh, it’s going to be a daffy comedy, but it really takes a dark turn. I hope no one throws up, but if they do, I’ll be happy to clean it up and talk about why they had that reaction.” “Mel is playing a man in a steep descent, having a mental breakdown,” she continued. “There’s fear in his eyes. I play his wife and I know the man I married has died, not literally, but he’s not there anymore. He’s in a black hole and his family is hoping and praying he’ll snap out of it. He’s tried everything from books to counseling. Finally, he finds solace in a hand puppet that becomes such an integral part of his life and a strangely off-beat way to express himself.” Will Mel risk exposing himself to the media to do press for the film? A totally candid Foster said, “I’m not sure anyone would even want him!” The actress and director is proud of the daring film, which also stars Jennifer Lawrence, who was an Oscar nominee for her star-making performance in Winter's Bone. Now, Foster is caught between her wish for the movie to succeed and her friendship with Gibson. “I’m not sure if I even want him to do any publicity," she said. "I certainly don’t want him to do anything he doesn’t want to. I know it’s going to be tough to get past everything that’s happened this year and have people thinking, ‘Maybe it should be released at another time.’ I just don’t want the great talent Mel displays in this film to be lost. You won’t forget it.” ![]() http://www.parade.com/celebrity/celebrity-parade/2011/03/jodie-foster-mel-gibson.html |
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| Artful_Dodger | Mar 16 2011, 04:52 PM Post #2 |
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Thanks, Clarice. |
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| TitaniumX | Mar 16 2011, 10:50 PM Post #3 |
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She really likes the guy. I don't understand it but I do respect it. |
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| Gogo | Mar 17 2011, 01:09 AM Post #4 |
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Based on the Hollywood Reporter interview. I think he broke down in front of her and her heart fell. and now that's all she can remember. THAT guy, the guy the Vanity Fair article talked about. The guy that people loved.
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| TitaniumX | Mar 17 2011, 09:15 AM Post #5 |
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I had to look for it..![]() The director, sometimes with tears in her eyes, speaks candidly in the new Hollywood Reporter magazine about the "lifetime of pain" he brought to "The Beaver," her loyalty, and what she knew as his personal drama unfolded on the set. This story appears in the new issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine, on sale in NYC and LA on Thursday. Jodie Foster is sick, really sick. Sick of being away from home for the past two months; sick of the grueling schedule she’s maintained in Paris on Roman Polanski’s Carnage; and physically, painfully sick from what she thinks is strep throat, which she’s been battling for much of the week. “I don’t know if it’s strep throat; I just have never experienced this before in my life,” she says, pallid. “I was up all last night — I went to sleep between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m. When I swallow, it really hurts. But I’ve got to work Monday, and all my scenes are yelling.” PHOTOS: Jodie Foster's most memorable roles She’s unlikely to find any relief in the days ahead. With less than 72 hours before she flies to Austin’s South by Southwest festival March 16 to unveil her new movie, The Beaver — about a middle-aged executive who communicates through a glove puppet — she still has to pack her bags and complete two days of reshoots on the behind-schedule Carnage. Then she’ll have to field a volley of questions about Mel Gibson, who stars opposite her in the $21 million Beaver, Foster’s third venture as helmer. At a point in her career when she might have hoped audiences would rediscover her as a filmmaker, she’s grappling instead with a media firestorm — “my second,” she notes wryly, following the assassination attempt on President Reagan in 1981. If this isn’t enough to make anyone feel sick, what is? Yet Foster shrugs it off. She laughs about the current issue of France’s Premiere magazine, printing an on-set interview from fall 2009 where she said it was Gibson’s “dark” side that drew her to him and addresses her feelings for the troubled actor head-on. “He’s so incredibly loving and sensitive, he really is,” she says. “He is the most loved actor I have ever worked with on a movie. And he’s not saintly, and he’s got a big mouth, and he’ll do gross things your nephew would do. But I knew the minute I met him that I would love him the rest of my life.” She adds: “I know him in a very complex way. He’s a real person; he’s not a cardboard cutout. I know that he has troubles, and when you love somebody you don’t just walk away from them when they are struggling.” Foster and Gibson — the yin and yang of American pop culture, its moral avatar and current nemesis — have been close friends since they met on 1994’s Maverick. Before Gibson’s relationship with Oksana Grigorieva exploded in the public eye, he confided in Foster. “We talked about it all the way through, about what was going on in his life,” she says. “I don’t think he told me until it was something he couldn’t handle by himself.” Even while editing Beaver, Foster was aware that recordings of Gibson’s rants would be made public. “I knew about that,” she says. “He was upset. Then, on the last day of reshoots of Mel, it all came out.” She pauses, and this exceptionally intelligent, highly controlled woman has tears in her eyes. “God, I love that man,” Foster says. “The performance he gave in this movie, I will always be grateful for. He brought a lifetime of pain to the character that we’ve been talking about for years, that I knew was part of his psyche and who he is. It’s part of him that is beautiful and that I want people to know, too. I can’t ever regret that.” Sitting in the modernist Georges restaurant atop Paris’ Pompidou Center — looking more like a young doctoral student than a movie star, with her dark brown glasses and casual scarf — Foster knows the Gibson affair means her film has a difficult journey ahead. But she never planned to make a huge audience-pleaser. “This is not a mainstream movie,” she says. “It does have mainstream actors, but that’s not this film. I don’t need to make those kinds of movies because my career as a director is a personal spiritual path. I don’t need to succeed in that way in order to have an identity. I already have one.” Foster came to The Beaver after others had bowed out. Starting as a spec script by Kyle Killen, the project settled into the hands of Steve Carell and director Jay Roach (Meet the Parents), where it remained, potentially as a broad comedy. When Foster’s agent, ICM’s Joe Funicello, heard about it, he showed her the script, and when Roach pulled out, Foster joined producer Steve Golin, who’d developed the material. She had a very different take on it, however. “I wouldn’t have been interested in doing the movie as a comedy in any way,” she says. “A man with a puppet? Who cares? The thing that makes it interesting to me was the psychological dimension of his trouble, the fable quality to that.” Carell, who remained attached, allowed Foster to take the project to other actors, knowing his schedule would cause long delays. Which is when she called Gibson. “I’d never done that before,” she says. “I don’t have many friends who are actors. I said, ‘Look, I’m going to send you something, and the bad news is you have to tell us in 24 hours,’ because there was another actor interested.” The next day, Gibson called and said he needed just 10 hours more to discuss it with his agent, then gave her a yes. “I said, ‘Really, really, really?’ He said, ‘Really!’ ” Even with the two superstars working for a fraction of their usual fee, the project wasn’t a slam-dunk. For one thing, there was an arm-cutting scene — present from the very first draft of the script — that many potential financiers resisted, not so much because of its gruesomeness but because it might have made Gibson’s character seem disturbed. “A lot of places were categorical that, if his arm comes off, they don’t want to be involved in the movie,” Foster says. “Golin went so far as to create a script where the arm didn’t come off. And I was like, ‘Why would you even tell this story?’ ” Then, of course, there was the issue of Gibson himself, who had already inflamed passions after a 2006 drunken meltdown during which he hurled abuse at a female police officer. “He wasn’t a hard sell, but it was a challenge for distribution,” Foster acknowledges. “They wanted an anchor as well” — a key reason she cast herself in the co-starring role. Summit Entertainment was one of the few companies enthusiastic enough to commit, co-financing with Participant Media. They had doubts about how to sell the project, Foster says, but that did not impact production, which commenced in summer 2009 in Westchester County, N.Y., benefiting from the state’s generous subsidies. It was a remarkably easy 43-day shoot, she adds, with Anton Yelchin joining the cast as Gibson and Foster’s son and Jennifer Lawrence as the object of Yelchin’s affection. “There were some issues that we knew would be problematic down the line, in terms of script,” Foster explains, “and getting the tone right took a long time, and there was a lot of trial and error. But Mel was amazing.” The only mishap occurred on the very last day of principal photography, when Gibson had to hit himself with a prop lamp. “It was a very big, emotional scene, the last thing we shoot in the entire movie, and his plane is waiting for him to leave,” Foster notes. “Our prop department messed up and didn’t score the fake lamp properly; half of it was real, and when he smacked his head, it just — whoosh! — blood was gushing everywhere.” Foster raced into action. “We didn’t have a medic,” she says. “It was just me and the producer running around with a first-aid kit trying to stanch the blood, and Mel’s like, ‘Come on, it hurts!’ Your head, it really bleeds. I can’t tell you how many ‘I’m so sorry’ notes I sent.” She smiles in fond recollection of that moment, probably the last unsullied time she’d have before being caught up in the Gibson tornado. Editing was already well under way when the disturbing audiotapes were released to the public. On July 9, the day the first tapes came out, months after principal photography had wrapped, Foster was with Gibson again for the last day of additional shoots. The drama of that event, and its inevitable impact on the film, is vivid in her memory. “He had a lot of work to do,” she says. “It was a bad situation. His assistant called me: ‘Come to the trailer!’ And I went to his trailer, and he was a mess. Then he came on set, and he didn’t have any makeup on, anything. He came in and sat down on the chair and said, ‘OK, roll it,’ and did two takes that were just beautiful. Then he got on the plane and left.” Where that left the film remained a mystery at the time. Summit instantly went into damage-control mode. “We had talks with Jodie and Mel and our partners at Participant,” Summit co-chairman and CEO Rob Friedman recalls. “We had meetings, phone conversations. Jodie wants what’s best for the movie. As a filmmaker, she is very focused on making the best films she can and having them perform and is very receptive to the studio’s recommendations — which doesn’t mean she just stays shy. She and Mel are critical portions of the film, and Jodie has dedicated herself to that.” How much Gibson can do at this point is unclear. But on March 13 via e-mail, asked if he had specific plans to help with the publicity campaign, he replied, “Yes.” “He was like, ‘I’ll be chained to a car and dragged through gravel for you!’ ” Foster laughs. “And I’m like, ‘That’s OK!’ ” Given everything she’s facing, it’s remarkable that she remains so sanguine. Unlike most actors, she says she’s not emotional — on the surface, anyway. Yet she has been going through a period of profound upheaval — not just with Mel, her new film and two sons but with transitioning away from being the acclaimed actress who made such a mark in Taxi Driver and won Oscars for The Accused and The Silence of the Lambs to a 48-year-old who badly wants to redefine her career as a director. Gibson, in his e-mail, warmly recalls first meeting the young woman with “the piercing blue eyes” who looked as if “she just came from gym” and surprised him when she metamorphosed into a radiant leading lady. But she’s a very different person now, coming to terms with her own fears and insecurities — and acknowledging a depression that she says has been with her for years. “Depression is a part of my life I accept,” she says, explaining its cause as a sort of obsessive rumination. “You think about something and you think about it again, and you keep going back to a tragic or dramatic moment and try to understand all different angles — and that’s the process of depression, which is not being able to get out of a dramatic thought or feeling. Obviously, chemical depression is very different. But it’s a big part of my life, and you have to embrace that part of yourself.” An even bigger part has been the effective withdrawal of her mother, Brandy — the vital, anti-authoritarian presence who dominated Foster’s early life and encouraged her acting. Foster hesitates about saying too much, at first afraid her mother will read this before realizing that can’t happen. “She’s old, and she has dementia now, so she’s in a new place,” she reflects. “She’s 82. She lives at home with lots of care.” Her passion for her mother remains evident, with new layers added now that Foster is a mother herself. “She shaped me so much,” the filmmaker says. “And now that she’s really a new person, a different person — a very nice person, just not the mom I grew up with — I have a real nostalgia for who she was. She was brilliant and independent and came from nothing and was very forward-thinking, almost anarchically so.” ![]() Anarchy is hardly a sentiment one associates with Foster, which explains why she’s more drawn to the controlling role of director — something that will allow her to use “a mind like a razor,” as Gibson puts it, and the logic that “just oozes out of her.” “I’ve reached that point where I don’t want to act very much anymore,” Foster admits. “I am much more interested in holding off on acting, after 45 years as an actor. It’s a long period of time to do the same thing.” While Foster has committed to a small role opposite Matt Damon in Elysium, If she doesn’t act again, she won’t be perturbed — indeed, if she started out today, she says, “I definitely would not have been an actor; I don’t feel like I have the personality at all.” Maybe this is inevitable after spending a lifetime in the public eye. Maybe it’s her present feeling of sickness that’s affecting her. Or maybe it’s just exhaustion following the Polanski shoot, which insiders repeatedly describe as “rough.” “He is my opposite,” Foster acknowledges, even though she says she admires the controversial filmmaker behind such movies as Chinatown and Rosemary’s Baby. “Every director you work with has their way, and the first two weeks is you figuring out their way and helping them. Some directors want lots of discussion and a real collaboration; some don’t want any. He’s different than I would be, but I can direct my own movies. He wants everything to come from him. There’s his crew, and they know it all comes from him. There’s no input from anyone else.” As for Polanski’s complicated character and the resurrection of his rape charge in the U.S., “That’s not my business,” she says. It’s striking that Foster, who’s perceived as such a moral force, is forgiving of men like Polanski and Gibson who are so much less adulated than her. But it’s equally striking that both have achieved the one professional goal that has eluded her: recognition as a major director. A brief short, The Hands of Time, made as a teenager with the BBC while it was shooting a documentary about her, was followed by Little Man Tate and the financially disappointing ensemble comedy Home for the Holidays. But two much-cherished projects, the 1930s circus movie Flora Plum and a biography of Nazi documentarian Leni Riefenstahl, never got off the ground. With Flora, she says: “Two weeks before shooting, Russell Crowe broke his shoulder, and they pulled the plug. We couldn’t continue, and there was a strike looming; his prep was eight weeks because of all the acrobatics. Then I got it set up again on two actors’ names, and the actors left. And then I got it set up a third time, and I realized it had been 12 years, and I felt like I had done that movie.” As for the Riefenstahl bio, “I’ve never been able to crack it, really,” she says. “I just was never able to get the scripts in the shape they needed to be.” She shrugs, trying not to let it weigh on her. But the sense of loss is there and perhaps always will be. Other things consume her now — like her determination to move from Los Angeles to New York; like the changes her elder son, Charlie, is undergoing as he enters his teenage phase — but equally, she must figure out a way to put herself in the pantheon of American movie masters, where many believe she ultimately belongs. Her Panic Room helmer, David Fincher, raves about Foster, and in particular her work with young co-star Kristen Stewart, noting: “She doesn’t get a lot of credit for it, but half the time I couldn’t even get in the room because it was so crowded with cameras and all this stuff. She is one of the great directors of children.” But the truth is, after years of effort, Foster’s own directorial efforts have yielded a scant three features. “I also had a big career as an actress, I had my production company, and I had two kids — and I make really personal movies,” she says. “The combination of those things conspired to keep me away from directing.” Jodie Foster in director's mode. Yet her intellect craves more, craves the “dense tapestry” she recently found in Jonathan Franzen’s novel Freedom that she wishes to create for herself. In a few years, her kids will be out of the house; she still has decades of productive work, and it matters. So it’s heartbreaking that this second intersection with a public maelstrom might get in the way. She doesn’t blame Gibson but says: “It’s weird, isn’t it? I thought, ‘Someday that’s what I’m going to do.’ It’s the thing I’m most disappointed about.” Then her pragmatism kicks in. “If I go to my grave with only the work I’ve created so far, am I going to care? Probably not.” THE BEAVER: A Timeline Spring 2009: After Steve Carell gives Foster permission to proceed without him, the director calls Mel Gibson and says he has 24 hours to respond. The next day, he asks for 10 more hours to reach his agent, Ed Limato, before giving a firm yes. Sept. 19, 2009: Filming begins in WestchesterCounty, N.Y., benefiting from tax breaks. The shoot is trouble-free, except for an incident when Gibson is hurt by a prop lamp. Nov. 20, 2009: Shooting wraps, and Foster begins a long postproduction process, knowing the third act of the script still needs to be resolved. March 16: The Beaver is set to debut at SXSW with Foster in attendance but not Gibson, who recently pleaded guilty to battery. May 6: Beaver is set for limited bow in the U.S., followed by wide release May 20 and gradual overseas rollout. FOSTERS’S FIVE FAVORITE FILMS The 400 Blows (Francois Truffaut, 1959) Murmur of the Heart (Louis Malle, 1971) The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, 1978) Truly Madly Deeply (Anthony Minghella, 1990) The Piano (Jane Campion, 1993) FOSTER ON FOSTER: From being a child star to working with one, the actress and filmmaker reveals what she’s learned from almost a half-century in Hollywood. Taxi Driver (1976) "I went to a private school, with the little Peter Pan collar, and I remember being really embarrassed having to wear those outfits. But it was the first time I had been asked to play a character that was not me in any way. Robert De Niro really taught me; he sat with me for hours to get me so comfortable with the dialogue I could go seamlessly in and out of improvisation. I thought acting was a dumb job up till then, but I realized that it was me not bringing enough to it." The Accused (1988) "They definitely didn’t want me at first. I wasn’t at a popular place in my career. But director Jonathan Kaplan fought hard for what I brought, which was a toughness they were hoping not to have. I’m not tough — people think I am. But she was, and that drew me to her. … The hardest thing was that I felt I wasn’t giving them the performance everybody was hoping for. I wasn’t being a good girl and giving them what they wanted. And now I see that as a great strength." The Silence of the Lambs (1991) "Lots of people ask, “How do you play strong and moving at the same time?” Well, they can do some of the things I can’t do, but that is something I can do. My head doesn’t stop working just because I’m acting. I have a specific approach that is just different from other people, more of an intellectual approach, and yet I am able to turn that into something emotional." Little Man Tate (1991) "The casting was crucial. I saw hundreds and hundreds of kids; we ended up with one who had never even done a school play. The boy in Little Man Tate [Adam Hann-Byrd] is very close to who I was and who I am, feeling like I had to choose between my intellectual side and this very deeply emotional side and wanting both and trying to bring them together." Panic Room (2002) "I just love [co-star] Kristen Stewart, but I didn’t think she’d choose to be an actress. I said to her mom, 'She doesn’t want that, right?' And she’s like, 'Well, yes, she kind of does.' Because she’s very much like me: She’s not comfortable in life being a big, externally emotional person, beating her chest, crying every five minutes. I felt she was such an intelligent technician, so interested in camera — I thought that would translate to other things." source |
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| Artful_Dodger | Mar 17 2011, 09:42 AM Post #6 |
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I hope I can get this magazine at the book store. It's a must have for me.
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| leslieUK | Mar 17 2011, 11:15 AM Post #7 |
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Thank you for posting this. She sounds utterly miserable. She must think everything's going to the gutter right now. |
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| TitaniumX | Mar 17 2011, 11:43 AM Post #8 |
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SXSW 2011: At premiere, Jodie Foster calls 'The Beaver' the 'biggest struggle of my professional career' March 16, 2011 | 11:28 pm Calling the film “the biggest struggle of my professional career,” Jodie Foster introduced “The Beaver,” her drama starring the troubled Mel Gibson as a depressed father who reinvents himself with the help of a hand puppet, to its first public audience at the South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival on Wednesday night in Austin, Texas. “All sorts of stuff happened after the film was finished that threw our release into a crazy pattern,” Foster told the sold-out audience of 1,200 people at the Paramount Theater, alluding to the very public and sordid domestic violence case between Gibson and his ex-girlfriend, a situation that delayed the release of “The Beaver,” filmed in 2009. “I have no regrets about him being in the film.” Foster, who directed and co-starred in the film, prefaced the screening by saying: “This is not a comedy.” But “The Beaver” drew many laughs from the SXSW audience, most for intentionally funny scenes, as when Gibson showers and irons a shirt with the puppet on his hand, but at least once for a scene that was unintentionally evocative of the star’s personal problems -- when his character carries of box of liquor bottles. “The Beaver” shifts to a much darker tone in one scene that drew gasps from the crowd. “What was beautiful about the script was that it has equal levels of lightness and darkness,” said Foster, a longtime friend of Gibson's who plays his wife in the film. “It was hard to figure out when you go from one to the other.” SXSW audiences are famously enthusiastic, but before the film, many expressed reservations about Gibson, whose public struggles began when he was pulled over for driving under the influence of alcohol in 2006 and delivered an anti-Semitic tirade. His problems escalated when a series of racist and threatening voice mails he had left his ex-girlfriend were made public last summer, and continued last week when he pleaded no contest to charges of domestic battery related to a January 2010 altercation. Gibson, 55, was sentenced to three years' probation and ordered to stay away from his ex-girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva. “I’m Jewish, so that was something I really was weighing before coming out,” said Lainey Melnick, a commissioner for emergency services in Austin and a volunteer at the festival. “I used to love his work, but now it’s difficult for me to separate the two. I do think he’s a fabulous actor. In a way I’m sort of glad he’s not here so I don’t have to deal with that.” After the film ended, Melnick was crying. “It was really beautiful,” she said. “I could put all that aside and was watching the story.” Sandy Schwartz, an Austinite who was serving as a volunteer usher for the night, said she would never pay for a ticket to a Gibson movie. “He’s just generally not a nice person," Schwartz said. "Why do people continue to support him?” But after the credits rolled, Schwartz’s position had softened. She seemed to credit Gibson with making the same kind of transformation as his character in the film, although the actor has made no public statement of remorse about the threatening voice mails or domestic battery case, and his attorney has repeatedly maintained Gibson's innocence. “I thought maybe this was his story,” Schwartz said. “Maybe there’s redemption and hope for him.” Prior to the screening, some exhibitors who had not yet seen the film also expressed concern about it. “You’ve got this very high-concept movie with a star who has had some real issues in the last year,” said Tom Stephenson, CEO of Rave Motion Pictures, which owns about 1,000 movie screens in 20 states. “People are worried about that combination. But if the movie gets really good early reviews or word of mouth, people might go see it in spite of the controversy.” Last month, Summit Entertainment postponed the release of the film from March until May 20. Gibson is featured prominently in the trailer and the poster. “In the campaign, he is kind of poking fun at himself,” said Mark Young, a professor at USC’s Marshall School of Business. “He’s drawing attention to himself. 'I know I have messed up, I’m still here, I’m still an actor.' You could argue that ‘The Beaver’ is a way for Mel to express himself behind a mask.” “If I was a studio exec, I would be very cautious about using Mel right now,” Young said. “Jodie Foster is a charming-enough and well-respected-enough person that she alone could do the launch of this film.” That seemed to be Summit’s strategy in SXSW, where Foster attended a cocktail party before the screening. She had flown in Wednesday from the Paris set of the Roman Polanski film “Carnage” and was wearing sunglasses even at night due to what she said was an illness. Gibson did not attend SXSW, but actor Anton Yelchin, who plays his son in the film, and screenwriter Kyle Killen took the stage with Foster after the screening for a Q&A. Another prong of the strategy involves a social action campaign promoting awareness of depression and mental health organized by Participant Productions, a partner on the film. At SXSW, Participant is co-hosting a barbecue with the mental health awareness groups To Write Love on Her Arms and the Kristin Brooks Hope Center. Foster admitted to being nervous before the screening. “For me it’s a very personal film,” Foster told the audience in Austin. “It has to do with all of my struggles and what I think about obsessively and where I am at this particular point in my life. We’ve all had these struggles and life is full of these -- half-comedy and half-tragedy -- and the only way to get through it is to know you’re not alone. Connection is the one thing that makes life bearable.” -- Rebecca Keegan twitter.com/thatrebecca Photo: Jodie Foster and Mel Gibson appear in "The Beaver." Credit: SXSW http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2011/03/sxsw-2011-premiere-jodie-foster-beaver-mel-gibson.html |
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| leslieUK | Mar 17 2011, 11:47 AM Post #9 |
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"was wearing sunglasses even at night due to what she said was an illness. " What the hell did she catch? So far the audience reaction seems promising enough. Hope the movie is a success for her. |
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| TitaniumX | Mar 17 2011, 11:49 AM Post #10 |
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(...) There was a telling little moment in the Q&A that followed the screening. A gentleman asked Jodie Foster to elaborate on her earlier declaration when she introduced the movie that The Beaver was “the biggest struggle of my professional career.” She paused, and then spoke about the tricky job of getting the tone of the film right. Come now, the enormous Australian elephant in the room needs addressing. Finally the gentleman dared wonder if the source of her agita was in fact her star, and asked if she did have any regrets casting him. “I feel incredibly grateful to have Mel’s performance in this movie,” she said firmly. And suddenly a little wave of applause seemed to spread around the room. Whether folks were cheering for Mel Gibson’s performance or for Mel Gibson the human being or simply for Mel Gibson’s loyal friend and director who has always enjoyed enormous audience good will was unclear. “Anyone who’s ever worked with Mel,” Foster continued, “knows he’s the most beloved actor in the film business.” And then, in an unforeseen shout-out, she gave props to her Anna and the King co-star. “The second most beloved is Chow Yun-Fat.” Towards the end of the Q&A, before she was asked if she was planning to star in a musical like Bugsy Malone again (no), Foster described her intimate connection with the film’s portrait of depression. The story “has to deal with all my struggles and all the things I think about obsessively,” she said. “Life is full of this half comedy, half tragedy. And the only way to get through it is to know you’re not alone.” One has to think that whatever a mess Gibson has made of his life, he must find some genuine comfort in stalwart friends like Foster. The movie is good, or at least fine, people seemed to agree as they made their way up the crowded aisle. Mel Gibson is good. Sad and moving and good. Whether audiences will have a stomach for him, let alone a film about the drowning ache of depression, let alone a film that involves you explaining to your date that The Beaver refers to a beaver hand puppet, remains to be seen. It’s a hard sell every way around. The movie opens in select cities on May 6, followed by wide release on May 20. http://insidemovies.ew.com/2011/03/17/sxsw-jodie-foster-mel-gibson-the-beaver/ |
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| clarice | Mar 17 2011, 11:52 AM Post #11 |
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looking fine! Jodie Foster gives an interview as she arrives for the premiere of "The Beaver" at The Paramount Theater during the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas March 16, 2011. http://ca.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idCATRE72G0WN20110317 |
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| TitaniumX | Mar 17 2011, 11:54 AM Post #12 |
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"The Beaver" Film Review * Bottom Line: Less nutty and more moving than its premise suggests, Jodie Foster's on-target dramedy transcends its real-world baggage. AUSTIN (Hollywood Reporter) - A risky bet that pays off solidly, Jodie Foster's The Beaver survives its life/art parallels -- thanks to its star, Mel Gibson -- to deliver a hopeful portrait of mental illness that while quirky is serious and sensitive. Despite obvious hurdles, with smart marketing it could connect with a wide audience. Those echoes of Mel Gibson's well-publicized breakdowns are impossible to ignore in an opening sequence introducing us to his character Walter Black, who first appears floating in a pool, arms outstretched like Christ's. A few shots later, we see this "hopelessly depressed man," who has tried everything to remedy his condition, flagellating himself like a Catholic penitent. Whether intentional or not, this front-and-center reminder works almost as an inoculation to viewers for whom controversy might be a distraction from drama: Having put it out there frankly (much as the protagonist will soon do, in more outlandish ways, with his own issues), the movie kills a bit of our morbid curiosity; our awareness that this depressed character is being played by a troubled actor never vanishes, but it is allowed to inform the story at hand. Introducing the film's debut here, Foster warned that it is not a comedy. Yet Beaver starts firmly in that mode, even using upbeat music (Marcelo Zarvos' bouncier version of Astor Piazzola's moody tangonuevo) and slapstick to turn Walter's suicide attempt -- on the eve of his being kicked out by a wife (Foster) who can't accept his years-long hopelessness — into an occasion for laughs. The breakthrough Walter has after that failed attempt is also treated lightly, though it's dead serious for the character: He begins dealing with the world through a beaver puppet he rescued from the garbage, having come to the conclusion that his own psyche is so irreparable he must "blow it up" and start over again. He returns home and to the workplace, dealing with people not directly but through the Beaver, who speaks with a Cockney accent and shows aplomb with situations that have stymied Walter for years. The readiness with which most people accept this strategy (that Walter presents as a legit psychological therapy, invented to distance himself from his pain) is believable in part because it works so well for him -- and Foster stages shots that deftly bring the fuzzy animal to life, jostling with Gibson in the frame and occasionally meeting the camera's gaze to help us see him as Walter does. Foster and the script (Kyle Killen's first feature) continue to earn non-mocking laughs with the scenario, sometimes simultaneously planting seeds of problems to come -- as when husband and wife consummate their reunion with a funny but troubling puppet threesome. The tone takes a firmly dark turn when Foster's Meredith, impatient with the "therapy," insists on seeing her husband sans Beaver for their anniversary dinner. Exposed and frightened, Walter breaks down. Gibson, hyperventilating and with eyes darting in panic, offers a more affecting, less romantically dramatic collapse than some he has created in earlier film roles — and he continues to underplay this state of mind (darting eyes aside) as the action grows progressively darker. Walter's suffering is mirrored by that of his older son Porter (Anton Yelchin), who unlike a younger son who embraces Dad's new friend, is ashamed of his father's illness and pained by similarities he sees in himself. A subplot in which Porter is hired to write a speech for the class valedictorian (a seemingly perfect girl, played by Jennifer Lawrence, suffering her own traumas) looks at first like a straightforward romantic thread but proves to be a poignant reiteration of the movie's themes and culminates, a bit surprisingly, in the film's emotional payoff. It's very easy to imagine a less gifted filmmaker producing a train wreck of a film using an identical script -- exaggerating the highs, compartmentalizing the lows and casting a mawkish eye on everything from Walter's youngest child to his ever-present suffering. Foster finds the script's subtleties instead, and grounds the film with just enough pain to make it work. Viewers who can shake off tabloid preoccupations as they settle into the film will likely be surprised by a picture that (in a way reminiscent of Lars and the Real Girl) turns a crazy-sounding premise into something moving and sane. Copyright © 2011, Reuters http://www.the33tv.com/entertainment/sns-rt-film-us-reviews-filmtre72g1yp-20110317,0,903686.story |
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| TitaniumX | Mar 17 2011, 11:55 AM Post #13 |
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![]() SXSW: Jodie Foster Unveils The Beaver to Adoring Austin Crowd Even with director/actress Jodie Foster and rising star Anton Yelchin in attendance for the much-anticipated SXSW premiere of The Beaver, the packed house’s buzzing was focused on one hot topic: Mel Gibson. The troubled star takes top billing in Foster’s third directorial effort, and festgoers were especially eager to see if his role could help wash away the bad taste left in their mouths after Gibson’s recent meltdown and legal troubles. The Beaver features him as Walter Black, a depressed father/husband/businessman who finds solace — and a new persona — in a beaver hand puppet discovered in a dumpster. Foster plays his wife, who thinks that his behavior is pretty, well, weird. Foster took to the stage to introduce the film, decked out in self-described “Jack Nicholson” sunglasses (“If you saw my eyes, you’d turn into a vampire or throw up”) and casually reminding the audience they were in for something unexpected. “This is not a comedy,” Foster declared before admitting that making The Beaver was the greatest struggle in her professional career. Genre aside, the film had the theater chuckling and sniffling from sentimentality. Returning to a thunderous ovation for the post-screening Q&A, Foster fielded the first, perhaps most obvious question: What exactly was the struggle? “It was hard to get the tone right,” she replied. “What was most beautiful about the script was it had equal parts lightness and darkness. Comedy and drama… and that’s always a difficult combination.” The inquisitor, obviously digging for a scandalous response, followed up with a straightforward rewording of his question: “Did it have anything to do with Mel Gibson?” Foster smirked, prepared to tackle the sensitive issue on everyone’s mind. “We were incredibly grateful to have Mel’s performance in this movie,” she said. “I wouldn’t change anything.” The crowd cheered, clearly won over by the actor’s off-kilter performance. Foster went on to laud Gibson as one of America’s most beloved actors, on par with such international greats as… Chow Yun-fat? Foster found time to remind the crowd that yes, Anna and the King — her co-starring gig with the Hong Kong great — was a thing that really happened. As for the choice of both directing and starring in the film, Foster realized she needed someone Gibson’s age who could play the straight man and act as the audience’s perspective to the Beaver’s oddball antics. She approached Gibson privately about the possibility of taking the role and, according to Foster, his response consisted of laughter and a prolonged, “Yeeeeaaaaah.” Eventually during the Q&A, Foster called Yelchin and screenwriter Kyle Killen (creator of the short-lived Lone Star) to stage to help her tackle heavy issues like the portrayal of mental illness on screen and finding the perfect beaver voice. The night was fairly tame overall, not an ill-word or uncomfortable hesitation made in reference to Gibson — though thankfully there was time for a Bugsy Malone question. “I love Bugsy Malone,” a bewildered Foster quipped about the 1976 kid-gangster curio. “That was a very, very long time ago…” The Beaver is in wide release May 20. Edited by TitaniumX, Mar 17 2011, 11:56 AM.
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| clarice | Mar 17 2011, 12:00 PM Post #14 |
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she has her rockstar look ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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| leslieUK | Mar 17 2011, 12:01 PM Post #15 |
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VIDEOOOO http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2011/03/17/sxsw-the-beaver-intro-qa-video-interviews-photos/ |
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| clarice | Mar 17 2011, 12:03 PM Post #16 |
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^damn you beat me to it
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| leslieUK | Mar 17 2011, 12:06 PM Post #17 |
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| clarice | Mar 17 2011, 12:11 PM Post #18 |
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![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Edited by clarice, Mar 17 2011, 12:13 PM.
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| TitaniumX | Mar 17 2011, 12:15 PM Post #19 |
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Thank you so much |
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| Andreas | Mar 17 2011, 12:26 PM Post #20 |
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Wow thank you guys!! Off to watch the Q&A although I wonder if it contains too much spoilers!! |
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| Andreas | Mar 17 2011, 12:32 PM Post #21 |
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| clarice | Mar 17 2011, 12:36 PM Post #22 |
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![]() ![]() ![]() http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=134610511 Edited by clarice, Mar 17 2011, 12:37 PM.
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| clarice | Mar 17 2011, 12:38 PM Post #23 |
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another video there: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/risky-business/sxsw-mel-gibson-a-no-168560 |
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| Andreas | Mar 17 2011, 12:46 PM Post #24 |
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Thank you! |
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| clarice | Mar 17 2011, 01:09 PM Post #25 |
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http://blog.moviefone.com/2011/03/16/the-beaver-first-reviews/ 'The Beaver' First Reactions: Mel Gibson Wins Tons of Praise, but Does the Film? The premiere screening of Jodie Foster's 'The Beaver' just swept into the SXSW Film Festival, and reactions so far via Twitter seem to be mixed, with most agreeing that Mel Gibson's performance is the highlight of a film that may be a little uneven in tone in its current state. See tweets below ... @DavidEhrlich: THE BEAVER is a high-concept Disney dad w/ a suicidal streak. didactic, clumsy, & full of good things that deserve better. LIFE AS A PUPPET. @MattDentler: "The Beaver" really does earn its stripes as a story about mental illness and depression. Not a comedy. #SXSW @WilliamBGoss: have issues with the tone(s) struck by The Beaver, but not with the direction or performances. #SXSW @Slashfilm: Predictable, ridiculous, melodramatic. Gibson & Foster have good performances but it's just a mess. Didnt connect with any of the characters @PeterAMartin: THE BEAVER: Heart on its sleeve, pumping a steady supply of sincere sentimentality. Genuine, touching, if a bit on the nose. #sxsw @EricVespe: It really is a shame that Mel Gibson is being hidden from the press. His performance in The Beaver is a fantastic and introspective. @rejects: THE BEAVER has comedy in the situation, sorrow in it's story. Incredible performances. Very touching, well crafted. #sxsw @Katerbland: THE BEAVER doesn't know what it wants to be and, paired with an unsympathetic main character, steadily grew into a film I hated. #sxsw @JamesRocchi: THE BEAVER: A big, jokey premise creates small, quiet spaces to examine depression and pain; it's unique, and I'm not .... @JoBloCom: "The Beaver" is an often good, frequently great but mostly uneven film that worked better as a written story. |
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| clarice | Mar 17 2011, 01:13 PM Post #26 |
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if she doesn't do press herself and don't want Mel to do any either, I guess the beaver will get zero publicity Jodie Foster doesn’t want Mel Gibson to promote new movie Jodie Foster doesn’t want Mel Gibson to do any promotional work for his new film because she is afraid people won’t want to see a movie with him in it. The actress has directed her friend and ‘Maverick’ co-star in new movie ‘The Beaver’ and although Jodie praised his performance she admitted his recent personal troubles – including being sentenced to a year-long domestic violence counseling program – could affect ticket sales. Asked if Mel would do press for the film, Jodie said, “I’m not sure anyone would even want him!” “I’m not sure if I even want him to do any publicity. I certainly don’t want him to do anything he doesn’t want to. “I know it’s going to be tough to get past everything that’s happened this year and have people thinking, ‘Maybe it should be released at another time.’ I just don’t want the great talent Mel displays in this film to be lost. You won’t forget it.” The movie, which also stars Jodie, sees Mel playing a man who speaks to a beaver hand puppet and Jodie revealed the actor gave it “everything he had”. She told Parade.com: “Mel is playing a man in a steep descent, having a mental breakdown. There’s fear in his eyes. I play his wife and I know the man I married has died, not literally, but he’s not there anymore. He’s in a black hole and his family is hoping and praying he’ll snap out of it. He’s tried everything from books to counseling. Finally, he finds solace in a hand puppet that becomes such an integral part of his life and a strangely off-beat way to express himself. “I hope people see Mel as the great artist he is. I think you should forget the face you saw in the tabloids and what you heard on TV and give him a chance because he trusted me and I trusted him. We love each other. He gave it everything he had.” http://www.bloginity.com/blog/2011/03/16/jodie-foster-doesnt-want-mel-gibson-to-promote-new-movie/ |
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| Andreas | Mar 17 2011, 01:18 PM Post #27 |
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It seems like she could not wait to get away from Paris / finish the Polanski movie, and she's sick on top of it, so, maybe she's just very tired and want to go home and rest! Polanski is no walk in the park!! The interview she gave to The Hollywood Reporter above makes her sound pretty beat too!! Poor Jodie
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| jodiefan | Mar 17 2011, 02:05 PM Post #28 |
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this has got to be jodie code speak for "it was pure hell". |
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| ohman | Mar 17 2011, 04:42 PM Post #29 |
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Many thanks to you guys !I think there is no need to worry about her health - so many are fighting these days with strep throat in europe and have swollen eyes But even before I found her very bony - and on film you look like 10 kg more anyway... |
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| ohman | Mar 17 2011, 05:34 PM Post #30 |
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In my oppinion it is a very good decision to give up the Riefenstahl-Project. Riefenstahl was straight to the Nazi-Regime and a wolf in sheep's clothing. I am convinced that even JF would have failed. Anyway: did she really dead set on moving to New York? Not bad for her: also under the aspect to find a new love there maybe - in L.A. she knows all potential candidates, doesn't she? [As for the Riefenstahl bio, “I’ve never been able to crack it, really,” she says. “I just was never able to get the scripts in the shape they needed to be.” She shrugs, trying not to let it weigh on her. But the sense of loss is there and perhaps always will be. Other things consume her now — like her determination to move from Los Angeles to New York; like the changes her elder son, Charlie, is undergoing as he enters his teenage phase — but equally, she must figure out a way to put herself in the pantheon of American movie masters, where many believe she ultimately belongs.] |
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4:44 PM Jul 11
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and now that's all she can remember. THAT guy, the guy the Vanity Fair article talked about. The guy that people loved.






























4:44 PM Jul 11