Gibson Goes Ape at 'Apocalypto' Talk -- Could He Learn from Apatow?

I'm sick and tired of the PC crap. Everyone always has to pull the racism card.

Gibson is right, STFU and make your own damn movie you hippies.

Didn't he pay for the film out of his own pocket? he can do whatever he wants.

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Mel probably should not have dropped the F-bomb (and perhaps the college professor could have avoided the racist-bomb), but he has a point. Lady, if you don't like Mel's movie - go make your own damn movie.

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Assistant professor, in other words a student.Flexing their PC muscles at an easy target.I'm with Mel on this one.

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Agree with Mel. He made his movie his way - movies don't reflect reality in any fashion, it's entirely his movie.

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actually, an assistant professor has to have a Ph.D. and generally several years of postdoc work. so i'm betting she knew what she was talking about.
trust me, "PC" crap annoys me more than anyone, but that's not what this is. it's totally misrepresenting the history and culture of a race of people by portraying them as brutal and ignorant. i can easily see where people might take offense to that.

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Forget making a movie with David O Russell, I want to see Mel make a movie with Michael Richards!!

:P

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Forget making a movie with David O Russell, I want to see Mel make a movie with Michael Richards!!

:P

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Let's see. The movie, once again, is as historically accurate as anything Shakespeare wrote. Ask Richard III. If it had a National Geographic logo in front of the movie then I'd be in a dither with the PC crowd. Historically accurate and entertaining are more often than not two separate things. And for some supposedly educated people to say that the depiction was racist is just retarded. It's the only major movie to depict anything about that culture in any way and like most any movie, the people depicted have a range of characteristics - from heroic to villainous. And for any professors, PC or not, it provides a starting point for discussion about the cultures loosely depicted in the movie. And like Mel Gibson said - make your own freaking movie if you don't like the one he made. It's not Mel's job to create some PC propaganda that makes some Berkeley left wingers happy. I think that's Michael Moore, Spike Lee and Oliver Stone's job.

And Judd Apatow makes fluffy movies not loved by critics but clearly he would like to be loved and his words about critics can be taken with a grain of salt. And some of those critics, who would also like to be loved, latch onto the fawning words of one movie writer/producer/director/actor as evidence that their pretentious, pious, pompous and often times putrescent so called movie reviews are not as self serving, pretentious, pious, pompous and putrescent as they often really are. I don't think I'll hold my breath waiting for the movies that any of the offending critics write/direct/produce or act in.

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As someone who loves Braveheart and can easily quote even Gibson's Man Without a Face, I'm not exactly unbiased. I know every line of the first two lethal weapon movies (though Jeffrey Boam and Shane Black wrote some of the best lines ever in their respective scripts). I'm a fairly solid fan of Gibson's work. His beat jesus movie was laughably awful but not because of the cinematography or even the acting; rather the lack of any story sorta screwed that film.

Anyway, Judd Apatow on the otherhand is...a major, amazing writer/director. Apatow's missing gibson's near perfect eye for shooting a sequence - especially action - but in terms of characterizations, emotions, plot points, beats, development...apatow's all over Gibson. So to call Apatow's work fluffy is just plain ignorant. Anyone who has ever watched the Freaks N Geeks DVDs can atest to the power of his work. I introduce someone to that series with disc 1 and they show up at my door every time, bleary-eyed, sleep deprived and begging for a another disc as if it were crack. They'll fiendishly devour the whole 6 disc set in a matter of days - ignoring basic necessities. That's not normal for most TV shows and it's certainly not the result of a fluffy artist.

Apatow's work has received immense critical acclaim at times and deservedly so. Ditto Gibson. But if I had to choose a storyteller to never work again, Gibson gets that pick instantly.

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so, if I pay millions of dollars to make a movie that shows americans as bigots, ignorants, warmongers and willing to start wars to steal other people's oil under the excuse of freedom, then you don't have any right to protest just because I paid for it?? and I can tell you that if you don't like it you should make your own movie?? that's how it works??

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Spoken like a true leftist.

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mike green - Dude, exactly, and they already made that movie. I think it was called Syriana. George Clooney is such a big lib. And there was Valley of the Wolves, total anti-American and ahh who cares. And rather than rant and rave about a anti-American movie I'd just rather not go see it, or rent it. Go put them in your Netflix account. :-) Go vote in the marketplace.

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It's funny how everyone labels someone with liberal views a "hippie." Why can't I just be a black dude with internet access? If it's just a movie, then why can you complain about anti-american themes and I cannot. And...the problem only arises when the average american cannot decide whether or not he/she is watching historical fiction or a subtitled gore fest? My neighbor had me dying when he was "explaining" how the Spartans were the greatest fighting force based on scenes from the latest blockbuster.

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Yah, I know. I have neighbors who think Star Trek is real or Star Wars is real. We certainly do need the government to step in and do something about that. Some of those folks even wear costumes and think they are Jedi knights. Other folks go around with pointy ears and saying things like 'live long and prosper' - yup we do need government to step right in, perhaps they can cross train some of the food police over to the movie accuracy police force.

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Actually, the story is'nt quite accurate. It appears, after reading this story, that this woman was simply taking issue with the movie and Gibson went off on her. Then other students in attendance began heckling Gibson,for his behavior, which prompted Gibson to let loose again. The truth is that Gibson was ambushed by a group of students, including the assistant professor, whose true goal was to disrupt the event and belittle Gibson for making a movie containing depictions of the Maya they did not agree with. They were in the wrong, which is why they were escorted out of the function. It should be noted that Gibson did not make a documentary on the Maya people, he filmed a movie based on the Maya which was intended to be entertaining. That being said, he might have faced their taunts and name calling with a bit more restraint. He fired back in kind, but he did'nt fire first.

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America is screwed up. This guy is a mess, a nasty racist pig, who is so arrogant he can't even handle anyone from the intellectual community questioning his work. And you defend him, and make comments like, "He paid for it... he can do whatever he likes"???!! He exploited a story that in the process of his "entertainment", presented a race as something degrading. Yes, it's "just" big budget Hollywood crap - that's WHY it's so offensive. This woman knows her stuff, and was quite reasonably putting it to him that he misrepresented his subject matter. Gibson's publicity press had him talking about the script as if it was accurate. It isn't. And that's an important distinction to be made in today's times. Do you want Hollywood and execs in suits who do whatever steals your money, to be writing history? I don't. Big buck consumer culture has no right, and that Gibson is admired and excused for being a rich celebrity is nothing but symptomatic of what's so completely wrong with modern Americana. May there be a film one day that remembers you lot for the bizarre creatures you all are.

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Mel Gibson's films have 100% more historical integrity than the effluent pumped out by Hollywood.

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