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Monday, December 04, 2006
New buzz about "Apocalypto": excellent movie, but an Oscar?
Mel's new movie opens this Friday, and speculation about whether or not it will be considered for an Academy Award. From the New York Times:
LOS ANGELES, Dec. 4 — With some early reviews lauding the audacity and innovation of Mel Gibson’s bloody Mayan epic, “Apocalypto,” Hollywood’s tight-knit community of Oscar voters may find itself facing a difficult dilemma in the coming weeks: Will they consider the film for an Academy Award?
Early informal reviews are also starting to trickle in:
“Apocalypto,” which will open on 2,500 screens across the country on Friday, is as different from a typical Hollywood film as Mr. Gibson’s last one: it features unrelenting, savage violence, is told in an obscure Mayan language and uses many nonprofessional actors with a primitive look born far from Hollywood.
Most critics (including this newspaper’s) have yet to weigh in on “Apocalypto,” but the excitement of those who have — like that among journalists who lingered to debate the film after a screening ended in Los Angeles last week — has been palpable.
“ ‘Apocalypto’ is a remarkable film,” Todd McCarthy wrote in Variety. “The picture provides a trip to a place one’s never been before, offering hitherto unseen sights of exceptional vividness and power.”
“Gibson has made a film of blunt provocation and bruising beauty,” Peter Travers wrote in Rolling Stone. “Say what you will about Gibson, he’s a filmmaker right down to his nerve endings.”
Other reviewers allowed themselves to psychoanalyze Mr. Gibson even as they praised the film. In a mixed review in The Hollywood Reporter, Kirk Honeycutt observed that Mr. Gibson “knows how to make a heart-pounding movie; he just happens to be a cinematic sadist.”
And I have to share this absolutely beautiful photograph that accompanied the NYTimes piece of actor Fernando Hernandez (excuse me while I mop up the drool):
Posted by Will at December 4, 2006 09:38 PM in In the News
Comments
That bottom image looks amazing!
Posted by: Kambiz Kamrani ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.anthroblogs.org/nomadicthoughts/nav-commenters.gif)
at December 5, 2006 12:59 AM