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<\/a>Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today. <\/strong><\/p>\nJonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films. <\/em><\/p>\n
Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net<\/a>. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com\/user\/jsjkim<\/a>, and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com\/ReThinkReviews<\/a>. ReThink Reviews’ theme song is by Restavrant<\/a>. <\/p>\n
The Beaver<\/strong><\/p>\n
The new film The Beaver, directed by Jodie Foster, is about a severely depressed man named Walter who, after attempting suicide, develops an alternate personality that speaks to Walter and the world through a beaver puppet. A story like this would be a hard sell under any circumstances, but throw in the fact that the troubled puppeteer is played by Mel Gibson, and you\u2019ve upped the difficulty level by about a thousand.<\/p>\n
Gibson\u2019s troubles started in 2004 with his absurdly gory Jesus snuff film, The Passion of the Christ, which implicates the Jews as doing Satan\u2019s work.
\nAccusations of anti-Semitism were seemingly confirmed after Gibson\u2019s 2006 arrest for drunk driving, where he went on an anti-Semitic tirade against the arresting officer.<\/p>\nAnd of course, in 2010, you probably heard audio of Gibson spewing some of the most insanely hateful language you\u2019ve ever heard in your life at his ex-girlfriend and baby mama Oksana Grigorieva, who Gibson also apparently smacked around.<\/p>\n
So it ain\u2019t for nothing that I came into The Beaver (yeah, I said it) with a lot against Mel Gibson, because, to be honest, I don\u2019t want to support the work of someone like that. But The Beaver is a really interesting movie with some smart and intriguing stuff in it that\u2019s often funny, brave, and at times, refreshingly dark.<\/p>\n
Foster plays Walter\u2019s wife, Meredith, who\u2019s trying to figure out if the puppet, which seems to be helping Walter, is good for her and their family, which consists of their teenage son Porter, played by Anton Yelchin, and their younger son Henry, played by Riley Stewart. Sarah Lawrence, coming off her best actress nomination for Winter\u2019s Bone, plays high school cheerleader and valedictorian Norah, who hires Porter to write her graduation speech.<\/p>\n
One of the most welcome things about The Beaver is how it addresses mental illness as something that often runs in families, a prospect that weighs heavily on Porter, who is so scared of turning out like his dad that he keeps a list of their similarities stuck on his wall. The film\u2019s darkness also comes out as the puppet goes from being a quirky coping mechanism that helps Walter reunite with his family and get his struggling toy company back on track to a dangerous manifestation of full-blown schizophrenia.<\/p>\n
Gibson does a good job in a difficult role that reminds you what a talented, committed actor he can be, and he\u2019s well cast since we know he has a crazy streak and probably understands why someone would want to radically disassociate themselves from their past and the destructive aspects of their personality.<\/p>\n
The supporting cast is quite good, especially Lawrence, who exudes a depth that\u2019s perfect for an overachieving high school senior with things to hide.
\nFoster has a nervous intensity I wasn\u2019t crazy about, and the film should\u2019ve spent more time showing what Walter was like before becoming suicidal and, eventually, the Beaver. But the film also makes an interesting statement about America\u2019s obsession with highly publicized trainwrecks and what constitutes insanity in an increasingly insane world, which are fitting commentaries on Gibson\u2019s life and his heir apparent, Charlie Sheen.<\/p>\nSo was this enough to make me forgive Gibson for his transgressions? In a word: no. Despite his apologies, I do think Gibson hates Jews, and while I understand that his rants towards his ex-girlfriend wasn\u2019t meant for public consumption, it showed a rage and ugliness that I\u2019ve never felt even in my private thoughts.<\/p>\n
That said, The Beaver is kind of a fascinating movie with some interesting messages about mental health and a bold performance by Gibson at its heart. While I liked The Beaver, I\u2019d feel pretty torn about spending money on it because of my feelings towards Gibson. But at a time when people have given Charlie Sheen and Michael Vick another chance, maybe America is in a more forgiving mood than I am.<\/p>\n
The Beaver is rated PG-13 and is in limited release now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today. Jonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films. Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com\/user\/jsjkim, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-program"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20905\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}