Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Non-paying critics

In the end Mel Gibson reversed his decision not to attend the Mexican premiere of Apocalypto.

He had planned a boycott as he claimed to be too hurt by all the derogatory comments made by the Central American viewers of (pirated copies of) his movie.

Nevertheless Maya activist and bootleg-DVD enthusiast Amadeo Cool May was reportedly impressed with the prophetic speech made early on in the movie by a Maya child: "That was really Maya. Her monlogue was well done". (Other cast members were less easy to understand. This might however have been due to the quality of the fake DVD being viewed.)

Mexican film director Juan Mora Catlett has claimed that Gibson has borrowed visual elements from his 1990 film Return to Aztlan, such as the inclusion of a group of natives in full-body white make-up. He doesn't plan to sue though. (Not that well-timed eclipses, waterfall jumps and quick sand struggles are all that original either, but they are all part of the immense fun of this film.)

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