Mel Gibson Alert!

According to Yahoo! News, Mel is thinking of heading to Panama to film a new movie about history! Apparently, he is in negotiations to produce a film about Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa, the first European to see the Pacific Ocean from its eastern shore. Personally, I hope the negotiations fall through. Here are my reasons:

• I am so tired of history ala Mel, I could just spit up.
  
• A movie about a guy seeing the Pacific Ocean for the first time has already been done.
  
• It would interfere with the completion of other important movies he is working on right now: Under and Alone, an important story set in Southern California depicting the trials and tribulations of an ATF agent who infiltrates the notorious Mongols (!) motorcycle gang; and Sam and George, a moving tale of two old friends who reunite after one of them (Gibson) is released from prison after serving twenty years for a crime he didn't commit. Sigh.

Let's talk about the Sam and George. Do we really need to see Gibson portray this martyr? Maybe this is a vanity piece with a message. I suppose he must feel persecuted and I admit I have contributed to the persecution. But do I deserve this movie in punishment? No, I say. But I hear tell karma is a bitch and I probably deserve her slap. IMDB describes this film as "a moving tale." Pu-lease. This is just an opportunity for him to say, what me? I didn't do anything wrong! If you're offended by my work, it's you're problem! I'm not a pornographic monger of violence! You're just too sensitive. And you don't study history like I do...symbollically

Then he's taking on the "notorious Mongols" in Under and Alone, apparently based on a true story. However you and I both know how Mel treats the truth. I predict this will be just another one of his type of historical films, a whispy truth burried by blood and guts. He will figuratively pit himself against a mondern-day Ghengis Khan and sincerly try to stop the threat of all the gangs uniting under Khan and conquering and absorbing every town in their path. There will be many cheeky and inside jokes that only "historians" like him will get. Maybe after a particularly violent fight with gang members that went poorly, he'll sidle up to a bar, bruised and battered, and order a Jin Dynasty Martini, conquered not stirred.

I hope Mel Gibson has a nice time in Panama, if he decides to go there. Perhaps he'll catch yellow fever and die. Maybe he'll make a deal for producing a movie, which will, in turn, boost the local economy. Maybe he'll even make a meaningful movie about a spectacular voyage, and allow the viscera and pain to be conjured up in our imagination rather than spattered all over our faces. I'm not holding my breath for any of the above. But Hollywood is about dreams, after all. A girl can dream, can't she?