The last time you got picked up for DUI, it was right here in Toronto in 1984, when you were shooting Gillian Armstrong's "Mrs. Soffel" with Diane Keaton (I know, a U.S. film shot in Canada by an Australian...) I remember catching a CityPulse bit showing your oh-so-photogenic self being marched down the steps of the city's historic Old Court House to an adoring throng of (mostly female) cineastes. You probably made some young traffic cop's day, being the then-"Mad Max" pulled over for a traffic infraction (not to glamorize drunk-driving in any way)...
Well, it's 20+ years later, and the whole world knows you got picked up in LA last weekend on the same charge but today, you're no longer The Road Warrior and star of cool Peter Weir films. Nope, sadly, Mad Mel's pulled back the curtain and shown himself to be just another irresponsible, belligerent drunk who could have a promising career as a director if he wasn't such an obvious unhinged lunatic livin' La Vida Apocalypto.
So as a long-time fan who championed you from "Gallipoli" and your first hookup with George Miller and even "Attack Force Z" for chrissakes and praised you in "The Bounty" and thought "Payback" was one of your best films and who has forgiven you time and time again for sorry-ass crap like "Bird On A Wire" and "Lethal Weapon 4", let me say "thanks"--thanks for making me feel like a complete idiot now in front of some of my workmates, with whom I sparred majorly when your "Passion Of The Christ" was being labeled an anti-Semitic screed. I defended it on terms of possible accuracy--if not historic, then at least human and thus dramatic (without opening that whole can of grief, my basic position was that there were likely a great many who relished Christ's torture and eventual death, and yes, some of them were possibly Jewish) and that I felt that much of the venom being spat was reactionary and fueled by the same knee-jerk hysteria that called for the destruction of Scorcese's "The Last Temptation Of Christ" more than a decade earlier. Maybe it was just the booze talkin', but your well-documented rant has clued me in that maybe some of your critics had a point...
But, alas, it's not the Jews, nor Dionysis on the vine, nor a corrupt LAPD to blame for your problems. It's the whole damned "world gone mad" by your own sorry "official" explanation (which can be read right here). "Life fades" and "the vision dims" after a few vodka gimlets, right mate?
In the meantime, I hope Parker and Stone are immersed in their Flash animations slapping together that much-needed followup to "Passion Of The Jew"...you got off easy in that one.
