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    I'm Your Puppet

    With Mel Gibson a no-show, Jodie Foster explains that The Beaver is no laughingmatter

    Joe Leydon
    Mar 17, 2011 | 8:27 am
    • Jodie Foster, Mel Gibson and his inner beaver

    Just about everything you’ve heard aboutThe Beaver is true.

    Yes, this much-buzzed-about indie production – which had its world premiere Wednesday evening in Austin at the SXSW Film Festival – is the latest directorial effort of Oscar-winning multi-hyphenate Jodie Foster.

    Yes, it stars Mel Gibson as a harried business executive and family man who suffers a psychological meltdown and slips into a near-catatonic depression.

    And yes, the movie’s plot kicks in when the executive reaches a point where he can communicate freely with loved ones and employees only by speaking in a thick, growly brogue through a beaver hand puppet.

    But no, regardless of what you may have heard that might indicate otherwise, The Beaver is not – or at least isn’t intended to be – a comedy.

    To be sure, you can’t help but giggle a bit during the early scenes, when the deeply troubled Walter Black (Gibson) ratchets up from morose to manic while getting in touch with his inner beaver. Mind you, the guy doesn’t attempt anything like ventriloquism – he simply lapses into gravelly beaver-speak while flexing the puppet in his hand. But that only makes his role-playing behavior all the more bizarre.

    And at first, it’s more than mildly amusing to see how that behavior befuddles his wife (Foster) and their two sons, and discombobulates his second-in-command (Cherry Jones) and other workers at his toy manufacturing company.

    But, to reiterate, The Beaver is not a full-scale laugh riot. Rather, it’s intended as a seriously sensitive psychological drama about a man who’s driven to extremes to snap himself out of a debilitating funk. And when, ultimately, Walter literally comes to blows with the hand puppet… Well, let’s put it this way: You’re not supposed to laugh.

    In recent weeks, Foster has been on location in Paris, filming Carnage with co-stars Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz and John C. Reilly for director Roman Polanski. But she took time out to fly all the way to Austin for Wednesday evening’s premiere screening – and to tell the capacity crowd at the Paramount Theatre that The Beaver is no laughing matter.

    “I’m hoping to get the word out,” she said, “that this is a thoughtful movie that will require people to think a little bit when they come to the movie theater.”

    It will be a difficult movie to market, Foster conceded. And while she nimbly avoided directly addressing the issue, she strongly hinted it doesn’t help that her leading man lately has been involved in more embarrassing off-screen misadventures than any actor this side of Charlie Sheen.

    “I feel incredibly grateful to have [Mel Gibson’s] performance in this movie,” Foster said. In almost the same breath, however, she admitted that plans to open The Beaver months ago were put on hold after “all sorts of things that were out of our control came into play… All sorts of stuff happened after the film was finished that sort of threw our release into a crazy pattern.”

    Gibson, it should be noted, was conspicuous by his absence at Wednesday’s world premiere. So it was up to Foster – with a little help from Beaver scriptwriter Kyle Killen, an Austin resident, and actor Anton Yelchin, who co-stars in the film – to deal with the post-screening Q&A. She wore sunglasses for the occasion – not to look tres cool, she insisted, but to disguise a minor eye infection.

    “Actually,” she quipped, “I’m afraid if I took the glasses off, all of you might turn into vampires or something.”

    Gibson’s undeniably potent performance – and his unavoidable off-screen misbehavior – may dominate most press coverage of The Beaver. It’s worth noting, though, that the movie actually tells two contrasting yet interconnected stories.

    In counterpoint to Walter’s ongoing struggle to return to normalcy, there is the drama of Porter (Yelchin), Walter’s oldest son, who has identity problems of his own. Specifically, he’s a master at ghostwriting term papers for fellow students. For the right price, he can convincingly mimic the “voice” of anyone who needs his service. Trouble is, Porter, like his dad, finds it difficult to speak for himself.

    Striking the perfect balance between these two storylines was “the biggest struggle of my professional life,” Foster said. But it all worked out in the end – for both Foster and the characters in her film.

    “Life is full of half-comedy and half-tragedy,” she said. “And the only way to get through it is to know that you’re not alone, that there’s someone there for you.”

    Even if that someone is a beaver hand puppet.

    unspecified
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    Movie Review

    28 Years Later revives zombie franchise for new generation

    Alex Bentley
    Jun 20, 2025 | 5:00 pm
    Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Alfie Williams in 28 Years Later
    Photo by Miya Mizuno
    Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Alfie Williams in 28 Years Later.

    The 2000s brought two of the best zombie movies ever made in 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later. Both films, despite being made by different filmmakers, featured intense action with fast-moving zombies, harrowing sequences, and real emotional connections with their main characters. Now the original director and writer — Danny Boyle and Alex Garland — have returned with the first of a possible three sequels, 28 Years Later.

    The rage virus from the first two films that turns humans into insatiable monsters has successfully been contained to the United Kingdom, and one group of survivors has managed to band together on a small island off the coast of England. We’re introduced to the group through Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), his wife, Isla (Jodie Comer), and his son, Spike (Alfie Williams).

    Isla is sick with an unknown illness, while Jamie is set to take the 12-year-old Spike on his first trip to the mainland to hunt zombies. That trip not only gives Spike an education as to the different types of feral zombies that now populate England, but also a clue that other people have survived there. When he discovers that one of them may be a doctor, he makes plans to take his mother there in hopes of finding a cure for whatever ails her.

    While the first two films were notable for their brisk pace that kept the potency of the stories high, Boyle and Garland almost go in the opposite direction for much of this film. The first 90 minutes are relatively slow, with only a couple of sequences that raise the blood pressure. The final half hour or so go a long way toward filling that void, so it’s clear that the filmmakers were biding their time for the story to come in the sequel. A bit more balance in this film would have served them well, though.

    What they do show involves some weird, wild stuff that is objectively upsetting, even for fans of the genre. The zombies have evolved in strange ways, giving them a variety of body shapes and abilities to suit the environment in which they live. These storytelling choices may thrill some and have others scratching their heads. Another human character living on his own (played by Ralph Fiennes), appears to have gone the way of Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, with a revelation that is bone-chilling.

    Boyle, who’s directed everything from Trainspotting to Slumdog Millionaire, doesn’t have a signature style, and he makes some choices in this film that test your patience. He occasionally employs an odd technique in which the film stutters, for a lack of better term. It’s a bit jarring, especially since it doesn’t seem to improve the storytelling. He also inserts scenes from older films involving medieval warfare that emulate the bow-and-arrow weaponry used by characters in this film, but the exact connection he’s trying to make is unclear.

    The young Williams has a lot put on his shoulders in the film, and he proves to be up to the task of carrying the story. He isn’t precocious or annoying, instead reacting almost exactly like you’d expect a boy of his age to do when faced with extreme situations. Taylor-Johnson and Comer are good complements for him, drawing him out with their polar opposite characters. Fiennes makes a huge impression in the final act of the film, while Jack O’Connell makes a very brief appearance, teasing a bigger role to come.

    It’s difficult to fully judge 28 Years Later because it’s designed to only give you part of the story; part 2, The Bone Temple, is due in 2026, while a third film will follow if the first two do well. This film has its moments and winds up on the positive side of the ledger, but it’s also a frustrating experience that could have used a more stand-alone story.

    ---

    28 Years Later is now playing in theaters.

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