Passion of the Christ filmmaker Mel Gibson, who ignited a furor with a drunken, anti-Semitic rant to a sheriff's deputy who stopped him last week along the California coast, was charged on Wednesday with driving under the influence of alcohol.
Gibson, an actor and Oscar-winning director who was at the center of a worldwide controversy over his 2004 blockbuster Christ, was also accused of driving with an open container of alcohol, Los Angeles County prosecutors said.
The two charges stem from Gibson's arrest early on Friday morning by a sheriff's deputy who saw him speeding along Pacific Coast Highway not far from his home in the exclusive Southern California beach town of Malibu.
PHOTO: AFP
If convicted, the 50-year-old film star could face six months in jail, Los Angeles County District Attorney's spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said. He was scheduled for an arraignment on Sept. 28 in a Malibu courtroom.
Gibson's representatives declined comment on the charges, which accuse him of driving with a blood alcohol count above California's legal limit of 0.08 percent.
The open container accusation apparently refers to a bottle of tequila found in Gibson's car by the deputy who stopped him and wrote the police report that triggered a media frenzy.
PHOTO: AP
Though Gibson has apologized for his actions that night and offered to meet with Jewish leaders to make amends for the inflammatory remarks, some have called on Hollywood to shun him. Already, ABC has pulled a program about the Holocaust that Gibson, a traditional Catholic who built his own church in Malibu, was producing.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has defended itself against accusations that Gibson was given special treatment because of his fame, though the head of a watchdog agency has pledged to investigate accusations that sheriff's brass tried to cover up the anti-Semitic rant.
Gibson has been one of Hollywood's most bankable stars since starring in the Lethal Weapon films of the late 1980s and early 1990s. He won an Academy Award for directing 1995's Braveheart, which also won the Oscar for best picture.
Gibson spent US$25 million of his own money to produce and direct Christ, which recounts the Biblical tale in which Jesus is betrayed by one of his followers and condemned to die on the cross.
The movie caused a major outcry among Jewish groups who considered it anti-Semitic, and at the time of the film's release they worried the movie could stir up anti-Jewish sentiment.
Gibson entered a detoxification program following his arrest, his publicist announced Monday.
“Mel has entered into an ongoing program of recovery,” Alan Nierob said in a short statement.
The widow of a photographer killed in a helicopter crash while filming The Final Season is suing actor Sean Astin, the movie's producers and the pilot, among others.
Kathryn Schlotzhauer alleges that the June 30 crash in eastern Iowa could have been avoided if producers and others involved in the film had scouted the area and noted the power lines that brought the helicopter down.
Her husband — Roland Schlotzhauer, 50, of Lenexa, Kansas — was filming a parade scene when the helicopter crashed into a cornfield, killing the photographer and seriously injuring producer Tony Wilson, 49, and the pilot.
Both survivors are among 19 defendants in the wrongful death lawsuit. The suit also names Wilson's special-effects firm, headquartered in Des Moines, and the rural electric cooperative that owns the power lines.
The photographer's widow is seeking unspecified compensation for his death, as well as US$50,000 in punitive damages, said her attorney, Gary Robb.
Astin's publicist, David Lust, was not immediately available for comment Wednesday night. His agent, Tim Curtis, would not comment.
Messages left Wednesday night at Wilson's home and his firm were not immediately returned.
The Final Season is about a high school baseball team. It stars Astin and Powers Boothe and is being directed by David Mickey Evans, who also directed The Sandlot.
More details have been released about the new installment of Sylvester Stallone's Rambo action movie.
According to Entertainment Weekly, Rambo IV is expected to start filming Oct. 1 in Thailand. The movie will feature Stallone as the Vietnam War veteran Rambo who is living a monastic lifestyle in Bangkok and salvaging old PT boats and tanks for scrap metal.
When a group of volunteers bringing supplies into Burma disappears, a relative of one of the missing missionaries begs Rambo to find them. Rambo then heads off with a team of young guns to find the relative.
Heath Ledger is going from Brokeback Mountain to Batman.
The Australian actor is to play twisted villain The Joker in the sequel to Batman Returns, to be titled The Dark Knight, according to a statement Tuesday by Warner Bros.
The movie will be directed by Batman Begins director Christopher Nolan and will see Christian Bale revive his role as the caped crusader from the 2005 movie. The role of The Joker was pioneered on the big screen in 1989 by Jack Nicholson in Tim Burton's Batman.
Nine Taiwanese nervously stand on an observation platform at Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport. It’s 9:20am on March 27, 1968, and they are awaiting the arrival of Liu Wen-ching (柳文卿), who is about to be deported back to Taiwan where he faces possible execution for his independence activities. As he is removed from a minibus, a tenth activist, Dai Tian-chao (戴天昭), jumps out of his hiding place and attacks the immigration officials — the nine other activists in tow — while urging Liu to make a run for it. But he’s pinned to the ground. Amid the commotion, Liu tries to
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