The Flick:

Regretfully, I didn’t see The Beaver in the theater. I read reviews by Roger Ebert, and various others that didn’t paint a pretty picture of the flick. When the film finally made its way onto Blu-ray I received a screener and decided to take a crack at it myself instead of sending it to one of my dedicated writers. Thankfully I gave the film a chance, because all of the other critics that didn’t care for this film are terribly wrong.

Life isn’t easy. Every day we wake up and face a multitude of challenges. We struggle to find our own voices, to find someone to love us, to fit in, to turn our passions into something tangible. We look to those around us for guidance, when in truth they are struggling themselves. Are any of us truly happy, and if the answer to that question is yes, then what is it that makes us so? These are the questions asked brilliantly by director Jodie Foster in The Beaver.

Is it outlandish to believe that a man can heal himself by projecting the person he was meant to be onto a hand puppet? I don’t think so. I think that we as human beings have only begun to figure out what it means to heal. Mel Gibson portrays a man on the verge of losing everything including his sanity as Walter Black, a man that on the surface seems to have it all. He has a wife and two children, a large company, a beautiful home, and yet he spends most of his days either in a haze of depression or sleeping. After his wife decides that enough is enough and asks him to leave their home, Walter finds an old beaver hand puppet, that becomes the catalyst for his healing, only after time passes The Beaver doesn’t want to let Walter heal anymore.

Sometimes it is difficult to write about movies. Especially when your peers think said movies are shit, but fortunately for me I don’t give a fuck what my peers think of my opinions. The Beaver is more than just a solid picture. It’s a film that touches on the importance of family, and their ability to be there for one another when it is difficult to do so. Life is hard. Marriage is hard. Being a parent is so difficult that at times it seems impossible, but we as human beings have a responsibility to ourselves to push through the difficulty and persevere.

I’m not going to spend an overabundance of time ranting about the beautiful cinematography, the solid directing, the pitch perfect casting, or the marvelous script. I’m going to let you decide for yourself if The Beaver is the great film I claim it to be. Do yourself a favor, and see The Beaver if you haven’t already seen it, and if you have, then see it again, because you might have missed something. It’s more than a killer film, it’s a killer portrait of a broken family that isn’t ready to give up on being a family.

The Blu-ray:

Audio/Video: The Audio is smooth and polished. A solid lossless soundtrack that is a pleasure to listen to. The video isn’t quite as good as the audio, but it isn’t bad either. The transfer is strong, yet at times seemed a little hazy. Overall, I was happy with both the audio and the video.

Special Features

Commentary: Director/actor Jodie Foster talks about the difficulties of making the picture, but while it’s interesting at points it didn’t hold my attention.

Everything is Going to Be OK: The film’s cast and crew talk about the pictures’ tone and the quality of the performances. solid feature that could have been a little longer.

Deleted Scenes: A few scenes that didn’t make it into the picture, and for good reason.

The Flick: Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

The Blu-ray: Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Source: IMPAwards

Clip: Is This A Joke

Clip: Prescription Puppet

Clip: You Made This For Me?

A troubled husband and executive adopts a beaver hand-puppet as his sole means of communicating.

Apparently the change in release has to do with director and star Jodie Foster filming Polanski’s latest God Of Carnage and she wont be free to promote the film in March. The studio also want to utilize the potential buzz from SXSW to promote the film.

Source: THR

The Beaver

Summit Entertainment and Participant Media had planned to release the film during the awards season, however due to the Mel Gibson controversy with his ex those plans had to be changed.

A troubled husband and executive adopts a beaver hand-puppet as his sole means of communicating.

Source: THR

The Beaver is scheduled to be released next Spring.

The first trailer is also reportedly going to be airing on Entertainment Tonight tomorrow night. Gibson will be playing a “a father who walks around talking to a beaver hand puppet.” Director Jodie Foster is calling Gibson’s performance as  “one of his most powerful and moving performances”.  Of course, there’s the issue of whether or not audiences will forgive Gibson once again, but a recent poll suggests the majority will see the film regardless of his rants.

The film hasn’t got a release date scheduled due to what’s happening with Mel personally, but if you care, follow the source to read the plot synopsis, but be warned: it spoils a lot. Looks weird and it has a puppet!

Source: Collider

Tonderai’s other credits include Dog Eat Dog and Hush. Lawrence recently appeared in the limited released film Winter’s Bone and will be back on the big screen once more this year in Jodie Foster’s The Beaver. Thieriot will be appearing in My Soul to Take, the new Wes Craven horror film, this October 29th.

Terminator Salvation

Yelchin is next to appear on the big screen alongside Jodie Foster and Mel Gibson in The Beaver, already set for release sometime this year.

Gibson is already in the middle of production on his latest film How I Spent My Summer Vacation that’s shooting in Mexico. The film he just worked on was the Jodie Foster directed comedy The Beaver and you can see him on the big screen this weekend in Edge of Darkness.

Source: GettyImages

Previous actors who have also tried to get the project off the ground include Steve Carrell and Jim Carrey.  Gibson’s current participation in the project seems the most likely to take off though as Jodie Foster is circling the project as a potential directorial project if her long delayed Flora Plum does not happen anytime soon.

Source: THR

Source: riskybuisiness