Jodie Foster: I Love Mel Gibson

The Beaver premiered at SXSW on Wednesday, but its star, Mel Gibson, was in Los Angeles ... so he could turn himself in for booking on charges of misdemeanor battery. Gibson faces no jail time. His presence was sorely missed in Texas by Beaver director Jodie Foster. “Anyone who’s ever worked with Mel knows he’s the most beloved actor in the film business,” Foster told an audience at SXSW after the premiere. The film is about a mentally ill man who copes by using a puppet, and The Guardian says it misses the mark: “Where Foster finally trips up is in failing to convince that this potentially dubious conceit offers a productively imaginative way to examine depression, and in handling banal homilies as if they were dynamite insights.”