Mel GibsonAt a press conference yesterday, Mel Gibson finally provided a few details on  Apocalypto, his latest directorial effort. Set before the Spanish arrival in the Americas, the film's dialog will be in Yucateco, which is apparently an ancient Mayan language. According to Mel, the movie will be both "an action-adventure film of mythic proportions" and "a story about a man and his woman, his child and his father, his community." Alrighty - an exciting home life, then? Because the story takes place before Europeans arrived on the continent, the cast will be made up of native Mexican actors. Gibson, who wrote the film and is financing it himself, plans to begin shooting next month in Mexico.

While we're explaining things, could someone please tell me why, exactly, there was a bidding war for distribution rights to this thing? Yeah, ok - Mel Gibson. Woo hoo. The Passion of the Christ did well and got lots of press and all, and yes it had subtitles. But wasn't that whole "Jesus" angle probably responsible for the majority of the profits and the attention? What makes anyone think that audiences are going to flock to a movie full of people they don't recognize, speaking a foreign language? Forgive me if I'm missing something here, but isn't that basically also a description of every movie from, say, Germany? I mean, I happen to think that Werner Herzog is a genius, but when was the last time one of his German-language films blew up here? Color me confused.