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What’s Going On? Everything, All at Once By Ben Fong-Torres

Posted by Suzanne Kai - on Sunday, 08 May 2022

What’s Going On? Everything, All at Once By Ben Fong-Torres
What’s Going On? Everything, All at Once By Ben Fong-Torres MAY 8, 2022 With “Like a Rolling Stone: The Life and Times of Ben Fong-Torres” the documentary about me, now out today and streaming merrily along on Netflix, I’m officially in the film industry.  Actually, that’s been the case since last June, when the documentary, which stole its title from a popular column at Asian Connections created by director Suzanne Joe Kai's son Mike when he was 14, premiered at the...

StudioLA's Jim Ferguson interviews Mel Gibson Star of What Women Want

Posted by AC Team on Tuesday, 12 August 2003.

Jim talks with the star of What Women Want , Mel Gibson.

Mel: How are you?

Jim: Great. Congratulations. You did a great job in this film. Everyone's talking about it. Your comedic skills. Your new routine that you do. We never knew you could dance, and do the Fred Astaire stuff. Good stuff! I've always been a big Sinatra fan, and I think his music still carries today. People love it.

Mel: Yes. I wasn't like a big fan of his stuff, but over the last decade or so... I got to listen more to Frank, Sammy and Dean and I like the stuff.

Jim: Just talking to Nancy, Nancy Meyers the director and she felt that Chicago was the perfect city. My hometown. That's where I was born and raised. It has a midwestern feel to it.

Mel: It has a sophistication of a metroplis and a more intimate thing that you get in a country town. That's what you notice when you go there too. It's a friendly place.

Jim: You look at the success of another movie, "Return to Me," David Duchovny, Minnie Driver, set in Chicago, romantic, it was a big success. There isn't a man for this kind of film, a throwback to the 30's and 40's romantic comedies, would you agree?

Mel: I don't know! 30's and 40's [laughter] There's people around that could do that. I think Tom Hanks is great. He can do anything....you have to have a "retro" sensibility to the whole thing. You have to be able to relate it to now ...to [make it] timely.

Jim: The premise to the story - being able to hear them [women] think, it's hilarious.

Mel: I think it's a worldwide fantasy. To be able to eavesdrop on one another's oddest most intimate thoughts. Wishful thinking.

Jim: They were talking about the opposite...maybe [have] Helen Hunt with the [same eavesdropping] powers [with men]. But that wouldn't work?

Mel: It won't. They wouldn't want it. It would be a four minute movie. A short!

Jim: I know you've probably heard this all day, but what most women want is to know Mel Gibson.

Mel: I don't know. I bet some lady would want to get the h*ll away from me! [laughter] and I didn't have to read their brains to figure that one out! [laughter]

Jim: It's always wonderful to talk with you. Don't miss this movie "What Women Want."

Mel: Thank you.

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