For sure, we do not notice them the way we noticed the Mel-tdown.

FORBES: About The Mel-tdown

But before that, the last really major international films made at Cinecitta were Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, shot way back in 2004, and Martin Scorsese's The Gangs of New York, which came out a decade ago.

BBC: Italy film industry: Battle on for Cinecitta studios

Alas, his work there is now forgotten, and he spent his declining years batting out profiles of show-business celebrities like Mel Brooks and Johnny Carson for the New Yorker, a sad way for so spectacularly gifted a writer to go out.

WSJ: Sightings: The Ungenerous Brilliance of Kenneth Tynan

Mel Gibson is leathery but quick and alert, his eyes darting this way and that.

NEWYORKER: We Were Soldiers

The single largest contribution that Mel made to Sirius XM was to sing and dance before Congress in a way that was sufficiently convincing as to get the FCC, the Justice Department and our elected officials on board with this monopolistic merger.

FORBES: Ask Not What Karmazin Did For Sirius. Ask Instead What Sirius Did For Mel

The novel was so savage, in fact, that Mel Gibson's Icon Productions owned the book for almost a decade without figuring out a way to film it.

NPR: 'Thank You for Smoking' Displays a Sense of Humor