The Beaver Movie

There was a moment during the first public screening of her new film, "The Beaver," when Jodie Foster finally felt she could exhale. The drama, starring Mel Gibson as a depressed father who reinvents himself with the help of a furry hand puppet, deals with tough subject matter that is uncomfortably close its star's very public meltdown. After a mostly comic first hour, Gibson's character reveals the depth of his depression and anger by turning his rage against himself. "There's one scene in the movie where it takes this turn and where Mel hits himself, and if people are laughing there, then we're like, 'This is bad. This is not good,' " Foster said in an interview the morning after "The Beaver's" sold-out premiere at the South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival here this week.

There was a moment during the first public screening of her new film, "The Beaver," when Jodie Foster finally felt she could exhale. The drama, starring Mel Gibson as a depressed father who reinvents himself with the help of a furry hand puppet, deals with tough subject matter that is uncomfortably close its star's very public meltdown. After a mostly comic first hour, Gibson's character reveals the depth of his depression and anger by turning his rage against himself. "There's one scene in the movie where it takes this turn and where Mel hits himself, and if people are laughing there, then we're like, 'This is bad. This is not good,' " Foster said in an interview the morning after "The Beaver's" sold-out premiere at the South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival here this week.

Barbara Billingsley, who played June Cleaver, the quintessential 1950s sitcom mom on "Leave It to Beaver," and later did a memorable send-up of her white-bread image playing the "jive-talking" passenger in the hit comedy "Airplane!," has died. She was 94. Billingsley, who played small parts in B movies and appeared on television before achieving sitcom immortality, died Saturday at her home in Santa Monica of the rheumatoid disorder polymyalgia, said publicist Judy Twersky.