Mel Gibson....Crazy Christian Crusader!

And how about THAT for a mind-bending story development? Why didn't Diane wait until the last five minutes of the show to ask about him? (Did you notice Mel's dead-eyed warning...."Ya gotta leave it alone, Diane!"....as if to suggest he'd whip out his vorpal Scottish broadsword and liberate her head from her neck if she continued her query?)

hitchens's rant piece about this in the new vanity fair is actually pretty good

(it is the hollywood issue you know, you might wanna pick it up, it's like a phone book! coupla decent articles)

They did the same thing with Left Behind and The Omega Code and I expect there will be some sort of turnout on the weekend, sure. And unless the film has some sort of further appeal it will tank.

but what if it actually is a GOOD movie?

Tad, if BRAVEHEART was shit (and it was) I can't see him taking genius pills before this one.

actually it does have some amazingly bad lines coming from Gene Hackman & Morgan Freeman (who have no excuse for being in such a shitty film because they were the EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS!). My favorite is when police chief Morgan Freeman tells his hot-headed partner to "go home! put on a funny hat! do whatever it is morons do!"

The last frontier for "open minded liberals" (translation: "fanatical zealous secular humanists")

yawn

I'm gonna see the movie no matter what. It's going to be interesting to watch, whether or not it's a good movie.

It's just that it's quite rare for a famous star to do a movie that is so religious. The question is: how good is the movie (in terms of turthfulness and on terms of artistic quality)? or will it be a Battlefield-Earth?

Yeah, it sounded like it might have been kind of interesting (good actors anyway) until I started reading the reviews (and learned EVEN more about Gibson and co.) and now I'm absolutely convinced that this is a horribly misguided, ugly sort of film (and I think a lot of Christians are gonna agree.) Really there are good points about Christianity (although I tend to focus more on the awful points--sorry folks, it's a function of living in America) but this movie really seems to paint Catholics/Christians in the worst (blood/sacrifice/torture/sin obsessed) possible light (not to even mention the anti-semiticism.)

I'll see it. But I saw Battlefield Earth, too!

John Debney, who composed the music for “The Passion of the Christ,” says he did battle with Satan while scoring the flick.

Debney had written music for a number of movies such as “Liar, Liar,” “Spy Kids,” and “I Know What You Did Last Summer” — but he says he was visited by the devil while writing the score for the film about the last hours of Jesus Christ.

“I had never before subscribed to the idea that maybe Satan is a real person, but I can attest that he was in my room a lot and I know that he hit everyone on this production,” Debney said, according to a lengthy interview that ran on Assist News Service, a Christian news agency.

He went on to say, "I had all these computers and synthesizers in my studio and the hard drives would go down and the digital picture that lives on the computer with the music would just freeze on his [Satan's] face. Then the volume would go to ten and it would happen all the time.

"The first time it happened, it scared me," Debney said. "Once I got over the initial shock of that, I learned to work around it and learned to reboot the computers and so I would start talking to him.

"There was one day when I had been on the movie for about four months when it really became bad that day and a lot of things that were causing doubt in me and I had had enough. The computers froze for about the tenth time that day and it was about nine o'clock at night and so I got really mad, and I told Satan to manifest himself and I said, 'Let's go out into the parking lot and let's go.' It was a sea change in me. I knew that this was war. I am not a physical person, but I was really angry on this occasion.

"...I had booted everything down and saved it and I was walking down the stairs and I was verbalizing and saying to Satan, 'Manifest yourself right now.' As I am walking out and saying, 'Come on, let's go now,' I looked over and I could see someone looking at me and I realized how silly I must have looked. He didn't manifest himself, but I wished he would have. It changed for me after that."

And this is a Hollywood veteran? Satan runs a major part of the studio system, as it is. How else to explain Adam Sandler's popularity?

Neither case excuses your father's comments, from what I can gather. So you very much have my sympathies, regardless.

The reason why I ask is because my family (and thanks to probably genetics and being raised by then, myself) is very rant-prone in a similar way to the latter case I hypothesized above.

I've learned to curb myself early on in my college days, thanks to more discriminating friends... but my family (specifically, my mom and grandmother) will still tell me really offensive things about certain types of people when they're on the phone with me, because they'll see something on TV (because they are ALWAYS watching TV, no matter where they are in the house and what they are doing), and will interrupt our conversation with something like "Oh, those Mexicans are at it again, murdering people" or other equally ignorant and venomous rants like that.

Point being, I don't want you to lose contact with your father because of an ignorant mistake he made... something that's a little more forgivable (to me) than targeting you for dating someone who is of the "wrong" type.

Even if I wasn't dating a wonderful girl who is Jewish, or lived with two great guys who are Jewish, I'd still be disturbed by what he said. However, the fact that he said what seemed to me to be a very thoughtless and insensitive thing knowing full well what religious and ethnic backgrounds some of the most important people in my life happen to have, I am not seeing any other choice but to cut him out of my life. Based on other comments he's said lately, it seems he's going through another one of his "religious" periods, in which he becomes very difficult to talk with in general. I've dealt with this stuff before (as has the rest of our family), but now it's gotten even more personal and I refuse to let him dictate the terms of our relationship anymore. If he can't respect the choices I make in my life, when I've done everything to respect his (I didn't bring up the movie - nor would I), then I don't see why he should be a part of it. It's really kinda sad, but what can I do?

Another article speculates (pretty blindly, citing "rumors flitting around" and interview material that sort of says completely different things) that Gibson might make a movie about the Maccabees. (And a burning bush might fly out of my butt.)

The possiblity of turning yet another buck and influencing audiences would always be too much for Hollywood to resist. As you already have the Bible to follow as a basic script, how badly could you screw up?

And tourists to the Holy Land will continue to be guided to places where the events of the Bible "actually" took place, because, as Chancey says, that way "everybody wins--the pilgrims get to walk where Jesus walked, and the tourism industry gets the money."

After the Passion's popularity, I can picture a Universal Studios Holy Land where Jesus will serve you the loaves and fishes on a paper plate and tourists can get rides on Noah's Ark for $10.

People who are not anti-Semitic will not become Jew haters as a result of seeing “The Passion of the Christ.” On the other hand, anti-Semites will leave the theater more virulent in their feelings against Jews. That would be particularly true in Europe and Asia where Jews are already victims of violence. The Chief Rabbi of Paris has urged Jewish children not to wear their yarmulkes which identify them as Jews and have caused them to be assaulted by French Muslims on the way to school. He suggested they wear baseball caps.

During this week’s Academy Awards show, the deaths of film artists occurring in the last year were noted. Leni Riefenstahl, who wrote, produced and directed “Triumph of the Will” was mentioned. The objective of her film was to create a worldwide sense of the invincibility of Adolf Hitler’s and Nazi Germany. She succeeded. After the defeat of Hitler in World War II, Leni denied she was a Nazi or anti-Semitic. No one I know believed her. I propose that a new Academy Award be established in her name and that Mel Gibson be its first recipient.

-why the need for such obv. violence (ie the crows)'
-pilate was a midlevel beurcrat(sp), known to historians of the time as one who executed w/o trial and was fond of torture, by making him the "good guy" or the "morally ambigous" guy makes the jewish authorites seem worse.
-what was with satan watching the flogging with creepy fetus baby
-this might result in the revival of the passion play, w. cbs rebroadcasting the only 2nd part of their 2000 biography, and that i dont think is a good thing. (is this the death of liberal xianty?)
-the idea of mary/eve-jesus/adam that is hinted in the garden of gethsmane is v. bad theology.
-why does satan look like bowie ca station to station.
-it did move me.

This is the QUESTION I want answered immediately!

Yeah, this is a weird thing to bring out. Still haven't seen the movie, but I saw this mentioned in a review.

Is CBS really only rebroadcasting the 2nd half of their Jesus? (That was the one with Jeremy Sisto, I think?) Geez. (I backspaced both "Jesus" and "Christ" here.)

is this the death of liberal xianty?

I think we need to see how the movie's received in Europe and elsewhere, but boy, this is a really, really bad time for liberal Christians to lose power and respect, and for conservative Christians (particularly conservative Catholics) to gain it.

I know the movie's getting great box office and everything, but I don't have any sense of how audiences are responding to it.

Director/Catholic zealot Mel Gibson has done an admirable job taking a text that is beloved by many and turning it into something so bitter and hateful. He turns the New Testament into more Old Testament. At least it shows that he paid attention when the nuns and priests made him feel like shit. He might be missing the point, though. I thought the big thing about Jesus is that he willingly suffered, and the suffering wasn't the point. I think the point was for folks to go out and be grateful for redemption, that he died for their sins and then he rose from the dead. He rose from the dead, danced around and went up to heaven. I mean, that's so cool. (Who knows where that's from?) The actual death isn't the part we're supposed to dwell on and feel guilty about. We're supposed to feel guilty only in that the guy died for our sins, and our sins are usually stupid crap like stealing porn and letting our dogs crap on the neighbors' lawns.

Although, maybe Gibson is smarter than I think. He's got the option for a sequel in which Jesus rises from the dead, gathers his posse (Baby-faced Luke and Beancounter Matt in the Howwwwwwwse!) and gets a little Hollywood-style revenge with submachine guns. If that dude could turn water into wine, I'm sure he could score some AK-47s...

(xpost)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, I think Anthony and Chaki's reviews pretty much say it all for me. I kiss you both.

And yes, Mr. Filthy is great. (love the King Missile reference there)

What do you do with half an apostle?

Satan and the Creepy Fetus Temp Eve!
Satan and the Creepy Fetus Fuck With Moses!
Satan and the Creepy Fetus Cause the Apocalypse
Satan and the Creepy Fetus Visit Dairy Queen

Haha. Eddy Grant and Billy Ocean, providing theme songs for a generation.