88 new of 306 responses total.
I've seen the swastika graffiti. There was an incident in my home town once: a brand-new modernistic synogogue - an architectural masterpiece, set in a beautiful wooded area - was covered with swastikas in the night. Turned out to be a bunch of rich drunken frat boys, but I don't doubt the Christians of Rane's colorful imagination - whipped up to a vandalous frenzy by watching Mel Gibson's movie - are capable of it, too. "Frequent burning of synagogues" is another matter. I don't recall hearing about synagogues burning down even once in a while, much less "frequently." Anyway, I'm afraid the most likely perps in any future such arson and vandalism, especially where I live, won't be fundie Christians.
Re #212, #216: Safire's column on "The Passion" can be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/01/opinion/01SAFI.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEdi tor ials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fWilliam%20Safire (Sorry about the long URL.)
http://url.rexroof.com/, newb
http://url.rexroof.com/515
Thanks!
In 1965's historic Second Vatican Council, during the papacy of Paul VI, the church decided that while some Jewish leaders and their followers had pressed for the death of Jesus, "still, what happened in his passion cannot be charged against all Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today." That was a sea change in the doctrinal interpretation of the Gospels, and the beginning of major interfaith progress William Safire I don't kniow what planet Safire lives on, but my church never taught that jews were responsible for the death of Christ. Of course I am not Catholic, and we were taught the pope was full of hooey.
Safire expressed more eloquently than I have my sense that this movie is a piece of the same anti-semitic "tradition" of the classic passion plays. It is also an example of "religious excess" - carrying aspects of religious mythology way too far as a means of emphasis. But here these seeming "traditionalists" go too far. They are the ones that complain that violence depicted in movies creates a society more tolerant of violence. How can they applaud this extreme excess of violence?
> Once that button ["Jesus"] is pushed a whole bunch of people go > into mental lock-step like zombies. Really, rcurl, such caustic generalizations don't become you.
Well, I did feel that I had perhaps gone too far with that one. But there is a variety of religious fanaticism that obscures peoples' senses of proportion (is that a kinder way of saying the same thing?). I think Passion dips into that kind of fanaticism.
"the pope [is] full of hooey". Well, someone once said that 95% of everthing is crap, which I suppose means that (a) most of us are capable of a lot hooey; (b) moany of us are full of hooey; (c) a small proportion of us are responsible for a disporportionate amount of hooey. I wonder which bru agrees with?
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If it could, the GOP would be the party *least* interested in lessening America's dependence on foreign oil and ruining Alaska.
Re #224: Safire is talking about Catholic doctrine before Vatican II. He
lives on the same planet you do, but he's better read, apparently.
this is the MOVIE REVIEW item...can we move the religious discussion drift to a new item? what movies have you seen lately?
Unfortunately, none. The current crop of movies doesn't look interesting to me.
I kniow what he was talking about Joe. But I spent 8 years in a Christian SChool during that period. While not catholic, I did grow up in a catholic neighborhood. I always found the catholics reatehr demented in their attitude, what with being able to commit sins and then go to confession and be absolved. But I never heard any schools or churches in our area that blamed Jews for the death of Jesus during that period, either before or after.
We saw "The Triplets of Belleville" at the Michigan Theater tonight. It was weird.
I didn't know that Belleville had anything interesting enough going on to make a movie about. Well, maybe the Strawberry Festival... ;-)
Right, the Belleville I know is *so* dull that only Michelangelo Antonioni would consider making a movie about it.
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A passion play is a re-encatment of the Christ story. There is a village in southern Germany called Oberamergau, which, through some twist of fate, was spared being hit by the plague in the 1300s. Ever since, in thanks to God, they enact a big huge passion play every year. It's a big tourist attraction, I gather. The movie "Triplets of Belleville" doesn't specify where Belleville is, but it's certainly on the seacoast, and it has a statue that looks like a short, fat version of the Statue of Liberty in the harbor. So draw your own conclusions.
The airport in belleville sucks compared to the one in Trenton
Passion plays originated in mediaeval times, not in the 1930s.
Sorry have to skip over 55 responses in 3 days.
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(They're an older tradition than that, but Tod's right about how they were used.)
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>Jews kidnapped and murdered Christian children > in ritual sacrifice; the blood of pure Christians was needed by Jews to > make matzoh. This seems like a ridiculous and archaic rumor, but it's been published in the Arab press within the past few years. So this crap isn't dead.
if there's anywhere this crap ain't dead, it's in what the (comedic ) Prince Regent (in Blackadder) called "Jolly Arab Land".
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Hey Starsky and Hutch is opening tomorrow, with Ben Stiller as Starsky and Owen Wilson as Hutch-- TV Land is even having a Starsky and Hutch marathon tonight. That was one of the campier tv shows of the mid/late seventies. The movie is getting good revies, and yes, Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul-- the REAL Starsky and Hutch-- get cameos
Okay I finally saw The Passion of the Christ today at the multiplex (Starsky and Hutch was sold out, so I figured what the hell) The movie is well made and the special effects and makeup were great. That sure looked like a REAL scourging to me. Jim Caviezel also puts in an oscar-worthy performance as Jesus-- I read that he suffered hypothermia, a dislocated shoulder and a lung infection during filming, and after seeing the movie I can believe it. I am worried about what the reaction will be to this film. The punishment that Jesus endured and the crucifixion is so violent and so vivid and so intense in this movie that I think some people could get worked up seeing it to a point where they go looking to make acts of vengeance. I guess Mel Gibson's point in emphasizing and making as explicit as possible the scourging and torture of Jesus was to make Christians watching it feel the proper (in the catholic view, of which Gibson is a catholic) sense of guilt. But some people won't feel guilt. They'll feel anger. This is the sort of film that Hitler, had it been made in the thirties, could have used to stir up support for the Holocaust. I am not sure therefore that it was necessary for Gibson to so explicitly show the way Jesus was beaten. Viewers are smart enough to get the point without being beaten over the head with it. Did we really need to watch Jesus violently whipped, with the flesh coming off his back in chunks, for twenty minutes? It was gratuitous, the sort of excess that is meant to incite. I'd rather have seen more flashback scenes with Jesus and the Disciples, and more development of the other characters, like Judas and Mary Magdalene. I also think that both the Romans and the Jews come off looking really badly here. There were good Romans and good Jews, but the sense you are given here is that the Romans were clueless thugs, and the Jewish rabbis were conceited and arrogant. And when you see the ground shaking after Jesus dies, and the rabbis who pronounced judgement and the romans who carried it out suddenly are wide eyed with the fear of God and run terrified for cover, the sense you are given is that they are getting what they deserved. That they deserved vengeance. In spite of what Jesus repeatedly says of, "forgive them, they know not what they do", the movie shows them in such a bad light that they are the bad guys and you want the ground to open up and swallow them. I heard a couple of people in the back applaud when the black crow shows up and pecks out the eyes of the guy on the cross next to Jesus who had been dissing him. He was getting his. Vengeance not compassion. This is the problem I have with the movie-- instead of concentrating more on who Jesus was and what he was teaching, this movie mostly wants to show in gory detail his beating, torture and death in order to incite emotions. I didn't like this movie for the same reason I don't like hard porn movies-- they show "the act" in too much detail and for too long at the expense of character development and story telling.
Last week there was a picture in the paper of a class of kids from a local catholic high school marching down the sidewalk in their uniforms, on a school sponsored field trip to see the movie. This movie was so violent, so gratuitous, that it really should have carried an NC-17 rating. I find it ironic that many of the same church leaders who scream about tv and movies being too violent, and wouldn't want their kids going to the next Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street movie, let them see this. This was more violent, and had more bloodshed than any movie I ever saw Jason or Freddy Krueger in!
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I suggest that those folks who are getting their panties in a bunch over this piece of fiction should go see Judgement at Nuremberg, Shoah, or Schindler's List. Then we can have a real talk about religious hate crimes depicted on film.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to maje, Mary.
(Um, "make".)
"This is the sort of film that Hitler,
had it been made in the thirties,
could have used to stir up support
for the Holocaust."
I appreciate Richard's remark, it helped
me understand why some people think the
film is anti-Semetic.
you could also use it to stir up anti-italian (roman) sentiments. Or anti Caucasian sentiments. Take your pick. The same could be said about J.C. Superstar. Or Quo Vadis. Or the Robe. If you want propaganda, pick a film and put your spin on it. Eall it to the people you want to influence, adn off you go.
Roger-rabbit is anti-authority!
I agree that the whipping scene was far too much. But something that you may have missed, Richard, in all the spectacle, was the emphasis Gibson put on Jesus' own willingness to be there. It was His choice. He knew it would happen and chose to allow it. So there's no vengeance to be taken since He could have stopped it at any time.
Stockholm syndrome.
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I wonder how many people left the theatre with tears in their eyes . . . this was what Gibson was trying to do, right? Give everyone a sense of the sacrifice that was made . . .
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re #263: Who banned it? From what?
Yeah, you can get it online. Kinda boring, though.
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If Jesus hadn't been killed per God's plan, if he had been spared by those Jews, would God have been disappointed that plan A didn't go as planned? I mean, he knew from before Jesus' conception that this innocent man, his "son", had to be brutally killed so that He could forgive mankind for being sinful. No brutal murder, no forgiveness. Not the kind of god I'd respect but that's the beauty of religion, you get to choose what works for you. Without God's help Jesus wouldn't have been on that cross, the Jew's wouldn't be the fall guys, and Mel Gibson would be doing what he does best, looking sexy. Religion is a hoot.
Yeah, God is forgiving like that. That's why he smote Sodom and Gomorrah, brought down the Tower of Babel, prevented people from communicating from one another, subjected *his own Son* to (supposedly) "the greatest crime in history"; drowned everything but one specimen of each animal (what about plants?) and will "forgive" every sinner on judgement day by subjecting them to eternal damnation and torture. Maybe the "torture" envisaged will consist of being subjected to homophobic, xenophobic, and Thatcherite rants /ad infinitum/.
either that or we will have to sit chained to computer terminalsreading your posts.
Or yours... Sorry, two specimens of each animal.
Indeed. :)
God said "thou shalt not commit adultery", and then went and impregnated a woman to whom he was NOT married, and in fact an underage woman at that. God was guilty of statutory rape and adultery if you want to be technical about it. But He seems like a complex individual so He'd probably come up with a perfectly plausible explanation for the hypocrisy if you asked Him :)
Mystic River D Sean Penn's acting deserved some sort of award, but the best acting in the world isn't going to help a poor screen play. Other actors acted up a storm of fidgeting, gritting teeth, wringing hands. I don't see how tighter editing could have improved it. Penn, Robbins and Bacon were boyhood friends, until the abduction of Robbins' character by a pair of molesters rather much ends the innocence of youth for all three. Years later, the three are reunited by the murder of Penn's nineteen-year old daughter. Bacon, a detective, is the hub between Penn and Robbins as the investigation plods along. It's a whodunnit: I canna say much more. Look for an uncredited performance by Eli Wallach. I paid matinee prices for this and felt royally ripped off. Eastwood the director is now on my shit list. Nothing would be lost from this film by renting it. Waiting for it to play on TNT for free would give the view the added bonus of frequent bathroom breaks.
The Price of Milk - B This was a rental. Novel character behavior makes this movie watchable. Eccentric behavior can be overdone and ruin a film, but you gotta love the screen's first agoraphobic dog. This is light, romandic comedy, filmed in New Zealand. After a farmer, Rob, asks Lucinda to marry him, she takes her friend's advice to test his commitment by doing something to outrage him. The initial attempt merely baffles him and she doesn't feel that she has yet put him to the test. When she finally suceeds, it is by selling his herd of dairy cows. The loss puts him in a depression that Lucinda's friend would gladly take advantage of.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Bunch of fictional 19th century characters team up together to save the world from mystery evil force. Better than you would expect from the premise, not as good as you would expect if you heard it was better than you would expect. How long can Sean Connery keep on doing this?
Uncredited Eli Wallach:
In 'The Producers' as they are auditioning
the Hitler wanna-bes, it turns into a
hysterical montage and one of them looks
like a crazed Eli Wallach. I've never
been able to verify this.
This reminds me that I wanted to mention that THE PRODUCERS (the original film) will be screened at the Michigan Theater as part of their comedy classics series, at the end of the month.
re: "#272 (richard): God said "thou shalt not commit adultery", and then went and impregnated a woman to whom he was NOT married," Herr richard, Does this mean that you are also opposed physicians who perform in vitro fertilization? auf wiedersehen
I saw Hildalgo on Sunday. It wasnt as bad as the reviews made it sound. But I am not saying it was good either. If it werent for the eye candy, I would have only barely liked it. But, it was a fairly decent action movie that a person who really likes that genre would probably like. The horse was cool. The plot was...lacking. But there were lots of fun scenes with people being chased on horsies. There were also a few funny lines here and there. Granted, nothing knee slapping funny but I found myself chuckling now and then. Personally, this is one I would recommend for a video rental. Dont waste your money seeing it first run unless, like me, you think Viggo Mortensen is worth watching just all on his own for 2 hours.
I want to see it for Viggo and the horsie. :-) I like simple action movies and it looks like it's a good popcorn flick. That's what I hope for in the spring, anyhow, a good popcorn flick that will be enjoyable.
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Can anyone remember a movie where there was something like a conversation or interview with an older black gentleman, a musician maybe, and every so often he would say: Can you dig it? I knew that you could. Searching the web indicates that John Travolta's character Tony Manero supposedly said that in Saturday Night Fever, but that's not what I'm looking for...
sounds like a role Scatman Crothers would've played..
I saw Hidalgo on Saturday, and really appreciated the way the that the Native Americans were portrayed.
SCHINDLER'S LIST-- Steven Spielberg's holocaust masterpiece, just released on DVD finally and I watched it earlier this evening. This is quite an emotional experience to watch, even a second or third time. This movie has a lot of meaning for me, because I'm half german and while my german grandfather served in the american army in world war II, I also had relatives who were in the german army at the same time. It is hard not to cry at times watching it. The story of Oskar Schindler, a nazi aristocrat who opens a factory in Poland with the idea of getting rich off of slave jewish labor, and instead ends up saving all the jews he hires to work for him. Wonderfully acted, with Liam Neeson as Schindler and Ben Kingsley as his bookkeeper. The slowly developing friendship between the two of them is at the center of the movie. This is a great movie, well worth having the widescreen edition now on DVD as a keepsake. The DVD has in the bonus section testimonies from Holocaust survivors, many of which are as moving if not more so than the movie itself. These testimonies are part of the Shoah project. Steven Spielberg gave all of his profits from the movie and many millions more than that, to personally help fund the Shoah project which was formed to record the testimonies of as many Holocaust survivors as possible. I'm not sure if it was some sort of weird coincidence or not that this movie came out on DVD right when "The Passion of the Christ" was released. Who knows. But I personally think that everyone should see "Schindler's List". It is a DVD worth being part of anyone's collection
Note-- as I typed that, I'm still watching survivors testimony in the bonus section of the dvd. this is pretty overwhelming stuff. one of these days I hope to buy the Shoah dvd set, which is also out (just a bit overpriced in my opinion)
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resp:235, resp:239 :: Belleville's an odd town, isn't it? Clearly a lot of New York in it, and the signs are in English, but the gangsters drive modified Citroens... TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE we found absolutely delightful, but it's not going to be for everyone. There is almost no dialog in it, and there's a lot of almost-surrealism. It's (mostly) old fashioned, hand drawn animation, mostly produced in Canada and France, with some BBC help, and there were some other countries there in the credits. Not as much of a musical as I thought it would be; to talk about what the movie is really about might spoil half the fun of trying to figure out where the story is going. The characterization of the dog, Bruno, is one of the best animated animals ever.
!useruseruser a ^K!useruseruser b ^L!useruseruser c !useruseruser d
WHOA!
Wow! That didn't turn out good.
I suppose it should be mentioned, as TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE is an animated film: it's not a movie for small children. There are a few scenes which some might deem unsuitable for kids, but more to the point -- I don't think children under the age of 12 or so would follow the story.
I really liked Triplets of Belleville. I loved the dog's dreams the best. I especially liked the one with the train going around the rim of the food bowl :) I also liked that the French Mafia's slogan was "In Vino Veritas" I think that is going to be my slogan :)
Leslie pointed out that the dog dreams in black and white, as dogs' vision only works in black and white. At least, we think we know that.
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Dogs dream in Smell-o-vision: They're dogs, for goodness sakes.
"STarsky and Hutch" was a great popcorn movie. We had a great time at it. "Starsky's bored now!! Starsky's bored now!!"
dawn of the dead. see it.
I must agree with Anthony. The current Dawn of the Dead is worth seeing, even at normal prices.
I agree! It's incredible. The humor, the gore, the filiming. Awesome.
Interesting. I'd dismissed "Dawn of the Dead" as Yet Another Unnecessary Remake, but it's been getting some good reviews and endorsement here from people who have seen it. Maybe I'll catch it sometime.
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re #285 Schindler's list
"This film is very empty, for not only does it
portray the germans as 'evil, lop-sided,
devil workshippers' but it shows the jew as
being 'promising, alluring, good guys'. If one
it to question morality, then do so, but don't
give us the black vc white issue found in this
film. Spielberg, immature since day one as
director, tell us what to think, he strips away
our humanity by overdosing us on excessive
amonts of guilt and sentimentality. In effect,
the film lacks any moral basis except to
denounce all evil men and with that, we learn
absolutely nothing"
Bunk.
My critic serves as reflection.
Bunk is to sleep.
Ben Kingsley was brilliant.
You have several choices: