I went and saw...

"The Passion of the Christ" today. I went to the first showing at one of the local theaters, at 11:45am. And, for an early showing on a weekday, the theater was about 2/3 full, which is a respectable turnout.

I'm not sure what I can say about the movie itself. I thought going in that the subtitles would be a distraction, but they're not. I knew that it was going to be very violent, and I expected to be moved by it.

I didn't expect to be as moved as I was. Okay, I confess, I cry at commercials--but I probably spent 1/3 of this movie in tears. This is far more than a dry retelling of the Gospel story. Jim Caviezel does an amazing job, sometimes conveying more with just a look than with words. And Maia Morgenstern, who plays Mary, deserves an Oscar nomination for her role as His mother. She's incredible.

And, oh, yes. This film is not for the faint of heart or stomach--or children. Don't bother buying popcorn; you won't eat it. The torture inflicted on Jesus is graphically and violently protrayed in excruciating, horrifying detail. How many people really know what being scourged entails? You will, after seeing this.

Anti-Semitic? Um. No. Emphatically no. How can it be? Okay...the Jewish leaders of the time were the ones clamoring for His death. But this is a historic fact. Were they supposed to gloss over it somehow? Calling this movie "anti-Semitic" ignores the fact that the people who defended Jesus--such as Simon of Cyrene, who carries the cross, and finally loses his temper completely at the way Jesus is being treated; and Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, the Council members who stood up for Him, and got summarily kicked out for their pains--were Jews. And, HELLO...Jesus was a Jew too. I realize that this is an inconvenient fact for the ADL, but it's something that they should maybe think about before screaming "anti-Semitism" at a movie that is anything but. Their knee-jerk reaction to this film, which has a Jew as its central sympathetic character, has not helped their cause at all. Frankly, it's made them look rather silly. They should concentrate their energies more on things that really are anti-Semitic, such as the KKK and Neo-Nazis.

If anything, the Romans come off the worst in this. They're the ones laughing and having fun while they're torturing Him. But, hey, wow, imagine this....I didn't have the impulse to go to Italy and burn down the Colosseum or anything.

Anyway. Go see this movie. It deserves to make scads and scads of money.

I went and saw...

"The Passion of the Christ" today. I went to the first showing at one of the local theaters, at 11:45am. And, for an early showing on a weekday, the theater was about 2/3 full, which is a respectable turnout.

I'm not sure what I can say about the movie itself. I thought going in that the subtitles would be a distraction, but they're not. I knew that it was going to be very violent, and I expected to be moved by it.

I didn't expect to be as moved as I was. Okay, I confess, I cry at commercials--but I probably spent 1/3 of this movie in tears. This is far more than a dry retelling of the Gospel story. Jim Caviezel does an amazing job, sometimes conveying more with just a look than with words. And Maia Morgenstern, who plays Mary, deserves an Oscar nomination for her role as His mother. She's incredible.

And, oh, yes. This film is not for the faint of heart or stomach--or children. Don't bother buying popcorn; you won't eat it. The torture inflicted on Jesus is graphically and violently protrayed in excruciating, horrifying detail. How many people really know what being scourged entails? You will, after seeing this.

Anti-Semitic? Um. No. Emphatically no. How can it be? Okay...the Jewish leaders of the time were the ones clamoring for His death. But this is a historic fact. Were they supposed to gloss over it somehow? Calling this movie "anti-Semitic" ignores the fact that the people who defended Jesus--such as Simon of Cyrene, who carries the cross, and finally loses his temper completely at the way Jesus is being treated; and Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, the Council members who stood up for Him, and got summarily kicked out for their pains--were Jews. And, HELLO...Jesus was a Jew too. I realize that this is an inconvenient fact for the ADL, but it's something that they should maybe think about before screaming "anti-Semitism" at a movie that is anything but. Their knee-jerk reaction to this film, which has a Jew as its central sympathetic character, has not helped their cause at all. Frankly, it's made them look rather silly. They should concentrate their energies more on things that really are anti-Semitic, such as the KKK and Neo-Nazis.

If anything, the Romans come off the worst in this. They're the ones laughing and having fun while they're torturing Him. But, hey, wow, imagine this....I didn't have the impulse to go to Italy and burn down the Colosseum or anything.

Anyway. Go see this movie. It deserves to make scads and scads of money.