chris olivarez Posted March 8, 2004 Report Share Posted March 8, 2004 Well, this thread just goes to show you, as was said in "The Big Lebowski"... Nobody fucks with the Jesus! Jazzmoose,Jazzmoose. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7/4 Posted March 9, 2004 Report Share Posted March 9, 2004 Ah! I searched around in my trash bin and found this spam: The controversial book of the movie "The Passion of the Christ" that spawned the movie by Mel Gibson. A Mel Gibson Film Presents The Passion of the Christ Foreword by Mel Gibson With 143 graphic photos of Christ’s sufferings before his death, so detailed it's a must read and see. $24.95 Order Today! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7/4 Posted March 9, 2004 Report Share Posted March 9, 2004 I don't know what's worse, the nail or the bloody book. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Rat Posted March 9, 2004 Report Share Posted March 9, 2004 Didn't know about this. --eric Copyright The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com Frank Rich: Mel Gibson's 'Passion': publicity juggernaut Frank Rich NYT Friday, September 19, 2003 NEW YORK Then Gibson expressed his feelings about Rich. "I want to kill him," he said. "I want his intestines on a stick. … I want to kill his dog." - The New Yorker, Sept. 15 Members of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals may be relieved to learn that I do not have a dog. As for the rest of Mel Gibson's threats, context is all: The guy is a movie star. Movie stars expect to get their own way. They are surrounded by sycophants, many of them on the payroll. Should a discouraging word somehow prick the bubble of fabulousness in which they travel, even big-screen he-men can turn into crybabies. My capital crime was to write a column on this page last month reporting that Gibson was promoting his coming film about the crucifixion, "The Passion," by baiting Jews. As indeed he has. In January, the star had gone on "The O'Reilly Factor" to counter Jewish criticism of his cinematic account of Jesus's final hours - a provocative opening volley given that no critic of any faith had yet said anything about his movie (and wouldn't for another three months). Clearly he was looking for a brawl, and he hasn't let up since. In the New Yorker profile, Gibson says that "modern secular Judaism wants to blame the Holocaust on the Catholic Church," a charge that Abraham Foxman, of the Anti-Defamation League, labels "classic anti-Semitism." Gibson also says that he trimmed a scene from "The Passion" involving the Jewish high priest Caiaphas because if he didn't do so "they'd be coming after me at my house, they'd come to kill me." Who is this bloodthirsty "they" threatening to martyr our fearless hero? Funny, but as far as I can determine, the only death threat that has been made in conjunction with "The Passion" is Gibson's against me. His over-the-top ramblings are, of course, conceived in part to sell his product. "Inadvertently, all the problems and the conflicts and stuff - this is some of the best marketing and publicity I have ever seen," Gibson told The New Yorker. That's true - with the possible exception of the word "inadvertently" - and I realize that I've been skillfully roped into his remarkably successful p.r. juggernaut. But I'm glad to play my cameo role - and unlike the conservative author Bill O'Reilly, who sold the film rights to one of his books to Gibson's production company, I am not being paid by him to do so. What makes the saga of "The Passion" hard to ignore is the extent to which his combative marketing taps into larger angers. The "Passion" fracas is happening in an increasingly divided America fighting a war that many on both sides see as a religious struggle. While Gibson may have thought he was making a biblical statement, his partisans are turning him into an ideological cause. The lines are drawn on seethepassion.com, the most elaborate Web site devoted to championing Gibson. There we're told that the debate over "The Passion" has "become a focal point for the Culture War which will determine the future of our country and the world." All this is not lost on critics of "The Passion." As the Anti-Defamation League's Rabbi Eugene Korn has said of Gibson to The Jewish Week, "He's playing off the conservative Christians against the liberal Christians, and the Jews against the Christian community in general." To what end? For the film's supporters, the battle is of a piece with the same cultural chasm as the conflicts over the Ten Commandments in an Alabama courthouse, the growing legitimization of homosexuality and the leadership of a president who wraps public policy in religiosity and called the war against terrorism a "crusade," until his handlers intervened. So what if "modern secular" Jews - whoever they are - are maligned by Gibson or his movie? It's in the service of a larger calling. After all, evangelical Christians can look after the Jews' interests in Israel, at least until Armageddon rolls around and, as millennialist theology would have it, the Jews on hand either convert or die. Intentionally or not, the contentious rollout of "The Passion" has resembled a political campaign, from its start on "The O'Reilly Factor." Since the star belongs to a fringe church that disowns Vatican II and is not recognized by the Los Angeles Roman Catholic archdiocese, his roads do not lead to Rome so much as Washington. It was there that he screened a rough cut of the movie to conservative columnists likely to give it raves - as they did. The few Jews invited to "Passion" screenings by Gibson tend to be political conservatives. One is Michael Medved, who is fond of describing himself in his published "Passion" encomiums as a "former synagogue president" - betting that most of his readers will not know that this is a secular rank falling somewhere between co-op board president and aspiring Young Men's Hebrew Association camp counselor. When non-right-wing Jews asked to see the film, we were turned away - thus allowing Gibson's defenders, in a perfect orchestration of Catch-22, to say we were attacking or trying to censor a film we "haven't seen." This has been a constant theme in the bouquet of anti-Semitic mail I've received since my previous column about "The Passion." I never called the movie anti-Semitic or called for its suppression. I did say that if early reports by Catholic and Jewish theologians alike were accurate in stating that "The Passion" revived the deicide charge against Jews, it could have a tinderbox effect. The authorities I cited based their criticisms on a draft of the movie's screenplay. I have since sought out some of those who have seen the movie itself, in the same cut praised by Gibson's claque this summer. They are united in believing, as one of them puts it, that "it's not a close call - the film clearly presents the Jews as the primary instigators of the crucifixion." Gibson would argue that he is only being true to tradition, opting for scriptural literalism over loosey-goosey modern revisionism. But by his own account, he has based his movie on at least one revisionist source, a 19th-century stigmatic nun, Anne Catherine Emmerich, notable for her grotesque caricatures of Jews. To the extent that there can be any agreement about the facts of a story on which even the four Gospels don't agree, his movie is destined to be inaccurate. If the film does malign Jews, should it be suppressed? No. Gibson has the right to release whatever movie he wants, and he undoubtedly will, whether he finds a studio to back him or rents theaters himself. The ultimate irony may be that Jews will help him do so; so far the only studio to pass on the movie is Fox, owned by a conservative non-Jew, Rupert Murdoch. But Gibson, forever crying censorship when there hasn't been any, does not understand that the First Amendment is a two-way street. "He has his free speech," Foxman says. "I guess he can't tolerate yours and mine." As for Gibson's own speech in this debate, it is often as dishonest as it is un-Christian. In the New Yorker article, he says that his father, Hutton Gibson, a prolific author on religious matters, "never denied the Holocaust"; the article's author, Peter J. Boyer, sanitizes the senior Gibson further by saying he called the Holocaust a "tragedy" in an interview he gave to the writer Christopher Noxon for a New York Times Magazine article published last March. Neither the word "tragedy" nor any synonym for it ever appeared in that Times article, and according to a full transcript of the interview that Noxon made available to me, Hutton Gibson said there was "no systematic extermination" of the Jews by Hitler, only "a deal where he was supposed to make it rough on them so they would all get out and migrate to Israel because they needed people there to fight the Arabs." Mel Gibson has told the press that he regards "The Passion" as having actually been directed by the Holy Ghost. If the movie is only half as fanciful as its promotional campaign, I'd say that He has a lock on the Oscar for best director. A Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for Gibson himself, though, may be something of a reach. The New York Times Copyright © 2002 The International Herald Tribune Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrome Posted March 9, 2004 Report Share Posted March 9, 2004 conservative author Bill O'Reilly, who sold the film rights to one of his books to Gibson's production company, How cozy ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Rat Posted March 9, 2004 Report Share Posted March 9, 2004 In other news, Gibson has a publicity campaign going with "college" radio stations right now. (We're not really "college" in format, but are associated with one). It's a disc of Gibson answering questions that someone here is supposed to read (texts included) as if we actually had the opportunity to interview the great star! Also a couple of PSA spots (???) and other bric-a-brac. He's nuts: First thing that happened here was a music director grabbed it to run home and butcher it with CoolEdit and make Gibson sound like an ass. I look forward to the results. I can imagine this happening at every alternative station in the country. Thanks, Mel! We don't feel helpless anymore! Maybe that's why he did it, out of pure agape. --eric Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RDK Posted March 9, 2004 Report Share Posted March 9, 2004 Still haven't seen the film yet, but in Mel's defense he had $25 million of his own money wrapped up in a movie that *everybody* (up until a few months ago) thought was gonna bomb. If I were in his position, I'd do everything I could to sell it too... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jazzbo Posted March 9, 2004 Report Share Posted March 9, 2004 Well, I'm not part of "everybody" who thought this would bomb, I knew this was going to be a merchandizing and box office success. Haven't seen it either. . . don't want to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shrdlu Posted March 9, 2004 Report Share Posted March 9, 2004 Movies and Mel Gibsons aside, "Christ died for our sins" (I Corinthians 15:3) "The blood of Jesus Christ ... cleanseth us from all sin." (I John 1:7) "Without shedding of blood is no remission." (Hebrews 9:22) (That is, remission of sins.) "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8) Jesus, who is God in a body, came to earth, lived a totally sinless life for about 33 years, and allowed himself to be offered as the only acceptable sacrifice for the sins of all mankind. (By the way, Jesus did NOT break the law of Moses. His sinlessness is in many Bible verses, but I Peter 2:21-22 will suffice, which includes the words "Who did no sin".) "There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave himself a ransom for all." (I Timothy 2:5-6) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you have not yet accepted Jesus' payment for your sins, all you have to do is repent and believe the gospel, that is, come to God admitting that you are a lost sinner, and ask him to save you because of what Jesus has already done for you. "The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23) "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." (Acts 16:31) Salvation is a free gift from God, without works or religion of any kind. Furthermore, there is NO other way to heaven. (See John 14:6) There is no need for any other way. One way to heaven is enough, and it's available to you, and all others, right now. The offer expires when you die. As you don't know when that will occur, it would be very unwise to hesitate for one moment longer before accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour. I hope you will. By the way, the Jews are not to be blamed for Jesus' death. The whole human race was lost when Adam sinned, and Jesus died for all humans to win them back. The New Testament says that there is no difference between the Jew and Gentile as far as the need to be saved (= born again) goes. However, the Jews are still God's chosen nation, and the Bible warns that anyone who dares to persecute them is going to get it from God. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Son-of-a-Weizen Posted March 9, 2004 Report Share Posted March 9, 2004 On the subject of "merchandizing".....a 20 second ad appeared on the tube last night for the new "Schindler's List" DVD. Wow, tv ad buys heralding the first-ever DVD release of an 11 year-old film, and it all just happens to coincide with... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted March 9, 2004 Report Share Posted March 9, 2004 The beginning of spring training? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Son-of-a-Weizen Posted March 9, 2004 Report Share Posted March 9, 2004 Yeah boss...that's it!! You need a '69 'Yaz' card? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted March 9, 2004 Report Share Posted March 9, 2004 Sure! I'll trade you my '66 Mays! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RDK Posted March 10, 2004 Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 I've got a '55 Jackie Robinson that's to die for! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Man with the Golden Arm Posted March 10, 2004 Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 You know people are trying to have an honest conversation about religion and all of it's fine trappings and you guys go and twist this thread into silliness. Get back to the topic at hand, can we? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jazzmoose Posted March 10, 2004 Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 Yeah boss...that's it!! You need a '69 'Yaz' card? Gads...I can hear the voice of Milhouse in my head talking about "the one with the long sideburns". But that was one of those godawful '72s, wasn't it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrome Posted March 10, 2004 Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 On the other hand ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RDK Posted March 10, 2004 Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 I'm too lazy to see if this was already posted. But here's Steve Martin writing in The New Yorker... Studio Script Notes on "The Passion" Dear Mel, We love, LOVE the script! The ending works great. You'll be getting a call from us to start negotiations for the book rights. Love the Jesus character. So likable. He can't seem to catch a break! We identify with him because of it. One thing, I think we need to clearly state "the rules." Why doesn't he use his super powers to save himself? The creative people suggest that you could simply cut away to two spectators: Spectator one Why doesn't he use his super powers to save himself? Spectator two He can only use his powers to help others, never himself. Does it matter which garden? Gethsemane is hard to say and Eden is a much more recognizable garden. Just thinking out loud. Our creative people suggest a clock visual fading in and out in certain scenes like the last supper bit: Monday, 12:43pm." or later, "Good Friday, 5:14pm." Love the repetition of "is it I?" Could be very funny. On the eighth inquiry, could Jesus just give a little look into camera? Breaks frame, but could be a riot. Also could he change water into wine in last supper scene? Would be a great moment, and it's legit. History compression is a movie tradition and could really brighten up the scene. Love the flaying. Could the Rabbis be Hispanic? There's lots of hot Latino actors now, could give us a little zing at the box office. Research says there's some justification for it. Is there somewhere where Jesus could be using an IMac? You know, now that I hear myself say it, it sounds ridiculous. Strike that. But think about it. Maybe we start a shot in heaven with Jesus thoughtfully closing the top? (Reminder: heaven is timeless) The studio is very high on Johnny Depp right now. Just saw him in "Pirates." He was hilarious. Might be right for Jesus? Not so straightforward. He could bring a lot of pizzazz to the role. I think a meeting would be warranted. Love the idea of Monica Belluci as Mary Magdalene (Yow!). Our creative people suggest a name change to Heather. Could skew our audience a little younger. Love Judas. Such a great villain. Our creative people suggest that he's a little "conflicted." Couldn't he be one thing? Just bad? Gives the movie much more of a motor. Also, 30 pieces of silver is not going to get anyone excited. I think it's very simple to make him a "new millionaire." Bring in the cash on a tray. Great dilemma that the audience can identify with. Minor spelling error: on page 18, in the description of the bystanders, there should be a space between the words "Jew" and "boy." Merchandising issue: it seems the cross image has been done to death and we can't own it. Could the crucifixion scene involve something else? A Toyota would be wrong, but maybe there's a shape we can copyright, like an ellipse? I'm assuming "the dialogue is in Aremeic," is a typo for "American." If not call me on my cell or I'm at home all weekend. By the way, I'm sending a group of staffers on a cruise to the North Pole, coincidentally around the time of the release date. Would love to invite your dad! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RDK Posted March 10, 2004 Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 And here's another inspired bit of silliness from The Onion... http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?i=2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Gould Posted March 10, 2004 Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 Funny stuff, Ray, thanks for posting it. I don't think I saw the Steve Martin thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jazzmoose Posted March 10, 2004 Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 On the other hand ... I can't be the only guy who would kill to see this guy play for New Jersey... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PHILLYQ Posted March 10, 2004 Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 Jazzmoose, The NYC tabloids would have a field day with Satan playing for the Devils! 'Satan Scores, Devils Burn' 'Satan has a Hellish Game' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Claude Posted March 24, 2004 Report Share Posted March 24, 2004 (edited) Python film to challenge Passion Monty Python's film The Life of Brian is to return to US cinemas next month following the success of The Passion of the Christ. The Biblical satire will be re-released in Los Angeles, New York and other US cities to mark its 25th anniversary. Adverts will challenge Mel Gibson's blockbuster with the lines "Mel or Monty?", "The Passion or the Python?" Complete BBC article Life of Brian - Pictures, Sounds and Scripts Edited March 24, 2004 by Claude Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrome Posted March 24, 2004 Report Share Posted March 24, 2004 (edited) Wewease Bwian! Edited March 24, 2004 by Chrome Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Claude Posted March 24, 2004 Report Share Posted March 24, 2004 "Crucifixion lasts hours! It's a slow, horrible death!" "Well, at least it gets you out in the open air." http://www.intriguing.com/mp/_sounds/lb/crux.wav Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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