Interesting thoughts. I've yet to see the film, and i imagine the $117 mill. number mentioned above could have been somewhat higher if the blizzard of 2004 had not hit GA., SC., and NC... all confirmed Bible belt areas. Storm had to have hurt sales somewhat. Anyway, i'll see it this week.

Thoughts about various critiques. First off I saw this Hitchen's guy on Charlie Rose's show the other night and anyone whose mind is that jaded about a particular subject has no business even attempting to fairly critique anything. Hitchen's had it in for this film from the get go, and his reveiw really only delivers the same message he had prior to veiwing the piece. He's a disgrace to the profession, totally unable to put his personal preferences aside.

The thing that irks me most though is that this is just the sort indie-type art film that critics the world over normally laud as Oscar locks. It has the arty cinamatography that they can't resist. It's stylistic to the core, with imagery and symbolism used to the utmost. It's a director with a clear and present view, delivering his unflitered, unmitigated, uncompromising vision of the source material. Shoot it's even got the foreign language with subtitles that critics normally drool over... so to see all the normal critically favored things in this film and then to see the amount of negative reveiws just makes me wonder if they were just put off more by the source material than the film itself... in many cases i think that very well may be the case.

I find it interesting the argument that "If a person hasn't heard the rest of the story, then this film makes no sense". Well okay, i'll give you that 5% (or so, im guestimating... sue me) of the population that has never heard the Bible stories before may be a little in the dark, but i don't really think they were Mel's target audience. I firmly believe the target audience is born-again believers. Even so, i think the vast majority of the people that have seen this movie did'nt suffer from being "lost in the plot". It's pretty well known, if not understood, source material.
Also I can't fault a director who say's "im making a movie about Christ's last 12 hours" then goes out and delivers exactly that. It was never sold to me as "The Life and Times of Jesus"... sorry folks that aint this movie. This is a film that stays as true as possible to it's original material... or atleast one man's view of it. Thats been the problem with too many Jesus films in the past, the scope was just too broad. I like that this is a concise, to the point movie dealing expressly with Jesus death. That's what i was told it was about, and by cracky, that best be what it is!!!

Lastly, the anti-semitism. to me it seems clear as day that if this film is veiwed as anti-semitic, then the Jews must veiw the entire New Testament as anti-semitic. Is that the way it really is? I mean this is what my Bible say's happened. To say that on screen is anti-semitic? Of course not!! to be honest some of the Jewish people in the Jesus story were unscrupolous individuals.. am I anti-semitic for stating that they were Jewish? No. I've never really seen the importance of thier race of releigion. They were just sad, pathetic, desperate people.. much like this Mr. Hitchen's guy, that had no idea what they were involved in. It may come as a shock to a few people but there are dastardly people of all sorts, types, colors and creeds. So yeah, some of the Jews in the movie are going to look like total asses.. they looked that way in the Bible. Just the same Jesus, Mary, Simon and all the rest of the "good guys" were Jewish people too? Why focus so much on the Judas' of the world? Anti-semitism? HOGWASH!!! Tell it like it is and don't sugar coat it, let the chips fall were they may... even if it does make Christopher Hitchens all hot and bothered.

I think the point cannot be lost that this film takes that image of the diamond encrusted solid gold cross and shoves it aside with the bloody hunk of wood that the cross has trully always been. The cross is a symbol of sacrifice, always has been. That we've grown comfortable with the gold plated "pretty" version don't change the fact that there's nail marks, blood stains and tears all over it. Thats the reality, that's the facts as we know them, that's the truth and it's high time we quit gold plating it!

Pilgrim, it's a poorly shot piece of crap. The entire film relies far too much on cheesy cliches like slow-motion to signify import and a tv-style midshot in just about every scene (a stage would've conveyed more sense of place). The music was the kind of dumbed down emotional cue one expects from a literalist like Gibson as was the goofy CGI. Just look at LAST TEMPTATION or LIFE OF BRIAN to see how inferior Gibson is as a filmmaker. It's easy to go on and on about how crappy the movie looked without even bothering with the content.

I didn't find the music shamelessly manipulative but it was unmemorable. Composer John Debney did much better with the rousing score to CUTTHROAT ISLAND, which takes second place to Newman's score for THE BLACK SWAN as "best pirate movie score" ever.

Did anyone else have a problem keeping some of the characters straight? I saw a lot of names in the credits that I never heard spoken in the movie.

"poorly shot piece of crap" or not, it's gonna be the #1 movie in the nation and a ceritified blockbuster.... which greatly reaffirms my confidence in my fellow American.

Was perusing an entertaiment web-site yesterday (some link off MSN.com) went there looking for pic's from the Academy awards red carpet ( i know, real useful stuff) but i happened along a link to "The Passion". So i clicked it and it was the normal schpiel, movie lowdown, actor feature's, biography type stuff, but it had one area i though was interesting; critiques. Had the "professional critique" area were the know it all's held thier noses and squeezed out a 3 (outa 5) stars rating. Decent i suppose. The interesting part was that there was a "personal critique" area were peons like us could go in and give it our rating. That rating, and average of all the personal critiques, was 4 an 1/2 stars out of 5. Interesting i thought. Critics say 3 stars... Joe public say's 4.5 stars. I cannot wait to see this film and make up my own mind.
Steve

The gulf between critics and public can go in some surprising directions. I remember a site similar (or identical) to the one described, in which I looked up ratings for that new Stiller movie, SOMETHING ABOUT POLLY or whatever, and Joe Public had cumulatively rated it lower than the professional critics!!!!

Well, first off, 424 million worldwide dollars were made by "The Matrix Revolutions", which still hasn’t convinced me that it was any good, so I can't really go by strict box-office... and I really wouldn't trust 'public' rankings on websites... those suckers are tremendously easy to skew for anyone with enough time and drive...

As I've mentioned before, Rotten Tomatoes seems to suggest that web-based critics are a good deal kinder than 'professional' critics to "The Passion"... it's interesting.

While I wouldn't go so far as to say it was 'crap' (I did think there were several striking compositions), I will say that the film on a whole was lacking in cinematic skill, falling back on only the most shop-worn tricks and clichés to make sure that every drop is lazily spoon-fed to the audience... coupled with what I can only refer to as some extremely questionable creative choices. So no, I can't really say the film worked for me at all. But I've long ago come to grips with the fact that my tastes in cinema do not always intersect with much of the nation's... after all, my favorite 'religious' film is three and a half hours of a medieval Russian icon painter wandering around the country, and occasionally vanishing from the film totally... and I'm sure that many of those sites are offering countless five-star evaluations of "Return of the King", another film I'm not very thrilled about.

But yes, pilgrim, you should always decide for yourself...

Pagels reviews the movie in the latest New Yorker. She agrees with the critics.

I'll be surprised if this movie doesn't have a drastic drop in box-office based on the way conservative Christian organizations donated quite a bit of money to inflate the opening weekend. It's always easier to make money off of crap, because power is behind you. The only good things in this movie were the actress playing the Virgin Mary and the gore.

""poorly shot piece of crap" or not, it's gonna be the #1 movie in the nation and a ceritified blockbuster.... which greatly reaffirms my confidence in my fellow American."

How many Whitney Houston, Celine Dion and Backstreet Boys CDs has your fellow American bought?

Matthew

Fuck all that shit, I thought it was good, and if I can, I'm gonna see it again. I've been waiting for another, more "modern" biblical movie for some time, well probably since a t.v. movie about Christ, and a major movie in the form of King Of Kings.
I think I almost enjoyed this as much if not more than Braveheart. I definetly feel the torture and final death scene was better then Mel's in Braveheart. Maybe, he needs to stay behind the camera more often.

Mathew asks


Ummm.... you mean Cd's in a foreign language that dealt with the torture and murder of the Christ? Ummm none.. that i know of.


And Reece, still bitter as ever, adds this nugget.



gotta say i'm surprised no one has accused the religious wacko's of "skewwing" the weekend tally before now, and as for your prophetic decry that this film will suffer massive "drop off", I wouldn't bet the house on that just yet. What with the Easter holliday season fast appoaching and clamor still seemingly on the rise, this film could be in for a long and fruitful run.

i don't think a certain segment of this society can fathom the fact that most American's are interested in Christ, at minimum in a voyeur curiosity way. Funny thing to me is I didn't notice a ton of nut jobs in the exit interviews that nearly every local news station broadcast. I'm interested so maybe I saw more of the interveiwee's than others may have, but i saw maybe 10 to 15 different people, and you know what? I didn't notice see any die hard Bible thumpers, i didn't see any zealots running thru the isle's, i didn't see people pointing at the camera, getting all bug-eyed and proclaiming that "all sinners will die and go to hell"... i didnt see those types at all. What i saw were 10 to 15 people that looked like normal, everyday American's that had just seen a film that moved them, on an emotional level. And for that, I commend Mel Gibson. Anytime a peice of film moves people at that level, that is quite an accomplishment. I like that that the film elicits a definate reaction, i like that you cannot witness the film and walk out of the theatre whimsical. gibson had definate vision he wanted to convey, a set story he wanted to tell and he told it. No holds barred, no sugar-coating, no excuses. That the critics's, the jewish nation, the athesists and or agnostics are putting forth so much effort to deride the film only proves out that Gibson was true to his original vision. Good film, bad film? whose to say, but no one can deny that this is as powerful a piece of film making as has taken place in the last several years. for that i commend Mel Gibson.