LixyChick,

Yes mam, some do think the Apollo landings were faked! Can’t say as I agree with them.

I do agree with you and Sharni that the Bible is open to interpretation. I daresay that if you looked hard enough, you’d find justification in it for just about anything you could want to do. I suspect that that is one of the reasons it has lasted as long as it has. It is an extremely convenient reference work for human behavior.

Like I said. A good way to get people to spend money to see a Easter flick!

Just read in the paper where churches are renting whole theaters for their congregations to view the movie together and then discuss it after.

Been watching a show on TV about the Bible. Seems from old texts that have been found, that a large part of the Bible was left out around the 5th century. Other parts were reworked around that time.

I am a Catholic. I am a graduate of a Catholic High School. I still go to Mass and confesion, just not as often as I used to. ( My confession was.. difficult, and sometimes the results were hysterically funny)
Those of you who read what I write might be shocked to learn that I am Catholic.
So...
I am scared of what is happening in the world around me. (read my rant in Janet Jackson-exhibitionist?)
Right now religious hatred against EVERYONE is climbing. "God hates sodomites" is a sign seen at a courthouse that was issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
"The Word of God" is often used as a reason to assault Lesbians, gays and Bisexuals.
By the way, am I a sodomite because I have physical relationships with other women? Hmmmmmmm.
Overseas, there is little or no distinction made in many societies between Jews and the government of Israel.
If you hate Israel, you burn down the local synogogue.
I remember vividly in High School learning that Passion Plays often incited violence against Jews.
I love Mel Gobson's movies, and frankly have lusted after him since I was a teen.
But he is naive if he thinks this movie will not be used as another excuse to harm people somewhere.

Sadly

Wanda

Wicked Wanda,

Did I ever mention that it is difficult to distinguish between Mel Gibson and I?

Catch22,

In re “controversy moves the product”.

The distributor of ‘The Passion of the Christ’ has increased the number of prints from 2,500 to 4,000 and will show at 2,800 cinemas here in the States.

This is up from 2,500 cinemas a month ago.

The on-line ticket service Fandango reports that sales for the movie made up nearly 70% of it recent sales. Fandango reported that it has become the second biggest film by advance sales, behind LOTR: Return of the King.

Granted, just about all the Christian mythos had been drained out of LOTR by the time Mr. Tolkein’s work made it onto the big screen, but all in all, this winter has been, if you’ll pardon the expression, a helluva good one for celluloid Christianity, no?

Just about every ten years the people of Oberramengau,a city in the Bayern of Germany put on Der Passionspiel often admist accusations of anti semitism.The play is performed there as a result of the people's promise to God to have the Plague bypass their city and it did. No Lixy,the Moon landing was filmed on the moon of course.But they had to film on the bright side because the lighting was better.heh heh W.W. have you heard of People United for the Separation of Church and State? I have been contributing $$ to it for years to fight the bluring of the two.This is the same group who tipped off the IRS when Pat Robertson tried to tell church goers how to vote in elections,by threatening their tax exempt status.As for the movie,I'll with hold comments until after I see it.Which may be when it hits the cable channels a year later.After all thats how I saw: The Last Temptation of Christ.

Not for Kids
 

Here's and excerpt from Newsweek:

By David Ansen
NewsweekMarch 1 issue - I have no doubt that Mel Gibson loves Jesus. From the evidence of "The Passion of the Christ," however, what he seems to love as much is the cinematic depiction of flayed, severed, swollen, scarred flesh and rivulets of spilled blood, the crack of bashed bones and the groans of someone enduring the ultimate physical agony. This peculiar, deeply personal expression of the filmmaker's faith is a far cry from the sentimental, pious depictions of Christ that popular culture has often served up. Relentlessly savage, "The Passion" plays like the Gospel according to the Marquis de Sade. The film that has been getting rapturous advance raves from evangelical Christians turns out to be an R-rated inspirational movie no child can, or should, see. To these secular eyes at least, Gibson's movie is more likely to inspire nightmares than devotion.

It's the sadism, not the alleged anti-Semitism, that is most striking. (For the record, I don't think Gibson is anti-Semitic; but those inclined toward bigotry could easily find fuel for their fire here.) There's always been a pronounced streak of sadomasochism and martyrdom running through Gibson's movies, both as an actor and as a filmmaker. The Oscar-winning "Braveheart" reveled in decapitations and disembowelments, not to mention the spectacle of Gibson himself, as the Scottish warrior hero, impaled on a cross. In "Mad Max," the "Lethal Weapon" movies, "Ransom" and "Signs" (where he's a cleric who's lost his faith), the Gibson hero is pummeled and persecuted, driven to suicidal extremes. From these pop passion plays to the Passion itself is a logical progression; it gives rise to the suspicion that on some unconscious level "The Passion of the Christ" is, for Gibson, autobiography.

With the exception of a few brief flashbacks, "The Passion" focuses on the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. We first glimpse Jesus (James Caviezel) racked with fear, praying in a mist-shrouded Gethsemane, where he is tempted by Satan, depicted here as a pale, hooded, androgynous woman who might have stepped out of an Ingmar Bergman movie. (In the subtitled film, the actors speak Aramaic and Latin.) Gibson's iconography is wildly eclectic: at various moments his images call to mind the paintings of Caravaggio (the grotesque cherubs who hound Judas to suicide), grisly 15th- and 16th-century paintings of the Crucifixion and Pieta, and such horror movies as "The Exorcist" and "Jacob's Ladder." When Jesus is arrested by the Jewish high priest Caiaphas's men, a fight breaks out: Peter slices off the ear of a soldier and, for the first of many times, Gibson switches to slow motion, inviting us to linger on the physical abuse and humiliation.

There is real power in Gibson's filmmaking: he knows how to work an audience over. The dark, queasy strength of the images—artfully shot by Caleb Deschanel—and their duration (the scene in which the Roman soldiers tie Jesus down and torture him goes on endlessly) tends to overwhelm the ostensible message. "Those who live by the sword, die by the sword," Jesus says, putting a halt to the fighting in Gethsemene; much later we're given a snippet from the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus exhorts his followers to love their enemies as themselves. But these moments have little weight in the body of the film; they're the cinematic equivalent of footnotes and they're not what seizes Gibson's imagination. What you remember is the image of a crow plucking out the eyes of the thief on the cross next to Jesus, punished by God for mocking his son. Caviezel gives an eloquent physical performance, but he has little opportunity to show the Messiah's spiritual charisma; this Jesus' most noteworthy trait is his ability to absorb pain. It's fascinating that the most understated sequence is the Resurrection itself. Rendered in obliquely crisp cinematic shorthand, it brings the movie to an anomalously muted conclusion.

From a purely dramatic point of view, the relentless gore is self-defeating. I found myself recoiling from the movie, wanting to keep it at arm's length—much the same feeling I had watching Gaspar Noe's notorious "Irreversible," with its nearly pornographic real-time depiction of a rape. Instead of being moved by Christ's suffering, or awed by his sacrifice, I felt abused by a filmmaker intent on punishing an audience, for who knows what sins. Others may well find a strong spirituality in "The Passion"—I can't pretend to know what this movie looks like to a believer—but it was Gibson's fury, not his faith, that left a deep, abiding aftertaste.

© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.

Tess,

It would seem that Mr. Ansen didn’t really like this movie, yes?

curvyredhead---You brought back memories!My 91yr old,mother used that term-Going to hades(Hell)in a handbasket,all of the time,when I was growing up.Thank You for that!I haven't heard that term,in years. Irish
P.S.She will be 92,saturday!

Irish, Glad to bring a smile to ya. I grew up with that saying as well.. must be my Irish roots! Happy Birthday to your mother!!

curvyredhead---Thank You!I never forget her birthday,because it's
the day after mine.I tell her that I didn't get her a present but,
What the Hell,she had me.That's enough. Irish

Catch22,

Later on, following the Reformation, the Protestant sects would exclude portions of the sacred texts from their versions of the Bible that would remain in the Catholic version. These texts are called the "Apocrypha".

The marketing machine is already going. They are selling 'fan stuff'. I wonder where the cash from that goes?