Does `The Passion' have Oscar legs?

Daily News via Miami Herald ^ | Mar 11, 04 | Jack Matthews

[churchillbuff]

Does `The Passion' have Oscar legs?

BY JACK MATHEWS

New York Daily News

(KRT) - If you think the debate over Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" will be over once the movie has taken in its last piece of silver at theaters, consider next year's Oscar race. Will it or won't it receive nominations? And if not, true believers will say, why in the hell not?

By one measure, "Passion" hardly seems like a movie at all. It's not entertainment; rather, it's a religious experience, and one that millions of people want to have. But technically it qualifies and will have to be deconstructed and evaluated by the various Academy branches.

Regardless of how one feels about Gibson's version of the Crucifixion, it's a first-rate physical production. It's brilliantly filmed by cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, a four-time Oscar nominee. And given the graphic flesh trauma borne by blood-drenched star James Caviezel, one would think a makeup nomination is in the bag.

But what of the movie itself, and Gibson as Best Director? Is "Passion" going to divide Academy voters along the blue state/red state fault line the way it seems to be dividing the general population? It only takes 20 percent of a branch's membership to get a nomination.

For me, "Passion" has one huge flaw that should keep it off both the picture and director ballots. Gibson, at cross-purposes with his esthetic and spiritual selves, fell back on his worst Hollywood instincts in the treatment of his story's villains.

The sadistic Roman soldiers who have such a fine time scourging Jesus are played like caricatures of the inbred hillbillies in "Deliverance." And Barabbas, the Jewish prisoner whose freedom the temple priests choose over Jesus' life, is played like the evil spawn of Quasimodo and Aileen Wuornos.

Gibson may be accurately dramatizing the scriptural dialogue in the Barabbas scene, but nowhere in the Bible does it say he was a B-movie homicidal maniac who seemed certain to kill the minute he was free. In fact, all biblical sources describe Barabbas as a political prisoner who killed during an insurrection.

That Gibson envisioned him as a foul-faced cartoon monster is both bad filmmaking and evidence for those who think he was feeding anti-Semitism even if he didn't intend to.

[Fledermaus]

I see Burkeman1's off the meds again.

[Burkeman1]

"Angels With Dirty Faces" is Cagney's best work. I cry a river when he goes to the hot seat and then cried like a baby even though he was as tough as nails just to save the kids who looked up to him as a last act of pennance. He wails like a coward and pleads for his life and resists being strapped in. He is shown to be a coward- but he did it to show the kids whom had looked up to him not to follow his path. All the kids at the end of the movie thought him "Yellow" but he was the bravest of all the Saints.

[Burkeman1]

I guess so? My crime is what?

[Burkeman1]

Thanks.

[familyop]

"Everything you talk about can be used for God's glory - film and art certain, even fame. 'Let us now praise famous men.'"

The following quotes show where we are coming from on such things. The first of the two quotes is, though, a little different from what is in the Vulgate.

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;" (Exodus 20:3-5, KJV)

"And he said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here.
So I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, pourtrayed upon the wall round about."
(Ezekiel 8:9,10, KJV)

[top of the world ma]

I always like Yankee Doodle Dandy. Cagney had a body language in his dancing that stood out above everybody else, IMHO.

I know you must have thought me to be someone else. No harm, no foul. :)

Maybe we can discuss another film another day. G'nite, Burkeman1.

[ZappaDawg]

Here is some other "stuff" found on the website you linked.

These and other actions taken by the U.S. government in wartime were, tragically, too little and too late. President Bush's family had already played a central role in financing and arming Adolf Hitler for his takeover of Germany; in financing and managing the buildup of Nazi war industries for the conquest of Europe and war against the U.S.A.; and in the development of Nazi genocide theories and racial propaganda, with their well-known results.

The facts presented here must be known, and their implications reflected upon, for a proper understanding of President George Herbert Walker Bush and of the danger to mankind that he represents. The President's family fortune was largely a result of the Hitler project. The powerful Anglo-American family associations, which later boosted him into the Central Intelligence Agency and up to the White House, were his father's partners in the Hitler project.

It also compares our current President's policies to Hitler while defending the crackpot, Lydon LaRouche.

[Texas2step]

Originally posted and totally debunked on 2/18/04, 7 days before the movie came out and way before the author could have watched the movie, which she originally stated she didn't...

Read through original thread here

Again, Graham or Aho, Dobson or Aho, my pastor or Aho, the Pope or Aho. My lying eyes or Aho. :-) No contest.

[Burkeman1]

"Angels With Dirty Faces"- a Great film about to be made a bad one!!!!! It is the next remake. Ben Afleck as James Cagney- the bad boy gangster, and Matt Damon as the ruffian who goes straight and becomes a priest! It will be so bad I can't tell you!

[Axiom Nine]

Any chance y'all could hold on a second?

I'm out of popcorn, and don't want to miss anything.

[Burkeman1]

NO.

[Texas2step]

The following quotes show where we are coming from

We? Did you write this? Are you Aho? You cannot be serious, surely...

Care to point me to the parts of the movie which contradict your Statement of Faith?

Or, have you even seen the movie?

[Burkeman1]

Cagney was the Irish Hood of the late 20's and 30's who controlled the "rackerts". I think he could dance as well but his main popuarity came from his gangster roles.

[familyop]

"Don't post stuff to grusome acts."

...no, none of that. The last one was only a link to a review column about a hideous Cannes film with Bellucci in it.

[Burkeman1]

I would add Buscemi to that list.

[familyop]

"I would add Buscemi to that list."

Thanks. I didn't write the site about the other three, by the way.

[Burkeman1]

I guess I have a readership on this site. I am a moderatly successeful drunk writer and FR keeps me sane and tuned. Forget current politics and just concentrate on yourself. That is my advice. If you live in Massachusetts-try to get Bush elected and if it appears he will lose the popular vote in MA then vote for the Constitution of Libertarian Party and show you disgust with Bush's spending!

[nopardons]

Cagney was copying another Irishman's damce style, the man he portrayed in that film...GEORGE M.COHAN.

[Smokin' Joe]

Who wants to be nominated for Jesus after they Memorialized Leni?

The academy are moot. Between giving Michael Moore an Oscar for "Bowling for Columbine" and this years antics, it is safe to assume there is something in the water out there.

[familyop]

"We? Did you write this? Are you Aho?"

No--closer to Calvinist. We're into reading scripture exclusively without intercessor (except Holy Ghost) or "inner light." On the film, we disagree with the stuff from Emmerich, the greater emphasis on the crucifixion than Jesus' life and resurrection, the greater emphasis on Mary, the untimely woman androgynous Satan, and so forth.

Hmmm. Check out something about 17th Century England and Cromwell, sometime, for more entertaining background info.

And BTW, I disagree with anything defending Lyndon Larouche's material, too. He's way out there--distraction propaganda.