Why don't you try a Google search for any of the negative reviewers of the Passion and refer us to reviews where they objected to the gratuitous violence in pop culture movies.
No, I'm not. I'm asking him if he has any support for his belief about the alleged hypocrisy of film reviewers.
Why don't you try a Google search for any of the negative reviewers of the Passion and refer us to reviews where they objected to the gratuitous violence in pop culture movies.
Piece o' cake -- how about three?
"So it is with Gibson's so-called Passion, defined as the "agony and suffering of Jesus during the Crucifixion." Don't be deceived - this orgy of death is just another Grand Guignol for Jesuit patsies. ... No sex. All violence. Think of "The Passion" as S&M for Christians - Sadism for those who love to inflict pain and Masochism for those who love the pain. Watching a pretend Jesus suffering a pretended agony is about as twisted as it gets."(Uri Dowbenko is the author of the book "Hoodwinked: Watching Movies With Eyes Wide Open".)
-- Uri Dowbenko's review of Mel Gibson's "Passion""'Kill Bill' is the 21st century version of the Grand Guignol, gory special effects meant to titillate and shock. And ultimately bore. Hatchet in the head. A plank full of nails in the eye. ... 'Kill Bill' is the twisted expression of an arrested emotional and mental development. It's splatter-punk pornography for 14-year old boys, who don't understand psychological warfare or mind control. ... "If you was a moron, you could almost admire it," says a Texas cop looking at the carnage of the murdered wedding party in the movie. And sure enough, Time Magazine's in house moron Richard Corliss wrote a review which gushes at Tarantino's bad boy geek persona, "There's a daring, exhilarating spirit to the fights too," he writes. "These are gory production numbers, immediate but also abstract...Even the arcs of blood have the propulsion of crimson choreography." "Immediate but also abstract?" "Propulsion of crimson choreography?" Puh-leez. Corliss is so erudite and sophisticated Bet he can't wait for the remake of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." And Quentin Tarantino? I ain't no psycho-pathologist, baby, but this is one sick puppy.
-- Uri Dowbenko's review of Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill"
Or:
"In “The Passion of the Christ,” Mel Gibson shows little interest in celebrating the electric charge of hope and redemption that Jesus Christ brought into the world. He largely ignores Jesus’ heart-stopping eloquence, his startling ethical radicalism and personal radiance—Christ as a “paragon of vitality and poetic assertion,” as John Updike described Jesus’ character in his essay “The Gospel According to Saint Matthew.” Cecil B. De Mille had his version of Jesus’ life, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Martin Scorsese had theirs, and Gibson, of course, is free to skip over the incomparable glories of Jesus’ temperament and to devote himself, as he does, to Jesus’ pain and martyrdom in the last twelve hours of his life. As a viewer, I am equally free to say that the movie Gibson has made from his personal obsessions is a sickening death trip, a grimly unilluminating procession of treachery, beatings, blood, and agony—and to say so without indulging in “anti-Christian sentiment” (Gibson’s term for what his critics are spreading). ... Gibson is so thoroughly fixated on the scourging and crushing of Christ, and so meagrely involved in the spiritual meanings of the final hours, that he falls in danger of altering Jesus’ message of love into one of hate."Or:
-- David Denby's review of Gibson's "Passion""We know that the non-stop violence is not meant to be real....Yet Tarantino is working in a photographic medium, and the real-world associations are not so easy to shrug off....The movie is what's formally known as decadence and commonly known as crap. Saying that it's an homage to long-established genres in Hong Kong doesn't reduce its pop-nihilistic stupidity."
-- David Denby's review of Tarantino's "Kill Bill"
"With “The Passion of the Christ” Mel Gibson doesn’t redefine the religious film so much as he redefines overkill. ... Christ’s horrible and excruciating death wasn’t enough for Gibson and writing collaborator Benedict Fitzgerald. They find ways to make crucifixion even more sadistic: After nailing Jesus to the cross, the Romans drop him flat on his face a few times before driving the cross into the ground. Earlier, after the Romans have finished scourging him, Jesus looks like the result of an explosion in a butcher’s shop. The brutality begins right away. As soon as they arrest Jesus in Gethsemane, the temple guards repeatedly belt him in the face, then drop him off a bridge and dangle him from the chains that bind him. These preliminary beatings do not occur in any of the four Gospels. ... That’s when they reach for the cat o’ nine tails and filet him for perhaps the 10 bloodiest minutes in film history. Why would Jesus need to prove how tough he was to these soldiers? Was he wearing a wristband with initials that stood for “What Would Rambo Do?” ... Gibson’s dedication to violence turns bizarre. Immediately after one of the thieves being executed alongside Jesus taunts him, a crow swoops down and devours his eyes. This happens even though Jesus already has said, “Forgive them, Father, for they don’t know what they do.”... Be warned: If “The Passion” weren’t based on a Bible story, it almost certainly would be rated NC-17.(Westhoff has written a very good overview of all available prior "life of Jesus" films here: "Screen Savior: Films about Jesus have ranged from sacred to profane ... to downright silly.")
-- Jeffrey Westhoff's review of Gibson's "Passion""We should all have Quentin Tarantino's racket. He is the Madonna of the film world: He's more shallow than talented, but he excels at promoting himself while stretching the limits of how much violence and offensive language can be tolerated in mainstream entertainment. That's enough for half the cinematic world to consider him a genius. ... "Kill Bill" is also Tarantino's most meaningless work, a union of two forms of schlock that tickled his fancy during his 1970s adolescence: kung fu movies and detective shows. ... And Tarantino's idea of paying tribute to old kung fu movies is to behead or dismember a few hundred extras and have the blood spurt like Old Faithful – it's Cecil B. DeMille's version of the Black Knight fight from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," minus any sense of humor. "Kill Bill" is too gory and played too straight to work as a comedy. ... It's pity to see such great acting wasted on a character that is just the plaything of a stunted adolescent filmmaker getting paid millions to revisit his toy box."
-- Jeffrey Westhoff's review of Tarantino's "Kill Bill"