This little tidbit may change your mind about Mel Gibson...

[radfringe]

Gibson is doing a new movie about the Mayans - it's called APOCALYPTO

there's an article about it in March 27 issue of Time (sorry I can't find a link to it on-line)

Gibson's co-writer on the movie says "The parallels between the environmental imbalance and corruption of values that doomed the Maya and what's happening to our own civilization are eerie"

Gibson puts it more bluntly "The fearmongering we depict in the film reminds me a little of President Bush and his guys"

[hippiechick]

1. One sentence doesn't make him sane...

Sorry. He's still a nutcase in my book.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

2. He can come be a nutcase

at my house anytime he wants.

He's very pretty.

[davsand]

6. "Just shut up and take off your clothes, Mel."

Man, I dunno if I could even deal with him at THAT level. I'd know what he was thinking the whole time...


:banghead:


Laura

[TallahasseeGrannie]

13. I'd like to see him in a kilt

with his face painted half blue saying in a Scottish brogue..."I love ye...I've always loved ye."

Then he can go home.

[im10ashus]

17. LOL!!!

Amen, Grannie! Me too. :hi:

[madmunchie]

55. "I'd like to see him in a kilt" adding, in a strong wind!

[hippiechick]

7. yeah, but he's short ...

... if you could stretch him out several inches and maybe put a gag in his mouth, then I could tolerate him.

:evilgrin:

[pacalo]

29. Hee...

:toast: to hippiechick!

I like them taller myself. And with a more modern mind.

[tjwash]

51. Judging from a lot of his movies, he may enjoy that.

The movies that he produces/directs do seem to have that sado-masochism theme running through them.

[hootinholler]

53. WOW, that's a serious kink...

:evilgrin:

I never would have guessed that side of you :D

-Hoot

[FoxNewsSucks]

11. I heard him on

Sean Hannity's radio show a couple years back before he released his Jesus movie. Hannity made an assumption and said "you do support the president, of course" and Gibson said no. He started to explain why, and Hannity IMMEDIATELY changed the subject and went back to talking about Jesus for the rest of the interview.

Gibson may not like the Bush Bastard, but he's still a rightwing nutbag.

[Jade Fox]

14. Yes, but a lot of Christians....

worship Gibson because of his movie "The Passion". So if he can turn some of those Christians away from mindless Bush worship, especially as it regards the environment, I'm glad. This global warming thing is freaking me out.

[radfringe]

24. I never said it WOULD change your mind

just that it MAY....

[davsand]

3. Nope. Gibson is still a conservative asshole who hates/controls women.

Good for him for finally realizing the we have a lying sack of shit in the White House, however.

It is a start...




Laura

[brook]

9. As a woman...

who worked with him, I find your assessment erroneous in the extreme.

[davsand]

16. This is a man who finds the Roman Catholic church to be too liberal.

That particular interview was just appalling.

He also stated point blank that he felt women needed to be subservient to their husbands in all ways.


I'd like to hear what your experiences were with the man. Have I misjudged him based on his own words?


Laura

[brook]

27. I have heard

about the interview you mention though I have never heard him say anything of the sort. Then again, people's religious convictions are of no particular interest to me as long as they aren't 'the law of the land' and therefore affect my life. Much of the 'accepted wisdom' about Mel's religiousness comes from his defense of his father. As a fellow Catholic, I disagree completely with the senior Gibson's stance-but understand a sons' defense.

Observing his interaction with his wife and family gave me no reason to question the fact that he loves and respects them. His wife, Robin, doesn't appear to be subservient. His happiness to see her when she came to the set was palpable. He certainly had no problem dealing with me or any other woman working alongside him. Those are the events on which I base my opinion.

I personally think that people who write about him aren't savvy enough to know when they're being 'had'. He does have an outrageous sense of humor. I probably worked on more than 100 films and TV shows and working with Gibson was one of the most enjoyable of all.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

71. And you know this because....???

[davsand]

87. Did you see my post #16 about the Gibson interview I watched?

I'm not trying to be snarky, but I'm dead serious when I say that interview left me wondering about his ability to interact with women as a whole.

We have since then heard from a woman who says she has worked with him and interacted with him on a professional level and found him to be just fine.

I dunno--you tell me--if you HEAR somebody interviewed and they say stuff that is pretty radical do YOU tend to form an opinion about them? I will freely admit that I do.

Regards!


Laura

[Mojambo]

4. Nope. I still think he's an awful actor. n/t

[Minnesota Libra]

5. I'll wait and see before changing my mind about him. nt

[tularetom]

8. I don't think he has any strong political views

He just likes to feel paranoid

[seabeyond]

10. gibson truly does not understand how passion not only helped

but really hastened this trip to fearmongering of the bushco's. i was in a christian school at the time passion came out. i saw what it did to the fundie people and how it effected the children. gibson did not. he did a movie he felt strongly about, but doesnt have a concept of the repercussion of that film, because of his audience and the illusion they are living in created for them by their religious leaders.....

[TallahasseeGrannie]

19. The Passion

was a work of devotion by a Catholic who had the money and resources to make it. I don't think he had any concept that it would become "The Perfect Cheer" for fundamentalists the world over. It was a very Catholic portrayal of the Passion and anyone who ever got saints' cards in Sunday school knows what I mean. Blood and gore to the max. It's a cultural thing, kind of a peasant portrayal.

[Vinnie From Indy]

22. LOL! Who loves ya Grannie!

I have to inject here that Mel Gibson's snuff film about Jesus was about MONEY! Pimping the death of Christ is highly profitable.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

30. I'm not sure

whether he KNEW it would be so profitable but it sure turned out to be. I think I heard him interviewed once where he said he thought he'd lose money on it. But then he had the bright idea to preview it to the churches. So I'm not quite sure I believe him.

I hope for the sake of his eternal soul (which he obviously believes in) that he gave a whole LOT of those profits to charitable causes!

[Vinnie From Indy]

56. He did better than John Travolta did with Scientology's

creation story "Battlefield Earth". It bombed. I challenge Mel to make a movie about the "Sermon on the Mount". Let's see if his faith extends to the real message of Jesus Christ. Hell, I'd even be OK with him throwing in some scantily clad women, swear words and a few explosions if he would only tell THAT story.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

59. You know, I'm fond of

Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth. Kind of misty like his Romeo and Juliet. Very Renaissance. Probably has zero link to reality, but it sure was pretty. Nice music, too. The images of Mary at the foot of the cross were stark and moving. Schmaltzy but graceful.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

60. Dupe

I hate this G-4. Screws me up constantly. Highlights stuff I don't want highlighted, then erases it..or doubles up my key strokes.

[Vinnie From Indy]

62. A Mac girl!

Be still my heart!

[TallahasseeGrannie]

65. All the way

although I run an XP lab but it is networked and I'm not the admin so I have a lot of support. But I only trust Mac with my graphics. However, this G4 is about to do me in. I've changed the touchpad settings all over the place but the damned thing sometimes highlights the whole screen. One thing I will say is that XP is easier to troubleshoot, getting into the registry keys, etc. But you should see my 6 megapixel pix on this 17" screen. Unbelievable.

[immoderate]

94. Touchpad -- I knew it.

I've always had that problem with touchpads. And it seems like I don't know where my thumbs have been. Happens to me on PCs as well. I like to turn off the touchpad when I'm doing text and use a mouse. But then I'll always try to have a mouse when I'm doing graphics. But then again, touchpad is still the best keyboard pointing device.:crazy:

--IMM

[timtom]

85. Not a bad point, Vinnie.

I did not see Gibson's film. But I would see one on the Sermon on the Mount.

[Ladyhawk]

49. You should see the analysis of violence in The Passion done by the

documentary The God Who Wasn't There. It's an eye-opener. The film is practically NOTHING BUT violence. I'm not sure what that has to do with the message of Jesus. It seems to me to be aimed at riling up Christians, either to make them pissed at what was done to Jesus or to give them a hard-on because they secretly like that kind of thing.

The movie was a huge blockbuster, showing that Christians like the bloody and battered Jesus much more than the meek and mild Jesus. Money talks and I don't like what it says about our country's Christians.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

61. You have to understand something about

some Christians. We feel incredible guilt for the Passion of Christ. I don't mean the movie, I mean the gospel story. First, it was the everyday folks who cried for Barrabas to be freed instead of Christ. Then there's the whole "He died for me" thing. And if you believe that he could have come down off that cross and smote the whole lot of them, then you feel doubly guilty because he suffered for you. ("And with his stripes we are healed.")

Every Holy Week we work ourselves into deep grief with our music, scripture, reflection, art, liturgy, etc. Watching the movie is kind of like Christian self-flagellation. And yes, there is probably some level of sexuality in it. But isn't there always? Pain and sex seem to go hand in hand in the human psyche. Watching TV for a week will clue you into that!

So that was the whole purpose...to walk the walk, to see and "feel" the lashes. Not to fall asleep in the Garden of Gethsemene like the apostles. To wait and watch with him a little while. It has been the purpose of Passion art and music since the beginning. And then you get to truly experience Easter. I know that personally, if I don't keep Lent, I feel cheated out of Easter. It is like I don't deserve it.

However, I still maintain that my mother had the Church bested when it came to inflicting guilt, so this isn't really just a Christian issue! She was a non-believer.

Was the movie over the top? You bet. Violence porn? I think so. But I do understand it all too well.

[Vinnie From Indy]

63. I would ask you to comtemplate, from what you know, what Jesus's

reaction to the focus on this part of his message would be. His ultimate message would seem to me to be not focused on sin as that is the state of man, but rather, the redemption of man through him and his message of loving thy brother as thyself. I have to believe he would scold you for being distracted from his teaching and focusing on the legacy of sin left by Adam & that lyin' broad Eve (just teasin'). Just my opinion, but there it is!

[TallahasseeGrannie]

66. I think Christ considers his pain and death

a necessary function to get his message across...and beneath his notice, really. Although he wasn't wild about the idea when he asked that the cup be passed from him. But he was human. And he was afraid.

[hedgehog]

76. I consider it an inevitable outcome of rocking the boat

Face it, he messed with the people making money off the tourist trade, he was a handy martyr for the Zealots, some sincerely thought he was a blasphemer, others thought he was going to bring down the full weight of the Roman Empire, he was a handy example for the Romans to show what did happen to anyone who made trouble etc. Who in Jerusalem didn't have a motive for getting rid of him?

For believers, what he showed was that the impossible is true, that there is a happy ending. Too many still have to carry their own cross today to do what is right. It's a case of knowing that if he could do it, I can do it.

[hedgehog]

70. I want to see Robin Williams star as Jesus Christ sometime

I think his warped wry loving view of humanity makes him perfect for the role. Of course, I think he's already done the story of the Christ(Dead Poet Society)

[Media_Lies_Daily]

72. His role as Dr. Patch Adams was also very well done.

[seabeyond]

75. yes i have heard this, yet this is what i ask

the last days of my mothers life were horrible. her death horrible. and it was a sacrifice thing too. not in comparison to jesus, but a parellel in thought. if i sat in her death, i could be sad the rest of my life. if i sit in her life, the 59 years she gave this earth, i am in lite. peace. love. her kindness and goodness

my point is, why would we think christ would want us to sit in his death, ...... and ignore all that his life is. his message is NOT about his death. he is NOT about his death. but that is what this movie made it. and why... so we feel guilt. guilt isnt healthy. this isnt what i feel christ would want us to get from his death, guilt.

i hear what you say often. i know what you are talking. but it makes no sense to me

[hedgehog]

79. I think this is the difference between pondering the Gospel and watching a

There are phrases in the Gospels that leave me wondering how they could have been handed down from so long ago. In many ways the Passion narrative seems too modern. The narration is so stark and confrontational. Every year we hear Pilate's question again: "Truth, what is truth?"

Now, you can put that in a movie, but no movie can capture the effect of listening to someone read it and knowing that those words have been passed down for what, 1800 years since the Gospel was written?

Listening to or reading the Gospel is not about Jesus' death but how he confronted his death.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

81. It doesn't make sense.

but I guess it speaks to that part of us that ponders death, pain, betrayal and abandonment. I guess at heart many of us are rather morbid creatures. Think of all the nuns and monks over the centuries who whipped themselves on the back as part of their confessional penances.

I wish we knew more about his life.

It is kind of like the two kinds of crucifixes. One shows the agonal Christ, the other the triumphal. I have the latter in my bedroom, but I have created some pretty decent stained glass panels depicting the former.

[seabeyond]

82. ah, stained glass..... yum

i have been thinking about this as i drove across town. have you ever been the lone, with a mob mentality. i was three years ago. it wasnt a physical confrontation. but i felt the same, as what christ did in mob. i understood what he was saying, after having experienced. it was valuable and very interesting. people so angry. so passionate. people that knew me and love me yet in such pain. and though the rock throwing was just figuritively,..... in verbal jabs, the feel was so there

people that were full of hate and with all their might threw their anger at me. people who were so fearful, yet knew the love, would throw these wussy throws. i didnt attack. i didnt defend. i stood there and let them, and in standing non attached looking at these people that i love i saw such fear. it was all fear. it allowed me to be there in love and not anger, or hate recipocated. it allowed me to not feel the pain, because i felt love.

as christ was being attacked he knew why it was happening. he was in their heart. he looked in their eyes and knew their fear. without knowing shit, ...... i could say in that moment, he was beyond the pain, this was his to stand there and say, give it to me, your fears, your angers.... and still i love you. i will accept this from you, let you be free, cause, he is that good. he showed us in this one moment ho to be. it was a gift. does guilt come with a gift. if guilt is part of the gift, isnt that rejecting the gift.

i think that is why the movie bothers me. we have a choice, we can see this from our eyes or christs. in our eyes we feel a need to protect, revenge, feel guilt, be fearful. in christs eyes it simply requires us to love.

passion coming out the spring of 2004 when we as a nation so needed to get beyond division, helped to solidify that division. christs experience could equally have been used to unite.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

68. Yeah...they lived in such serene and peaceful times 2000 years ago....

...Right.

[salvorhardin]

86. Man, that was a real snuff film wasn't it?

Randi Rhodes really nailed that one.

[NMMNG]

90. Given some of the threads I saw recently at Freak Repugnant

I'd say that the latter (to give them a hard-on because they secretly like that kind of thing) was the case.

[seabeyond]

25. ya well what it did to the fundies here. i had one teacher

hold up the in the air to me, in all her passion. never had that in the past, or since. but a huge wow.

ya

[TallahasseeGrannie]

33. I'm not following you

what did she hold up? Did you leave out a word?

My imagination, however, is going wild!

[seabeyond]

34. bah hahaha. i did i did. that is funny

she held up the bible in the air..... preachin....

[hedgehog]

31. I was very elated to hear about the movie and disappointed to see

what he made. I should say, I've never actually seen the movie since I can't bring myself to sit through it. The description of the Passion in the Gospels is bad enough. I was hoping for something that stuck to the Gospel accounts and caught some of the confusion and fear of those days. Unfortunately Mel went back to a non-scriptural account. Given the power of cinema, people will remember that account instead of the Gospel accounts.

[seabeyond]

35. i couldnt for any reason sit thru it. i dont get it

and so many of the most "sensitive" of people went to see it praising it, almost in a cult like fashion. was sittin there watching that to remember the anger adn revenge of what was done to jesus.

i told a teacher, they left out the most important part. all the while in the mobs madness, christ was in their hurt, knew their anger, their pain, their fear.....

and loved them. thatwas the point of the whole cross thing,... not the pain of christ, but beyond the pain, christ loved.

[hedgehog]

40. If you really believed it happened,

how could you sit and watch a realistic depiction? I mean, if you're a serious Christian, it's like watching your brother being murdered all over again. It is watching your brother being murdered all over again. It's like watching clips of the Kennedy motorcade or of Bobby Kennedy walking into the kitchen. You know what's going to happen and you can't stop it. Why would anyone want or need to sit through a blow by blow replay of a death by torture?

[TallahasseeGrannie]

44. I think that is the point

with some. They believed it to be a penance of some sort, or to be able to watch it was to somehow understand better what he experienced. It was perhaps like a pilgrimage walking on your knees to a holy site. It was supposed to elicit grief.

Personally, my imagination was worse than the movie.

[seabeyond]

50. i had replied and then exited out. that is what i felt

these people that would never watch a violent film or let kids watch a violent filmed allowed this. they felt it a duty to watch. and for me the feel with so many of these people was like, see in watching, see how much i love christ. that i can sit thru and watch the movie. just a twisting of with the crucifixation was all about. they did this with children. rented theaters. to lean into those kids and say see, see what christ went thru for you. the pain, for your sin. just creepy. i just cannot imagine. adn then what i saw in the children after the film that went and watched. in played right into bush creating a fight with gays, muslims...... the violence. the rage

[devilgrrl]

12. You mean he really isn't a homophobic anti-semite?

:sarcasm:

[GRLMGC]

57. Oh I know

I'm not one to jump on people's bandwagons just because they say one thing I agree with. Let's not forget:

"Gibson's political viewpoints, while lauded by middle America, have been described by some "conservative" and "far right." Some gay rights groups have accused him of homophobia for his conservative Catholic views on homosexuality, and for allegedly depicting homosexuals as villains (The Man without a Face, Braveheart, The Passion of the Christ).

On occasion he has spoken plainly to the press about his views. "They take it up the ass," Gibson told a Spanish publication El Pais in a January 1992 interview, referring to homosexuals as he bent over and pointed to his rear-end. "This is only for taking a shit." http://www.topsynergy.com/famous/Mel_Gibson.asp

[goforit]

15. Gibson sucks. Remember he was catalists to Bush & the faux Christians.

How will he contort the next historical saga?

[hedgehog]

18. On the other hand, he did star in Gallipolli

My mother watches that movie and cries every time. Probably one of the best anti-war films ever made.

[Mythsaje]

20. We were soldiers

was no slouch in that department either, from my perspective.

[hedgehog]

28. Really?

I never saw that movie, I thought it might be gung-ho pro-war. That would have been really ironic since Mel's dad was an American who picked up and moved his family to Australia to keep his sons out of the Viet Nam war.

[Mythsaje]

37. Oh, no...

We Were Soldiers involved the 7th Air Calvary which was dropped in the middle of what turned out to be a meat grinder at the very beginning of the "real" war.

I don't usually watch war movies because I hate the gung-ho crap myself. The movie really shocked me. It encompassed only about a three day period (I think) and also covered the whole thing on the home front, dealing with the wives of the soldiers and the commander's wife in particular, who took over the task of informing other wives when their husbands fell. And a LOT of them fell.

Like I said, it was a meat grinder.

If anyone walked away thinking the movie was pro-war, they're more demented than I can imagine.

[hedgehog]

41. I'll have to watch it then

thanks for the tip.

[Mythsaje]

42. It's hard to watch...

I'll tell you that. I don't think it was more than fifteen minutes into the movie when I was saying, "holy shit." These soldiers were thrown away because the command wasn't any smarter than a bag of sand. They had NO idea what they were up against.

The 7th Calvary was Custer's command, the one that he led into destruction.

Mel Gibson's character (based on the real on the ground commander, I believe) came out a real hero for doing his level best to try to save as many men as possible from his superiors' folly.

[brook]

89. I believe

you can do a search and discover that Mel was 12 years old when his father moved to Australia from NY State. IOW, Mel was in no danger of being drafted anytime soon.

One source

Point of fact, as Americans, all the Gibson brothers were eligible for the draft. The eldest was called up but failed the physical (I think I have that right) - worth noting here: Hutton, their father, had served in WWII.

[4morewars]

21. Mel who ?

:shrug:

[Tinksrival]

45. Mad Mel?

Mel is preparing for his next role?

[BrklynLiberal]

23. Nothing could make me think he is anything but an insane fundie schmuck.

I would NEVER spend a dime that might find its way into his pocket.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

73. Don't let facts stand in the way of your perception of Gibson...

...particularly when you're have such a good time trashing him.

[Beelzebud]

26. I STILL like the Mad Max movie! :D

I don't care what political or religious views a celebrity has. I save that for the people running things.

No matter what Mel Gibsons personal views are, I still like Mad Max. :D

[Strelnikov_]

46. “My Life Fades, The Vision Dims, All That Remains Are Memories. . .

I remember a time of chaos. Ruined dreams, this wasted land. But most of all, I remember the Road Warrior. The man we called Max.

To understand who he was you have to go back to another time. When the world was powered by the black fuel, and the deserts sprouted great cities of pipe and steel.

Gone now, swept away. For reasons long forgotten, two mighty warrior tribes went to war, and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all. Without fuel they were nothing. They had built a house of straw. The thundering machines sputtered, and stopped. Their leaders talked, and talked, and talked. But nothing could stem the avalanche. Their world crumbled. The cities exploded. A whirlwind of looting, a firestorm of fear.

Men began to feed on men. On the roads it was a white line nightmare. Only those mobile enough to scavenge, brutal enough to pillage, would survive. The gangs took over the highways, ready to wage war for a tank of juice.

And in this maelstrom of decay, ordinary men were battered and smashed, men like Max, the warrior Max. In the roar of an engine he lost everything. He became a shell of a man, a burnt-out desolate man. A man haunted by the demons in his past. A man who wandered out into the wasteland. And it was here, in this blighted place, that he learned to live again.”

Opening Dialogue, “The Road Warrior”, 1981

A movie that seems more prescient every day.

[Frank Cannon]

54. Mad Max AND The Road Warrior

are two of my favorite movies of all time.

The guy is a complete fundie wacko, but he CAN act, and he has made some decent films. I can't deny that so I won't. Mad Max and The Road Warrior are in my very elite DVD collection.

[AnnInLa]

32. He's kinda an equal-opportunity-nut

I like these statements, but overall? Nutjob

[SPKrazy]

36. Flame Away, I Like Mel!

I thought the Passion was a good movie

I didn't see any anti-semitism in it myself

[SaveElmer]

38. I find him amusing...

I don't know...I just can't bring myself to dislike the guy too much. His views really are out there on alot of things, but what power does he really have?

And he has made some very good movies..(also some bad ones)

[tjwash]

52. Are you kidding? "Conspiracy Theory" was robbed, ROBBED I tell you.

heh

[SaveElmer]

67. I liked Conspiracy Theory...

Pretty entertaining...even though I am a rabid skeptic by nature!!!

I also really like Braveheart (even though the history is wrong), Patriot was ok...but the history was pretty bad there too, Ransom was good, The Bounty, Gallipoli...a few others...

I haven't seen the Passion all the way through...but aside from whatever message you get out of it, the guy does have talent as a filmmanker...and the buzz I'm hearing is that Apocolypto is gonna blow people away!

[tjwash]

92. I loved Gallipoli. And (you may feel free to slap me for this guys)...

...I can actually watch "Maverick" over and again, and get just as big a kick out of it each time. Braveheart was good, but being the history snob I am, all I can do is point out the historical inaccuracies in it each time I watch it.

[Balbus]

43. I'm with you - I like his acting and his movies, though never saw Passion.

[BiggJawn]

39. Even a busted clock is right twice a day.

And right now, the Road Warrior is right ONCE.

[Strelnikov_]

47. Sounds Like He has Read 'Collapse'

As our fifth strand, we have to wonder why the kings and nobles failed to recognize and solve these seemingly obvious problems undermining their society. Their attention was evidently focused on their short-term concerns of enriching themselves, waging wars, erecting monuments, competing with each other, and extracting enough food from the human peasants to support all those activities. Like most leaders throughout human history, the Maya kings and nobles did not heed long-term problems, insofar as they perceived them.

. . .

Like Easter Island chiefs erecting ever larger statues, eventually crowned by pukao, and like Anasazi elites treating themselves to necklaces of 2000 turquoise beads, Maya kings sought to outdo each other with more and more impressive temples, covered with thicker and thicker plaster, reminiscent in turn of the extravagant conspicuous consumption by modern American CEO's. The passivity of Easter chiefs and Maya kings in the face of the real big threats to their societies completes our list of disquieting parallels.

From Chapt. 5, 'The Maya Collapses', from 'Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail Or Succeed’ by Jared Diamond

[Peace Patriot]

48. Sounds like Mel Gibson is kind of a confused guy, personally. I think his

father is the rightwing nut. That might make it hard to grow up and sort yourself out.

My main argument with "The Passion" was that it was short on the main point of Jesus' teaching, "love they neighbor" and on the joyful events of his life--the marriage feast at Cana, the raising of Lazarus, feeding people with the loaves and fishes, telling parables to his fisherfolk followers, and all the quite good stories in the New Testament, and was so ghoulishly focused on his miserable death, and focused on it a way that ignores the earliest teachings of the Christians (the Gnostics) that Jesus was a transformed person--in our lingo, a yogi--who did not feel the pain. They believed that what Jesus taught is that we can transcend our physical beings and BECOME God. God is not "other" from us. "The Passion," on the other hand, totally buys into the views of the narrow sect of patriarchs who took over the church in the 5th century, that life is a miserable "vale of tears": get used to it, and stop complaining and trying to overthrow your slavemasters, and don't look over here where we are accumulating all this wealth and property; we alone can get you out of this miserable life, and into "heaven"; even our witchburnings and inquisitions are good for you; pain and horror are good for you.

Nothing Jesus ever said. He was consistently in favor of the rich giving all they have to the poor and making their lives BETTER. He FED people. He told them stories. He made them wine. He washed their feet. He lived with them communally. He was NOT pro-suffering! And the LATER church's obsession with suffering--and its infliction of suffering--would have appalled the loving and generous person depicted in even the redacted and highly selective, official "gospels."

Another argument I have with the movie is its darkness and ominousness. Surely Jesus noticed springtime and the birds and the flowers. He spoke of them. He RECOMMENDED them--that is, nature--as model of faith for humans. Finally, there is the matter of the women in his life, about which much research has been done, and many compelling alternative theories developed (to the selection made by the patriarchs of the 5th century, who did their best to burn all other versions of Jesus' life and all other interpretations of it). I am not recommending "The Da Vinci Code"--I think it's a very superficial book--unless it leads you to a deeper investigation of what the earliest Christians thought about God: that God is both male and female. (Elaine Pagels' "The Gnostic Gospels" is a good place to start--and the Nag Hammadi Library itself.)

The ominous part of the story of Jesus' life should have focused on the profound conflict that is revealed between Jesus' male apostles and Mary Magdalene, in a fragment of the Nag Hammadi Library called "The Gospel of Mary" (which Pagels believes is the earliest gospel). The manuscript was buried in a cave in Egypt for ONE THOUSAND YEARS, recently discovered, badly damaged, only three and a half pages survived. But it is riveting. Mary Magdalene is the acknowledged leader of the apostles, whom the others state is the only one among them who understood Jesus' teachings.

We have received an extremely distorted view of Christianity through the filter of the Church "fathers" who created the very un-christian male hierarchy that we know today. Gibson--if "The Passion" is any guide--is apparently completely ignorant of this alternative view, which may in fact be the REAL Christianity, a religion with balanced male/female principles whose founder preached transformative, universal love, the end of war and violence of every kind, and the end of human suffering by means of higher consciousness.

I have thought that Gibson was, in some way, trying to MOCK the patriarchal view--by exaggerating it. (His depictions of Jesus' sufferings are very exaggerated, quite beyond "suspension of disbelief"--it's a orgy of sado-masochism.) 'Here is what you have given me,' his psyche seems to be saying, to the "vale of tears Fathers": blood and gore, with no redeeming features. But, if this was Gibson's point, I strongly suspect that it was unconsciously done, and not a deliberate artistic and theological choice.

But the movie does go so far as to almost make you laugh. It is ludicrous and obsessive. (And it doesn't help that the actor is a washout--not in the least inspiring.)

A mixed up kid, I'd say of Mel Gibson. He doesn't get the message of love; and he sees HIMSELF as a sacrificial victim of some kind.

I found the movie boring, by the way--and I have never found the New Testament boring (reading it).

[radio4progressives]

58. He's a Charlatan, a Promoter of Fear & the American Taliban

fuck that bastard.

[RB TexLa]

64. Since I think as much about the statements of actors as I do wait staff

Can't see it changing something that doesn't exist.

[lildreamer316]

84. ?

um; wait staff are democrat voters too.
I'm just sayin'.

[RB TexLa]

95. And if I know them I am interested in what they think, if not I just want

my food. Same thing with entertainers. Sing and dance, I'm not really concerned much with what they think about things. Not discounting either as people, just as I'm not concerned if the person making my drink is a repuke, I'm not concerned with what the person with the solo in the second act thinks about trade agreements.

[Strelnikov_]

69. Link: "Apocalypto Now"

Sorry, gotta violate the groupthink, looks pretty cool to me.

Apocalypto Now
EXCLUSIVE: You'd think Mel Gibson was all done with violent movies about the past told in a foreign tongue, right? Think again
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1174684,00.html

Still, he likes to confound expectations--he wears a cross containing relics of martyred saints, but he can swear like a Quentin Tarantino character--and those who peg him as a reactionary may be surprised to learn that his new film sounds warnings straight out of liberal Hollywood's bible. Apocalypto, which Gibson loosely translates from the Greek as "a new beginning," was inspired in large part by his work with the Mirador Basin Project, an effort to preserve a large swath of the Guatemalan rain forest and its Maya ruins. Gibson and his rookie cowriter on Apocalypto, Farhad Safinia, were captivated by the ancient Maya, one of the hemisphere's first great civilizations, which reached its zenith about A.D. 600 in southern Mexico and northern Guatemala. The two began poring over Maya myths of creation and destruction, including the Popol Vuh, and research suggesting that ecological abuse and war-mongering were major contributors to the Maya's sudden collapse, some 500 years before Europeans arrived in the Americas.

Those apocalyptic strains haunt Apocalypto, which takes place in an opulent but decaying Maya kingdom, whose leaders insist that if the gods are not appeased by more temples and human sacrifices, the crops will die. But the writers hope that the larger themes of decline will be a wake-up call. "The parallels between the environmental imbalance and corruption of values that doomed the Maya and what's happening to our own civilization are eerie," says Safinia. Gibson, who insists ideology matters less to him than stories of "penitential hardship" like his Oscar-winning Braveheart, puts it more bluntly: "The fearmongering we depict in this film reminds me a little of President Bush and his guys."

. . .

The more immediate question is whether Apocalypto can repeat The Passion's success. After all, devout Christians willing to sit through Latin and Aramaic dialogue to see Christ crucified vastly outnumber Maya scholars. Gibson seems certain that the film's "kinetic energy" will make Maya language and culture "cool" enough to attract a crowd. Maya prophecy says the current world, which began 5,000 years ago, will end in 2012. So, even if Apocalypto flops, Gibson will at least have given the Maya one last chance to get the word out.


Have to wonder, though, if Mel took on this project because of the Maya calendar thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_calendar

End of the world?

The end of the 13th baktun is conjectured to have been of great significance to the Maya, but does not mark the end of the world. According to the Popol Vuh, a sacred book of the Maya, we are living in the fourth world. The Popol Vuh describes the first three creations that the gods failed in making and the creation of the successful fourth world where men were placed. The Maya believed that the fourth world would end in catastrophe and the fifth and final world would be created that would signal the end of mankind.

The last creation ended on a long count of 13.0.0.0.0. Another 13.0.0.0.0 will occur on December 21, 2012, and it has been discussed in many New Age articles and books that this will be the end of this creation or something else entirely. However, the Maya abbreviated their long counts to just the last five vigesimal places. There were an infinitely larger number of units that were usually not shown. When the larger units were shown (notably on a monument from Coba), the end of the last creation is expressed as 13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.0.0.0.0, where the units are obviously supposed to be 13s in all larger places. In this age we are only approaching 0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.13.0.0.0.0, and the larger places are nowhere near the 13s that would match the end of the last creation. (Schele and Friedel 1990: 430)

This is confirmed by a date from Palenque, which projects forward in time to 1.0.0.0.0.0, which will occur on 4772-10-13. The Classic Period Maya obviously did not believe that the end of this age would occur in 2012. According to the Maya, there will be a baktun ending in 2012, a significant event being the end of a 13th ~400 year period, but not the end of the world.


The end of the oil age? One wonders.

[hedgehog]

80. For a real fun time, check out the trailer for this film frame by frame

That's Mel Gibson himself in one of those shots in full costume

[Jack_DeLeon]

74. I honestly dont know what people have against Mel Gibson...

Yall pissed at him just because he made "The Passion."

I'm not big into the whole learnign whats going on in Hollywood rumor type stuff, so what do people have against Mel Gibson?

The Passion didnt interest me too much so I didnt see it.

Apocolypto does interest me, I honestly never seen a movie featuring the Mayans so that in and of itself is interesting, also I hear he used alot of indigenous people in the movie so that is cool too.

[Cha]

77. Good for him...I'll take his

contribution to mass awareness of what's going down with this maladministration.

THis Planet needs all the help it can get.

[stepnw1f]

78. Fuck Em and His Bullshit Fanaticism

Let him crumble with the rest of the Charlatans.

[Swamp Rat]

83. Too late Mel! We already know you are a Nazi.

[frogmarch]

88. Remember

that news story about the wacko who, after seeing Gibson's Jesus movie, built himself a cross and nailed one of his hands to it, to crucify himself? The guy soon realized he couldn't nail both hands to the cross because one of his hands was already nailed down. What to do, what to do... LOL.

The Passion of the Christ should have been named The Passion of the Mel. He's gung ho about religion, well, his religion anyway. I wonder if he, like some other gung ho Christians, hangs replicas of the crucifixion nails on his Christmas tree as ornaments.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

91. Rats abandoning the ship.

See also: Michael Savage, Andy Sullivan, and others I sure forgot.

[bridgit]

93. true...