Did you cry at THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST?

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he claims about anti-semitism are also utter crap. We could, of course, go into the probable traces of anti-semitism in the gospels themselves, but that's irrelevant here.

My best friend and his wife were spit on by an Orthodox Nun.

Ha! Good for you expressing your opinion!

I laugh because, of all the movies about which to make such a glib, assertive, unsupported statement, you picked the one that has the 9th highest US gross ever, $625+ million worldwide gross, and was seen by at least one out of every three adults in the US!

Priceless!

Popular doesn't necessarily equate to good.

I do think this movie did contain some subtle Anti-Semitism. I saw it just once, but if memory serves, except for the scourging scene, Satan is never shown among the Romans-- only among the Jews.

There was a lot of weird symbolism in that movie-- after the high priest punches Jesus out when he is brought before the Sanhedrin, Jesus is then shown with only one eye for the rest of the movie. The term for the Muslim antichrist is "one eye" (dajjal). A coincidence?

And why is the last scene of Jesus' naked derriere? Isn't that disrespectful? It reminded me of the movie Terminator when he crash lands to earth.

Ha! Good for you expressing your opinion!

I laugh because, of all the movies about which to make such a glib, assertive, unsupported statement, you picked the one that has the 9th highest US gross ever, $625+ million worldwide gross, and was seen by at least one out of every three adults in the US!

Priceless!

I think popular does mean good more often than is commonly acknowledged. There's a great book on the science behind this called The Wisdom of Crowds. Popularity as a phenomenon is underrated.

Exactly. It is my opinion.

What support do you want?

I just thought that it wasn't a good movie.

The reason it made so much money in the US is because there are so many Christians in the US.

Also the whole anti-semetic controversy helped it at the box office.

Where did I ask for support? I didn't ask for support. I was having a laugh. That's what this symbol means: ( ) A spontaneous outburst of merriment! Ha ha!

I found it funny because it was like saying, "That guy Newton just wasn't a deep thinker." It's your opinion and you're entitled to it, but a lot of people are going to argue with you.

Wait, you THOUGHT it wasn't a good movie? That's not what you said. You said it WASN'T a good movie. And don't say I'm splitting hairs here. You're the one who took the time to completely demolish my point that quite a few people liked THE PASSION by showing that it wasn't the 9th but the 10TH highest-grossing US movie. (I hide my face in shame. )

That's an interesting theory, but I think it's an oversimplification. I'm not a Christian. Nor are any of my friends, and they all saw it.

Also, THE PASSION did very, very well in many areas with virtually no Christian population at all, so that argument kind of falls flat.

Also the whole anti-semetic controversy helped it at the box office.

You said it was an unsupported statement. It implies that you wanted me to support it.

If not, then your agrument is hypocritical.

I only clarified that it was 10th not 9th. I was just clarifying something that you brought forth as factual information. I wasn't do that out of spite or to demolish your point, I was just pointing out that you looked over a detail. I did that so you could get your facts straight.

Seeing as this is a matter of opinon and a movie, it is a stupid thing to argue about, and I am sick of this.

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Yes, I did cry when I watched Passion of the Christ. I don't cry very often at the movies, especially the ones that are supposed to move people to tears.

I'd heard all kinds of ridiculous claims about this movie. I had heard that it was an ultra-violent "snuff film", that it was exploitation, that it was anti-semitic, that it was just gory and hollow, that Mel is a psycho and an anti-semite. And well, when I went in to see it, I found ALL of those claims to be complete nonsense.

Yes, it WAS the most violent movie ever made. Yes, it should have been NC-17 for violence. They weren't wrong about that. But that alone is an observation and not a criticism. The people who say this is a "snuff film" are idiots and have obviously never seen one. Pornography is meant to arouse desire. Exploitation films are moronically shallow when we care to notice. Nor do they really understand the history and theology that makes the violence relevant. Reactions agains the violence in this film, though they would justify not wanting to see it, do not solely justify the unreasonably negative reviews.

Why is the passion of Christ important to meditate on? Without being preachy, I will say that Buddha and other religious leaders were speaking of similar things before Jesus, but they didn't sacrifice themselves for the sake of humanity that didn't deserve it. To discount the passion and only focus on Christ's teachings is to strip Christianity of it's reason for being and reduce it to a recepticle for moral platitudes that no good atheist could disagree with.

Of course the violence in "Passion of the Christ" is horrific, disgusting, repulsive, and unbelievably brutal. And, for the most part, it's accurate (I am not a historian or biblical scholar, and I can point out things about the movie that are inaccurate, but none of them bother me). This degree of violence shouldn't come as any surprise to someone who's a) read the gospels b) studied Roman history. Just about every Jesus movie made before this one either toned down the violence or romanticized it (the exception, perhaps, is "The Last Temptation of Christ", but it isn't nearly as bloody).

The remake of Dawn of the Dead de-throned Pasison of the Christ when it was released, and it was also an extreemely violent movie. Dawn of the Dead is clearly a more egregious display of violence (and there are countless movies ten times as guilty) that does not have meaning or context beyond escapist horror entertainment. Therefore, no one bothers to condemn it for having complete contempt for human life. Mindless, meaningless destruction seems to be acceptable for the people who bash this movie, but not when violence is actually portrayed in a manner that demonstrates either that it really hurts people, man's inhumanity to man (from a non-religious veiwpoint) or the single most important event in human history (from a religious viewpoint).

The claims about anti-semitism are also utter crap. We could, of course, go into the probable traces of anti-semitism in the gospels themselves, but that's irrelevant here. The people complaining that this movie is anti-semitic are overlooking the obvious facts that a) Jesus and his followers are jews b) Simon is a sympathetically portrayed jewish character (ever notice that no one who accuses this movie of being anti-semitic ever mentions this?) c) the Roman soldiers are portrayed as despicable, sadistic cretins and d) Pilate, despite having doubts as he did in the gospels, is STILL a ruthless prefect who would rather crucify and innocent man than take the risk of doing the right thing. That does not make him a good person. Roger Ebert was correct in his assessment that each of the characters in this movie represent themselves, and not their groups.

The anti-christian bigots who hate this movie are mostly just pissed off that Mel Gibson has made the most critic-proof movie ever made, out of his own pocket money, and there's not a goddamn thing they can do about it. And well, I'm glad that he did. In fact, I admire him even more for it. It's a rare thing indeed to see a film maker defy all the laws for box-office success, create a piece of art of intense personal importance to them, and succeed.

I like James Caviezel as Jesus. But I also liked Wilhelm Dafoe as Jesus, but maybe that's just me. Sometimes I think the actor's internal qualities for the role are more important than his ethnic background.

As for the rest of the movie, I thought it was masterfully made. The soundtrack, cinematography, acting, etc.

I don't cry very often at movies, like I said before. Sometimes, movies will make me cry at one point, but not the second time I watch them, and I will just feel manipulated. That's no so with the Passion. I've seen it thrice and every time it had the same effect on me. And no, it's not just because it's Jesus. It's because no one alive deserves his treatment. Were I not a believer, I would still have been moved and shaken by it. But being a believer, it is perhaps ten times more meaningful. I attended this film with a friend of mine who is not a believer, and he told me (as I wasn't watching the audience) that he'd never seen so many people cry at a movie.

There are only a handfull of other movies that have made me cry in my adult life:

Grave of the Fireflies
Dead Man Walking
Monster

(at the moment I can't really think of anything else)

Like a good number of aspies, crying is an emotion I rarely exhibit.

I don't cry when people die.
I don't cry when bad stuff happens to me.
I don't cry when I'm hurt.
I don't cry when I break up with girls.

I sometimes sniffle listening to Beethoven.

I watched Mel Gibson's THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST when it first came out on DVD about a year ago, and I bawled. I cried most of the way through. It was beautiful to me, and touching almost beyond expression.

I just watched it again with my father, who'd never seen it, and I cried again. I'm almost certain it was the first time since my first viewing a year ago.

Did anybody else have a similar experience with this film or some other one?

Who here agrees with me that Passion of the Christ was more of a comedy than anything? I thought 'Passion of the Christ' seemed a lot more like a Mel Brooks film than a Mel Gibson film

It was pretty obvious that the crucifixion scene was intended to be comical.