On this Ash Wednesday, Cinecultist wants to be upbeat. But with all of these clips of Jim Caviezel with the living daylights kicked out of him on every screen, it can be tough to keep positive. Really though, let's put it in perspective here -- our friend may stand us up for sushi dinner, but at least we're not being scourged. The subway train may just sit on the track unable to move for half an hour in the morning but we're not being buried to our neck and stoned (as in the depiction of Afganistan in Osama). So we're actually ahead here.
As you may have noticed, the critical opinion on the Passion of the Christ are now flying fast and furious and according to Rotten Tomatoes, the average review is a negative one. The "big gun" who actually seems to like it, besides Peter Travers at Rolling Stone who's turning into the Larry King of film criticism in his old age, is Richard Roeper who called it "the most powerful, important and by far the most graphic interpretation of Christ's final hours ever put on film." Wanting to read the whole rave review for ourselves, CC clicked over but discovered this quote came from his television show review not from a print review. The show always features visual clips from the film to puncuate the reviews but the site only has audio, and remember the film is in Latin and Aramaic, so the clips on the mp3 are totally unintelligible. So picture here Cinecultist giggling delightedly at how silly Satan and Jesus sound speaking what we hear as gibberish. Expect the thunderbolt to hit CC headquarters any moment now for mocking his most noble and holy Gibsonness.
Posted by karen at February 25, 2004 8:06 AM