If I see this movie at all, it'll be on DVD so I can fast-forward through the gratuitious squickiness. If that reduces it to a 15-minute movie, well, at least I won't be out the 9 bucks and two hours of my life. (Actually, given the tactics used to promote it, I will not see it in a way that could contribute to it being labelled a blockbuster. I'll borrow a DVD from someone who already owns it. I'd even consider a ripped copy, which I never do, if I actually knew how to procure one.)
I probably won't bother to see it, though. The reviewer who called it a two-hour snuff film seems to have hit the nail on the head (if you'll pardon the expression). This movie is not about the message of Christianity; it is about blood and gore in slow-motion, made knowing that it'll rile up some viewers against the people they hold responsible (aided by inaccurate depictions of the Romans in the movie), and I just can't believe that's an accident. While I don't think this film is going to do the massive harm that some fear it will, I can already see that it has caused some small damage in Jewish-Catholic relations, which had been going along pretty well since Nostra Aetate. It'll all blow over, but it's sad that we have to go through it for a movie that doesn't even tell the real message of the religion it supposedly supports. Or, at least, I choose to believe that most traditional Catholics do not believe that violence and hatred are the messages of their faith.
I hope you find someone to watch Schindler's List with. I actually watched it alone and was fine, but I don't know you. It's intense, but in a way very different from Gibson's movie.
(no subject)
I probably won't bother to see it, though. The reviewer who called it a two-hour snuff film seems to have hit the nail on the head (if you'll pardon the expression). This movie is not about the message of Christianity; it is about blood and gore in slow-motion, made knowing that it'll rile up some viewers against the people they hold responsible (aided by inaccurate depictions of the Romans in the movie), and I just can't believe that's an accident. While I don't think this film is going to do the massive harm that some fear it will, I can already see that it has caused some small damage in Jewish-Catholic relations, which had been going along pretty well since Nostra Aetate. It'll all blow over, but it's sad that we have to go through it for a movie that doesn't even tell the real message of the religion it supposedly supports. Or, at least, I choose to believe that most traditional Catholics do not believe that violence and hatred are the messages of their faith.
I hope you find someone to watch Schindler's List with. I actually watched it alone and was fine, but I don't know you. It's intense, but in a way very different from Gibson's movie.