The two movies are completely different, though. Kill Bill (not a personal favorite) was intended to be an over-the-top martial arts/swordplay fantasy. Passion was, apparently, meant to be a realistic portrayal of the last 12 hours of Jesus' life. I found the violence in each equally outlandish - in the case of Kill Bill it was meant to be. In the case of Passion, I can only attribute it to inept filmmaking. Of course, I also think Braveheart is laughably awful.

Take a deliriously over-the-top horror flick like _Dead Alive._ The violence is utterly grotequse... and utterly hilarious. It becomes a cartoon orgy of gushing fluids and ripped flesh. So does Passion - but I don't think it was meant to seem that ridiculous.

Personally, I saw nothing human or realistic about Passion. I thought its depiction was so absurd and overwrought, it played more like an S&M cartoon. Mel missed both Jesus the God and Jesus the Man and instead gave us Jesus as Wile E. Coyote. Very quickly, the violence ceased to be shocking and merely became ludicrous, and I found it very difficult to keep myself from laughing during the movie. Mel is, quite simply, a rotten director.

"The Gospel According to St. Matthew" also presents an angry, determined reformer, but does so with considerably greater skill.

It's depressing that people would rally around such a mediocre and unchallenging movie as Passion in this manner. There were literally hundreds of better, braver movies made just in 2004.

Im not saying that other movies of the kind are worse,or better, im just sepperating them as movies from different Leagues. As for the violence, yes, in such dramatic events one can utilize a prism of Exaggeration to give emphasis on certain aspects of the story itself. The same people that "loughed" at the violence of this movie were the same people who praised and regognized violence as an essential ingredient of the perfection that some movies like "Kill bill Vol.1" , a complete joke.

Yes, byt POTC went off from that "romantized" image of a jesus SO wooden and wise...which made him look even less human. In The passions u see the human side of the whole story, and added dimension which was absent by other films, thus appealing more realistic to the audience. A Depiction so realistic just creates its own category, you cant compare it to other relegious films, the fact that people see it as a relegious film is a proove that these movies are kept aside from normal movies. Its just story, you can view it even if you are not a christian. In the U.S. A few years back the goverment actually legalized and regognized "the Jedi Dogma" as a religion, i suppose that makes the star wars series relegious movies. The true fact is that this movie was fought So hard by lots of people, even christians. But since the controversy actually worked as a free publicity thing...they got a box office hit. So how can we fight it now? Give it nothing. Plus in all other movies you mentioned above no movie even dared to potray the jewish court so vividly.

Chris,

What you posted about calling Hollywood "liberal" being code for anti-Semitism is VERY true. Just look at this post, with S_Coaster mentioning "Jewish" studio heads at least twice, apparently forgetting that there are more than 5,000 voting members of the AMPAS who are mostly NOT Jewish.

Eddie

Posters... 75% meaning people who can actually put a stop sing to movies, big-heads as i like to call them...Not public. By saying that you potray me as an antisemitist! Im Not!

2nd) Where in hell did i wrote that hollywood is liberal?
3rd) Relegious Yes, Ordinary, No! Dont put this film at the same "league" with "jesus from nazareth" or other films you mentioned before, the movie's story is the same, but they are different from heaven to earth.

4th) "it's dangerous to purport that mainly Jews didn't like the movie" Explain please cause i,personally take it as a threat. I Didnt purport that...cnn, bloomberg...bbc did that by saying "the jewish community finds the film tautning...." or "The jewish people tried to convince other moviegoers to avoid the screenings pleading racism..." etc etc.

S_Coaster,

It's phrases like "jew big-heads" that make some readers, or at least me, a little uncomfortable with your postings. I do not know you well enough to judge how you mean this, and I would not accuse anyone of anti-semitism without knowing much more. It is possible, for example, that English is not your first language, so you don't know how provocative such a phrase can be. I also don't understand why the "Jewish issue" came up in this discussion at all, which was a discussion about the relative artistic merits of Passion of the Christ. It might benefit you to choose a more careful manner in which to express your thoughts in order to avoid accidentally conveying impressions you did not intend. On the internet, our words exist with little or no context and misinterpretation is a real risk.

Jew or Gentile, what's that got to do with whether or not Passion is a good movie?

Now if we were specifically discussing whether or not Passion was an anti-Semitic film, that might be a different story, but that hasn't been brought up.

A Statement: THE POSTS ABOVE (AT LEAST MINE) ARE NOT AGAINST JEWISH PEOPLE, AND THEY CERTAINLY DONT INCLUDE ANY HINTS OF HATRED OR DISCOMFORT AGAINST JEWISH READERS. THE FRASE "JEWISH" IN GENERAL IS REFERING NOT TO THE WHOLE COMMUNITY OF THOSE PEOPLE, BUT TO THE PEOPLE I BELIEVE THAT TRIED TO STOP THE MOVIE MENTIONED ABOVE DURING ITS RELEASE DATES WORLDWIDE,BASED ON FACTS THAT WHERE ANNOUNCED DURING THE PERIOD OF THE RELEASE OF THE MOVIE FROM MEDIA SUCH AS TV, RADIO, INTERNET.
IF YOU BELIEVE THAT THE MY POSTS ABOVE INSULTS YOU AS A MEMBER OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY FEEL FREE TO DISCUSS IT WITH ME.
(BIG HEADS= PEOPLE WITH INFLUENCIAL POWER AT STUDIOS/DISTRIBUTION COMPANIES, NOTHING MORE)

oh, and one more thing, freedom of expression, can be found in many constitutions and dictionaries worldwide.

Censorship: Social practices aiming to bar the creation or dissemination (e.g., the publication or public display) of disapproved forms of artistic expression.

Thank you for your time.