saw the "passion"

during certain points of the movie, i had to keep from laughing and risking death by pummeling from the more religiously devout in the theatre audience. mel gibson really has an eye for the macabre. first, he casts an actress who looks like anne murray without the eyebrows to play the devil. then, he gratuitously casts little people to represent the freakish, the devilish and the horrific in the movie (why aren't little people organizations up in arms? shit, even PETA joined in all the gibson bashing). the most thrilling thing for me in seeing the movie was hearing aramaic spoken on the big screen and hearing and sharing heckling jokes with my friend, "d.":

d: who directed this? matthew barney?

me: jesus! why the hell didn't mel get into the horror movie genre?

there was a moment when the visual effects sunk to the level (as "d" put it) of clash of the titans, but overall, hey! i don't get what all the controversy is all about. i don't buy the anti-jewish claims (have the protesters even seen the film?). it's not like this jesus story hasn't been told before and replayed over and over during easter weekend on tv. would people prefer if gibson re-wrote the story of the passion with the greeks wanting to put jesus to death? shit, maybe the swiss. nobody ever demonizes the swiss because they're so damn neutral. they're "safe." maybe, he could have thrown in an osama or saddam hussein subplot. (i smell a big controversy coming on here. well, that is if anyone even read this damn thing). definitely, "d" and i were thrilled to see three people of color! in the entire movie (smell the sarcasm), but then again, what did i expect? white director, white leading cast, white writers. kudos to those few black actors that made it on-screen! now, can someone explain the king herod portrayal?