While I was out... 

While I was out...

It would be, I think, an impossible and redundant task to try and go back over EVERYTHING that has come out between my departure and return to this blog. However, since they will no doubt be the subject of further news and, thus, further blogging on my part, I feel I should go back and offer my take on some of the bigger film-related stories of the recent months.

The biggest and most significant thing to happen to the world of film and film fandom in the time I've been gone is, unquestionably to my mind, the staggering sweep of the Academy Awards by "Lord of the Rings: The Return of The King." It is not possible to convey the strength of my feelings on this, but I will try.

This is the single most important Oscar victory (hell, victorIES) to occur within the lifetime of most people reading this blog. In one fell swoop, the curse was broken: At the Academy Awards, the mouth of the "mainstream," the third and culmulative chapter of an epic FANTASY trilogy blew all competition out the doors.

The importance of this event to the future of film fandom CANNOT be overestimated. The last wall dividing "the geek genres" from "normal genres" has been blasted to scrap. The message to the film industry, whether they choose to recognize it is, to quote Joaquin Pheonix in SIGNS: "The Nerds Were Right!" Sf/f action-dramas have ruled at the boxoffice for a few decades now, but now with this a final hurdle is crossed: Not only can a serious 3 1/2 hour epic about Hobbits, elves and magical rings dominate worldwide ticket sales; now it can dominate prestigious award shows, too.

Film buffs, myself included, can joke all we want about how Oscars are crap and don't "matter" to any real extent, but the truth is that the award does carry real lasting weight: Fantasy/action films may ultimately prove a "fad" in terms of genre trends, but this record will last: LOTR was already enshrined among the great cinematic epics of all time before this award, but now it's enshrinement is CODIFIED. It will be in the "memory" reel of Oscar history, included on lists, etc. It will not fade, not ever.

If film is the dominating artistic medium of American culture, and the "heart" of film culture is film fandom; then a LOTR oscar win, a slate of huge-grossing films based on comic books and hundreds of fantasy/scifi projects fast-tracked at the studios makes a profound statement ABOUT that culture: The beating heart of American pop-culture has moved from coffee bars and watercoolers and taken up new residence in the comic book store and the World Wide Web.

Short and sweet: The Geeks have inherited the Earth.

The SECOND biggest film story going on right now is the ongoing jawboning over the single most overrated film I can recall in my 23 years of age. I'm talking, of course, about Mel Gibson's self-financed torture-porn Jesus movie, "The Passion of The Christ."

I've seen the film twice and found it to be a major dissapointment both times. It's a heavy-handed, overblown, preposterous would-be epic that somehow manages the feat of being both pretentious and simplistic at the same time. Using a (dubious, at best) profession of Gospel-fidelity as both a transparent shield and battering ram, Gibson (who's films and acting I'm usually a huge fan of) offers up what is essentially a context-free revel in the mechanics of scourging, flagellation and Roman crucifixtion. It's notable, sure, as the most violent film that everyone's 85 year-old churgoing Great Aunt will ever see, but in the end it's little more than an unending, numbing and ultimately BORING spectacle of stage-blood and extreme closeups of subtlety-challenged actor Jim Caveziel. (Who is currently traversing the country speaking at religious/conservative events, solemnly intoning his belief that he was "fated" for the role because his initials are J.C. and explaining without a drop of irony why he believes that his strict Catholic upbringing forbids him from simulating a sex scene with Jennifer Lopez but encourages him to simulate his own drawn-out slaughter.)

The film's "moral center" is practically nonexistant: The extent of what it has to say about Christ can be summed up as "He took a beating for YOU, man!" The revolutionary elements of Christian philosophy are giving the short-shrift in favor of gushing wounds and slow-motion Aramaic moaning. It doesn't just preach to the choir, it bludgeon's the choir into submission berates them for not singing in the Traditional Latin.

With it's emphasis on guilt-tripping the audience into psuedo-awe, the film manages in two hours to cast aside every reform and scrap of progress made in the Christian faith from Martin Luther up through Vatican II: "The Passion" de-evolves the whole concept of Christian belief all the way back to the barbaric, blood-soaked Medieval mindset that first birthed the dubious theater of "passion plays."

Finally, it's just not a very good movie: There's almost no story to speak of, context and background are nonexistant and the direction is pretentious and over-the-top. Even Cecil B. DeMille, who based his epics in the Old Testament in order to push the envelope of onscreen sexuality and carnage with the biblically-concious cenors of the time, would likely shake his head is astonishment at the monumental "look at my symbolism!!!!!!" scene where the "Wrath of God" is signaled by a lone teardrop following from Heaven.

The reprecussions of the now (finally) lessening but still major success of "The Passion" have been varied and vast, and I'm sure I'll still blog more about them in the future. However, I'll leave with this: The best two Jesus movies ever made are STILL "The Gospel According to St. Matthew" and "The Last Temptation of Christ," skip this and rent those... and THEN go see Monty Python's "Life of Brian," being re-released to theaters soon.

Thank Heaven for Python :)