Satanic Critics Pan The Passion

ccording to director Mel Gibson, film critics from across the nation have proven their fealty with the dark lord Satan by panning his latest film The Passion of the Christ, a gruesome religious horror flick released to overwhelmingly negative critical response last week. This novel reaction to film criticism has raised questions nationwide over whether the 48-year-old actor and filmmaker is merely berserkly fanatical, or just completely insane. Not helping Gibson's cause is the director's non-figurative conviction that Satan tried to keep his film from being made, and might have succeeded if not for the intervention of the Holy Ghost. Unfortunately for Gibson, the Holy Ghost was unable to prevent Satan from pointing out to film critics the film's turgid tone, plodding pacing, uneven characterization and excessively pointless violence.

"They are the forces of Satan or the dupes of Satan," Gibson offered charitably, giving non-fans the choice of being either evil or stupid.

"Holy shit was that a bad movie," disagreed Satan's minion Elvis Mitchell of the New York Times, who must've been typing his review while drenched in lamb's blood. "That piece of shit was worse than We Were Soldiers."

The film opened to sellout crowds after months of speculation that it was going to be really offensive to Jews, generated by Gibson cashing in on his "Jews Killed Jesus" Catholic offshoot faith and his father's reputation as a notorious Holocaust denier to market the film with the catchy tagline "The Jews Hate It," despite the fact that no religious groups had seen or commented on the film at that point.

In interviews, Gibson has explained that his Traditionalist Catholic faith, which rejects the Vatican's exoneration of the Jewish race for the death of Christ, grows from his bond with his father Hutton Gibson. In either a brilliant marketing ploy or disturbing evidence of inner turmoil, Gibson's answers to requests to clarify his own stance on the Holocaust have been rambling and evasive.

Unable to go five whole minutes without saying something unnervingly kooky, however, Gibson's response to New York Times writer Frank Rich's article pointing out that the director was inventing nonexistent Jewish outrage to market his film was like something straight out of The Passion itself. "I wanted to kill him. I want his intestines on a stick. I want to kill his dog." Luckily for Gibson, from all reports Rich's dog is one of those "turn the other cheek" sorts who is unlikely to accuse the director of speaking for Satan.

The relentlessly masochistic tone of Gibson's film has caused some to ponder the director's obsession with torture, as evidenced by the mandatory torture sequences contained in nearly every film in which Gibson has appeared. From being electrocuted in Lethal Weapon and drawn and quartered in Braveheart, Gibson even went so far as to insist on adding an unscripted toe-smashing scene to Brian Helgeland's Payback. Though he was unsuccessful in similar attempts to add a testicular electrocution scene to the chickflick hit What Women Want, it was not for lack of trying.

Meanwhile, The Passion's large opening box office is sure to inspire imitators, and early word that such knock-offs as The Passion of the Weekend at Bernie's and Friday the 13th XI: Run, Jesus, Run are already in the works. Additional reports hint at an upcoming franchise of movies where Belgian marshal arts expert Jean-Claude Van Damme will beat the shit out of Jesus for two hours in various exotic locales. Whether the makers of those films will be able to pull off Gibson's brass-balled bluster, claiming that critics of The Passion's blitzkrieg of violence are merely deficient in character and unable to handle the power of his flawless cinema, may well depend on how closely they can duplicate that crazy look in his eyes.

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Living with Camembert is like renting a room with a large bucket full of sadsack. What a crybaby! All he ever does is sit and mope, or sit and cry, or sit and do anything else. I forgive the sitting, him being in the wheelchair, but the depression has got to go. You don't live with Rok "Big Buzzin' Smile" Finger and wear a frown all the time. My middle name is Fun, the part that isn't "Big Buzzin' Smile," that's more of a self-proclaimed nickname.

In order to get Camembert out on the town and living the high life like yours truly, I'm presenting the first-ever-of-its-kind Rok Finger contest. This is not like my previous event, "Help Find the Boston Strangler," that was more of a police hunt. This is a real-deal contest. The winner, and there can be only one, wins an actual dream date with Camembert.

"What do I get out of this?" you may ask. Well, if you're a man, nothing, forget it, you're disqualified by reason of chromosomes, Camembert doesn't swing that way. And if he does swing that way, I'm not going to help raise his batting average. This applies only to 100% true blue females and anyone convincing enough to fool me.

When I say "Win A Dream Date With Camembert!" I do mean "dream date." And I mean Camembert, this is not one of those novelty contests where some celebrity Mel Gibson steps in to take the young lady out. I've got to get Camembert out of the apartment a night or two of the week or I'm going to kill him.

And by that I mean, what a charming young man! You've never met a gentleman like Camembert because they simply do not exist. You're talking the kind of charming prince like in fairy tales. Ladies, for the first time date a man without worry that he could at any time physically assault you or force you to have sex with him. Camembert would be lucky to kiss you without fainting. He's interested in your mind, and wants to know if he can have it when you're done with it. Camembert is no sex fiend, the very thought of sex makes him giggle and vomit, usually concurrently.

I suggest you run to your desk and take out your best stationery (no, the other one) and fill out two or three pages detailing why you should go out with Camembert. Please include a photo or two, if you can't fit in one, and let Camembert know why you're the stand-out cow in the herd. Please refrain from using foul language, it makes him cry. Yes, this is your chance to enter Rok Finger history and get a free dinner at Captain D's.

Don't worry, ladies, there's no losers here, except Camembert. Anyone who enters the contest will receive some sort of gift from Rok Finger as a thanks for trying. Now, I have neither the time nor budget to take every runner-up out to dinner myself, but I'll see to it you at least get oral sex or some form of make-up prize. That's the Rok Finger personal guarantee, and I guarantee that.

Please send all entries to the commune offices immediately with "ATTENTION: Oral Sex by Rok Finger" on the envelopes. Be warned, I understand the mail is pretty turbulent this time of year, especially for the overweight or unattractive, I can't assure every entry will reach us.

However, let's not forget why we're doing this: Camembert. Out of the house. Before I kill him. Thanks for entering, you'll be glad you did.

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This week's Nedmiller Column is excerpted from "Spastic Diaper: The Ned Nedmiller Story" by Rolando Burf. Continued from last week.

And it might still be that way today if it weren't for one Nedriff Nipplebelt Nedmiller. When Ned heard of the buffalo problem, he locked himself in his laboratory, pronouncing that he would not appear again until he had the solution. Neighbors wondered at the strange noises coming from Ned's lab at all hours of the day and night: the singing of saws, the burping of crows and the vague smell of a swimming pool on fire. Someone called for a constable when a rumor circulated that Ned was melting down school children into paraffin wax, but just as the fuzz was about to knock on Ned's door, the man himself flung open his doors and announced to the world that their problems were over.

The device that Ned presented to the world looked like a cross between a smallish piano and a largish dentistry utensil, on wheels. It had a crank on one side and a flared cone on the other. And on top there was a mannequin head wearing a hat. On the side, hand-lettered in on it's black surface in black paint (or so he told the people), it said "Ned Nedmiller's Framjambulous Laughing Machine".

Refusing the spectators' pleas for a demonstration, Ned hopped aboard the Laughing Machine and rode it west, toward the Plains. It was a four-week journey, but thanks to the help of a flock of pelicans, and Ned's invention of a land-sail, it only took him a month and a half. He arrived to find the Chinamen, sitting about and scratching their heads, as a stoic buffalo stood, motionless, at the eastern termination of the Walking Rail.

Without saying a word, Ned positioned his Laughing Machine in front of the buffalo, wet his thumb to check wind direction, and gave the crank a furious crank. Laughter of every size and denomination, every type and at all points along the spectrum of sanity, poured forth from the laughing machine's cone. Chortles, titters, guffaws and even silent shaking filled the air. Three times the laughter produced by a fart in Congress spilled out of the Laughing Machine. Laughter so contagious that all of the Chinamen began to laugh along, and those who had yet to drop their tools and daydream now dropped their tools and doubled over in laughter.

The buffalo first looked at Ned (who nodded) in a confused fashion for a moment before it began to laugh. For those who have never heard a buffalo laugh, I suggest climbing inside an industrial textiles washing machine, starting up the cycle, and then letting loose the warthogs you've been hiding in your pants. Then you'll have bigger fish to fry than wondering what a buffalo sounds like when it laughs.

The buffalo laughed and laughed until finally it collapsed onto it's side and shook with buffalo laughter. Ned promptly shut off his laughing machine and when the Chinamen had recovered, they went about their merry task, building their Walking Rail all the way to New England. Ned accompanied them the rest of the way, providing laughing machine support whenever they came across buffalo, brown bears or hillbillies.

When they finally arrived in New York, Ned and the Chinamen were given a tickertape parade, and a recording contract with Capitol Records. In a show of gratitude, the Mayor of New York gave them all complimentary tickets for the maiden voyage of the first luxury liner built entirely by the blind, the Titanic.

The problem was, the Titanic was sailing to New York, not from it, so Ned and the Chinamen quickly hitched a ride on a grand blimp called the "Hindenberg 2: NO SMOKING" all the way over to England, where they were just in time to ride the Titanic back to New York.

Ned and the Titanic were like peas in a pod, and he entertained the guests and crew day and night with his inflatable pacemaker and a metal box that he claimed to contain Spain. He was voted "Best Grandmother" on the Titanic and was given a commemorative kick in the head. Unfortunately, these blissful days were not to last.

Out of nowhere the "biggest skeeter this side of the Rio Grande" latched onto the ship and started "jimmyin' open the fuselage with his tremendous skeeter-beak". Ned knew that time was short and heroism was in high demand, so he leapt into the fray with only a freakishly large Q-tip and a loincloth on his side. When all was said and done, "them skeeter" had been swabbed into submission and nine months later Ned would unexpectedly give birth to a small Laotian boy named Ring-rong, who would go to work in the diamond mines, and was years later buried under a landslide of engagement rings. Unfortunately for all aboard though, at that moment some joker pulled the plug on the Atlantic and "them Titanic" went down the drain, never to be seen again. Ned survived only by holing up in the belly of a whale named Tim, who later washed up on the shores of Costa Rica, proving his long-standing claim that he was allergic to Danes.

Over a hundred years later, the Walking Rails are still the mode of trans-continental transport preferred by most 10 year-old runaways. None of this would be possible without Nedrum Nightynight Nedmiller, and it's truly time that the city of Pasadena, California erects a gigantic knee brace in his name.

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