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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You meet some interesting people riding the bus. It's a lot easier to make friends on the bus than it is in a car, since in your car, most of your interactions with other drivers involve shouted sexual boasting or frenzied calls for bloodshed. On the bus, it's way more laid back. Everybody knows they're not getting anywhere any time soon, so they relax and take the time to read the paper, huff paint or strike up a conversation with their fellow riders. It's easy to make friends swapping stories about how your car blew up and the fire department is suing you for money you don't have.

One of my bus friends, let's call him Manny, works as a security guard down at the laundr-o-mat. Raise your hand if you didn't know laundr-o-mats had private security professionals in their employ. Me neither. The national rate of tube sock theft must have gone through the roof since the last time my dryer caught on fire. Anyway, funny thing about Manny is that he used to be on TV. Well, a TV anyway, his brother's TV. His brother Miguel would hook up his new video camera to the TV and direct little Columbo mysteries for Manny to star in, written by their little sister and some guy they found living in their storage unit.

You should have seen the shows, they were pretty fun. Though truthfully that's more of a tease on my part than anything, since it would be impossible for any of you to ever see them. Miguel didn't know he could tape the shows while they were shooting, since he hadn't got that deep into the video recorder's manual at that point. So it were strictly a live event. Usually we just watched Miguel and Manny in the room, since what ended up on the TV was so jerky and poorly lit that you'd rather eat raw oysters on a roller coaster than look at that for more than about four seconds.

But still, it was cool that Manny was on TV, at least until he got a big head about it. After a couple of shows, Manny started demanding his own bedroom and a cheese tray and everybody else kind of lost interest in doing the show. Finally Manny got tired of waiting for the writers to barf up another mystery for him to solve every week, so he went out into the real world to find some real mysteries to solve, which got him his ass kicked at the speed of light.

When Manny got out of physical therapy, he decided that being a security guard would be the best way to get paid to solve mysteries, or at least watch soap operas all day. Plus, they let you carry a walkie-talkie. Regular folk are harshly ridiculed for walking around with walkie-talkies on their belts (unless they're also carrying ray guns), but not security guards. Therein lies their power.

Manny and I have this game we play called "Stealth," where we sneak up and scare the crap out of each other at the most unexpected times. Manny's not very good at it, usually it's just me stealthing Manny most of the time, but he did get me good one time when I came home one afternoon and found him having sex with a prostitute in my bed. That's Manny though, just when you're about to count him out it turns out he's got an ace card ferreted up his ass.

On Manny's first day on the job at the laundr-o-mat I wanted to bring down the granddaddy of all stealths on him, so I went there the day before and snuck into one of those big dryers before they closed the place. I hung out there all night (thank God for flip-books), and when Manny came to work the next morning, I waited quietly until he walked close to the dryer. Then, "Booya!" I stealthed his ass something fierce! It must have been some kind of world-record stealthing because Manny banged his knee brace on a change machine and he went down like a giant sack of shit. I've never laughed so hard in my life. I think I also set an Omar Bricks land speed record getting out of there when Manny came back after me with that screwdriver. Sweet flaming Jesus that was funny.

Turns out Manny's got a lousy sense of humor, so guess who can't ride the bus to work any more. It's definitely for the best though; did you know you can take a taxi to work? Talk about moving up in the world, your own seat and everything. As far as I'm concerned, the unwashed masses can have their precious bus, they don't know what they're missing.

So it's time to break out the jealous mugs, boys. Omar Bricks has got a private driver! Yeehaw.

Bricks out.

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Dear readers, I have never been a religious man. I have trouble believing in anything I cannot see, unless it is revealed to me by a trustworthy patron of a familiar bar. But all that has changed—I am now a believer, for I have been touched by an angel. Or not quite touched. Pulverized might be the word for it.

Yes, there is a God, and he deemed I should get the beating of a lifetime to prove it. Or, it's possible, there isn't a God, there's just the dead. Bodiless apparitions hauling ass here and there in our corporeal world, and occasionally taking time out of their schedule to kick our asses. Maybe there's a God, and if that's what he wanted to impress on me, just send me a warning. Not the full-blown throttling I already received, just a slap across the face or something. Just to really drive home the point.

Come to think of it, I'm not really sure what the angel wanted to impart to me. He didn't say much. More of the "talks with his fists" type. But you can't really make a point that way, not a coherent one anyway. He growled and ranted and muttered things here or there, but they mostly concerned some guy named Donnie and the money Donnie owes him. I suppose he thought I was Donnie, it was hard to tell with a ghostly fist boxing my ears.

You may be thinking I have surely seen ghosts before, or had otherworldly encounters—aliens, the sasquatch, time-travelers from the future. And then there's my dead reporter friend Mordecai "Three-Finger" Brown, but frankly I've never believed he was really dead, it all just seemed like a tax dodge. None of that prepared me for seeing a real, actual ghost in my bedroom, demanding from me money I didn't have, and then wiping the bedroom floor with me.

It began as a simple enough evening, in my matching red pajamas and nightcap, monogrammed, of course, turning in for bed. I had clapped off the lights and turned my TV to the late-show reruns of M*A*S*H that I so love. I must have dozed off, because I woke up to complete darkness and the sound of drunken mumbling. I could hear also, beneath the drunk talk, the sound of footsteps. I opened my eyes, but could see nothing but darkness. Then, I saw the outline of a hunched-over figure, and heard him dragging his heels toward my bed. At first, I thought it was Rascal, my manservant, playing another prank, but then I realized Rascal is quite the big fellow, and this figure was more of a modest size, like myself. Then I thought it was me, playing some gag on myself, but that made no sense.

Before I could figure out exactly what was happening, a cold hand grabbed my leg. Then, I was yanked out of bed and pummeled. Icy dead knuckles, like the hand of a skeleton, smacked the hell out of my face, fattened my lip, blackened my eye, and held me down against the hard wood floor. I tried to get up, but he couldn't hear my pleas while he was rambling about his money.

Being the investigator I am, I immediately went to find out as much as I could about the penthouse apartment I live in. Quite a fascinating history, if you must know. It turns out a very successful man named Gatsby once lived there, a long time ago, and may have even been the Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald based his character on, at least I've heard great things about him. He was a well-to-do-man, like myself, and very generous, which is where the comparison ends. But those who remember him, like the door man to my building, stress that while Gatsby had been a very generous man, he didn't just give things away. He expected to all debts to be repaid, and apparently had a hell of a drinking problem. I grew excited right away, and was asked to step away from the door. A ghost of a man much like myself! I can't wait to find out more.

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