My day of blasphemy

reviewed Sun, 30 May 2004

I spent much of last Sunday in my version of church, a movie theater, seeing two religiously themed movies. I had, of course, already seen Life of Brian (even seen it on a big screen, at a Monty Python film festival at a small theater near my junior high school that shut down not long after and became, ironically, a church), but its re-release seemed like a good opportunity to deal The Passion of the Christ a poke in the eye a little more directly than just not seeing it.

Brian has new scenes added, apparently, but I couldn't tell you what they were, since I didn't remember the movie well enough. I didn't recall quite so much nudity, but apparently that's not new. I did remember that it drags on a bit too long, which is still the case, but all in all, good, blasphemous fun.

I'd love to secretly splice bits of Brian into The Passion:

during the Sermon on the Mount -- "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth" -- cut to "I'm glad they're getting something, 'cause they've 'ad a hell of a time. "
a scene of Jesus preaching would splice to Graham Chapman earnestly telling a rapt mob of believers, "You must work things out for yourselves" (to which they intone in unison, "Yes, we must work things out for ourselves")
and, of course, you'd have to cut from a bloodied Jim Caviezel writhing on the cross to Eric Idle merrily warbling, "Always look on the bright side of life..."

Of course, the genius of Brian is that the Pythons didn't care who they offended: Christians, Romans, the Judean People's Front. Saved!, unfortunately, tries very hard not to offend anyone (except perhaps the unbearably sanctimonious, but there's no pleasing them). It starts off a little bit like Heathers in a Christian high school, except that the girls of the school's reigning clique are insufferably good. The most saccharinely self-righteous of them is Hilary Faye, played brightly (if a bit too caricatured) by clean teen queen Mandy Moore. She's much more entertaining than our bland heroine, Mary, played by Jena Malone, who gets pregnant but doesn't have the wit to emulate her namesake and claim immaculate conception. In fact, just about everyone is more interesting than Mary: the rebellious Jewish girl who likes to taunt Hilary Faye with the prospect that she might be saved; smarmy Pastor Skip (Martin Donovan), who shouts inspirational exhortations like, "Let's get our Christ on!"; even Hilary Faye's handicapable brother, though Macauley Culkin plays him a little too archly and detachedly.

Though the movie lands some funny jokes early on, it really runs out of steam -- more damagingly, it runs out of venom. It preaches tolerance -- except, apparently, for fat, ugly people. Sure, everyone winds up turning away from Hilary Faye's rigid sanctimony, but it seems to be as much, if not more, because she used to be fat and pimply than because they've seen the light. Plus, I'm a little disappointed, given that Michael Stipe was a producer on the film, that they never used "Losing My Religion" on the soundtrack.

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