i have a neat job.

i mean there are days that are tough, when the kids won't shut up and the days that i'm at work for twelve hours or more and the list of things to do never gets shorter and then some kid needs a ride home. i don't mind any of those things at all, in fact quite enjoy them, it's just that the confluence of all of it sometimes is enough to push a person to the edge of madness.

but there are those other times that the perks really shine through and you get to spend all monday afternoon at a movie screening. that's what happened yesterday. i got an invitiation to an advance screening of The Passion of The Christ, the mel gibson movie that's stirred up so much controversy. what we saw wasn't the finished movie, the ending wasn't complete, the score hadn't been integrated, so there was placeholder music, and some effects hadn't been put in either, but that didn't really take anything at all away from the experience and definitely took nothing from the story.

right from the beginning, the movie grabs you and doesn't let go. it's ridiculously poignant and unbelievably violent, i'd never cried in a movie because someone got the living hell beat out of him until seeing this portrayal of the violence Jesus was subjected to. what makes the story go so far, however isn't necessarily poignancy or depth of the storytelling, the vividness of the images, or even the use of the ancient language, but the context and the knowledge of who was the story and why it unfolded like it did.

mel gibson was there and did a q & a right after the movie ended and listening to him, you could tell that this work was something that he did sincerely, something that, for him, wasn't a career aspiration so much as an act of obedience. listening to gibson talk about how he'd carried the vision of this film for twelve years before he finally made it and how he couldn't get away from it, and now as it's nearing completion the vision that he has for how it'll affect the people who see it, it's clear that he understands the scope of the story he's telling.

it opens february 25, go see it.

feeling: small
thinking of: reality
music: "louder than the mob" the o.c. supertones