Arts & Life ViaMMIMMI, Available After 4:00 pm At The Movies BBQ Beef Ribs RESTAIIRAN1' - TAVERN *) Our restaurant is available for private parties, mornings & afternoons on Saturdays & Sundays Newly reel vated private b quet '13 95 The Passion Of The Christ' Featuring Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ Sauce Mel Gibson's blood-soaked "Passion" indicts Slow Roasted Beef Ribs Chargrilled and basted with Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ Sauce Jews first, Romans second. Served with choice of one side dish, soup or salad MICHAEL FOX Special to the Jewish News A facili 6066 W. Maple Rd. 4 ° W. Bloomfield 248 851 0805 - - Open 7 Days A Week 44 ‘ . 4: Azat $, d2e : at ADAT SHALOM SYNAGOGUE * /24,4e,itteittp :::* JEFFREY L. ROSENBERG n unrelentingly bloody and brutal slog through the last 12 hours of Jesus life, The Passion of the Christ is tinged with neither spiritual enlightenment nor religious inspiration. . But then it's not intended to engage the cerebrum or the soul. This is a movie designed to work purely on an emotional level, from the first omi- nous notes of foreboding on the soundtrack to the final shot of Jesus' hand wound as he rises from the dead. But the more I think about the movie — and I write this a few hours after leav- ing the theater — the greater my impres- sion that it is a nasty piece of work. The power of movies sometimes lies in a single memorable image, and sometimes it derives from the gradual and subtle accretion of impressions. The Passion skillfully makes use of both. For starters, all of the Jews (or Pharisees, to use the press kit's euphe- mism) are dark, bearded and not to be - trusted. The stout High Priests are wealthy and cunning, while ordinary Jews are scraggly and mean-spirited. Except for two scenes between the , A PRE•PASSOVER FRIDAY DINNER CARRYOUT ca. 248.626.5702 6944(2Ny • Nisi PaJ, • itAl Pa/fra • tihi eatei Orders Due by Tuesday, March 23, 2004 Pick-up on Thursday, April 1, 2004 by 3:00 at Adat 8 8 Homemade Gefilte Fish Slice • Vichyssoise Soup 8 Carrot Tzimmes • Apricot Kugel • Cold Compote Dessert 0 Complete 3-piece Fried Chicken $26" Meals Only Sliced Ribeye $32" 0 atzwv/" :4: 47,tfiecidzerf4. arAztlire4Aatv • "R4s2Zie‘,p :4: SUPERVISED BY THE DETROIT COUNCIL OF ORTHODOX RABBIS • e: 0 .„...••••••■••mommon . Il l Thursday Nights through March 25th Jesus (Jim Caviezel), second from right, sits with his disciples at the Last Supper in a scene from Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ. 27925 Golf Pointe Blvd. Farmington Hills, MI 48331 (on 12 Mile between Halsted & Haggerty) 248.489.9400 Open for lunch weekdays Open for dinner 7 nights a week 812860 New Hours: Mon-Sat 7-8 Sundays 8-3 OPEN SUNDAYS from Sam-3pm! F 15% OFF Entire Bill 31q I 2/27 2004 I Specials Excluded 46 on Weekends Only! Expires 03/07/04 I. 21754 W. 11 MILE RD. • HARVARD ROW • 248-352-4940 FAX: 352-9393 I And that is the most worrying aspect for Jews. Director, producer and co-writer Mel Gibson knows perfectly well that every horror movie or thriller requires a villain who threatens the hero — and here the primary bad guys are the Jews. This telling of the Christ story does not abound with shades of gray, and its depiction of the Jews is sim- plistic, visceral and unflattering. Yet I confess to some ambivalence. With the exception of a couple of moments, I did not feel uncomfort- able as a Jewish viewer. So it would be unfair to offer a blanket denunciation of the film as an anti-Semitic screed. High Priests and Judas — where the disciple reveals Jesus' location for a fee and, later, desperately recants his actions and returns the money — the Jews are always shown as a frothing mob eager for Jesus' blood. Indeed, at one point the Roman governor Pilate refers to them as a "filthy rabble." In a stab at historical accuracy, Gibson has the Jews speak Aramaic and the Romans use colloquial Latin ( The Passion is subtitled.) Although Latin isn't heard much on the street these days, Aramaic bears more than a passing resemblance to Hebrew. The effect is to greatly reduce the distance — if not completely erase