First let me apologize for the lack of a column last month, but my health problems disabled me from being able to sit at the computer for more than five minutes at a time. No, there’s nothing serious wrong with me, and I’m much on the mend.

But before I begin, I have to thank my dear friend, Phoenix Nimitz, for making this month’s column possible. Phoenix jumped in and did my organizing and my verification research work for me so that all I had to do was sit down and compile. Phoenix has been one of my best researchers in the past and were it not for him there’d be no “B.C.’s Backlot”!

To begin with, I had a terrible birthday this year, (my mazel, it wasn’t bad enough I had to celebrate with a chronic shtuck in my gedeyrem,) because a dear friend of mine passed on my 49th. Mercedes McCambridge was a staple in the world of character acting, and appeared in “Giant”, “All the King’s Men”, and most memorably, the voice of the Demon in “The Exorcist”, (who can for get her famous line, and I herein paraphrase, “Your mother cuts lox in Hell!”?) died of what is said to have been Parkinson’s Disease, but isn’t confirmed. She was eighty-seven years old.

Also, I discovered that the death of actor Robert Pastorelli, best known as Eldin the painter of the T.V. series “Murphy Brown”, was NOT a suicide as previously suspected. The 49 year old Pastorelli was addicted to cocaine, (which was ruled as the cause of death,) and rumors of his being fardrey over his career are completely bogus. Pastorelli had in fact, just wrapped up shooting on the new John Travolta film, “Be Cool” the sequel to “Get Shorty” and had two other projects in the works.

Okay, on with the dirt-dishing.

And this from the “Genug es Genug!” department, Tom Brokaw has decided to retire! The 64 year-old anchor for the “NBC Evening News” for the past 22 years, will officially hand over the reigns of power to long-time heir apparent, Brian Williams on December first of this year. Gut mazel, Tom!

And, over at Disney, the new catch phrase is now, “Forget the Alamo”! The latest epic depicting the great military misheveh, which cost 140 million to produce and promote, has so far failed to recoup it’s cost, putting executives heads on the chopping block. Rumor has it that Disney Pres Michael Eisner is being hocked to step down, and with him, several other top monkeys. Disney has had an extraordinarily bad year, with other box-office flops like “Hidalgo”, and stock has dropped to a low of $25.70 per share.

Of course, the drunk and disorderly arrest of Jason Patric, one of the “Alamo” stars, didn’t help matters. The actor, grandson of the late legendary comedy star Jackie Gleason, was trying to illegally cross a busy intersection in Austin with some friends, and became combative and confrontational with police when arrested. The incident was all caught on tape, which would probably make for better entertainment than his movie!

Meanwhile, in the “Cannon Fire” department, actress Dyan Cannon barely escaped with her life when a fire broke out in the kitchen of her Hollywood condo. According to firefighters who arrived on the scene, Cannon would have been dead within minutes had she not escaped the building when she did. The fire was the result of a short circuit in the vent over the stove. Cannon and her two dogs escaped the building along with two hundred other tenants, and damage to her condo, and those nearby is reported at over one hundred thousand dollars. Pays to make sure your smoke detectors are in good shape now, doesn’t it?

Of course, the big news is that a Grand jury has indicted Michael Jackson on the charges of sexually molesting a twelve year old boy, although the exact number and nature of the charges are being kept secret. But, my sources tell me that the District Attorney has a trump card up his sleeve. Seems an employee of Jackson at the ‘Neverland Ranch’ compound has agreed to testify against the pop star, in exchange for immunity from accessory charges. No court date has been set yet, and Jackson will remain free on the three million dollars bail he posted at the time of his arrest. Meanwhile, rumor has it that the alleged victim and his family are being kept under police protection, (although exactly why is unclear,) until the trial date.

Okay, now I’m going out on a limb, considering the following subject matter and you readers. But, after weeks of indecision, I finally let my curiosity override my own personal preferences, and went to see “The Passion of the Christ”. I hope the following doesn’t offend anyone, but, this is a movie that needs to be reviewed!

Firstly, I didn’t want to see it because let’s face it, the subject has been rehashed to death, with precedents going back to the silent era when Cecil B. DeMille was putting beauties and bathtubs into the Bible for no apparent reason, save glamour. I have seen many retellings of the story since then, some were good, some were garbage. But Mel Gibson’s take on the subject was the first one to leave me confused.

To begin with, the whole of the dialogue was in Aramaic and Latin, with miniscule subtitles filling in the details, a concept I always find irritating because if you read the subtitles you miss the action, and vice-versa. Added, the subtext was so small, I had to move to a seat way down in front to read it.

My second complaint is the undue excess of violence. What were outstanding performances in these scenes, (i.e. the 39 lashes,) were so gory that even a die-hard Freddy and Jason fan such as I was sickened. Come on, Mel, we all have a good idea what a cat o’nine-tails does to human flesh; why rub our noses in it?

Lastly, Gibson fails miserably at combining historical accuracy with Scriptural accounts, again leaning toward the theory that Pontius Pilate was the bad guy, and ignoring the fact that the whole affair was concocted by Herod and Tiberius Caesar. Furthermore, at no time is Jesus referred to by his true name, (Jesueh Bin Josef,) and the actor in the title role looks more like a quarterback than a leader of men. But I guess the fact that there were no Family Fitness Centers in those days was farblondzet on Gibson.

Is the movie well made? By Hollywood standards, yes; if you like hand-held cameras, and a quasi-documentary look. The acting is superb, (again, it’s difficult to tell, since probably even the actors themselves had no idea what they were saying,) and the settings and costuming were the best, most authentic I’ve ever seen in a Biblical epic. It is a film that is definitely dark, often with the production overshadowing the storyline. The film does leave the audience stunned by the brutality of the times and the horror of the situations, and this is not a film for the faint-of-heart or young people, under thirteen. Again, the blood and gore is worse than any video game, and the obsession with realism is a distraction. Speaking as a Jew however, I found nothing new in the movie, certainly nothing to warrant the outcry of indignation that went up from many Jewish factions around the country.

But, if you were to ask me if I enjoyed the move, my answer is definitely “NO!” I found it altogether too preachy and blood-soaked, dark and uneven. All in all, my advice to Gibson is, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”, and go back to Demille and his bathtubs!

See you next month, Gang!