L! C! B! June 1998

Jurasic Jesus: L!C!B! May 98

Filmography of Jesus: The First Hundred Years

Torah! Torah! Torah! Plug 'n Play Bible Codes

Incredibly Strange Religious Records

Share your gossip, insider scoops, sordid dreams, video tapes, whatever. I'm all eyes and ears!

Pete Aitken's L!C!B!
Adult Christianity
PO Box 1666
Hollywood, CA 90078

patiken@postfun.com

GOT JESUS? : Impact Productions, a Tulsa Oklahoma-based advertising agency and ministry to "the sight and sound generation" specializes in slick 30 second TV spots guaranteed to grab jaded viewers attention for your church or outreach mission. Their latest is a extreme sports parody of "Got Milk?" with the hook that the bungee jumper has neglected to secure the cord before his leap (of faith). The resultant thud is followed by "Got Jesus?" and the telephone number of a local church. There's a catalog with RealVideo previews of this and their other spots available online. The ambitious "sight and sound generation" Impact President Tom Newman betters Cecil B. DeMille, who only portrayed God in voiceover, by appearing as Jesus Christ in Impact's latest feature Resurrection. Have mogul ambitions of your own, dear believer? The media-savvy ministry also offers an Executive Producers Club membership for a monthly 'partnership' fee of $100.

GOD FU: JOE BOB'S GODSTUFF : Fans of televangelism and/or the Comedy Central cable network will enjoy Door TV's release of volume 1 of Joe Bob Briggs' Godstuff. If you've seen those too brief segments hosted by John Bloom on The Daily Show (where most of us were first stunned to learn of the amazing Jonathan Bell) just imagine an uninterrupted hour plus of classic televangelist clips. Toupee Fu, Speaking-in-Tongues Fu, Healing Hands Fu, kinda like Joe Bob's TNT's Monster Vision only this time it's real! The Door is "pretty much the world's only religious satire magazine" and the Godstuff video is free with a year's subscription. Joe Bob says "Check it out!"

A RISING TIDE LIFTS ALL BOATS : End Times movies are bursting out all over like spring flowers after an El Niño. Deep Impact a decent exercise in extermination deflected kicked off the latest and best financed millennialist micro-genre. Bruce Willis' Armageddon is due shortly but as reported last issue a couple of Bible Propheteers (oops! - that's Prophesiers) have tried to beat Hollywood to the punch. Well, it's not comet or asteriods but it's the End nonetheless and Apocalypse: Caught in the Eye of the Storm is straight from the mouth of "the walking Bible" Jack Van Impe. Jack and his wife Rexalla appear as themselves in this well produced Peter and Paul Lalonde production. The first act has great pacing and the Rapture scenes are noteworthy for the innovation of the cleanly pressed and folded garments left behind by raptured believers. This early promise slackens with the disappointng appearence of the anti-Christ, just the European Union President (unless that scares you enough) and further slows with cut-ins of the Van Impe's, who while generally entertaining on home TV severely undercut whatever dramatic tension is left. Peter Lalonde said the Rapture drycleaning was based on a idea from John 20:7 : "When people vanish their clothes are not just left lying in a heap, instead the entire planet is covered with neatly folded and pressed piles of clothes." No doubt Apocalypse is something of a breakthrough in the packaging of Bible prophesy with a soundtrack tie-in and movie web site.

CHRISTI QUITTERS OR LOVE! VALOUR! SECURITY! : Tony-winning Terrence McNally, author of Kiss of the Spider Woman and Love! Valour! Compassion! had his new production yanked from the Off-Broadway Manhattan Theatre Club due to anonymous threats of violence and the "security concerns" of theatre management. McNally's Corpus Christi features a gay Jesus Christ-like figure who has sex with his apostles. A Catholic "civil rights" league (what about no "special rites"?) who previously pressured ABC to cancel its Nothing Sacred TV drama flew into action when details of the play were revealed in the New York Post. South African playwright Athol Fugard, no stranger to censorship and threats, immediately withdrew his new play The Captain's Tiger from the theatre in support of McNally. Following a week of mounting criticism, the theatre management agreed to go ahead with the production.

MY BOSS IS A CARPENTER : VARIETY calls John Carpenter's Vampires "an appealing mix of anti-clerical sentiment, unsentimental rebel codes and gung-ho gouging and splattering." Well we can't wait - but we'll try and find something to do until the September 19 US opening. This "vampire picture like no other" (LE MONDE) has been playing in France for the last month or so to rave reviews. James Woods, Videodrome's patron saint of 'Long Live the New Flesh' heads a Church-bred team of vampire hunters ('vampires' being a Church experiment gone awry)in pursuit of a crucifix that allows the undead to endue the effects of daylight (sounds useful!). Speaking of the "New Flesh" Poppy Dixon's article on Female Sex Characteristics in Christianityundertakes a bold assessment of the "wound" and looks at contemporary film treatments such as David Cronenberg'sVideodrome and Larry Cohen's God Told Me To. The latter features a luminous Richard Lynch as a hermaphroditic alien-spawn Christ.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE? : Paul Verhoeven's stunning Starship Troopers is now out on video and contains a playful spoof that's sure to BUG Mormons. A brief news bulletin reports the annihilation of the Port Joe Smith colony (established by "Mormon extremists" who've disregarded Federal warnings) by the archenemy arachnid aliens. Verhoeven has received Sony Studios' backing to develop the script for a new film biography of Jesus Christ. A Jesus Seminar fellow who's presented his work on this project to meetings of the group over the last decade, Verhoeven's next film is based on Barbara Goldsmith's Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull starring Nicole Kidman and co-produced by Kidman's husband Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner for Columbia Pictures.

CLUELESS OR MENSA IN BLACK : No one's ever claimed Mensa members control Hollywood! Film Threat Weekly and the local Mensa Society recently tripped over each other while distancing themselves from a recent speech by attorney and film-financing expert John W. Cones. Cones and his Film Industry Reform Movement (FIRM) founded earlier this year to "preserve our democracy and make the world a better place," recycles the familiar "the Jews control Hollywood" theme. Further details on this affair are available from Charles Fleming's LA Weekly article. Congratulations to Goldie Hawn on receiving the first Frank Capra Award from the International Family Film Festival. This year's festival examined issues surrounding "Families by Choice" and challenged the restrictive terms employed by "family values" ideologues. And finally, Fox has announced a "Touched by a Devil" series for their Fall TV schedule. Brimstone stars Thirtysomething's Peter Horton as a dead detective who's recruited by the Devil to return to Earth in pursuit of escapes from Hell! See you again in August and have a safe Armageddon!

Pete Aitken