This week, Hollywood feels The Passion.

Earlier this week, Mel Gibson held Washington DC and Manhattan screenings of his controversial film about Jesus’ last hours on earth, The Passion. Since my friends do not include clergymen or conservative pundits and politicians, I couldn’t find anyone who’d been invited to a screening. The heavily weighted guest list – attendees must also sign a confidentiality agreement – didn’t sit well with Jewish activist groups who fear that the film is anti-Semitic. I haven’t seen The Passion or read the script (and wouldn’t understand it if I did as it’s in Aramaic, Greek and Latin, although Gibson has at last consented to subtitles), but it does seem that Hollywood is a very difficult place to be decidedly Christian. These days, a belief in Jesus sounds either disturbingly naïve or frighteningly conservative, which may make it difficult for Gibson’s film to find any sort of mainstream audience.

An intimate knowledge of the Stations of the Cross was not required to attend a screening of Shattered Glass this week. It stars Hayden Christensen (produced by his brother, Tove) as real-life anti-hero Stephen Glass, a young journalist who fabricated no less than 27 stories while on staff at The New Republic, a respected political magazine. I spent two hours fascinated by the lengths Glass went to conceal his lies. The excellent cast (Chloë Sevigny plays a co-worker, Hank Azaria is his betrayed mentor) support the taut storytelling from writer/director Billy Ray. Ray’s first concern was getting the facts straight: “It would be supremely ironic to make stuff up just to suit the movie-making process,” he says in the film’s notes. Jade Chang 25 July 03

useful link: forbes: lies, damn lies and fiction