THE BOOK OF THE VIP
DAVE
Christians get to see holy eventsMichael Rennie denies Jesus
Chapter 15
It is because of Hollywood’s special magic that millions and millions of people will get a whole new perspective on important events they’d otherwise have to imagine and speculate about for themselves.
2For example, thanks to the movies, millions and millions of Christians will finally be able to see the holy events described in the kNew Testament,
3lIncluding the birth and boyhood of Christ,
4mThrough His ministry,
5Through the whole Passion,
6And even through the Ascension,
7Which is practically a Miracle.
8Obviously, the main character in this spectacular will be Jesus Christ, the son of God and the loving savior of all Mankind,
9Who looks a lot like nJeffrey Hunter,
10Except in the earliest sequences, when He will be played by an infant child actor,
11oWho will be born to the pVirgin Mary under an arc lamp in a beautiful manger set, with a lot of saintly sounding choirs qsinging behind the backdrop,
12And grow to boyhood in his rstepfather’s carpentry shop, somewhere in the desert outside Los Angeles,
13Where Jeffrey Hunter will first show up to meet sJohn the Baptist,
14And be tempted by a tSatanic offstage voice,
15But will ultimately accept his calling from uJohn Huston to go on playing Jesus for the rest of the picture.
16vWhereupon Jeffrey will go on to do many holy and miraculous things, in full view of the camera, without having anything up his sleeve,
17wIncluding turn water into wine-colored water,
18And turn his xstaff into a serpent, to the complete amazement of yHerod,
19zAnd feed thousand of extras with five loaves and fishes,
20And talk about aapeace and love, and bblove thy neighbor as thyself, and ccturn the other cheek, and dddo unto others as you would have them do unto you, and eelet him who is without sin cast the first stone, and a lot of other stuff too, just like it says in the ffBible,
21ggAnd recite some especially moving lines while passing around the prop bread and wine at the last supper,
22aAnd have doubts while kneeling on the back lot of Gethsemane,
23And get betrayed by bIlya Kuryakin,
24cAnd get arrested by Roman extras wearing breastplates made of aluminum foil,
25dAnd get tried by some eBrit playing Pontius Pilate, who washes his hands and frees fBarabbas, leaving Jesus in the soup.
26gAnd so Jeffrey gets crucified on a papier-mâché hGolgotha, with a lot of red corn syrup flowing from the prop nails in his hands and feet, not to mention his icrown of papier-mâché thorns,
27And has his robe won by a Roman tribune in a game of jlots, which makes kRichard Burton go insane later, luntil he gets converted to Christianity by Victor Mature, his Greek slave,
28mWho was the only one who really understood the divine forgiveness of Jeffrey’s love,
29Except for nMichael Rennie, who denied Jesus three times before the ocock crowed on the morning of the Crucifixion,
30And was forgiven anyhow, so that he could go on to become the pBig Fisherman,
31Alias the qPope.
32Anyway,
33rWhile all this is going on, the sky keeps getting darker and darker, until Jeffrey finally gives up the ghost with a lot of saintly sounding choirs ssinging in the background, as well as a tremendous amount of special effects tthunder and ulightning and earthquakes and stuff going off all over the place,
34vAnd then gets some well earned rest in his dressing room while the wdisciples finally get to say a few lines and xJudas has a big moment hanging himself from a prop tree,
35After which the ground opens up, and Mama Ben Hur and her daughter get cured of yleprosy,
36zAnd Rome burns while Nero Ustinov fiddles in appalling decadent luxury,
37aaAnd Atlantis crumbles into the sea,
38And bbCharlton Heston, in spite of all his bitterness about having been a galley slave, finally understands what Jesus’s message is all about,
39ccWhich gets everything ready for the big resurrection scene,
40ddWhich isn’t actually shown, but implied in a subtle cinematic way,
41Just like the Ascension,
42eeWhen Jeffrey returns to the right hand of the fffather,
43ggSo that he can look out for all of us,
44hhAnd make sure that we all know he died for our sins,
45iiWhich saves us forever,
46jjTo live in peace and love and brotherhood until we die and go to heaven,
47Unless we’re kkheathen monsters like llStephen Boyd,
48mmWho dies horribly after the chariot race,
49nnWhere he had a huge accident because Charlton Heston parted the Dead Sea and drowned all of Yul Brynner’s charioteers,
50Except aMarcellus, who had to have his legs cut off,
51And then burn in hell forever.
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Chapter 15 / 58