The Passion opens door for the return of Monty Python's The Life of Brian:

The Biblical satire will be re-released in Los Angeles, New York and other US cities to mark its 25th anniversary.

Adverts will challenge Mel Gibson's blockbuster with the lines "Mel or Monty?", "The Passion or the Python?"

Distributor Rainbow said it hoped the film would "serve as an antidote to all the hysteria about Mel's movie".

....It was condemned as blasphemous before its original release, although Monty Python said it was intended as a spoof on Bible films and intolerance rather than Christianity.

The film could not be completed until former Beatle George Harrison stepped in to finance it after EMI Films withdrew, fearing it was too controversial.

Rainbow president Henry Jaglom said: "We decided this is an important time to re-release this film, to provide some counter-programming to The Passion."

He said the surviving members of the Monty Python comedy team "all agreed this was a good time" to bring back the film and would help promote it. [BBC]

In other Passion news, Joe Berkofsky reports on some rather counterintuitive reponses to the movie:

Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" is good for the Jews.

So says demographer Gary Tobin, whose San Francisco-based Institute for Jewish & Community Research released a new poll this week concluding that the movie changed Christian attitudes toward Jews and the crucifixion for the better.

"In general, people are less inclined to see Jews as responsible for killing Christ" after seeing the movie, Tobin said.

That finding contrasts sharply with dire warnings from some Jewish leaders and groups before the movie opened. Critics said Gibson's skewed portrayal - in which Jews pushed the Roman leadership into crucifying Jesus - could inflame anti-Semitism, if not domestically than abroad, where anti-Semitism is more prevalent.

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