Wednesday, Jul 2nd

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Former priest turned bestselling author James Carroll is our guidethrough the long history of complicity between Christianity,military force, and the persecution of others, with a focus onanti-Semitism. Troubled by "the things people are doing in thename of God" today, he notes that "Jews were consideredChrist-killers from the start of Christianity as a statereligion" under Emperor Constantine, who may well haveconverted out of political expediency or because it was the only faith that could stretch far enough toforgive his own myriad sins. (In one year alone he had his wife andeldest son killed.) The Crusaders targeted Jews before going afterMuslims; the Inquisition followed suit; Roman Jews were virtuallyincarcerated in a walled ghetto for 300 years until the mid-19thcentury. Another hundred years later, the Vatican turned a discreetblind eye to the Nazis. Carroll finds all of this compelling on apersonal level, as he was raised in a highly devout Catholicmilitary family (which at one point was granted an audience withthe Pope) and was once torn between choosing the priesthood andfollowing his Air Force General father's path. (They had a majorfalling out when Carroll joined Vietnam War protests, and, indisillusionment, left the church.) He worries now about theinfluence of religious zeal on political and military policies notjust in the White House, but in ground-level training: stationedjust a short hop from now-disgraced preacher Ted Haggard's New Lifemegachurch, several thousand cadets at the Air Force Academy inColorado Springs found their dinner places embellished with flyersfor The Passion of the Christ . This absorbing documentary directed by Oren Jacoby roams theglobe and combs the archives to further fill out Carroll's verystrong case for keeping church and a hawkish state well separated
Part rock band biopic, part extended eulogy, Kerri O'Kane'sdocumentary tracks the transformation of early-'90s punk rockersthe Gits from Ohio college town band to Seattle local music heroesattracting major-label interest — a trajectory that came to asickening end in 1993 when the band's charismatic singer, MiaZapata, was found dead on a deserted city street, having beenbeaten, raped, and strangled by an unknown murderer. We experiencethe loss of Zapata through interviews with those she left behind:friends and family, fellow band members Matt Dresdner, AndyKessler, and Steve Moriarty, and other musicians in Seattle(including Selene Vigil and Valerie Agnew of 7 Year Bitch), wherethe Gits won an ardent fan base in the years just before grungedrew a spotlight to the Pacific Northwest. Zapata sang, as acollege friend describes it, "like a heavy angel," andthe Gits' well-crafted punk rock was shot through with a wild bluesthat manifested in her performances and her lyrics, depictingreckless free-fall descent through various hells. One hopes thatwhen — a decade after her murder — DNA sampling led tothe arrest and trial of her killer, those who survived her gainedsome sense of release, but it's a grim sort of closure at best andthe film doesn't have much to say on that score. The mostsatisfying moments surface in footage of the band saved from nightsat divey rock clubs and Seattle house parties, scenes that bringback flickers of the electricity with which the Gits could flood aroom — and traces of Zapata for the legions of fans whoremain.