Definitely need to cast my vote for The Last Temptation of Christ. Only Savonarola or other kill joys could really appreciate The Passion of the Christ. And no doubt Katzantzakis's book along with the reel for this film would have ended up in his bonfire of the vanities. However, I'm glad you didn't give Gibson's film short shrift as I do think it has its merits and it is a totem of our divisive times. So I'm pleased you took me up on my Easter Special suggestion as the only thing better than a helping of lamb on Easter is a double serving of the lamb of god.
There is also a semi interesting back story to my request that I thought I would share since it seems to fit with some of the topics you mentioned in the show. In brief: I was reading a lot of Plato whilst working in the 900 year old Peterborough Cathedral fixing a 150 year old Victorian floor. To pass the time as we removed and replaced 40,000 marble tesserae I also listened to Audible stuff about Classical Greek society, culture and politics. After a while I began to feel guilty about this, after all I was an atheist working in a Norman cathedral, so I switched to something on St. Augustine. During all this David Bowie died. So I watched The Last Temptation of Christ. And then my missus got a trial Netflix subscription so she could watch some documentary for an accounting exam and I watched Passion of the Christ.
So what I'm getting at is that this excellent discussion on The Canon in a way has a thread tying it to the beginning of western civilization! It went like this- 1. Plato 2. Jesus 3. St Augustine 4. Peterborough Cathedral. 5. Victorian Mosaic Floor. 6. David Bowie. 7. The Last Temptation of Christ 8. Accounting Exam 9. Passion of the Christ 10. Superb Episode of the Canon
great stuff eh? The only thing that could have made it better would have been 10 times the amount of Christian puns
Oh yeah and people working in the cathedral were super nice. A great bunch. The Church of England is so liberal they have a gluten free wafer option.
