History and tradition in movie depictions of the Cross.

April 8, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Western Easter came and went last week, but the Eastern churches are currently only half-way through the Lenten season, so yesterday was, for us, the Sunday of the Veneration of the Precious Cross.

Thinking about this, I inevitably started thinking about Jesus movies, and I began to think about the fact that the recent mini-series The Bible has joined Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ in taking a step back from recent “historically accurate” depictions of the Crucifixion towards a more traditional sort of iconography.

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The Bible: final episode, first impressions

April 1, 2013 By 1 Comment

And so it ends. Here are my first impressions of the final episode of The Bible, which aired last night.

Continuity between Bible stories, redux. Once again, I am impressed by the fact that this adaptation-of-the-whole-Bible approach — whatever its limitations — has allowed the filmmakers to emphasize the continuity between Bible stories in a way that you rarely see in other films.

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Flashback: Over 75 years of movies based on Acts!

March 30, 2013 By 1 Comment

The final episode of The Bible airs tomorrow night, and, if the publicity materials are anything to go by, it will be one of the relatively few productions that has gone beyond the life of Jesus to include at least some episodes from the rest of the New Testament.

To mark the occasion, I have re-posted a few articles of mine on the handful of other movies that have been based on the Book of Acts. Click here for a 1997 article on The Visual Bible’s Acts (1994), A.D.: Anno Domini (1985) and Peter and Paul (1981); click here for my review of The Bible Collection’s Paul the Apostle (2002); and click here for a video column that includes a brief note about Saint Peter (2005).

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Richard Griffiths: The link between Tarzan and Harry Potter.

March 29, 2013 By Leave a Comment

British character actor Richard Griffiths has passed away at the age of 65.

To many people — including many of the headline writers out there — he is best-known as the actor who played Harry Potter’s awful Uncle Vernon. To others, he is famous for playing Uncle Monty in the cult hit Withnail & I (1989).

But for me, he will always linger in my memory for a tiny part he had in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984).

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Yet another mini-series about Jesus now in the works.

March 27, 2013 By Leave a Comment

So, while I was polishing off my last couple of Jesus-themed posts, the Hollywood Reporter posted a story to the effect that yet another mini-series about Jesus is currently in the works.

The projected six-hour mini-series is called Jesus of Nazareth, and is not to be confused with Franco Zeffirelli’s 1977 mini-series or the film that Paul Verhoeven has been talking about making for decades (and which, according to the Reporter, is currently stalled for lack of a screenwriter).

The new mini-series is currently being developed by Michael Landon Jr. (pictured) and producer Brian Bird, who have collaborated on a number of Christian films. [Read more...]

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Newest version of Christ Recrucified gets a title that is more upbeat, more friendly to “faith-based audiences”

March 27, 2013 By 1 Comment

First it was a 1948 novel called Christ Recrucified. Then it was a 1957 film called He Who Must Die. (Two mini-series adaptations followed, one in 1969 and one in 1975, both using the novel’s original title.) Now comes word, via Deadline, that yet another adaptation is in the works — and this time, it is going to go by the considerably more upbeat title Christ Is Risen.

Deadline says the producers want to target “faith-based audiences”, so this could be another version of the phenomenon we saw a few years ago, when the British Rwandan-genocide movie Shooting Dogs (2005) was renamed Beyond the Gates for religious audiences in the United States.

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The Bible: fourth episode, first impressions

March 27, 2013 By 1 Comment

Alas, there was no Transfiguration in this episode. But there was quite a bit of other stuff that I found interesting, for better and for worse, so here again, as before, are my first impressions.

The pacing, redux. It says something about this show that, when it finally devotes an entire two-hour episode to a single protagonist, it still feels kind of rushed, like it’s over far too quickly and we haven’t had a chance to really get to know anyone.

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Flashback: Over one hundred years of Moses movies!

March 27, 2013 By Leave a Comment

It’s Passover this week, so it seemed like an opportune time to dust off and re-post the various articles I have written on movies about Moses and the Exodus.

The grand-daddy of them all would have to be ‘Lights! Camera! Plagues!,’ which first appeared in the February 1999 issue of Bible Review and, to my amazement, has since popped up on the required or recommended reading lists for various university courses. The article, which was written to coincide with the release of The Prince of Egypt (1998), was originally quite a bit longer than what ended up in the magazine, so now, for the first time ever, I have posted an extended version of it here.

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Two more TV-movies — one now, one later — for Holy Week

March 25, 2013 By Leave a Comment

I promise to have a post on last Sunday’s episode of The Bible soon. In the meantime, I just want to note two things that popped up in my news feed today.

First, it turns out there is another brand-new Bible-themed movie on TV this week, as the Reelz network is hosting the American premiere of Barabbas, a two-part mini-series about the Jewish rebel or criminal who was freed by Pilate in Jesus’ place.

Starring Billy Zane and directed by Roger Young (who previously directed some of the better-known films in the ‘Bible Collection’ series), it is based on the same Par Lagerkvist novel that inspired the 1961 film starring Anthony Quinn (as well as a 1953 film made in Sweden and, apparently, a 2001 film made in Armenia).

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Three movies you won’t see on an airplane (or starship) this year

March 25, 2013 By 1 Comment

Have you started noticing any trends in the movies coming out this spring and summer?

Consider the terrorist attacks (or worse) that hit London in the trailers for G.I. Joe: Retaliation and Star Trek into Darkness. Consider the quasi-military attacks on Washington D.C. in Olympus Has Fallen and the upcoming White House Down.

And now, thanks to a couple of recently released trailers, we have another recurring motif: holes being ripped in the sides of airplanes (or starships), and passengers flying out those holes to their (presumed) deaths.

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