Warning
- this one is gonna be long so grab a drink and a snack.
I
honestly cannot remember the last time I went to the theatre to watch a movie.
I think it has probably been about 8 years or more! I used to love to go to the
movies. When I was a kid my girlfriend Colinda and I would go to the movies
early on Saturday and stay all day. In the old days you didn't have to get
there at the beginning of the movie and you didn't have to leave at the end. In
fact usually it was a double-feature. For you young ones out there, this was
when you paid one price and they played 2 different movies back to back. We
would pack some snacks in our purses, buy a soda and some popcorn and settle in
for whole day of movie watching.
I
loved getting lost in the story and all the darkness of the theatre. I loved
the ability to not be distracted as I soaked up every nuance of the story, this
is unless I had a noisy "neighbor" (I have been known to change seats
more than once to get a quiet neighbor). In the 90's I had a great movie buddy,
Michelle, she and I went to the movies together almost every week. And I have
gone to the movies all alone and enjoyed that just as much. As I said before I
like to get lost in my movies and I don't want to talk while I watch them. But
something happened along the way. I lost my movie buddy Michelle and my Girls
and Gary and I have totally different tastes in movies. The tickets got so
expensive and the sound systems got too loud (am I showing my age here?). And
honestly most the movies in the past several years have just not interested me.
I am just not into comic book characters. I really dislike vampires and zombies
and I am just too plain old for cartoons (yes I am a bad Grandma and I don't
take my grandkids to all of the Disney and Pixar movies that come out). So
these days most of my movie watching is done on DVD - oldies but goodies and
the occasional Red Box rental.
I
am feeling like 2014 might be the year that gets me back into the theatre! It
seems Hollywood has some new Super Heroes lined up this year, and from what I
read, next year too. With the success of last year's "The Bible"
miniseries, Hollywood's big movie studios are taking a chance on some non-fictional
super heroes, Noah, Moses, Jesus, Mary and others. I Have highlighted some of
the upcoming movies below for you.
This Month (Feb 28th), 20th Century Fox is releasing "Son of God" about the life of Jesus. 20th Century Fox
has teamed up with "The Bible" creators, Mark Burnett & Roma
Downey for this one. You can watch the trailer here
Just
8 days later on March 8th Paramount releases "Noah". I hope this one will deserve it's $150 million
budget! I can't wait to see Russell Crowe as Noah and Anthony Hopkins (one of
my favs) as Methuselah. So far it
seems to have gotten a lot of good press about its production quality, but I
did read an article by Hollywood insider Brian Godawa that said "If you were expecting a Biblically
faithful retelling of the story of the greatest mariner in history and a tale
of redemption and obedience to God you'll be sorely disappointed,".
But his comments were based on his review of a draft of the script before
production started. So I will hold out great hopes that it will be good. Here's
the trailer for Noah
Then
on March 21st we have another Faith based movie coming our way, "God isn't Dead". Although
not by one of the "big" studios, it does have some "big"
actors like Kevin Sorbo, Dean Cain and even an appearance from some of the Duck
Dynasty folks. I told you all about this movie awhile back and I am still
excited to see it. You can watch the trailer here
In
April, Sony Pictures is releasing the movie version of the NY Times
best-selling book "Heaven is for
real" by Todd Burpo. It is the true story of a four year old boy that
has a near death experience and sees heaven. It stars Greg Kinnear. You can
watch the trailer here
So
far it looks like I will have to budget movie tickets into my budget for at
least 3 months in a row!
In
December, 20th Century Fox is giving us another one! This time it is the story
of Moses in "Exodus". Ridley Scott is directing this one and
Christian Bale will star as Moses. I wonder how it will compare to the 1956
movie "The Ten Commandments"? There is no theatrical trailer as of
yet but you can watch a music video from the movie here
December
is a busy month with yet another movie. Lionsgate Films is giving us "Mary, Mother of Christ".
Perfect timing, releasing it at Christmas time. The cast includes the late
Peter O'Toole, Ben Kingsley and Julia Ormond. And apparently Joel Osteen is given an executive-producer credit, hopefully this means good news about this film.
There is no trailer for Mary either but they do have the beginnings of a
website started here
So
that is what 2014 is looking like in the theatres, but it appears that there
are even more of these Biblical super hero movies on the horizon. Warner Bros
is working on a script called "Of God and Kings" which is another
Moses story. Will Smith is said to be working on a story about Cain and Able
while there is buzz about Brad Pitt playing Pontius Pilate in yet another
movie.
So
what do you think is causing Hollywood to get all Biblical on us? The last real
big budget, faith based movie we had was Mel Gibson's "Passion of the
Christ" in 2004. I watched that one on DVD and had to look away most of
the time. Before that we had Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of
Christ" in 1988. Although I would NOT call that one a faith based movie -
it was so far off from what the Bible teaches it was offensive to most Christians.
Maybe Hollywood is making a nostalgic return to its glory days. Days when movies
like The Ten Commandments, Ben Hur (both
with Charlton Heston) and The Robe proudly played in the theatre and actually
won Academy Awards and earned money!
It's
no secret that the industry is stuck in a bit of a rut. The demand for
blockbusters is bigger than ever, but there are only so many comic book
characters and stories, and you can't reboot the Spider-Man franchise or churn
out Iron Man sequels forever. The Bible, meanwhile, has chapter after chapter
and verse after verse (pun intended) of action-packed material—Moses, David,
Job, Joseph, Abraham, Jesus, and so on. Plus it has a "fan base"
that's even larger and more avid than Marvel Comics'. And unlike movies based on superheroes, or the latest
literary sensation such as Fifty Shades of Grey and Harry Potter, the studios
will not have to pay millions of dollars in copyright and licensing fees. The
stories in the Bible are free to use.
But here are the questions of the day. . .
Will the filmmakers respect the source material or use it to
push standard Hollywood themes?
And will we actually head to the local theatre and spend our
money to watch these movies?
I'd really love to know what you think? Leave me a comment
and tell me are there any of these movies that you would spend your money to
see?
Till we meet again. . .
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