Every year I watch “The Ten Commandments” on ABC, which has been a tradition every Easter weekend (this year it airs Easter Sunday night). This year, there are a bunch of other religious themed movies coming out at about the same time, including “The Dove Keepers,” “Killing Jesus” and “A.D.”
If you watch television religiously, this is the year to do so.
Religious television and movies involve a lot of guesswork, close attention to political correctness and biblical accuracy, and a good cast of well-known actors. Producers Mark Burnett and Roma Downey have pretty much cornered the prime time holy programming on other networks. For the Big Three network crowd, ABC keeps Charlton Heston on the air once a year (mostly because the one year they tried to take the movie out of play, the uprising from the people was so loud, they had to comply). People who watch these productions are more nit-picky than Harry Potter fans, so they have to do it in a timely manner and get it right. The Bible provides the script, and a few nervous screenwriters try their best to modernize the adaptations to suit the current viewing audience.
So far I’ve not seen Roma Downey in anything since “Touched By an Angel,” but I’m sure her performance in “The Dove Keepers” will be right up there and true to form. She is a great actor and knows her genre.
Unfortunately I’m not into all the epics and serial shows, so I’ll stick to watching Yul Brynner get his comeuppance for a few hours. Sure, it ends the same: as do they all. But once a year, it’s nice to have one thing that is true and trustworthy and is older than I am, like a good movie or holy traditions which allowed me to walk this earth in the first place.
Bring on the spectacle.
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