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The accuracy comment was more just a joke on the giant frog plague. The his might not be our first choice for a historical epic if they can’t even keep from riding horses in Bronze Age Egypt. Sheesh


Usually the Exodus stories are pretty safe from “the Old Testament was a prequel actually” themes that work their way into other biblical movies. It’s why we won’t be seeing Angel Studio’s David.

There’s also the whole “absolutely no record from the Egyptians of any of the events claimed despite their meticulous record keeping of even the most dull of events. And indeed military failures”

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
There’s also the whole “absolutely no record from the Egyptians of any of the events claimed despite their meticulous record keeping of even the most dull of events. And indeed military failures”

Well, that’s why you’d have to adapt the book instead of relying on history or archaeology.

Next you’ll be telling me no Esther ever married Persian King Ataxerxes during a wave of comedic misadventures.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
There’s also the whole “absolutely no record from the Egyptians of any of the events claimed despite their meticulous record keeping of even the most dull of events. And indeed military failures”

Well, that’s why you’d have to adapt the book instead of relying on history or archaeology.

Next you’ll be telling me no Esther ever married Persian King Ataxerxes during a wave of comedic misadventures.

Does that mean 2016's Gods of Egypt is historically accurate?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
There’s also the whole “absolutely no record from the Egyptians of any of the events claimed despite their meticulous record keeping of even the most dull of events. And indeed military failures”

Well, if you think about when the Old Testament and the Exodus was probably written down..... <deep breath>..... the Jews had been displaced and taken to Babylon. They were beginning to fragment as a people, as the youngsters and ambitious started to assimilate into Babylonian culture. This would have included taking on Babylonian religious practices to fit in.

Therefore, the "community leaders" decided they needed to start to codify their belief systems into some written books to help keep the young folks aligned. The idea of an "Exodus" from a great power that subjugated them was VERY relevant to the Jewish tribes at the time. They just changed some of the details about who was doing the subjugating, and then crafted a nice "escape" story to give the people hope that "this too shall pass" and remind them of God's promise to Abraham about their homeland.

Like much of the Bible it needs to be read "in context" for the time it was written and viewed for what it was, a religous text used to bind the people of the time together as a unified community.

However, keep in mind I am not a Biblical scholar so I am sure there are other interpretations and thoughts about Exodus. I just have one, barely informed opinion. Others may vary, and further discussion may be better someplace else or in PM?

***********************

Now, back to movies. I managed to find Exodus: Gods and Kings as an available movie. I wanted to watch ole' Chuck's The Ten Commandments but did not want to pay. The same was true for Dreamwork's The Prince of Egypt. I also found Cecil B/ Demille's version of The Ten Commandments but as it is from 1926 I was not sure my family could stay with that one.

What is the best "Passover Watch" in your opinion?

I was just making a joke about what would be a typo in any other (non-divine) book demanding an explanation of how one frog constitutes a plague. (I favor the megafrog explanation. The summoner frog may be more diabolical, though.)

I’ll not get into the debate too much other than to say I find the “documentary hypothesis” interesting to read about, and enjoy the fruits of modern scholarship.


For Passover movies, it really is hard to beat the classic duo of The Ten Commandments and Prince of Egypt. I hear Rugrats Passover is really well done, but I’ll probably never know. Exodus Gods and Kings was not even on my radar. Generally here movies are something we put on almost out of obligation to entertain the kids while we clean up from the Seder, so other than hearing the songs I don’t really care be up watching them.

I mean, for anyone interested;

Frogs seem like a odd choice for a plague outside of the context of Egyptian ritual religion. The goddess Heqet was one of the most popular Egyptian goddesses most people never hear about because a woman with a frog head doesn't seem as badass as Ra, Anubis, or whoever. But Heqet was very important in Egypt as a fertility goddess, the breather of life into newborns, and a protector of women in childbirth.

In the story of Exodus, the plague of frogs thus has several interpretations that the authors may have wanted to convey;

-Demonstrates that the god of Jews does what he says. Earlier in Exodus the burning bush tells Moses that it will test the gods of Egypt, making the plague of the frogs a direct assault on a prominent Egyptian deity.
-The Supremacy of the god of the Jews over other 'gods' and magic. Both are recurring themes in the plague with god's power depicted as defeating Egyptian magicians and priests.
-References Genesis sort of by bringing chaos of water. The division of spheres of creation is a big theme of Gensis and ancient Judaism in general. Something it carried on from other earlier religious beliefs of the Near East dating back to the bronze age. There is some similarity here again to ye olden Babylonian Genesis, where land is fertile and the bed of human civiliation, and water is chaotic, unpredictable, and dangerous There's a neat little interplay here of the frog plague basically bringing chaos onto land, something that would mean a lot of a Jewish audience of the time but would ironically probably go over the heads of any Egyptians who had a very different view on the nature of water and the Nile!
-Also worth noting there's a bit of a theme of idolatry in all the plagues. Idolatry has a more contentious history in the legacy of Judaism than other near eastern religious lines and you can see it in how the plagues mock various Egyptian gods and rituals by mocking the associated idols, like frogs by turning them into harbingers of doom.
-OMINOUS FORESHADOWING! In depicting the powerlessness of Heqet before the god of Jews, Exodus includes a direct prelude to the final and most tragic plague of the narrative; the deaths of the firstborn sons. Heqet is the breather of life into newborns. Nothing better demonstrates that the Jewish god is the biggest baddest most powerful god around than taking that away.

The more you know!

They Will Kill You

Imagine a movie where you combine Kill Bill style action, violence and narrative flourish, with a Dredd style premise of fighting your way through a building full of baddies, and graft on the some political subtext ala Snowpiercer and you have this movie.

However, it's heart is in the right place. Afterall, it's main message is that rich people are immoral, satan-worshipping, evil bastards. Hard to argue with that!

The Town (2010)

I need your help. I can't tell you what it is, you can never ask me about it later, and we're gonna hurt some people.

With no hesitation :

Whose car we gonna take?

So many good quotes and scenes in this movie. I think it was a star turning performance for Jeremy Renner, but everyone was amazing in it. A great, grounded heist movie. Finally giving it a rewatch after 10+ years since I last saw it, I think.

They Will Kill You is actually a fun film. Went to see it in Maidstone and was a fun b movie affair with an early twist. The plot is sufficient, the action rarely bother stopping and the cheesy camerawork appropriate to the topic. Preferred it to ready or not episode one.

They Will Kill You was a lot of fun. My kiddos and I went and saw the Ready or Not sequel the week before and they enjoyed that but they really enjoyed the ridiculousness of They Will Kill You even if the pighead cthulu made them both uncomfortable

Heyhey. I watched The Ten Commandments (1956). Impressive. There's some really impressive shots.

I also watched Der Tiger (2025) now. It's good. As good as you can expect a tank film to be I think. Yeah, it doesn't look expensive, but it doesn't have to. Sure, there's lots of CGI, but that can barely be helped. It also could have suffered from being too long, and when I saw the run time I was a bit worried, but it proved not to be too long. It was just right. They could have added a bunch of unnecessary stuff, but didn't. At least in my opinion; I'm sure lots of people would claim the whole thing's unnecessary.

Watch It.



Good film, Watch It. As good a tank film as it can get I think.

 Hulksmash wrote:
They Will Kill You was a lot of fun. My kiddos and I went and saw the Ready or Not sequel the week before and they enjoyed that but they really enjoyed the ridiculousness of They Will Kill You even if the pighead cthulu made them both uncomfortable

There is a drive in theater near me showing TWKY and RON2 back to back, which seems like an ideal way to see those.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Hulksmash wrote:
They Will Kill You was a lot of fun. My kiddos and I went and saw the Ready or Not sequel the week before and they enjoyed that but they really enjoyed the ridiculousness of They Will Kill You even if the pighead cthulu made them both uncomfortable

There is a drive in theater near me showing TWKY and RON2 back to back, which seems like an ideal way to see those.

Absolutely a super silly and fun double feature.

Deep Impact (1998).

Not seen this one since it's first VHS rental...which is now a very long time ago. Pretty much an update of the 1979 film Meteor in which a bloody large asteroid is on it's happy-go-lucky way to smash the **** out of the Earth, and our best efforts to stop it ain't looking too good...

Not exactly the best sci-fi film you'll ever see, but unlike other "monster asteroid" movies this one has as much thought as it has spectacle.

Ghost in the shell

The live-action, Scarlett Johanson version.
I'd forgotten that this was actually a pretty decent movie, it could've done with being a bit longer to flesh out Section 9 more, and it's attempts at matching the iconic scenes from the original movie feel quite hamfistedly shoved in, but it does do quite a good job at the whole cyberpunk thing.

You, me and Tuscany

A perfectly acceptable Rom-Com, and since I want Hollywood to make a wider variety of movies again, and I put my money where my mouth is and watched it.

How did it compare to Under the Tuscan Sun?

I’m seeing potential here for some serious Star Wars mashuping

Under the Tusken Raiders!

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
How did it compare to Under the Tuscan Sun?

"Holy dung, he can't be referring to.... *internet search* ...yup, that's the one."
I watched that film (because Diane Lane), but it was a tough, tough sit.

They reference explicitly Under the Tuscan Sun, Sideways, and Eat, Pray, Love in dialogue.

This is not a great movie, but it is a perfectly adequate movie. However, I am a bit surprised it got a theatre release. It feels more direct-to-streaming but I guess the budget for Tuscany was too much for striaght-to-Streaming? However, I then think of Netflix' movie with Ryan Reynolds, The Rock, and Wonder Woman and realize that their is no budget too large for straight-to-Streaming.

Forgot to mention I saw Zootopia 2 recently and it was.... off. It's not bad, but its like whoever wrote it didn't actually watch the original because despite taking place apparently just a week or so after NIck joins the force it doesn't feel like the same world. It also clearly doesn't have as much confidence in what it wants to say unfortunately. Definitely disappointing compared to the original but better than things like Frozen 2?

Plus one “watch it” for Project Hail Mary.

It’s a warm, cute movie. Our showing had a trailer for Grogu which had my wife very excited to see it. Add the cute dog in Supergirl, and this is a good year for must-watch cute-creature movies.

No interest in Mandalorian and Grogu.

However, my wife and kid are interested in Guardians of the Galaxy 4..... I mean Supergirl

My Stepdad took me to see Project Hail Mary. He said the whole movie was pointless.

I thought about 45 minutes could have been chopped out for some of the better parts from the book.

Then we saw Fast X on TV... and it was dumb, but had one of those "do they all die? Cliffhangers."

All movies are pointless if you try hard enough. How many full bellies does a movie give you? None. How many divisions do they have? None. Stupid, worthless escapism.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
My Stepdad took me to see Project Hail Mary. He said the whole movie was pointless.

That's a take.

Please Don’t Feed The Children

Post-zombie-apocalypse thriller in which kids are carriers but not sufferers of the virus. And naturally people have even less regard for spotty little teenage Herberts.

Our main cast are suspiciously college aged “kids”, who fall foul of nutter Clara, played by Michelle Dockery.

Giancarlo Esposito co-stars as a member of law enforcement.

Elements of 28 Days/Weeks, The People Under The Stairs and other assorted horror flicks.

A nice slow build up gives some atmosphere, with the nasties not really kicking in for a good half hour.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Plus one “watch it” for Project Hail Mary.

It’s a warm, cute movie. Our showing had a trailer for Grogu which had my wife very excited to see it. Add the cute dog in Supergirl, and this is a good year for must-watch cute-creature movies.

What I'm a bit worried about when it comes to Hail Mary is the 'witty remarks' and jokes and such, which I hear are more numerous than in The Martian? A friend of mine read the book recently and said he had to put it away after a while because the astronaut's jokey mannerism annoyed him.

I don’t really understand that concern. Humans joke and use bleak humor in stressful situations. The astronaut doesn’t come across as flippant or unserious, but he does make fun of himself and his situation sometimes. Nothing about the humor in the movie struck me as out of place or annoying.