Easter Time TV

It was commented yesterday by none other than my mother that "once upon a time all Easter you would get religious programming/movies on tv, and now you're not likely to find anything". She couldn't figure out why.

I can tell you why... all 'old' religious movies regarding Easter have bad acting, even worse sets and terribly inaccurate wardrobes for the eras. The actors/actresses are blonde/brown haired, blue eyed and have very pale white skin. Hardly the physical characteristics of the people of those parts of the world! The portrayed storylines are boring. The only good thing about them are some actors like Yul Brynner. He's very cool, but that's another story. (Don't smoke, whatever you do, DOOOOON'T Smoooooooke!)

It's not the stories, it's that to the modern era audience they're just boring as anything. They also tend to show at Easter religious movies such as "The Ten Commandments" (a great film of its time, just more terrible acting and terrible sets that are becoming more and more obvious as the years go by and tech advances.). Why show this now? It's not in the least bit an Easter story. It's about Moses doing his destined thing way way before Jesus came onto the Earth.

I saw on the tv guide the movie "Barabbas" was showing today. Who picked this brown piece of joy? It was filmed in 1961, and IMDB describes the plot as "Barabbas, the criminal that Pontius Pilate induced the populace to vote to set free, so that Christ could be crucified, is haunted by the ghost of the prophet for the rest of his life". Hrm. Yes, I guess it's on the right topic, but really?? Who made a movie out of this??! Did people of this era really speak so slowly and formally, and did they have no sense of humour whatsoever??!

As much as I do appreciate the sentiment of showing these shows, I can totally see why kids prefer stories about the Easter Bunny and Ben 10 or Barney saving the Easter Bunny or such rubbish. The acting is better. The puppets are better. The songs are better! The plots are better!

I think the answer is to reshoot the proper Biblical stories using modern day technology, CGI, fabulous yet realistic to the times sets, and actors who actually can act their way out of a paper bag. (ie: NOT Nicole Kidman. She's terrible without all the Botox, let alone with it!). This way these great stories might not be lost on the current technological generation. Whether they choose to believe in it or not.