Free Republic

English director Ridley Scott is evidently fond of what Hollywood calls “period pieces.” He has had little trouble getting funding for such unlike other directors, no doubt because of his track record with Alien (1979), the cult classic Blade Runner (1982), and Thelma and Louise (1991). The suits felt sufficiently rewarded after they let Scott get into the time machine to make Gladiator (2000), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), and Robin Hood (2010) to let him try again. However, for Exodus: Gods and Kings, now playing at your neighborhood multiplex, Scott had to travel quite a bit farther back. If...

Watching Exodus: Gods and Kings stirred me to read the Biblical account once again.  I’ve read it many, many times in Exodus chapters 2-14.  Reading the story with the Ridley Scott movie fresh in my mind illuminated a few things.  First, that Scott’s version of the account, while weak on the theological aspects of the characters, didn’t do a half bad job at the Biblical story elements (and ludicrously bad at being historically accurate). But that’s not what I want to focus on. If I were to make an Exodus movie, I’d take a different tack than everyone else.  Everyone...

It is miles away from the Bible story. I hate that I just gave Hollyweird a reward of my hard earned money for producing this garbage. Please, please, learn from my mistake.

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE~ DECEMBER 13, 2014 4:00 AM What Exodus: Gods and Kings Gets Right Ridley Scott offers some fresh perspectives without straying unforgivably far from Biblical orthodoxy. By Josh CraddockJoel Edgerton (left) and Christian Bale in Exodus: Gods and KingsBringing familiar Bible stories to the silver screen is a risky enterprise. A director must avoid mere rehash of previous tellings (think Cecil B. DeMille’s opus The Ten Commandments) but without allowing artistic license to veer off into offensive parody. That’s a difficult task when some 3.8 billion people believe the source matter is sacred revelation from God himself. In...

In 2014, Hollywood has embraced telling religious stories on film. No longer, it seems, are religious viewers denied the opportunity to see biblical stories onscreen. In February of this year, Roma Downey and Mark Burnett brought Jesus’ story to the big screen in Son of God. In March, director Darren Aronofsky presented Noah , which— in spite of its narrative flaws— worked as an epic tale. This weekend, Ridley Scott— the newest high-profile director to embrace this trend— offers up a version of Moses’ story in the new drama Exodus: Gods and Kings. Regardless of your religious beliefs, this biblical...

Hollywood, still wet from the soaking it took from Noah, has headed for the desert with Moses in the new movie Exodus: Gods and Kings. Surely this time we have a foolproof crowd pleaser filled only with milk and honey? Or, instead, is it going to be a lot of grumbling at bitter herbs?The movie, which opens today, stars Christian Bale, best known for his Batman portrayal, and is directed by Ridley Scott, no stranger to big screen extravaganzas like his film Gladiator. In 3D, and costing an estimated $140, 000,000, this must have appeared a formidable proposition. I mean,...

In the new movie, Exodus, director Ridley Scott decided to directly contravene possibly the most basic tenet of Judaism: that God is One and cannot be anthropomorphized. In the famous scene in which Moses stands near the burning bush and hears God talking to him, Scott decided to take liberties with the Biblical text and have an eleven-year-old boy, called Malak, stand near the bush and articulate the voice of God. Scott’s excuse for violating the sacred text? As he said to The Hollywood Reporter: "Sacred texts give no specific depiction of God, so for centuries artists and filmmakers have had to...

Rupert Murdoch took to Twitter tonight to defend 20th Century Fox's new movie "Exodus" that casts Christian Bale as Moses, and a variety of white actors as Egyptians. There’s been scuffle on Twitter ever since Murdoch made his observations. And a lot of this stems from a quote director Ridley Scott gave Variety about why he didn’t use Egyptian or Arab actors for the film. He said: "I can’t mount a film of this budget, where I have to rely on tax rebates in Spain, and say that my lead actor is Mohammad so-and-so from such-and-such," Scott says. "I'm just...

New Jersey’s openly gay state assemblyman, who was called “numbnuts” [1] in 2012 by Gov. Chris Christie (R), thinks he can do what Christie has never been able to do, numb or not: get New Jerseyans to stay in New Jersey.Assemblyman Reed Gusciora’s (D) solution is astoundingly simple. He wants to offer state home and business owners the opportunity to slash their property taxes by 25 percent.The New Jersey Legislature would then be tasked with figuring out how to make up the difference through budget cuts.The best Christie has been able to offer is a cap on future property...

The hashtag #boycottexodusmovie has been trending on Twitter as posters express there anger over the film's casting of white actors as Egyptians Director Ridley Scott has been bullish about the issue of casting and said it was a business decision to hire white actors He claimed he wouldn't get financing if he hired 'Mohammad so-and-so from such-and-such' The cast does includes a number of actors of color, although it is mainly in minors roles including as servants. Sir Ridley Scott has found himself embroiled in a race row after his latest film was branded ‘too white’. Twitter users are urging...

Christian Bale has said drones would be sent out after biblical character Moses had he been real and alive today. Bale, who plays Moses in Exodus: Of Gods and Kings, the forthcoming biblical epic directed by Ridley Scott, added that although Moses is depicted as a freedom fighter in the Bible, he is seen as a 'terrorist' by his enemies. The says he came to these conclusions while studying religious books and scriptures from different religions, including the Bible, the Torah and the Koran. Christian Bale said drones would be sent after 'terrorist' Moses had the character been real and...

Christian writer Brian Godawa dismissed recent comments made by actor Christian Bale characterizing the biblical Moses as "schizophrenic" and "barbaric" as ignorant bigotry. Bale plays Moses in the upcoming Ridley Scott film, "Exodus: Gods and Kings," which uses hi-tech visual effects to tell the story of how Moses frees 400,000 slaves from Egypt. It is slated for release in December. The Christian Post reported Sunday that Bale told a group of international reporters at the Four Seasons hotel in Los Angeles last month that Moses was mentally unbalanced. "I think the man was likely schizophrenic and was one of the...

Christian Bale has some novel interpretations of Moses, whom he portrays in the upcoming "Exodus: God and Kings." "I think the man was likely schizophrenic and was one of the most barbaric individuals that I ever read about in my life," Bale said. Hard on the heels of Noah, which took great liberties with the biblical tale, Exodus is drawing criticism from Christian websites.

More Americans moved to Texas in recent years than any other state: A net gain of more than 387,000 in the latest Census for 2013. And Austin was the fastest growing major city. Jobs is the No. 1 reason for population moves, with affordable housing a close second. "It take two things to draw people inland in big numbers: jobs and housing affordability," said Nela Richardson, chief economist for the real estate broker Redfin. Texas and other heartland states have two advantages that translate into affordable housing: Plenty of cheap land around cities and easy regulations that enable developers to...

Not for the first time, an Egyptian commentator (this time a political scientist) has demanded that the Jews compensate Egypt for the gold they took on their way to freedom from slavery. (snip) It is worth noting that today's Egyptians are mostly the descendants of Arab conquerers - not the ancient Egyptians of Biblical times.

An inscribed stele erected at Thebes by Ahmose, the first Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty, documents a destructive storm accompanied by flooding during his reign. Fragments of the stele were found in the 3rd Pylon of the temple of Karnak at Thebes between 1947 and 1951 by the French Mission. A restoration of the stele and translation of the text was published by Claude Vandersleyen (1967). In the following year (1968), Vandersleyen added two more fragments, one from the top of the inscription and a small piece from line 10 of the restored text, which had been recovered by Egyptian...

A 3,500-year-old inscription on a stone block found in Egypt is what archaeologists say the oldest weather report of the world. The inscription on a six-foot-tall calcite stone, called the Tempest Stela, describes rain, darkness and "the sky being in storm without cessation, louder than the cries of the masses," according to Nadine Moeller and Robert Ritner at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute who have translated the 40-line inscription. The stela's text also describes bodies floating down the Nile like "skiffs of papyrus." "This was clearly a major storm, and different from the kinds of heavy rains that Egypt...

In a July 8, 2014 interview with Egypt's Channel 1, Egyptian political scientist Ammar Ali Hassan said that the Jews had stolen Egypt's gold and treasures when they left ancient Egypt. The character of Shakespeare's Shylock is "a replica of the Jew who lived in Egypt – a merchant and a loan shark," he said, adding: "We demand that they return the treasures they stole from us." Following are excerpts: Ammar Ali Hassan: The Jews wanted [Egypt] to pay them compensation to the tune of dozens of billions of dollars, although our economy is very hard off. More importantly, they...

While the world fixates on the conflict between Israel and Hamas—and while most mainstream media demonize Israel for trying to survive amid a sea of Arab-Islamic hostility—similar or worse tragedies continue to go virtually ignored.

The lights are going out in the land of the Enlightenment. The violent, anti-Semitic nightmare Europe thought it would never see again after the Nazi Holocaust is raising its ugly head once more, this time on French soil. Jew-hatred, mostly among France’s six and a half million Muslims, is reaching such threatening proportions that an increasing number of the country’s 500,000 Jews feel forced to leave their native land to ensure their safety. At one Jewish agency that assists French Jews to emigrate to Israel the telephone, it was reported, “does not stop ringing. “For 2014, one will have to...