Whole-y Moses!

Tonight is ABC’s annual broadcast of The Ten Commandments, to which I always tune in for twenty minutes just to laugh at the display of pretentious windbaggery. (No, not the same twenty minutes. I just randomly flip to it at some point.) I mean, really – what a pompous ass of a movie this is! And its traditional airing at Easter-time has always baffled me, as I noted last year on this occasion:

“I’m not the most astute person when it comes to matters of Christian doctrine, but I’m pretty sure that Easter is a holiday/festival that’s pretty Jesus-centric. You know, the whole crucifiction/burial/resurrection thing. So why is it that each year at Easter-time, ABC televises The Ten Commandments which is about Moses and the Exodus and has nothing at all to do with Jesus? I know that the Biblical epics that specifically deal with Jesus — The Greatest Story Ever Told, King of Kings — aren’t particularly well-known these days, outside of film music geek circles. But there is a classic costume epic that, while not specifically about Jesus, at least is set in and around the events of his life. That would be Ben-Hur, which is helpfully subtitled “A Tale of the Christ”, stars Charlton Heston, and is frankly a much better movie than the lugubrious overacted monument to pomposity that is The Ten Commandments.

So come on, ABC. Next year, ditch Moses and let’s have Judah Ben-Hur.”

Really, why is this the traditional Easter movie? It’s like if they honored Gene Roddenberry’s birthday by screening Star Wars.