| Revelations 03/24/2001 Sacred silver screenings
The Oscars being handed out Sunday night are only one outfit's list of best films of last year. The United States Catholic Conference has its own litany. The Office for Film and Broadcasting reviewed 240 of last year's movies. The bishops' pix of the flix is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, followed by Traffic, Chicken Run, Butterfly, Billy Elliot, Best in Show, Remember the Titans, Cast Away, The Color of Paradise and East-West. If you're keeping score, that's one G, one PG, four PG-13's and two R's. See www.nccbuscc.org. (Best in Show? Really?)
More envelopes
So who doesn't have an annual top 10 movie list? The media editors at Spirituality and Health magazine came up with their "Top Ten Most Spiritually Literate Films of 2000": The Legend of Bagger Vance, Cast Away, Erin Brockovich, Chocolat, Nurse Betty, Unbreakable, Billy Elliot, Gladiator, Spring Forward and O Brother, Where Art Thou? The ratings score: five R's, five PG-13's. (Bagger Vance? Really?)
Still the greatest?
The movie The Greatest Story Ever Told opened in February 1965. The big-screen, big-budget life of Jesus, with dialogue lifted straight from the Gospels, has been holiday TV fodder for years. Max von Sydow played Jesus. Charleton Heston, a decade after his star turn as Moses in The Ten Commandments, played John the Baptist. John Wayne cameoed as the Centurion. The flick been re-issued in VHS ($19.98) and DVD ($26.98) formats. The new versions include a documentary about the making of the 199-minute movie. For those of you who weren't around to read the review the first time, here's a bit of what Amusements Editor William A. Payne wrote for the March 17, 1965, edition of The Dallas Morning News: The movie "is the most incredible and remarkable portrayal of the life of Jesus Christ that has ever been put on film." On the other hand, the film was a box office bust. It cost $20 million to make and grossed about $8 million.
One more film
More than two decades ago, the movie Jesus was filmed in Israel. The only actor who was not hired locally was English Shakespearean actor Brian Deacon, who played Jesus. The movie, and a chopped-down video version, have become tools for Christian evangelists all over the world. Next week, Texas is the target. The Jesus Video Project of Texas says it will begin sending videos to every mailbox in the state – all 8 million of them. The first million mailings are scheduled to start arriving on Monday.
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