For Adult Vacation Bible School here at St. Mark, we have been doing a series called "Jesus Goes to the Movies". The premise behind it all was to show movies that were made about Jesus and then discuss the theological implications that followed. Monday we watched Monty Python's The Life of Brian, Tuesday it was Jesus Christ Superstar, Wednesday The Last Temptation of Christ, and then came the treat to end all treats: The Greatest Story Ever Told.
Apparently, this thing had a $20 million budget in 1965! Like holy smokes, man. It was an absolute flop though, and with good reason. Imagine if you got inspiration to make a movie about Jesus, and then thought, "I want to take all the dull and exciting moments in the life of Jesus and synergize them with the captivating emotional power of the genealogy narratives." Yeah. There was one redeeming quality to the movie. John Wayne plays the centurion who says, "Truly this man was the Son of God," after Jesus is crucified. The reason this is entertaining is that he says it in typical John Wayne fashion: stoicly, and as if he was staring down a bank robber.
In the race for worst film ever, Brother from Another Planet(yeah, it's about a black alien) held a strong lead until I saw this movie. The redeeming quality of the alien movie was that the guy pulled out his eye, planted it in a flower, and used it as a spy camera. And so, The Greatest Story Ever Told, you take the cake. Congratulations. My only hope is that tonight's movie, Jesus of Nazareth, won't make me rename the title of my post.
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It may have taken me years to get here, but I finally made it.. or something like that. Anyways, I still have not seen this Jesus Christ Vampire Slayer, but I can only imagine that this movie is 10000000000 times better The Greatest Story Ever Told. That is all. Also, I do not apologize for trouncing you this past week in fantasy football, it had to be done. -LEE!
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