where: CENTURY 14 VALLEJO in Vallejo, CA
when: Sunday, March 2nd, 2014
show: 7:00 p.m.
costs: $10.25 Ticket + $1.00 1.20 oz Jack Link's All American Beef & Cheese ( smuggled-in ) + $1.00 2.75 oz Imperial Nuts Anti-Oxidant Blend ( smuggled-in, too ) + $4.10 small Powerade Mountain Berry Blend = $16.35
auditorium: 7
seat: 7th row ( counting from the front ), 7th column ( counting from the left )
synopsis/overview: The story of Jesus Christ ( Diogo Morgado ), from His birth to His ministry to His crucifixion and to His resurrection is--somewhat--told from the evangelical viewpoint of the Gospel of John.
noteworthy scenes: 1.) "He was there"; 2.) Birth; 3.) Broken oxen cart; 4.) "Fisher of men"; 5.) "Your sins are forgiven, my son"; 6.) The tax collector; 7.) The Lord's Prayer; 8.) Stones; 9.) Feeding the multitude; 10.) "Peter, the Rock"; 11.) Protesters before Pontius Pilate ( Greg Hicks ); 12.) Lazarus ( Anas Chenin ); 13. ) The dream; 14.) Reading from Isaiah; 15.) Palm Sunday; 16.) "Den of thieves"; 17.) "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's"; 18.) "Not one stone will be left standing"; 19.) Secret meeting; 20.) "Born again"; 21.) Last Supper; 22.) Garden of Gethsemane; 23.) Charged with Blasphemy; 24.) Guilty; 25.) "My Kingdom is not of this world"; 26.) "Forty lashes"; 27.) "We have no king but Caesar"; 28.) The scapegoat; 29.) "King of The Jews"; 30.) "Why have you forsaken me"; 31.) Mother/son; son/mother; 32.) Darkness; 33.) "Father, into Thy Hands I commend My Spirit"; 34.) Earthquake; 35.) Spear; 36.) The doubting Thomas ( Matthew Gravelle ); 37. The power of The Holy Spirit; and 38.) Bonus Scene during the Ending Credits.
audience reaction: The near-capacity crowd liked this movie. I could even hear some of them sobbing during certain scenes. And a lot of people gave this movie a "Hands Clapper" ending.
recommendation: I didn't like this movie, a movie written and directed by people who are obviously, glaringly not well-versed in the New Testament Gospels. This movie feels like a poorly-scripted Sunday Evening Christian TV show! See this movie only if you've never read the Bible or are too lazy and/or too irresponsible to read the Bible for your own spiritual self-edification.
spoiler alert! Saint John, the Apostle, who wrote the Gospel of John and the Epistles of John may or may not have been the old Saint John, the Revelator, shown in this movie living in exile in a cave on the island of Patmos. Saint John, the Apostle, wrote the Gospel of John when he was in his forties ( St. John was the youngest of the Apostles ). Is it just me or was Samson portrayed as a fat black man in this movie? Joseph, the father of Jesus, was already in his 30s when he married Mary, after she turned 12 years of age and after she completed her Bat Mitzvah rite of passage. The shepherds would not have been out in the open field with their sheep had Jesus been born in December BECAUSE IT SNOWS IN BETHLEMEN ( I blogged about this in December of 2009 )!!! Jesus would have already been a toddler when the Three Kings arrived to offer Him gifts. The fish that Jesus and Peter ( Darwin Shaw ) hauled into the boat weren't flapping around. ( Where did they cast the net to catch the dead fish, in the Dead Sea? ) The tomb of Lazarus had a stone covering its entrance which Jesus Christ ordered some men to roll out of the way ( John 11:41 ). Jesus Christ didn't go into the tomb; instead, he commanded the dead Lazarus to come out ( John 11:43 ). Lazarus came out of his tomb looking like a walking mummy ( John 11:44 ), not dressed in a clean white gown or robe as shown in this movie. Why was the butt-naked follower of Jesus Christ ( Mark 14:50-52 ) not shown in this movie? When Peter realized that Jesus's prediction of his three denials came true, it was already in broad daylight--but roosters start crowing at dawn before the day is bright and sunny!
This Big-Screen adaptation fails in three ways in that ( 1 ) it uses outright creative license and ( 2 ) it includes extraneous scenes not mentioned in the Bible ( 3 ) as well as the blatant omissions of accounts, especially the whole Seven Signs of Christ, that all serve to confirm the Divine Power and Authority of Jesus Christ! Why didn't they consult with me, Cine-Man, World Religions A+ student in college, before they made this movie?
What events in Jesus Christ's life were omitted from this movie? Here are a few right off the top of my head:
- The slaying of the male infants.
- The Spirit of God descending upon Him after His baptism by John, The Baptist, his first cousin.
- The temptation by Satan, Ruler of The Whole World.
- The beheading of John, The Baptist.
- The healing of the Centurion's servant.
- The loosening and binding of Legion, the demonic horde.
- The allusion to dogs who eat table scraps.
- The poor widow.
- The Lord of the Sabbaths ( yes, plural, as in the annual sabbath and the weekly sabbath which both occurred on the same day during one particular event in Jesus Christ's ministry ).
- The changing of water into wine.
- The woman healed by touching Jesus' robe.
- The Mount of Transfiguration.
- The divine empowerment of the 12 Apostles, Judas included.
- The anointing of Jesus Christ by a sinful woman.
- A prison guard's cutting of the hair and beard of Jesus Christ.
- Veronica's Veil.
- The breaking of the leg bones of the crucified thieves.
- The ghosts ascending from their tombs.
- The women who went to Jesus' tomb.
- The Angel guarding the emptied tomb.
- The disciples who didn't recognize Him. ( This one is very important. If you can answer this, then you know how Christ works His miracles! )
- The Pentecost ( very important, too ).
fyi: The first three Gospels of The Apostles Matthew, Mark and Luke are collectively known as The Synoptic Gospels because they are written similarly to each other. The Gospel of John is known as an Evangelic Gospel because of its evangelical nature.
The term "Son of God" is not the same as the term "Son of Man." They are not interchangeable. So, pay close attention to Biblical verses that use either term to understand the true message hidden in your plain view.
The feeding of the multitude has a parallel in an account mentioned in Paramhansa Yogananda's book, Autobiography Of A Yogi. In it, a Mohammedan Faqir was given "control" of a spirit entity simply named, Hazrat. Hazrat could be commanded to make things appear instantly out of thin air, including any food ( lots of it ) and precious jewelry.
On a similar note, King Solomon supposedly possessed a ring that gave him control over many demons. And there are those who believe that Jesus Christ somehow came into possession of this ring; which is why the Jewish priests accused him of performing miracles through the agency of demons. Whether or not these rumors are true, the Bible does show Jesus Christ and His Apostles and their Disciples having the power and authority to command demons.
Many of those who followed Jesus Christ did so at their own peril. For, you see, according to Jewish tradition, the first-born son has an obligation to keep to his father's family. Abandoning that family obligation to follow someone else means death by stoning. And women, too, were not allowed to follow along with a group of strange men or risk being stoned to death, as well!
In Old Testament Times, a lamb and a goat were both offered up to the priest at the altar. The priest would then sacrifice the lamb and let the goat escape ( hence the term, scapegoat ) into the wilderness. The purpose of the goat was to be burdened with the secret, unknown and future sins of the Jewish people. But, in the wilderness, the goat never fared better than the lamb--free, easy prey for the wild carnivorous beasts! Pontius Pilate unwittingly played his part well when he released Barabbas ( Fraser Ayres ) into the "wilderness." I guess Pontius Pilate never got the chance to read the Torah or he would have readily recognized his role in the precursory Christian Drama.
At least, Jesus Christ only got 40 lashes in this movie. Whereas, in Mel Gibson's THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST ( 2004 ), Jesus Christ received 118 lashes ( I know, I counted .... )! Ha, ha, ha.
Although Jesus Christ had the power of self-detachment, using such a power while he was being tortured and crucified to spare himself the consequential pain and suffering would have rendered his sacrificial offering worthless in the Eyes of God, The Father.
There is mention in Revelation 1:14-15 about the image of Jesus Christ as a glorified Son of God depicting him with white hair like a lamb's wool. Some people think that this makes Jesus Christ a black man. But this is just a ( white, i.e. Ancient One ) symbolism to show Jesus Christ's title as The Alpha and The Omega Lamb of God ( hence, lamb's wool ). But being a holy man who traveled to India during his 12 lost years, he would have adopted a renunciant's way of life. And the renunciants in India, otherwise known as Sanyasis, didn't bother to comb their hair and sported what could only be dreadlocks!
Jesus Christ, in all probability, only carried a crosspiece and was hanged on a tree in a garden. Acts 5:30, 10:39, 13:29 and 1 Peter 2:24
Hebrew was already a dead language by the time of Jesus Christ's ministry. Only the priests and scholars knew how to speak it at that point ( kinda like back when I was a little kid, church mass was held in Latin but not anymore ). But the general, mostly illiterate, population no longer spoke the language. Aramaic was the Lingua Franca in the trade route areas of Jesus' ministry.
But, interestingly enough, Hebrew is the only dead ancient language resurrected and used in these modern times, a linguistic feat of Lazarusian ( I just made this word up, my second one as a movie blogger--'though I can't seem to remember the first one that I coined ) proportion! By the way, this "dead-language-resurrection" happens to also be one of the Signs of The End Times, just so you know.
Without Judas, Christianity would never have been established. He never wanted to become The Betrayer. But God saw to it that he would play his part according to Divine Plan.
Jesus Christ asked, "My God, why hast thou forsaken me" and said, "Into Thy Hands I commend My Spirit ( as opposed to His ghost )" because He was dying on the cross and The Holy Spirit of God was preparing to leave both of His body and His ghost behind.
The Apostle Thomas went to India and was run-through with a sword. He was killed in what is now Pakistan. The grave in Pakistan that shows a pair of sculpted feet bearing a nail mark was meant to symbolically convey the message to the illiterate masses that the man buried there was a follower ( feet ) of someone who was crucified ( nail mark ).
Saint John, The Revelator, was deep fried by his persecutors but miraculously survived the whole process relatively unscathed.
After the resurrection of Jesus Christ, a guilt-ridden Pontius Pilate converted to Christianity and became a Saint of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church---Or he died a crazy man ten years later! Pick whichever one you like better.
word of advice: If you believe in Jesus Christ, read the Bible!
tidbits: Before the movie, I went to the Dollar Tree Store in the nearby Target Shopping Center to buy a window squeegee for my car, a laser pointer/flashlight key chain, and snacks to take to this movie. They didn't have any window squeegee in stock.
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An old white man asked me a few years ago how well-versed I was in the Christian Bible. I said that I had a good general knowledge of The Old Testament and The New Testament. He asked me what Jesus Christ's last words were as He hung dying on the cross with the two thieves at either side of Him. Before I could answer, the old man said, "Jesus Christ's last words were: 'Hey, you guys. I can see my house from here!"'
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