Movie recommendations for Holy Week
Other than The Passion of the Christ and Jesus of Nazareth, I mean.
A great movie for the whole family to watch together sometime during Holy Week is The Prince of Egypt. I first saw this movie with my family in the theatre on Holy Saturday, 1998. That was quite an experience. It has some cartoonish elements, like the Egyptian priests and an outlandish chariot race, but overall it is a respectful and moving treatment of the story of Moses.
The direct-to-video sequel, Joseph: King of Dreams is actually quite good also.
Epic Stories of the Bible is a series of animated motion pictures released by Promenade Pictures. Twelve movies are in the works, and first one, available now, is The Ten Commandments. Voice talent on this one includes Ben Kingsley (Narrator), Christian Slater (Moses), Alfred Molina (Ramses), Elliott Gould (God). The screenwriter also wrote the screenplay for Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. I haven’t seen this one but I heard it was good.
Promenade Pictures
founded 2003
produces family films with Judeo-Christian themes
Frank Yablans (formerly of Paramount and MGM)
the next planned films
Noah’s Ark
David and Goliath
Feel free to weigh in with your recommendations!
March 19th, 2008 at 1:36 am
Hi Clare!
Yup, Prince of Egypt is awesome (I always cry when she puts the baby in the river) and Joseph is also really well done. One more kiddie movie that we’re watching this week is “The Miracle Maker,” a 2000 claymation story of Jesus. Overall, it’s very nicely done, and really presents the words of Jesus in an appealing, understandable way. In clay. :-) The kids always crack up when the paralytic’s friends basically destroy the roof to let down his mat. My only beef is that the portrayal of Mary Magdalene is a little over the top. Overall, though, it’s great, and teaches the little ones well. “Hey, look! It’s Palm Sunday! Just like at Mass!” We’ll finish it tomorrow night and talk a bit about Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and (of course) Easter.