all things bright and beautiful

i'm watching tv last night, while doing squats and lunges, and i find The Greatest Story Ever Told (TGSET) with Max von Sydow as jesus (who you will fondly remember as Father Merrin in The Exorcist) and Charlton Heston (old wooden teeth of Soylent Green and Omega Man fame--and the whole "yay guns" thing he's got going on). i loved this move when i was little: i thought that Heston (John the Baptist) was a caveman and King Herod was trying to get him dressed. So...I didn't grow up in a religious household.

i also that The Greatest Story Ever Told, Planet of the Apes, Ben Hur, and Ian Fleming's Dr. No were all more or less the same movie. a very long movie. which is understandable because when you are watching a lot of television unsupervised, at a young age, and have a very short attention span, all men of a certain age look exactly the same. and to be fair, Heston is in three of the films mentioned above. Basically the story was about a man travelling through time and finally getting laid by Ursula Andress. Sorry Mr. Connery. also, while watchin TGSET i noticed that one of the valley shots is exactly the same as in Raiders of the Lost Ark--which was also about g.o.d. You see, everything comes full circle on TV. television is good, television is great...

About jesus: in TGSET he seems relatively soft spoken and gentle but still, you know, preachy. Very unlike the lord and saviour from the Omen series of movies who only expresses himself via bright lights in the sky, choral music, and weeping statues. i never quite understood how jesus takes out the anti-christ (THE anti-christ) Sam Neil simply by existing in the world and shining down on him in his bat cave of badness. And poor Damian, he's so evil in Omen III he can't make love to a woman without sodomizing her--he's just that evil people! between you and me i think there are a whole lot of people who like it like dat but i doubt any of them are card carrying members of satan's army. i'm just guessing. in most cases i'm going to say that whether they are evil or not is a totally separate issue. i think god or jesus also shows up as light or Jurgen Prochnow in the Seventh Sign--i've never been totally clear on that.