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The Schmooze

It Was a Year for Filming Biblically

Christian Bale as Moses in Ridley Scott’s ‘Exodus’ / Photo copyright 20th Century Fox

Bible spin-offs are nearly as old as the Bible itself, but this year saw a couple of big-screen adaptations that were hard to rival in their ambitions, or their controversies.

Darren Aronofsky’s “Noah,” starring Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly, provided a freewheeling version of the flood story, and courted criticism from those upset by its disregard for biblical literalism.

And, more recently, Ridley Scott’s “Exodus” — if anything, even a bigger special effects production than “Noah” — brought on the ire of Twitter with its allegedly racist casting.

Then there were more explicitly Christian-oriented offerings, like the rapture fantasy “Left Behind” and “Son of God,” which was adapted from 2013’s TV miniseries, “The Bible.”

At this rate, it shouldn’t be too long before we get the Michael Bay interpretation of Ezekiel.

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