Christian Bale, the actor playing Moses in the upcoming film “Exodus: Gods and Kings” has publicly slammed the Biblical leader as mentally ill.
“I think the man was likely schizophrenic and was one of the most barbaric individuals that I ever read about in my life,” Bale said to international media. Bale told the reporters that he really had no knowledge of the Bible and had to do “significant research” for the role.
The director of the film, Ridley Scott, also remarked that they will completely dismiss the truth of the Bible when enacting parts of the story such as the parting of the Red Sea.
The movie will claim it was not God who did it, but an earthquake.
“You can’t just do a giant parting, with walls of water trembling while people ride between them,” Scott said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, referring to the film “The Ten Commandments.” “I didn’t believe it then, when I was just a kid sitting in the third row. I remember that feeling, and thought that I’d better come up with a more scientific or natural explanation.”
The movie will hit theaters on December 12th.
A statement has been released by almost 200 Hollywood stars condemning the “ideologies of hatred” that drive the terrorist group Hamas along with a call for peace in Gaza.
“We, the undersigned, are saddened by the devastating loss of life endured by Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza. We are pained by the suffering on both sides of the conflict and hope for a solution that brings peace to the region,” the statement begins.
“While we stand firm in our commitment to peace and justice, we must also stand firm against ideologies of hatred and genocide which are reflected in Hamas’ charter, Article 7 of which reads, ‘There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!’ Hamas cannot be allowed to rain rockets on Israeli cities, nor can it be allowed to hold its own people hostage. Hospitals are for healing, not for hiding weapons. Schools are for learning, not for launching missiles. Children are our hope, not our human shields.”
The document was published on the website Creative Community For Peace.
Stars that signed the statement included Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwartenegger and Seth Rogan. The statement even had far-left wing celebrities that normally do not support conservative issues like creator of “The West Wing” Aaron Sorkin and atheist activist and commentator Bill Maher.
The group bills themselves as “an organization of prominent entertainment industry executives devoted to using art and music to build bridges for peace.”
Kirk Cameron is well known today as a Christian actor but many people do not know that he did not accept Christ until he was 18.
What may be surprising is that he found God on a soundstage in Hollywood while filming the show that made him a star, “Growing Pains.”
“I think eventually if people are thoughtful you start asking grown up questions like, ‘How did the world get started? Where did we come from? Where are we going? Why are we here?’ and I guess when I, as a child, I just sort of had blind faith in the fairytale that they way we got here was from goo to the zoo to you,” he told FOX411. “I finally said that doesn’t sound right and someone took me to church and kind of opened my eyes to what I believe is the truth about who we are and why we’re here and so when I was about 18 years old I wanted to start living my life in a way that said thank you to the way God made me.”
Cameron said that once he accepted Christ he quickly became more passionate for a relationship with Jesus. He would study the Bible and strive to do all he could to learn the Word of God and apply it to his life. However, that devotion to Christ and his teachings has led to many conflicts with Hollywood.
“I think that when anyone is in the spotlight…you’re always going to be held to a higher standard and we should be held to a higher standard because we’re influencing more people than others might be,” Cameron said. “With the privilege of a platform comes great responsibility….[We’ve] got to be careful with what we say and how we say it and everything should be seasoned with grace and while I certainly I don’t do that perfectly, I strive to do it increasingly.”
Cameron said that one of the things driving him now is to make movies that a Christian family can sit down and enjoy together.
“My wife and I are always looking for a great new movie to watch on movie night and it’s hard to find films that are fun and inspiring and that are going to build up our faith in God and our strength as a family. So we decided we would make one and we made it right here in our own backyard with a local little league team and it’s a movie where family learn the lessons of mercy, patience, sacrifice and trusting God,” Cameron said, referring to his new film “Mercy Rule.”
A Hollywood film producer joined forces with a church that has been raising funds to support the family of wrongly imprisoned pastor Saeed Abedini for a huge event that is providing funds for the family to purchase a home.
Daniel Lusko, who has written and directed the still unreleased film “Persecuted”, held a special private screening of the movie with all proceeds benefitting the Abedini family’s fund with Joshua Springs Calvary Chapel.
The church has been actively taking care of the family during Abedini’s imprisonment.
Saeed’s wife, Naghmeh, attended the screening and told attendees that her husband is still in an Iranian hospital being treated for internal bleeding because of the beatings at the hands of guards and other prisoners. He is still be denied much needed surgery.
Lusko said that he is planning two more sneak previews of the film with all ticket sales going to the Abedini family.
“Movies come and go and filmmakers like me don’t face much persecution. But men and women like the Abedinis face persecution and death every single day,” Lusko said.
Californians have been keeping an eye on the San Andreas Fault for years fearing a “big one” would strike and cause massive damage.
Now, scientists say that a quake of 7.5 or bigger on a lesser known fault might be even more catastrophic than a quake along the San Andreas Fault line.
The Puente Hills thrust fault, which was the fault which brought Friday night’s 5.1 magnitude quake, runs from northern Orange County through downtown Los Angeles and all the way into Hollywood. The San Andreas Fault runs along the outskirts of Southern California’s metro areas.
Thus, scientists say, a massive quake along the Puente Hills fault would cause significantly more damage and likely brings hundreds or thousands of deaths. One estimate from the U.S. Geological Survey estimated as many as 1,800 deaths and $250 billion in damage.
The same fault in 1987 had a 5.9 quake that killed eight people and caused $350 million in damage.
One USGS staffer said that a 7.5 quake centered in Los Angeles would be so intense that it would throw heavy objects like a grand piano into the air.
An independent Christian film shocked Hollywood observers over the weekend when it debuted in the top 5 for earnings despite being shown in less than 1,000 theaters.
God’s Not Dead, a low-budget production that shows a college student accepting an atheist professor’s challenge to provide a defense for the existence of God, was shown on only 780 screens last weekend but earned $9.2 million in the first three days to finish in 4th place according to the Hollywood news site deadline.com.
That put the movie just ahead of the film 300: Rise of an Empire, which earned $8.5 million on the weekend on 3,085 screens.
The film is the 7th all-time grossing Christian film on its opening weekend, ahead of Fireproof’s $6.8 million.
The movie had a boost from appearances by Willie and Korie Roberston of Duck Dynasty who said their participation in the film strengthened their faith in Christ.
The film’s distributor is attempting to put the movie into more theaters this coming weekend.
It wasn’t that long ago that most of the winners in major award shows like the Academy Awards would thank God before anyone else. That has faded in recent years.
So it is not surprising that many major media outlets noted that when Matthew McConaughey won Best Actor for his role in “Dallas Buyers Club” Sunday night that they pointed out his strong thank you to God.
“First off I want to thank God, because that’s who I look up to. He’s graced my life with opportunities that I know are not of my hand or any other human hand,” McConaughey said in his speech. “He has shown me that it’s a scientific fact that gratitude reciprocates. In the words of the late Charlie Laughton, who said, ‘When you got God you got a friend and that friend is you.'”
He went on to thank his family with special thanks to his mother and his late father.
Critics immediately pounced on the actor for his speech, slamming his credit to God.
“Just stop the stupid God talk,” wrote one critic quoted by Fox News. “I thought we could get through the Oscars without someone thanking God but no he had to ruin it….”
Actress Roma Downey is calling her new movie Son of God an “epic, sweeping” reminder to the world of God’s love.
Downey and her husband, revolutionary Hollywood producer Mark Burnett, have produced the Bible epic scheduled to be released in theaters on February 28th.
“We hope the audiences leave theatres feeling they know Jesus more and also they are reminded of how deeply he loved us,” Downey said. “This is a big, epic sweeping film. An exciting movie and sometimes a tense movie with intense drama and real danger.”
Downey and Burnett shocked Hollywood observers with their miniseries “The Bible” which had 13.1 million viewers for its premiere. The sequel to “The Bible,” titled “A.D.” and will follow the events immediately after Jesus’ ascension, has been given the green light by NBC.
Downey and Burnett credit their Hollywood success for opening doors to produce movies about their faith.
“It all comes back to people in the industry realizing that we know what we’re doing and allowing us to make this show and now our movie about our faith,” Burnett said.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has taken away an Oscar nomination from an independent Christian film following outrage from Oscar watchers and industry members.
The Academy claims that a former member of the board of Governors who sits on the Academy’s music branch’s executive committee violated rules against lobbying by e-mailing members of the music branch about the song during the nomination period.
The film had made a small run in Los Angeles to allow it to qualify for Oscar consideration before going into wider release next year. The tactic is very common for smaller films and was used this year for Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Wind Rises” to get a nomination for Best Animated Feature.
The nomination was first attacked by critics who tried to disqualify the song claiming the movie did not purchase advertisements for the run of the movie in Los Angeles. The Academy ruled in that case the show times published in the newspapers of the area qualified as meeting the advertising requirement.
The Academy has not previously taken action against someone sending an e-mail to members asking them to nominate a song for Oscar consideration.
A Hollywood actress says that God has always honored her following the Holy Spirit when He led her to turn down certain movie roles.
Meagan Good said that her Christian beliefs have led her to turn down some major movie roles but that God has always delivered.
“I have my parameters of what I feel in my spirit is appropriate,” Good told the LA Times. “There have been times where it’s been tough because it’s something I really wanted, but the nudity would be exploitative and I’d lose the opportunity, but what I’ve found is that the more I stick to my convictions, the more God sticks to his promises. When I would lose something, something better would come up than what I turned down. And I’ve been able to pay my bills doing nothing else since I was 13.”
Good is married to Preacher DeVon Franklin and strongly believes that you can maintain your Christian faith and be successful in Hollywood.
“We believe that both can come together and one can be used to promote the other, using what we do in the business to promote the kingdom,” Good said.
