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demetrius and the gladiators Demetrius and the Gladiators Victor Mature

Susan Haywood

Jay Robinson

This movie begins where the 1953 film "The Robe" leaves off.  While "The Robe" was a very respectful effort centered around Christ's crucifixion "Demetrius and the Gladiators", focuses more on the viciousness of Imperial Rome and the bloody sport of Gladiator combat where innocent men fought to the death for the Roman mob's amusement.

The newly liberated slave Demetrius forges an alliance with his Christian brethren to hide the sacred robe of Christ, coveted for its "magic" by the vile emperor Caligula. Captured and manipulated into believing his beloved Lucia (Debra Paget) has been killed, Demetrius rejects his pacifist faith, plots vengeance while becoming a rising star in the bloody arena, and falls prey to the scheming senator's wife Messalina (Susan Hayward), who craves his affection. It all leads to a crisis of faith that will determine Demetrius's fate as a noble Christian or downfallen hedonist.

(1954), Widescreen, Color. 101 minutes

BibleProbe.com: Recommended for Christians & Jews. Excellent film.
 


 

Diary of a Country Priest

Original title:(Journal d'un curé de campagne)

Claude Laydu

Jean Riveyre

André Guibert

Rachel Bérendt

Nicole Maurey
A masterpiece!

A young Catholic Priest arrives in the French country village of Ambricourt to attend to his first parish, but the apathetic and hostile rural congregation rejects him immediately. Through his diary entries, the suffering young man relays a crisis of faith that threatens to drive him away from the village and from God.

Through it all, the young sickly Priests' great faith in the Lord Jesus, and the Lord's amazing grace manages to save the hardened soul of an aging Countess, by turning her away from hating God, just before she dies.

1950. Criterion selection. B&W. 115 min, Full Screen. In French with excellent English sub-titles. (5 stars)

See at Amazon.com: here

Some viewers may find this distinctly Catholic. They shouldn't. It's all about Faith, and overcoming obstacles by Grace through Faith.

 

Entertaining Angels

The Dorothy Day Story

 

Moira Kelly

Martin Sheen

Brian Keith

Melinda Dillon

 

Dorothy Day is no saint. She lives hard, makes mistakes, endures the consequences. But the unquenchable fire burning within her cannot be contained. Dorothy wants to make a difference. During the Depression, she vows to house the homeless, feed the hungry, tend the sick. Easily said. Not easily done when her total finances amount to 97 cents in a battered canister. Yet Dorothy persists, walking on frequently stormy waters of faith.


Popular stars and important themes combine in this compelling true story of the "American Mother Teresa," filmed by Paulist Pictures (Romero) from a script by ER writer and executive producer John Wells. Moira Kelly plays Day, the impassioned New York journalist who launched the activist newspaper "Catholic Worker" and put the words she wrote into controversial action. Martin Sheen, Melinda Dillon and Brian Keith join Kelly in this moving saga of a faith not just believed, but lived.

1996, Full Screen, 112 minutes

RATED PG-13 for a range of thematic elements, some sexuality (young Dorothy in bed with a man, both mostly covered) and brief language.

BibleProbe.com: Recommended for Christians & Jews. Excellent film.

 

Escape from Darkness Escape from Darkness

Documentary/

Testimony

Daniel Shayesteh A former radical Muslim reveals the foundation of modern Islamic beliefs and actions


It’s time to understand Islam!

Daniel Shayesteh was many things:

Radical Muslim
Active militant
Iranian fundamentalist
Death row inmate ...


but today, Daniel is a born-again Christian! He travels throughout the world revealing the hate-based teachings of the Quran—Islam’s holy book—and shines light on the truth of the Bible. Watch this informative, illustrated testimony as he shares his miraculous escape from darkness.

Daniel Shayesteh was born in Iran near the Caspian Sea. By age nine he was able to recite the entire Quran in Arabic. As a young man he was totally committed to Islam and was a member of Hezbollah in Iran. He inspired other good Muslims to hate and kill Americans and Jews. After he helped to oust the Shah of Iran and bring Ayatollah Khomeini to power, he was kidnapped and sentenced to death; the Ayatollah didn’t like Daniel’s opposition to his political agenda. He existed for a time in torturous prison conditions. His cellmates were executed, but by the grace of God Daniel escaped to Turkey. It was there that he met a group of Iranian Christians. And it was through their witness of the love of Christ and training in the truth of the Bible, beginning in Genesis, that he came to know Christ as Savior.

Though hated by radical Muslims, Dr. Shayesteh travels wherever possible to provide insight into the teachings of the Quran regarding salvation, Adam & Eve, and Christians. He helps Christians understand how to effectively evangelize those still trapped in the traditions and deceptions of Islam. Speaking as one who formerly trained Muslims in the strategies of Islamic Jihad, Shayesteh also addresses the alarming social implications of the growth of Islam in western nations today.

2007. English. 71 min

of the growth of Islam in western nations today.
See at: http://www.christiancinema.com

 

Exodus

Paul Newman

Eva Marie Saint
Ralph Richardson
Peter Lawford
Lee J. Cobb

For nearly three months in 1947, 4,554 desperate Holocaust survivors chose to live in a floating jail rather than return to the European graveyards they had just fled.

They had set out from France that summer on a clandestine steamship named the Exodus 1947, an apt name for a modern incarnation of the ancient passage of Jewish refugees to the Promised Land. But just miles from their destination, the British had captured the ship and barred its passengers from disembarking in Mandatory Palestine.

The refugees said they would rather die than be denied entry to their homeland, and three of them did when the British forced them off the Exodus. The rest were then divided among three British prison ships and sent back to France. When they again refused to get off, they were forcibly removed, this time in Hamburg, Germany.

The refugees might have failed in their immediate aim of reaching Palestine, but they achieved a broader goal of helping to create a Jewish state. The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine was at that time formulating its recommendation on what to do with the territory, and the deluge of news reports on the Exodus helped create sympathy for the Jews and the recommendation UNSCOP eventually made to partition the land and create a Jewish state.

Later, Leon Uris's New York Times best-seller, which was turned into a Hollywood blockbuster, enshrined the episode in the collective historical consciousness. Indeed, it is perhaps the most storied event in pre-state Israeli history.

And yet, for all that is known about the Exodus, it is striking what is not known. The historical record lacks so much as a list of all the passengers on the ship.

"This was the turning point for the [creation of] the State of Israel. There's no doubt about it," says Genya Markon, acquisitions curator of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. "It seems amazing that there is no list."

1960, 208 min, See at Amazon.com

BibleProbe.com: Highly recommended for Christians & Jews. Excellent film.
 

Fiddler on the Roof DVD
Fiddler on the
Roof
Topol A masterpiece!

This rousing musical, based on the stories of Shalom Aleichem, takes place in pre-revolutionary Russia and centers on the life of  Tevye (Topol), a milkman who is trying to keep his family's traditions in place while marrying off his three older daughters. Yet, times are changing and the daughters want to make their own matches, breaking free of many of the constricting customs required of them by Judaism. In the background of these events, Russia is on the brink of revolution and Jews are feeling increasingly unwelcome in their villages. Tevye--who expresses his desire for sameness in the opening number, "Tradition"--is trying to keep everyone, and everything, together. The movie is strongly allegorical--Tevye represents the common man--but it does it dexterously, and the resulting film is a stunning work of art. The music is excellent (it won Oscars for the scoring and the sound), with plenty of familiar songs such as "Sunrise, Sunset" and "If I Were a Rich Man," which you'll be humming long after the movie is over. Isaac Stern's violin--he provides the music for the fiddler on the roof--is hauntingly beautiful. And despite the serious subject matter, the film is quite comedic in parts; it also well deserves the Oscar it won for cinematography. (1971) Wide screen (5 stars).

BibleProbe.com: Highly Recommended for Christians & Jews. Excellent film.

 

The Five People You Meet in Heaven Jon Voight

Ellen Burstyn

Dagmara Dominczyk

Jeff Richards

Jeff Daniels

Callahan Brebner

On his 83rd birthday, Eddie (Voight), a war vet and a maintenance worker at the Ruby Pier amusement park, dies while trying to save a girl who is sitting under a falling ride. When he awakens in the afterlife, he encounters five people with ties to his corporeal existence who help him understand the meaning of his life.

Wonderfully made by Hallmark for TV.  This is a story of a man named Eddie who was shown the secret of heaven: that each life affects the other, and the other affects the next. The world is full of stories, but the stories are all one." - The Five People You Meet In Heaven DVD

A critical, abusive, alcoholic father. The nightmares--and a physical wound--courtesy of war. Infertility. A beloved wife struck down with a neurological disease. Evaporating dreams of being an engineer, replaced with a life-long job as a theme park maintenance man.

Eddie feels like a loser. He was a nobody-his alcoholic father made sure of that. Working at the theme park Ruby's Pier, like his father before him, is how Eddie died and went to heaven.

Author Mitch Albom wrote the script for the made-for-TV movie The Five People You Meet In Heaven, which is based on his bestselling book. The theme of this story is that no life is a waste, no matter how seemingly insignificant-and that there are no random acts, because all are connected.

Not rated. 2004. Full screen.  133 min. (5 stars)

See at Amazon.com here

BibleProbe.com: Highly recommended for Christians & Jews. Excellent film.

 

Flywheel

Lisa Arnold
Alex Kendrick
Barry Carr
Daniel Van Cleave
John Hemken
A "tear jerker" of a feel good movie. Made on a $20,000 budget by a Baptist Church group in Georgia. It's all about getting "right" with the Lord.

Amazon.com Editorial Comment
Flywheel is the first film from the creators of Facing the Giants and Fireproof. Used car salesman Jay Austin (writer/director Alex Kendrick) swindles his customers and teaches his assistant salesmen to do the same--but despite the profits, something gnaws at him. When he realizes that his own son doesn't respect him, Austin has a conversion and accepts God into his life. This would be the end of most spiritual stories, but Flywheel finds a warm comedy in the obstacles on the path of righteousness; Austin discovers that being right with God means grappling every day with what it means to be honest. Though the filmmaking is raw (the editing is often clumsy and the cinematography is flat), the story is well-paced, has a gently ironic sense of humor, and Kendrick's central performance is compelling. Kendrick is just as persuasive as a man struggling to emerge from a joyless life as he is when he's rediscovered his faith but finds it constantly tested. Though Flywheel is forthright about its Christian inspiration, the story is about actually living a moral life, not about abstract spiritual truths. The result is a movie that looks towards heaven, but has its feet on the earth. --Bret Fetzer

(2003) 125 min

Only $8.49 at Amazon:
here

Movie Ratings

G General Audiences Films contain nothing that would offend parents for viewing by children.
PG Parental Guidance Suggested Some material may not be suitable for children.
PG-13 Parents Strongly Cautioned Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13. 
R Restricted Under 17 requires an accompanying parent or guardian.

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