The Manlius Formation

This is one of my favorite times of year. Is it because spring is nigh, and the birds are chirping? No. Because the days are longer, and the sun shines from early in the morning until late at night? No. The reason is simple: the four-hour extravaganza created in 1956 - Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments.

Sure, Charlton Heston was a horrible actor.^[1] Sure, Moses may not have had the bottomless supply of metaphors^[2] and the silver tongue^[3] he wields with unchecked abandon in the film. Sure, Joshua probably didn’t flit around on ropes like Errol Flynn. But there’s something about this epic creation that keeps me glued to the TV for hours.

Now, I enjoy How the Grinch Stole Christmas and other similar holiday-time TV happenings, but none nearly so much as this.

I hereby declare The Ten Commandments to be the greatest historically-themed epic of all time.

So let it be written. So let it be done.

1. To say nothing of his politics [back]
2. ”Blood makes poor mortar.” [back]
3. ”The man stupid enough to use you as a footstool would not be wise enough to rule Egypt.” [back]

Apparently, the AMC network is not just for old John Wayne movies any more. AMC is developing a series based on Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. I couldn’t confirm at the AMC website, but found it mentioned at a few other websites.^[1]

I’m excited about the possibility, but nervous about whether Jonathan Hensleigh will be able to do it justice. The novel centers on how people would react to an effort to colonize and terraform Mars – Heinsleigh is more apt to focus on the special effects.

In other news, while looking for something concrete to reference on the AMC website, I found something interesting: a poll where you can vote for your favorite monster hunter. The semi-finals saw Buffy^[2] beat Ripley by 2 votes (4382 to 4380) and Ash^[3] trounce on Hellboy. Vote for your favorite by December 10.

1. I didn’t reference them here because they didn’t have many details. [back]
2. … referred to as “the woman that falls in love with just about anything that moves” by the poll author. That’s good stuff. [back]
3. … who possesses “a cybernetic prosthesis of doom.” [back]