Killing Jesus - the book & movie

[LovelyLadyLux]

There is an American TV Newscaster here on Fox News that has a daily political commentary show. The man himself, Bill O'Reilly started out as a school teacher then moved into News Media work and now has a daily 1 hour TV show. I find him quite interesting as he insists on what he calls a "no spin" approach. He is quite open about his beliefs and aspects of his life - i.e. he is Catholic, strongly supports the US military, believes the rise of single parenting is causing the decline of family values particularly as related to African Americans.

He has written several books along with Martin Dugard - Killing Kennedy, Killing Lincoln, Killing Patton and Killing Jesus. He has donated the proceeds of all his books which are extremely popular and have hit the #1 Best Seller list to the Wounded Warrior program. I've read all except Killing Lincoln and what his focus is is on the Politics of the time these people were alive.

What I'm coming to is that re: Killing Jesus it isn't a religious book at all but rather a discussion of the social and political times Jesus lived in. Last night was the release of this book in movie format. As Killing Jesus was on the best seller list for months this 'movie' has been being touted for months here.

Invited the daughter and son in law for supper so we could all watch it once the kids went to bed. Everybody has been looking forward to seeing it and, of course, the release date just prior to Easter hasn't been a coincidence.

We were all set at 8pm to watch this 3 hour documentary drama movie ONLY to find out that the 3 hour time slot for what turned out to be a 2 hour film was filled up with ONE HOUR of TV Commercials!!! It was absolutely awful. They were showing sometimes what seemed like 3 minutes of movie combined with 3 minutes of TV Ads.

I personally totally lost the gist of anything within the first hour and the last 2 hours were taken up by me watching TV interspersed with cruising the web.

Having read the book, knowing I like the Author and enjoying the research of the politics of the time I was really keen on seeing how the movie stacked up to the content of the book but the presentation of combing TV Ads + movie was awful. I can appreciate that the Viewership for this presentation shown on the National Geographic channel would attract a large audience but the flogging of the Ads was terrible.

Not sure if you got this "Killing Jesus" special on your TV there but unless it is being shown commercial free I'd not bother to ever try watching it again.

[Grandad]

I prefer to watch any programmes on BBC which is the only non-commercial channel here. Series on commercial channels need to be very good for me to watch them (like Downton Abbey) but we have a useful trick. we can record a program or pause it then fast forward through the ads.
We do have some very flexible TV arrangements. My own TV splits between aerial digital, wifi, and record/pause, scheduled record.

[LovelyLadyLux]

I'm with you Grandad on the 'no' commercial venues. Other then watching NEWS on TV I almost exclusively watch shows on Netflix. I enjoyed the book, appreciate this Newscaster and this "docu-movie" has been touted so much I opted to watch it. Even brought the family over in part too cause these past few weeks they've been having real trouble with their Internet/Phone provider. (They're TV-less and Internet-less right now - something about the provider accidentally cutting off services to put it through to new homes and inadvertently cutting off other paying customers. I was personally a bit alarmed when I tried to reach them only to get a message their phone was disconnected!! Granted the Provider has given them all no billing for a month but the inconvenience has been severe)

Any E Hoo - it was a major major disappointment to me to try and even remotely watch this production. Have to admit I'm like you and don't watch unless it is commercial free and I'd rather forgotten these TV channels and their Ads.

On another note the parts that I did watch were neither documentary or movie. It seemed a mush all pushed together. Haven't read any reviews but I think the movie fell far from the mark. I watched Killing Kennedy when it was made into a movie and it was a good depiction and followed the book but I think "killing Jesus" was just too broad a subject matter to capture.

[Horus]

I watched the first part of 'Killing Jesus' on the Nat Geo channel and although the adverts were not too bad, the program itself was a bit disappointing. In particular the make up, all those false beards were the absolute pits and it was all I could do to stop myself laughing as everyone had one. Neither have I seen anything so far that deviated from the usual Jesus story as it is recounted in the Bible and been retold in a thousand films and programs, so not overly impressed so far either.

[Jayway]

Our TV films usually have 15 mins breaks, like time to make food, use the bathroom, stoke the fire. BUT as I am warm and fed I tend to nod off and miss the last bit - - - so annoying to wake up at 2 in the morning -

[LovelyLadyLux]

@H - OMG yes the beards! How fake can you get???! OMG it was awful and I don't for a second believe the costumes being worn were really depictions of what was worn way back then........

Cause I'd asked the daughter and S-I-L over I persevered through the entire show but if it had of just been me I faded from it about the 1 hour mark too.