It’s a coming-of-age story for Moses, a tale of rivalry between two brothers, and a heroic tale of deliverance all rolled into one. (In the habit of the era, the casting is ludicrously whitewashed.) The Ten Commandments reenacts the events of the biblical book of Exodus, with Yul Brynner as Ramses opposite Heston’s Moses, and Anne Baxter playing Nefertiti, the queen and the third point in the movie’s big love triangle. DeMille took the familiar story and made a big, melodramatic epic that’s more operatic than merely cinematic. It never occurred to me as a kid, but of course The Ten Commandments was airing on Easter because the holiday usually coincides with the celebration of Passover: The story of the children of Israel being led out of slavery in Egypt and into freedom in the Promised Land is celebrated during Passover, and that’s the story of The Ten Commandments. But I’d nestle into the couch and munch on a chocolate bunny while I watched Charlton Heston, playing an impossibly blue-eyed Moses, confront Pharaoh and part the Red Sea. I never got to watch the whole thing, because inevitably I missed the start time. (It’s been airing since 1968, and this year it’s on the night before Easter.) It’s one of my favorite childhood memories: Every year on Easter, after the family festivities were over, I’d go downstairs and turn on our big old TV set, and ABC would be airing The Ten Commandments. The movie of the week for April 15 through 21 is The Ten Commandments, which is available to digitally rent on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, YouTube, and Vudu. What you can count on is a weekend watch that sheds new light on the week that was. Old, new, blockbuster, arthouse: They’re all fair game. Every weekend, we pick a movie you can stream that dovetails with current events.
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