"These rebels, they have no fear, or they have so much they are numb to it. They feel as if they have nothing left to lose, and they hate us who do..."

It's all just a matter of perspective, isn't it? As a history teacher I have taught aspects of that event we all recognize as the American Revolutionary War. Did you know that in a British history book I have it is referred to as the Colonial Rebellion? You see, one man's revolution is another man's rebellion. Everybody is talking about who will be the next James Bond. It seems we’ve been fascinated by the spy genre since the early 1960’s. AMC has added a new wrinkle to the spy game with Turn: Washington’s Spies. When we say Washington, we’re not talking about the city. We’re talking General Washington, George Washington that is. It’s a revolutionary show about a real-life spy ring from America’s fight for independence. And yes, this series lets you see the war clearly from both perspectives.

"And then there's Maude."

In football, there's always a lot of talk about coaching trees. You know the idea. Some great mastermind who saw his assistants go on to have success of their own and who passed that lucky charm down to others for, perhaps, generations. All In The Family would be the television equivalent to a coach with a long tree. There were an incredible number of spinoffs that led to other spinoffs. Archie's neighbors The Jeffersons moved on up to the East Side and had their own several years of success. That show saw maid Florence have her spinoff from that show called Checking In. Meanwhile, Archie's daughter had her Gloria series, and after Edith's death, Archie settled into Archie Bunker's Place. Even the Bunker home had a spinoff called 704 Houser Street when a new family moved in.

I recently reviewed a cinematic production of a different bible story, Noah’s Ark, and I commented on the fact that I have heard that particular story told time and time again since childhood. Now I have been given the opportunity to review another bible story adapted for screen: the story of Moses. I thought that I had heard the story of Noah a lot, but then I began thinking about how many times I have heard the story of Moses. Whether be it through different adaptations of films or the original tale in the Bible, I believe I have experienced a retelling of the tale of Moses more than any other tale from the good book. Fellow cinephiles might recognize a few of these titles: Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (both his 1923 and 1956 versions), the animated feature The Prince of Egypt, or perhaps the more recent Ridley Scott feature, Exodus: Gods and Kings. The one thing that each of these films has in common is the aforementioned source material.

This specific adaptation, titled Moses, places Ben Kingsley in the lead role. It was his presence that drew me to the film in the first place. However, I was quite surprised to see two other veteran actors, Christopher Lee and Frank Langella (occupying the roles of Ramses and Memefta respectively).  It was a little bizarre that these three actors were the only ones that I actually recognized in the production. Every other actor I had never seen before, creating a strange stage on which Kingsley performs. This strange stage is made even more bizarre with the fact that Lee and Langella are actually minor characters in the film: Although the pharaoh and his heir are the main antagonists in the actual story, the amount of screen time they occupy is incredibly insignificant. As a result, Kingsley’s performance as Moses becomes enunciated, which left him little room for error in my expectations regarding his acting. I must say he definitely delivered on all fronts, but I don’t think I’d prefer him to Charlton Heston in 1956’s The Ten Commandments.

In the last few years, I’ve begun to question the veracity of any of the history I’ve been taught. I’ve been finding big chunks of history that were never included in the textbooks, and it seemed to depend on the point of view of the teller what kind of history you got. The old saying is, “History belongs to the victors”. It’s that sort of thing. Now you can add Drunk History to the mix. This is where people talk about historical event, but only after they have become hopelessly debilitated by alcohol. It’s funny to watch, and, in this case, you already know for sure history is becoming garbled. I’ve already reviewed the Season One and Two sets, in case you want to go back and reread that. They really are very funny, but you wonder, first of all, how much these various comedians really know about history. Then they get drunk, so often they wind up just falling on the floor and sleeping and babbling. But on some level, I get more out of these historical retellings than the dry and serious ones. At least with Drunk History I am forced to think for myself, and if I really want to know, I should research it myself.

Drunk History: Season Three is at a point where they are running out of all the good history to tell, but they still managed to find lots of fun stories. This season deals with people like no-nonsense Harriet Tubman, super spy and future children’s author Roald Dahl, perplexed Milton Bradley, sneaky Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, little kid Louis Armstrong, and a haunted Clark Gable. The stories are told most often by relatively unknown comedians, but sometimes they up the ante with stars like Paget Brewster (Criminal Minds). But there are stars everywhere with so many stories being told. Some of them are Dennis Quaid (Lucky Luciano), Sam Rockwell (Bugsy Segal), Josh Harnett (Clark Gable), Nathan Fillion (Wernher Von Braun), Topher Grace (Milton Bradley), Kat Dennings (Kentucky Daisy), Giancarlo Esposito (Andre Pico) Ryan Phillipe (Benjamin Hayes), Jack Black (William Mullholland), Colin Hanks (Gordon Cooper and Ernest Thompson Seton), Jason Ritter (Elisha Gray and Robert Woodrow Wilson), Patton Oswalt (Mac Brazel), Henry Winkler (Zenas Fisk Wilber), Greg Kinnear (Thaddeus S.C. Lowe), Stephen Merchant (Abraham Lincoln), Michael Cera and Haley Joel Osment (Newsies), Jahel “Urkel” White (Bass Reeves), Olivia Spencer (Harriet Tubman), Johnny Knoxville (Juan Ponce de Leon), Ellie Klemper (Nellie Bly), Maya Rudolph (Grizelda Blanco), Jason Momoa (pirate Jean Lafitte), Jack McBrayer (President Andrew Jackson), Will Ferrell (Ronald Dahl), Parker Posey (Mary Phelps Jacob), Martin Starr (Alexander Graham Bell), Michael McKean (Carl Laemmle), Chris Parnell (Thomas Edison), Taran Killam (Bobby Fisher), Jake Johnson (Boris Spassky) Jason Alexander (Boss Tweed), Noah Wylie (Thomas Nash), and I’m going to stop because I’m running out of space. There are actually a lot more notable people. There are interviews with writer/directors like David Simon (The Wire) and David Wain (Wet Hot American Summer) and lots of goofy extras. The motif of going to different cities to interview people on the street continues.

Here we go, yet another killer crocodile film to whet your appetites for fun, cheesy gore and perhaps a late-night scare or two.  Sure, the thought of another killer crocodile film may cause some (OK, many) to roll their eyes, but in the killer-animal genre, it’s the crocs and gators that still manage to get my attention.  Perhaps it’s because I’m a Florida boy, born and raised, and around these parts it’s not much of a surprise to hear about gators being found in the strangest places.  With The Hatching bringing us some cold-blooded horror out of the UK, I figure I’ll test the waters with this film from across the pond and see what it has to offer.

Three young boys decide one night that they are going to break into the local zoo; while on their late-night escapade, the boys have an accident, and one of them doesn’t make it out alive. After being away from his home in Somerset, Tim (Andre Lee Potts) returns after 15 years following the death of his father.  It’s not long after Tim’s return to Somerset that people and animals start to disappear, leaving only a trail of body parts behind.

In the book of Genesis from the Bible, the story of Abraham comes right after the stories of Adam and Eve and Noah. It is one of the foundation stories of the Bible and talks of Abraham being the father of the Jewish people. The Bible is the source book of Christianity as well. The stories of the Bible are well known among people of all faiths as well, so it is assumed that most people on the planet know the story of Abraham. Bible stories are done religiously (pun intended), and Richard Harris (Camelot, Albus Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter movies) himself has done two other Bible stories (Cain in The Bible: In the Beginning and the apostle John in The Apocalypse). Abraham is a well -mounted two-part 173-minute 1993 television presentation that originally aired on TNT as part of a Bible series. There is a box set called The Bible ,which also includes Joseph in Egypt, Samson and Delilah, Jacob, Moses and David.

Before there was Moses, God spoke to Abraham (or Abram) and told him to take his people to search for an unknown land called Canaan. God promised Abraham to “make of him a great nation, bless him, make his name great, bless them that bless him, and curse he who may curse him”. Abraham wanders with his tribe which includes his wife, Sarah (Barbara Hershey), and his nephew, Lot. The cast also includes Vitorrio Gassman as Terah, Abraham’s 205-year-old father, and Maximilian Schell as Pharaoh. One of the main struggles that Abraham faces is fathering a child, because he is very old himself. In fact, many of the things that God has promised him seem impossible, and his faith is tested many times. At one point they arrive in Egypt and Sarah is taken to live in the house of Pharaoh. Eventually they escape, and they take Sarah’s Egyptian handmaiden, Hagar. Eventually Hagar is offered to Abraham by Sarah to consort with and have a child. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is also included. Two angels are sent by God to rescue Lot from the evil city. Lot at one point offers his young daughters to evil men of the city who want the angels who have come to Lot’s home. The next day, because God could not find 10 righteous men in the city, it will be destroyed. Lot’s wife is turned to salt when she turns to look back against God’s expressed command.