King of Kings remains the bench-mark in many respects for large-scale retellings of the life of Jesus. It clearly demonstrates everything that can go right and wrong with visual reproduction of the Gospel story.

The archetypical blue-eyed Jesus played by Max Von Sydow, from whom so many Hollywood stereotypes emerge. In this dreary production Jesus is so different from those who surrounds him that he is almost alien, and his pronouncements so super-spiritual that they are almost of no earthly use.

The story of Brian, a well-meaning Jew from AD 33 mistaken as the Messiah.

It is fairly clear that the director of this production sat Bruce Marchiano down and told him to laugh and smile at every opportunity – even the inappropriate ones. The Jesus that emerges is a thoroughly likeable human being whom grandmothers would most likely describe as ‘lovely’. How he manages to wreck the Temple is anyone’s guess.

The Visual Bible’s presentation of the Gospel of John is probably one of the best cinematic presentations of Jesus available today, but its problems are those that relate directly to its topic matter.

All four Gospel narratives are used as source material to bring to the screen Christ's passion – the physical, spiritual, and mental suffering of Jesus in the hours prior to and including his trial and execution by crucifixion.

Martin Scorsese's film adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis’ controversial 1951 novel of the same name contains the central thesis that Jesus, while free from sin, was still subject to every form of temptation that humans face, including fear, doubt, depression, reluctance and lust.

Originally conceived in 1945 by young businessman and Campus Crusade for Christ founder Bill Bright who wanted to privately finance a film about the life of Jesus Christ that was entertaining, biblically accurate, and which could be translated into non-English languages, this film is based very closely on the Gospel of Luke with most of the film's dialogue coming from there.

This six-hour-plus long miniseries which has aired regularly on network television most Easters since the early 1980s is so thorough that the first hour is devoted solely to the story of Christ’s birth.

Seldom do films come along that seem so ready made for the Christian message. The City of Ember will not only captivate the imaginations of children, it is likely to earn the gratitude of youth ministry workers and parents for the Gospel illustrations it provides.

The last thing any distributor wants to hear is a room full of critics laughing – when the film they are marketing is not a comedy. Such was the fate of Twilight at the screening I attended.

I didn’t enjoy watching American Teen but I couldn’t help but be affected by it.

Apparently the High School Musical series of films is as well known to today’s current crop of teens as Star Wars was to mine. I say ‘apparently’ because the invitation to see High School Musical 3 meant nothing to me, but everything to various babysitters to our family. So I set off with three of them in my car to see if I couldn’t make sense of this phenomena.

Quantum of Solace might be better named Quantum of Satisfaction for all of the joy James Bond fans are likely to gain from the latest installment in this 45-year-old franchise.