THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, April 6, 1996 TAG: 9604040037
SECTION: TELEVISION PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LARRY BONKO, TELEVISION COLUMNIST
LENGTH: Long : 115 lines
BEN KINGSLEY as Moses in the new film on TNT Sunday night at 8 isn't quite the towering presence of Charlton Heston in ``The Ten Commandments'' (1956) or Burt Lancaster of ``Moses: The Lawgiver'' (1975). In fact, Kingsley in ``Moses: A TNT Bible Story'' is a bit of a wimp.
When the Israelites hail Moses as the messenger of God who will ``lead his people from Egyptian bondage into the land of milk and honey,'' the expression on Kingsley's face says, ``Who me?''
It's Moses lite.
No matter. ``Moses: A TNT Bible Story'' is worth watching.
Kingsley has chosen to play The Great Deliverer as a shy, stammering man crippled with doubt, barely able to speak when he is young.
``You'll not see a lot of histrionics from me, '' Kingsley said when he met the TV press in Los Angles not long ago. ``The camera lens will throw off that kind of acting like a duck repels water.''
Even as the reluctant Moses, Kingsley is a compelling character in this fourth Old Testament production from Turner as he moves from the court of Ramses II to the gates of Canaan on a 40-year journey. The TNT film includes some nifty special effects including the burning bush, which really burns on TNT.
This is not the Heston or Lancaster bigger-than-life Moses by design, said director Roger Young. ``We agreed that if we were going to do the story of Moses in the 1990s, it had to be a different Moses.'' If you want to see the Heston style in ``The Ten Commandments,'' catch ABC Sunday night at 7.
And so it is - the perfect programming for April's holy season.
Kingsley played Moses at some risk. After filming for a month in sandals on the sandy, rocky terrain of Morocco, Kingsley came away with sore feet. ``It gave me some faint sense of what Moses and his people endured for 40 years,'' he said. But with a difference. Kingsley had medics on the set.
Other programming of interest on Easter weekend:
The Faith & Values Channel on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. will show the traditional Easter Mass from St. Patrick's Cathedral celebrated by John Cardinal O'Connor. On Monday night at 30 minutes past midnight, F&V has on tape delay Pope John Paul II's Easter Mass from Rome.
The Learning Channel on Sunday at 1 p.m. presents ``Jesus and his Times,'' a three-hour Easter special that carries viewers from Jesus' birth to his final days, when Roman leaders in Jerusalem saw him as a potential leader of an insurrection. Hence his death on the cross.
The History Channel on Sunday at 8 p.m. marks the Easter and Passover season with ``Jerusalem with Martin Gilbert,'' a guided tour of the city that has been home to more than three dozen conquerors and three major religions in its 3,000-year history. The History Channel repeats the three-part series on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at 8 p.m., and Saturday, April 13, at 8 p.m.
The Travel Channel's contribution to the holiday is ``Westminster Abbey,'' an hour's visit inside the most famous Gothic church of them all with host Alan Bennett. It's on Sunday at 10 p.m. More than 3 million people a year visit the church on which work began in 1245. An all-star literary lineup is buried in the poet's corner - Chaucer, Dickens, Kipling and Milton.
Elsewhere on the tube in the week to come:
The 17th and last new series to premiere in network TV's ``Third Season'' signs on Fox Monday night at 8 with a two-hour episode, and it's a dandy. ``Profit'' stars Adrian Pasdar as a sociopath who plays by his own rules in big business. It's a dark drama about a complex man who as a boy was raised in a box - no kidding - and who will stop at nothing to move up the corporate ladder.
Animal lovers may find the latest ``American Undercover'' episode on Home Box Office difficult to watch. Try, anyway. It is a story that should be told. ``To Love or Kill: Man vs. Animal'' shows how in some societies animals are revered and loved, while in others, they are abused. And that includes bullfighting in Spain and laboratory experiments in the United States.
The Discovery Channel, in a four-part series called ``Outlaws and Lawmen,'' shows viewers that the Old West wasn't quite so glamorous as seen on ``Gunsmoke.'' Did Matt Dillon as a U.S. marshall ever face so menacing a band of robbers as seen in this series? ``Outlaws and Lawmen'' premieres Sunday at 10 p.m. with ``Legacy of War'' and continues through Wednesday. Also on The Discovery Channel - TV that is good for you - comes the launch of ``Discover Magazine'' on Sunday at 8 p.m. Was it a bullet wound or the subsequent medical care that did in Abraham Lincoln? ``Discover Magazine'' addresses the question on Sunday at 8. It repeats April 14 at 4 p.m.
Remember when Melissa Joan Hart was just a kid on Nickelodeon's ``Clarissa Explains It All''? Well, she's all grown up now and ready for bigger and better acting roles such as ``Sabrina the Teenage Witch,'' which premieres on Sunday at 6:30 p.m. on Showtime with a 90-minute feature. At the age of 16, Sabrina hears the news from her aunts. She's a witch. Great. But will this help her get cool dates?
Public Broadcasting and WHRO have a full plate in the week before us.
On Tuesday at 9 p.m., ``Frontline'' profiles the nun (Sister Helen Prejean) on whose life the recent film ``Dead Man Walking'' is based. Watch ``Angel on Death Row'' and compare Susan Sarandon's Academy Award performance to the real-life work of Prejean. . . PBS on Sunday at 4 p.m. begins airing a three-part series about the impact of 1990s technology on people with disabilities in ``People in Motion: An Innovation Miniseries''. . . The struggle of Mexican-Americans to stand up and be counted as legitimate U.S. citizens is documented in a four-hour PBS miniseries, ``Chicano! History of the Mexican-American Civil Rights Movement,'' starting Friday night at 9. . . On Wednesday night at 9, PBS' ``American Masters'' series profiles Buckminster Fuller in ``Thinking Out Loud.'' He's the architect, engineer, poet, philosopher and author who inspired the design of the late, great domed convention center at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront.
And for pure escapism, your humble columnist suggests this special from A&E premiering Sunday night at 8: ``Rogers & Hammerstein: The Sound of Movies.'' Shirley Jones hosts the two-hour festival of music, music, music and clips, clips, clips. See Ann-Margret's screen test, outtakes, Frank Sinatra trying on his movie wardrobe. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
...[Ben Kingsley as Moses]...
TNT photo
Frank Langella portrays the Pharaoh Mernefta in TNT's ``Moses.''
When the Israelites were pursued by Pharaoh's army, God parted the
Red Sea so that the Israelites could escape.
by CNB