We'll pass over that for now

OK, it's true. You do sometimes have to run clueless stuff because it's produced by your own reporters. But you really don't have an obligation to run clueless stuff by other people's reporters just so you can use a movie still to drive up traffic:

God is a whale of a storyteller. From the Garden of Eden to the Great Flood to the resurrection of Christ, he’s got the best material.

Yes, and just wait until you get to the part where the lamb opens the seventh seal.

So it’s no wonder that religious themes have dominated the arts for centuries, from the first fireside odes to the new film “Exodus: Gods and Kings.”

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/12/26/5405993/behold-bible-stories-are-back.html#.VJ9TZc8A#storylink=cpy

Not sure we have the causal relationship in the right order there, but do go on.

Yet in Hollywood, where the prevailing god is called Moolah, Bible stories have drifted in and out of fashion. After World War II, when the movie industry was threatened by an infidel called television, the studios responded with big-screen religious epics: “Samson and Delilah,” “The Robe, “The Greatest Story Ever Told.”

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/12/26/5405993/behold-bible-stories-are-back.html#.VJ9TZc8A#storylink=cpy

If your critic really did sleep through all the interesting parts of his Intro to Film History class, you can probably have the 1923 version of "The Ten Commandments" in your queue by the time you get back from the fridge with a beer. One Canadian site lists seven versions of "Samson and Delilah" from the silent era alone. As a general principle of communication study, you should just assume that people will use any new technology for preaching just as quickly as they use it for porn, if not sooner. But you were saying ...

In “The Ten Commandments” and “Ben-Hur,” square-jawed Charlton Heston was the embodiment of Christian might.

Um -- do you guys know who Moses was? Just checking.

... Will history remember “Exodus” as one of the great religious-themed movies? God only knows.

And having thus actually subtracted from the sum of human knowledge -- Forget flood. Interview Moses.