![]() Kids are running around, dashing for the toy department or throwing tantrums. And instead of customers who look as if they're auditioning for extra work in "Night of the Living Dead," people run the gamut of moods from happily poking about to seriously shopping to grumpy to exhausted. ![]() Instead of rows of aisles that stretch from front to back, these stores are usually laid out in departments at right angles to each other that force you to wander through the entire place even if you're just dashing in for one item. Walk into any Wal-Mart or Target and your eye is fairly assaulted by colorful displays clamoring for your attention. It should take all of about 10 seconds for anyone who's ever gone to one of these places to spot the movie's view as a crock. All ambient noise has seemingly been sucked out. Muzak keeps the atmosphere and the shoppers in a near-narcotic state. The place we see is sterile, blindingly white and arranged with precision. DeMille's The Ten Commandments may not be the most subtle and sophisticated entertainment ever concocted, but it tells its story with a clarity and vitality that few Biblical scholars have ever been able to duplicate.Do the people who make movies about the sterility of American middle-class life ever actually go to the places that are featured in their films? Much of "One Hour Photo" (like "Eight Legged Freaks," the title is another victim of the hyphen bandit) takes place inside a cavernous discount superstore. "Where's your Moses now?" brays Dathan in the manner of a Lower East Side gangster. Robinson), are forgetting their religion and behaving like libertines. Meanwhile, the Hebrews, led by the duplicitous Dathan (Edward G. Sinai, who delivers unto him the Ten Commandments. Later, Moses is again confronted by God on Mt. But Moses rescues his people with a little Divine legerdemain by parting the Seas. As the Hebrews reach the Red Sea, they discover that Rameses has gone back on his word and plans to have them all killed. Only after the Deadly Plagues have decimated Egypt does Rameses give in. Banished by his jealous half-brother Rameses (Yul Brynner), Moses returns fully bearded to Pharoah's court, warning that he's had a message from God and that the Egyptians had better free the Hebrews post-haste if they know what's good for them. Moses (Charlton Heston) starts out "in solid" as Pharoah's adopted son (and a whiz at designing pyramids, dispensing such construction-site advice as "Blood makes poor mortar"), but when he discovers his true Hebrew heritage, he attempts to make life easier for his people. ![]() The story relates the life of Moses, from the time he was discovered in the bullrushes as an infant by the pharoah's daughter, to his long, hard struggle to free the Hebrews from their slavery at the hands of the Egyptians. Based on the Holy Scriptures, with additional dialogue by several other hands, The Ten Commandments was the last film directed by Cecil B.
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