Genesis

លោកុប្បត្តិ (កំណើត​ ពិភព​លោក)

Book of BEGINNINGS -- heavens and earth, light and darkness, seas and land, animals and vegetation with humankind as the climax of God's creative activity "in His image".  Book of RELATIONSHIPS -- between God and His creation, between God and humankind, and between human beings.  Written by Moses approx. 1440 B.C. ("before Christ") during the Exodus. 

Background Notes

https://www.box.com/s/4f982a1b17c4d4c4427e

Movie Review: "Noah"

‘Noah’ Is No. 1 Despite Complaints

International New York Times | 30 March 2014 

Russell Crowe in "Noah." Credit ILM/Paramount Pictures

LOS ANGELES — Viewers went to “Noah,” many in pairs, like the creatures in Genesis; but they quickly erupted in disagreement over the film’s action-packed, modernist rendering of the biblical flood.

With an estimated $44 million in domestic ticket sales, including $6.2 million from giant Imax screens, “Noah” (Paramount Pictures) surpassed Lionsgate’s “Divergent,” with $26.5 million, and Walt Disney’s “Muppets Most Wanted, with $11.4 million, to lead the weekend box office. But “Noah” had a soft rating of C by Cinemascore, which gauges audience reaction. That happened as a majority of viewers — 63 percent, according to Paramount executives — gave the movie a positive score of A or B, even while a significant minority judged the film as low as D or F.

“People are getting their arms around, are they comfortable with it?” said Rob Moore, Paramount’s vice chairman. “There’s a small, vocal minority who are not.”

Professional film critics scored the movie with a respectable 68, according to Metacritic.com, which tracks reviews. “This is a Noah for the 21st century, one of the most dazzling and unforgettable biblical epics ever put on film,” Richard Roeper, one of the fans, wrote for The Chicago Sun-Times.

Other viewers were harshly opposed. “If you are looking for a biblical movie, this is definitely not it,” said Glenn Beck, one of many detractors, on his radio show, as noted by Gospelherald.com.

Much controversy centered on the director Darren Aronofsky’s environmental messaging — his Noah appears not to be a meat eater and reprimands his son for picking a flower — and on action sequences that involve Transformer-like exiled angels encased in rock.

While Paramount eased religious leaders into early screenings and landed some cautious endorsements, it never received the kind of support that found church groups buying blocks of tickets to “Son of God,” which became a surprise hit for 20th Century Fox after opening last month.

Mr. Moore said the split-level Cinemascore for “Noah” and the polarized audience reaction were similar to what the studio experienced with Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street.” That film has had about $116.9 million in domestic ticket sales since its release in December.

“Noah” was banned in Indonesia and in a number of Middle Eastern countries, where it was held to violate Islamic law, but it has played well in Mexico, which has a large Roman Catholic population. To date, the film, which cost about $125 million to make, has taken in about $51.1 million from international markets, Paramount said.

“Mr. Peabody & Sherman,” from DreamWorks Animation and Fox, had $9.5 million in domestic ticket sales, to place fourth at the weekend box office, while “God’s Not Dead,” an independent film from Freestyle Releasing, ranked fifth, with $9.1 million in sales. “Sabotage,” a new release from Open Road starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, did poorly, with just $5.3 million in ticket sales. “Cesar Chavez,” from Lionsgate and Pantelion, placed 12th, with opening weekend sales of $3 million, according to Rentrak, which compiles box-office data.

Through the weekend, the debate around “Noah” was still drawing attention from competitors.

On Saturday morning, Mr. Aronofsky was warding off the backlash to some of his own comments. Asked on “CBS This Morning” about having called his film “the least biblical, biblical movie ever made,” he said he was simply distinguishing his approach from that of much older films, like Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments.”

Responding to reports that identified Mr. Aronofsky as a self-professed atheist, Leslee Dart, a spokeswoman for him, said she did not believe that he would directly challenge the characterization.

“I believe he would say: ‘It doesn’t really matter what I believe. The movie believes in God,’ ” Ms. Dart said.

Correction: March 30, 2014 A previous version of this article incorrectly attributed the source of Glenn Beck’s comment about “Noah.” He said it on his radio show, which was quoted on Gospelherald.com. He did not say it directly to Gospelherald.com.