{"id":58,"date":"2008-10-04T16:04:11","date_gmt":"2008-10-04T21:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brucepress.net\/?p=58"},"modified":"2008-10-04T16:04:11","modified_gmt":"2008-10-04T21:04:11","slug":"movie-review-religulous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brucepress.net\/blog\/?p=58","title":{"rendered":"Movie Review: Religulous"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bill Maher<\/a> knows he’s right about religion. \u00a0He does. \u00a0He knows that the world would have a net improvement if we scraped off the superstition-based philosophies that hold sway in society. \u00a0It’s just that he sometimes becomes less effective at selling it when he shows that and this movie is, above all else, about marketing that idea.<\/p>\n

Truth be told, I agree with him in principle. \u00a0The question is not whether he’s right, though, it is whether he created an effective and entertaining vehicle to market the fact.<\/p>\n

My wife, and I, went to see Bill Maher’s new movie Religulous<\/a> on opening day. \u00a0This is particularly interesting because it was her idea and she’s Catholic. \u00a0It was an early show, so we didn’t expect the attendence to be high, it wasn’t. \u00a0There were about a dozen people in the most popular multiplex in town. \u00a0That was OK. \u00a0 My disappointment? \u00a0No protesters. \u00a0I really wanted them. \u00a0Maybe when they make a movie called “All Religions are Stupid and Should be Abolished” \u00a0I’ll get my protesters.<\/p>\n

So, you know what you’re going to get, right? \u00a0 Bill Maher making faith and people of faith look silly. \u00a0Yes and no.<\/p>\n

The movie is a mix of interviews and ruminations. \u00a0All of it is peppered with movie clips that are, at best, hilarious. \u00a0Sometimes the clips are a little too biting, too denigrating. \u00a0Enough to make an avowed rationalist cringe a bit.<\/p>\n

Where did Maher go to ask questions about religion? \u00a0Where didn’t he go? \u00a0Israel, Rome, England, The Netherlands, The South and Washington D.C. \u00a0 He visited a trucker church, a mosque, the Vatican and a Jesus theme park. \u00a0He spoke to priests, ministers, lay people, Jesus impersonators and Jesus (well, he thought he was Jesus).<\/p>\n

We was definitely most effective when he was questioning sincerely and listening to the answers. \u00a0I think he found the men at the trucker church earnest and endearing. He treated them well and got great stuff in return. \u00a0 His interview with Senator Mark Pryor from Arkansas was excellent, he let Senator Pryor express his own views. \u00a0(He seemed like an decent guy, who just bought the wrong bill of goods.)<\/p>\n

Not so effective was his time with an anti-zionist Jew who met with Ahmedinijad and was in clips hugging the nutty Iranian President. \u00a0I was left feeling there was a great deal to the interview we didn’t see. \u00a0Certainly, there wasn’t enough to justify Maher’s curt reaction to him. \u00a0This was one of the segments where, even if you agress with Maher, you’re left feeling like he was acting a bit dick-ish.<\/p>\n

There were some very funny subtitles during other interviews which reminded me of “The Word” segment from The Colbert Report. \u00a0Those were funny and informative. \u00a0Very effective.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, other than not allowing him an official interview in the Vatican, the Catholics came of pretty well. \u00a0This might be due to Maher’s Catholic upbringing which was discussed in personal reminiscences with his mother and sister. \u00a0Father Coyne, former head of the Vatican observatory, was typically eloquent, knowlegable and reasonable. \u00a0Also, there was a very amusing and liberal priest who was interviewed outside the Vatican. \u00a0Clearly, he didn’t represent the Vatican’s policies, but he was funny.<\/p>\n

Maher closing argument was well thought out and delivered poignantly. \u00a0Punctuated with imagery of violence, it was effective and moving. \u00a0I thought it was perfect.<\/p>\n

So, how was Religulous? \u00a0It was good. \u00a0It could have been great. \u00a0Bill Maher is funny and he has a clear message to deliver. \u00a0It is mostly well delivered. \u00a0Unfortunately, it isn’t the unbiased, graceful delivery that would be most effective at getting people of faith to listen. \u00a0He’ll be preaching to the faithful. \u00a0They’ll enjoy it, as I did.<\/p>\n

My wife enjoyed it as well. \u00a0We talked about the movie afterwards. \u00a0I think it is definitely a conversation starter. \u00a0She commented that it was amazing that this movie was made and in pretty wide distribution. \u00a0We thought that was a pretty hopeful sign.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need more people speaking out. This country is not overrun with rebels and free thinkers. It’s overrun with sheep and conformists.\u201d – Bill Maher<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bill Maher knows he’s right about religion. \u00a0He does. \u00a0He knows that the world would have a net improvement if we scraped off the superstition-based philosophies that hold sway in society. \u00a0It’s just that he sometimes becomes less effective at … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[3,7,12,42,57],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6VK4T-W","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brucepress.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brucepress.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brucepress.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brucepress.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brucepress.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brucepress.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brucepress.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brucepress.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brucepress.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}