Hope this is the right forum....
In a nutshell, I will tell you I have been a Bill Maher fan for a long time going back to his early stand up days.... but I can tell you without Bias... Religilous is a fantastic movie.....
I guess it helps when you agree with Bill on the idea of religion as a whole, but his interviews which as classic Maher always is were funny and yet poignantly realistic(sad) snapshots of the people of this country that are brainwashed.....
I thought he did a great job on covering the absurd nature of all religions ... I think some scenes were a bit long and made their point (Marijuana Scene was funny though) and did not need to be as long.. but it did not take away from my overall rating of a 9 out 10 .
Maher's interview skills and methods were brilliant in bringing out some pretty raw and honest answers from people, which to me were as real as it gets... and as I said before making for some funny moments of absurdity.
Your thoughts?
I enjoyed the movie. I went and saw it opening night in a packed theater. Everyone was laughing at all the funny parts and no one walked out.
I think it was well done. There have been complaints from Evangelicals who will never see the movie that Bill tricked people into giving interviews but that did not seem the case at all.
I think anyone with any form of intelligence and knowledge of sarcasm will enjoy the movie.
It's from CNN, so it probably won't work, but here goes
Embedded video from CNN Video
ya, I saw this clip last night.... Maher and the director come right out and say they did lie to some of the interviewers about what they were doing.... on one side kind of dissapointed that they did lie.. but Honestly which one of those people who are obviously evangelecals who know they are full of SHIT .. would actually do the interview?
Some of the reaction is bullshit too... some of them actually are mad and saying "... If I had known Bill Maher was involved.. I never would have done it.."... UH.. Bill Maher was your interviewer.. how did you not know?
Here is an Excellent Review
FOr the most part I agree with your reveiw but there were two things that bothered me about the doc.
The first was the violent imagery of radical Islam used every time they wanted to show the dangers of religion - even when the segment was not about Islam. While I understand the reason, it was off-putting to many people I know with religious convictions. It was really just sloppy sensationalism.
The other was the mindnumbingly melodramatic and preachy ending. It felt like a fire and brimstone sermon and really out of place in a film that just spent a half hour mocking such theatrics. Maher's true distain for the intellect of the audience really shows in how heavy-handed he felt he needed to be in driving home the "message."
Other than those two points, I definitely agree that it was a very well done piece with surprising signs of humility from Maher that we don't often see in his TV show.
Git; once again I cannot disagree with you on your point regarding the ending... although I know the point Maher was trying to make and I agree with the concept of his point.. .the delivery was in paradox of the theatrics in delivering the message threw me a bit off... other than that I really did think it was great.