Religulous (2008)

Bill Maher's take on the current state of world religion.

Director:

Larry Charles

Stars:

Bill Maher, Tal Bachman, Jonathan Boulden

2 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

Credited cast:
Bill Maher	...	Himself
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Tal Bachman	...	Himself
Jonathan Boulden	...	Himself
Steven Burg	...	Himself
Francis Collins	...	Himself
George Coyne	...	Himself (as Father George Coyne PhD)
Benjamin Creme	...	Himself
Jeremiah Cummings	...	Himself
Jose Luis De Jesus Miranda	...	Himself
Fatima Elatik	...	Herself
Yahuda Etzion	...	Himself
Reginald Foster	...	Himself (as Father Reginald Foster)
Mohamed Junas Gaffar	...	Himself
Bill Gardiner	...	Himself
Ted Haggard	...	Himself (archive footage)

Storyline

Bill Maher interviews some of religion's oddest adherents. Muslims, Jews and Christians of many kinds pass before his jaundiced eye. Maher goes to a Creationist Museum in Kentucky, which shows that dinosaurs and people lived at the same time 5000 years ago. He talks to truckers at a Truckers' Chapel. (Sign outside: "Jesus love you.") He goes to a theme park called Holy Land in Florida. He speaks to a rabbi in league with Holocaust deniers. He talks to a Muslim musician who preaches hatred of Jews. Maher finds the unlikeliest of believers and, in a certain Vatican priest, he even finds an unlikely skeptic.

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Plot Keywords:

islamophobia | anti semitism | propaganda | nihilism | religion | 

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Taglines:

Do you smell something burning?

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Genres:

Documentary | Comedy | War

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for some language and sexual material

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Hebrew Arabic Persian Spanish

Release Date:

3 October 2008 (USA)

Also Known As:

A Spiritual Journey

Filming Locations:

's-Gravenhage, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands

Box Office

Budget:

$2,500,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$3,409,643, 5 October 2008

Gross USA:

$13,011,160

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$13,639,115

Company Credits

Production Co:

Thousand Words

Technical Specs

Runtime:

101 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film was originally scheduled for release in March 2008 to coincide with the Easter holiday. However, the 2007 Writers Guild strike caused delays in post-production and the release date was pushed back to July 11, 2008 and finally, October 3, 2008.

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Goofs

Bill Maher claims a nuclear conflict would be driven by religion. During the Cold War, two of the major nuclear powers, the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China were both state atheist, and at various periods actively persecuted religious people through imprisonment and even execution. Of the other nuclear powers, France has a secular constitution and the USA has official separation of church and state. The UK was the only early nuclear power to have an established church. Few of the people who were instrumental in creating the USA's nuclear arsenal were actively religious.

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Quotes

Bill Maher: The fashion industry, the Islamic fashion industry. Do you feel that that's been hobbled at all by the fact that homosexuality is a Sin punishable by death? I'm talking about the designers, you know? Okay.

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Crazy Credits

After the credits, there is one last clip of Bill Maher with his mother and sister. He tells them "I'll see you in heaven", and they laugh. His mother says "who knows," and there is a title card "In loving memory of Julie Maher, 1919-2007".

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Connections

Features Saturday Night Live: Paul Simon/Linda Ronstadt (1987)

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Soundtracks

Kalah Chosen Mazel Tov
Written by Petra Ritschel
Published by Selected Sound APM (ASCAP)
Courtesy of Associated Production Music

User Reviews

Definitely worth seeing or demonstrating against!

I watched Bill Maher's new movie, Religulous at it's world premiere at the Traverse City Film Festival. It was one of the first films to sell out at the festival, selling out in just the first couple days of sales.

Okay... now for the movie review: for those of you who thought that Dawkin's "Root of all evil" or "Jesus Camp" were powerful statements, then you might want to wear diapers because you might just crap yourself. Religulous doesn't take prisoners. It addresses Christianity, Scientology, Mormonism,Islam, and other religions. Bill Maher travels around the word, visiting the Wailing Wall, USA Bible Belt, Salt Lake City, and other locations while interviewing a wide range of religious leaders and followers.

Throughout the interviews, Bill throws out zingers and the joke timing is impeccable. Like the pro-creationist movie "Expelled", Religulous cuts to a variety of old film stock when making jokes. Although it fails at times, I would say the vast majority of the cuts connect and generates hearty laughs.

The first third of the film deals with Christianity and several offshoots of it. Here, the movie shines. It is hilarious! Poking jab after jab into insane ideas by asking simple questions.

Unfortunately, the move starts to slow down after he lampoons Scientology. Dressed as a vagrant, he appears in Hyde Park's Speaker's Corner and runs through Scientology's belief structure... appearing as a raving lunatic while accurately describing what that religion teaches.

By the time it deals with Islam, a lot of inertia has been lost. Although it still delivers some funny bits, the movie is much more subdued. Granted, anytime you are dealing with a subject so inflammatory that people have been killed over it, you tread lightly, but I think Christians will criticize the movie for being softer on Islam than on Christianity. The sad thing is that it's true. Being the more dangerous religion, people seem to be treating Islam with kid gloves. I wonder how long before other religions start adopting that tactic as they become threatened by critics? The ending is a fiery call to action for freethinkers. Rousing music & inflammatory speech hammer the dangers of religion into the audience. Propaganda techniques? Yes. Pretty heavy-handed about it too. However, I think it's needed. The flow of the movie needed something to bring things together and although thick with images and rhetoric... it is a solid ending.

Is it worth seeing? Hell yes! Will people be offended? Most definitely. Will there be protesters? There should be, this is far more blasphemous than "Dogma", "Passion of the Christ", or "The DeVinci Code".

Comparing "Expelled" to "Religulous", it's pretty quickly apparent that Religulous is the better movie. Bill Maher, with his previous experience doing standup and conducting interviews shames Ben Stein. Nicely done Bill!