According to Jeff Wells, Larry Charles and Bill Maher’s Borat-style religion doc Religulous is playing this week in Claremont, CA in order to meet the Academy’s rule stating that non-fiction films must screen for one week in a commercial theater in both New York and L.A. in order to qualify for a Best Documentary nomination. “That means Religulous is probably playing in some out-of-the-way theatre in the Manhattan area also,” Wells writes.
Sure enough, a Moviefone search reveals that the film is currently playing a publicity-free two matinees per day run at the Creative Entertainment Coliseum Quad on 181 Street–the same theater where Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired had its qualifying run last spring. So far there’s been no surreptitious Manohla Dargis review of Religulous, so if you find yourself in Claremont or in the noseblood section of Manhattan and decide to check it out, by all means, report back.
Thx for the posting, I read it last night and I went today to Claremont and watched the movie. It was so FUNNY that everybody in the theater literally could not stop laughing. Bill exposes what we atheists have known for years; He very logically, eloquently and comically destroys all three Middle-Eastern mythological religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) with his characteristic wit and irreverence. Of course He also exposes Mormons, Scientologists and other people with imaginary friends. Religulous should win the Oscar for best documentary hands down!!
Why do people say he interviewed the “fringe”? It is all fringe! None of the critics could answer his questions either. Not because the questions are so intelligent, but because this topic is so irrational. There is nothing more pleasing than coupling the irrational with the irreverent. The only outcome is truth-first century superstition exposed for the fraud that it is. Go Bill Maher, one of the few who doesn’t back down to the nuts cases that wield all of the power in the only country on the planet that “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”. Too bad, there is no way this wins an Oscar.