Jennifer miller actor’s platis rau people

Fans have high hopes after White Sox salvage season Bailout up for
vote: Will it pass? Vet and wild celebration Maher vs. God:
‘Religulous’ flays organized faith What women can do to
combat ‘frenemies’

For almost an hour at Oak Park’s Victoria Salon, the scene is of any
beauty parlor on a quiet Saturday afternoon. Locals gossip through the
snips of wet hair as others relax quietly, getting lathered up with a
coloring brush. No one seems to have paid any mind to the small sign
out front that says, “Appearing Today: Elvis.”

“Have you seen Elvis?” the salon’s co-owner Frank Platis asks a
customer. “Oh, he’ll be here soon.”

Victoria Rau, co-owner of Victoria Salon (right), and stylists
entertain clients with song and dance routines. (Keith Hale/Sun-Times)

Salons are no longer relying on mere beauty treatments to keep
customers coming back. In Chicago, you can get your manicure with a
side of:

Salons are no longer relying on mere beauty treatments to keep
customers coming back. In Chicago, you can get your manicure with a
side of:

Channing’s Day Spa(54 E. Oak, 312-280-1994)almost oozes elegance,
drawing a celebrity clientele that includes Julia Roberts, Whitney
Houston and Jennifer Lopez. You’ll check in at a marble desk, traipse
on oriental rugs, gaze at ornately framed oil paintings, consult with
stylists under chandeliers and relax in front of a fireplace.
ATTITUDE

At Big Hair (2012 W. Roscoe, 773- 348-0440),owner Patty Miller has a
distinctly punk-goth approach, selling flamboyant costume jewelry and
employing tattooed stylists with hair colors not found in nature.
Looking for a good pompadour? Here’s where to go.
EATS

Mojo Spa(1468 N. Milwaukee, 773-235-6656) hosts a complimentary brunch
most Sundays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., with homemade goodies such as
ginger bread pancakes, sticky toffee french toast and roasted garlic
spinach Parmesan bread pudding.
ART

MacDaddy(1035 W. Lake, 312-492-6600)displays paintings from local
artists — both established masters and talented upstarts. So after
you touch up your roots, browse around for the next Paschke. Paige
Wiser

Not before a few more clumps of hair hit the ground does Platis step
behind the front desk, hit the music, pop the collar of his Lacoste
polo and come out onto the main floor. He is in full-fledged Elvis
impersonation mode, gyrating in his loafers and singing lip-curled to
the King’s “Return to Sender.”

As patrons of varying ages either break into hysteric laughter,
awkwardly smile or coolly nod along, fellow owner Victoria Rau and
stylist Martin Antonio Lopez begin to do the twist as they sing along.
The patrons are getting a first-hand look at what has become a routine
service at Victoria Salon: live entertainment.

When Rau, an Oak Park resident, was not satisfied with the management
style at the salons where she previously worked, she decided to start
her own business. She teamed up with longtime friend Platis, a
community theater actor who had been laid off by the public library.
Neither anticipated that Platis’ secret weapon would give their shop
an edge over the competition.

“At first, we were just running a salon. Then there were some days
where I’d get antsy and I just starting doing things,” Platis said.
“And people enjoyed it. So we said, ‘You know what? Why don’t we just
start cutting hair and doing entertainment?’ ”

“Whenever Frank gets the whim and I hear everybody cracking up, I know
what’s going on,” Rau said. “I turn around and he’s dancing and
imitating Elvis Presley.”

Both Platis and Rau are part of a large Greek-American community in
the area. They describe their relationship with an ambiguous title
used in many small ethnic communities, “kind-of cousins.” They see the
entertainment as an extension of their business philosophy, which is
to offer a welcoming atmosphere.

“I wanted people to feel like they were coming home, coming in and
having a little bit of the Greek hospitality,” Rau said. “I’m very
proud of my heritage.”

It doesn’t seem common to be brought into someone’s home with warm
greetings and small plates of delectables, followed by an impromptu
sing-along to “Love Me Tender.” That hospitality might make some of us
text a significant other with “FAKE AN EMERGENCY!” before politely
excusing ourselves because our girlfriend is sick after eating some
bad clams. But Victoria Salon does have an indescribable, welcoming
feeling.

It’s a small, cozy space with a smart interior design. The prices are
competitive but on the more reasonable end of the range. Men’s
haircuts are $30 and women’s are $45 to $60, while manicures are $21
and pedicures are $45.

Upon entering, little spots of Greek influence jump out at you,
whether it’s Rau’s sincere, maternal welcome, offers of coffee or
homemade Greek cookies, or the display of worry-beads and scarves made
by “Aunt Kiki.”

Platis and the gang are not exactly Broadway performers — far from
it. Platis has just three or four slightly outdated impersonations in
his repertoire: Elvis, Fred Astaire, John Travolta and Patrick Swayze.
But there is something in his confidence and his satisfaction for
performing that has a sweet, affable “Waiting for Guffman” charm to
it.

“I like working in a salon because it’s a service business. When
people come in, you want to make them happy,” Platis said. “It’s kind
of like acting. You want them to feel good when they leave. That makes
it real fun.”

Another image that comes to mind while watching Platis strut around is
a dad trying to be funny in front of his kid’s friends. “I think that
the entertainment is worth every penny of my manicure,” patron Anne
Rumsell said in between fits of laughter.

“It’s interesting,” Jennifer Alexander, a weekly regular, said
cautiously. “It’s a fun group. People definitely seem to like it. Rau
and Platis are very charismatic, very animated people.”

A couple of patrons also noted that regardless of what you think of
Victoria Salon’s entertainment, the owners’ sincere efforts to make
people feel at ease are refreshing in a town with 10 salons in a one-
mile radius, some of which greet you with stuck-up and fake attitudes.

“A lot of places have a very pretend soothing atmosphere,” Alexander
said. “This place has a real energy.”

Rau says the hardest part of the job so far has been finding reliable
people. The store is currently hiring and looking to take on more
employees with a similar type of singing, dancing attitude.

“First they have to cut good hair,” Platis said. “But after that we
are looking for people who like to entertain.”

The religulous release maher religion people

Maher, who has been picking on organized religion for years on his TV
shows “Politically Incorrect” and “Real Time,” zealously traveled the
world for “Religulous,” his documentary challenging the validity and
value of Christian, Jewish and Islamic faiths.

Raised in a Roman Catholic household by a Catholic father and Jewish
mother, Maher decided at an early age that the trappings and mythology
of the world’s religions were preposterous, outdated and even
dangerous.

“Religulous,” directed by fellow doubter Larry Charles (“Borat:
Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of
Kazakhstan”), is intended to inspire similar skepticism in others
— and perhaps get nonbelievers to talk more openly about their
lack of faith.

“I’m not looking to form an anti-religion religion. That would defeat
the purpose,” Maher said in an interview at the Toronto International
Film Festival, where “Religulous” played in advance of its theatrical
release Friday. “It’s the nature of the people who are not believers
that they’re individuals, they’re individualistic. They don’t join and
all lock arms and say, ‘We all believe this and so it must be true
because we have strength in numbers.'”

The numbers Maher and Charles really hope to grab are general
audiences simply looking for a fun night at the movies.

Maher, 52, who started mocking religion back in his early standup
comedy days, has no misconceptions that “Religulous” will shake
people’s lifelong convictions to the core. He’s mainly looking for
laughs such as those the film elicited from the enthusiastic crowd at
its Toronto premiere.

“I was so gratified to finally go to a screening with people last
night and hear how big the laughs are,” Maher said. “Because we set
out to make a comedy. I always said, my primary motivation was I’m a
comedian, and this is comedy gold.

“When you’re talking about a man living to 900 years old, and drinking
the blood of a 2,000-year-old god, and that Creation Museum where they
put a saddle on the dinosaur because people rode dinosaurs. It’s just
a pile of comedy that was waiting for someone to exploit.”

Charles shot 400 to 500 hours of material around the world as Maher
visited a Christian chapel for truckers in North Carolina, a gay
Muslim bar in the Netherlands, the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake
City, and Christian, Muslim and Jewish holy places in Israel.

Maher meets with priests at the Vatican, chats with rabbis and Muslim
scholars in Jerusalem, encounters street preachers in London, and
hangs out with the performer who plays Christ in a crucifixion
enactment at the Holy Land Experience theme park in Florida.

They left Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism alone
largely for budgetary reasons, saying the extra travel and expanded
scope would have made the film too unwieldy.

They also figured that Christianity, Islam and Judaism were the
trinity of faiths at the heart of Western conflict.

Charles grew up Jewish and once considered becoming a rabbi but was
discouraged by his parents, who told him to “get bar-mitzvahed, get
the checks and then get the hell out,” he said. He said he now shares
Maher’s position: Heavy on doubt about the existence of a supreme
being, even heavier on certainty that organized religion is hazardous
to humanity’s health.

“If I believe that Jesus is God and you believe Mohammed is God, then
no matter how tolerant we are, we are never going to meet,” Charles
said. “All you have to do is push that one more step, then somebody’s
like, ‘You’re in the way of people believing in Jesus,’ and ‘You’re in
the way of people believing in Mohammed,’ and the only answer is to
kill you.

“Unfortunately, that sort of thing dominates the religious landscape,
not the Mother Teresas of the world. She becomes the aberration. …
The altruistic wing of religion has been minimized and this
militaristic, warmongering fundamentalism has become the dominant
presence.”

Charles said he assembled the 100-minute film from 14 hours of prime
material. He has suggested to distributor Lionsgate that the 14-hour
cut could be edited into half-hour segments and sold to television as
a series.

Never one to soft-pedal his own opinions, Maher openly scorns remarks
made by Christians, Jews and Muslims he interviews. He hopes audiences
will laugh with him, and that “Religulous” will stand as a testament
for people who share his scorn.

“It is a sobering thought to think that the U.S. Congress has 535
members and there’s not one who represents this point of view, and yet
there are tens of millions of Americans who feel this way,” Maher
said.

“Comedians have always made jokes about religion. It’s a rich topic. I
did when I was a young comedian, but they weren’t jokes that got right
to the essence of it, which is, this is dangerous and this is silly.”

Senator Joe Biden’s tendency to go too far and the hazards of debating
a woman are signs of possible perils ahead.

The Palestinian author Raja Shehadeh looks back on years of walks in
the hills of the West Bank.

An insider look at film director Zhang Yimou, who is directing the
opening cermonies at the Olympic Games.

Religulous bill maher’s religion wolpe faith

The senior rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles targets the secular
reader and sets out to repudiate nonbeliever arguments.

“AS A critic,” declares Harold Bloom, “I have learned to rely upon
[Emerson’s] apprehension that our prayers are diseases of the will and
our creeds diseases of the intellect.”Thus did Emerson anticipate the
current public conversation about the role of faith in American life.
His point of view is nowadays embraced not only by Bloom but also by
such contemporary figures as Christopher Hitchens (“God Is Not
Great”), Richard Dawkins (“The God Delusion”), Sam Harris (“The End of
Faith”), Julia Sweeney (in her one-woman show “Letting Go of God”) and
the movie-making team of Bill Maher and Larry Charles in their
upcoming “Religulous.”

Now a new David has picked up sling and stone and taken aim at the
critics of religion. He is David J. Wolpe, senior rabbi of Sinai
Temple in Los Angeles and author of six previous books, including
“Making Loss Matter,” a book inspired by the health crises in his
family. (Wolpe and his wife are cancer survivors.) Wolpe, who recently
turned 50, is an articulate, credible and even endearing spokesman for
his cause — he was named the No. 1 pulpit rabbi in America by
Newsweek this year, and he is a frequent contributor to newspapers and
news broadcasts on the subject of religion. Wolpe is no Bible-thumper,
however, and here he is clearly not preaching to the pews. Indeed,
“Why Faith Matters” appears to be addressed to the secular reader and
sets out to repudiate the arguments of bestselling authors such as
Hitchens and Dawkins.

Significantly, Wolpe never calls on the reader to accept religion out
of true belief; rather, he asks us only to keep an open mind on the
subject. “I do not believe our choice is either an absence of God or
an over-zealous embrace of God,” he writes. “. . . All of our culture
is built on the assumption of free will; it is the teaching of great
religions that such will is God’s paradoxical gift to us — to do
good, or to do ill.” Personal crisis of faithThus, for example, Wolpe
recalls his own crisis of faith when, at age 12, he saw “Night and
Fog,” the Alain Resnais documentary about the Holocaust: “Spirit
suddenly drained from the world,” he writes. “Surely if there was a
God, this would not be permitted.” Although his father was a rabbi,
Wolpe became what he describes as “a strong, self-confident atheist in
a world of weak, credulous believers.” He returned to a belief in God
only when his adolescent self-confidence slackened and he entertained
the possibility that he might be wrong.Wolpe is a reader and a
thinker, and he cites the writings of Nietzsche and Gibbon and Sartre
as readily and as expertly as the Scriptures and, in fact,
considerably more often. He makes no strong assertions about what
religion is capable of revealing: “From its earliest days, religion
has taught that at the heart of everything is not a puzzle but a
mystery . . . ,” he declares. “Acceptance of mystery is an act not of
resignation but humility.” And he insists that the believer is
actually more willing than the nonbeliever to grapple with the
complexities of the world: “One can have simple faith, but faith is
not simple.” Wolpe considers and rejects the argument that religion is
a “misfired strategy of survival” dating to our cave-dwelling
ancestors, and he declares instead that religion has been, on balance,
a civilizing and elevating force in human history. “That everything
from the cathedral at Chartres to relief missions is a result of an
evolutionary misfiring is impossible to maintain,” writes Wolpe, thus
repudiating the argument of naysayers like Hitchens who are perfectly
willing to throw out the baby with the bath- water. Based on examples
ranging from the Crusades and the Inquisition to the horrors of 9/11,
he concedes that religious true belief can be deadly but notes that it
has also inspired people of faith to “live decently and to care for
others.” Indeed, he argues that religion has served to check the human
impulse toward violence, “although by a kind of ideological jujitsu,
it sometimes contributes to the very violence it seeks to tame.” In a
display of his own rhetorical jujitsu, Wolpe quotes no less an
authority on skepticism than Michael Shermer (“How We Believe”) for
the proposition that “for every one of these grand tragedies there are
ten thousand acts of personal kindness and social good that go
unreported.” Measuring faithWolpe always avoids over-claiming when it
comes to measuring what faith can accomplish. “Religion is neither an
answer to a question nor the solution to a problem,” he concedes. “It
is a response to the wonder of existence and a guide to life.” At
moments, he appears to be asking only that atheists become agnostics
rather than true believers: “Surely with a touch of imagination, and a
touch less arrogance, we can appreciate that there is much in this
world, its creation, governance and majesty, that we do not begin to
understand.” At its core, Wolpe’s argument is based on quality-of-life
considerations, an astute stance to take when addressing a readership
of nonbelievers. “Living with an awareness of the miraculous,” he
insists, “re-enchants the world.” He explains how he was comforted by
his faith during his life-threatening illness: “My prayer was not
answered because I lived,” he writes, “my prayer was answered because
I felt better able to cope with my sickness.” And he credits organized
religion with the same kind of social utility that we might otherwise
seek and find in a psychotherapist’s office or a 12-step program.
“Inside of every human being is a battle against the pettiness and
malice that thread through our character,” he observes. “That battle
is often lost, but religion, at the very least, knows that it must be
fought, and should be fought, each day of our lives.” Wolpe’s book
will surely find a more sympathetic readership among nonbelievers than
among many true believers. Some ultra-observant Jews, for example,
refuse to recognize his ordination as a Conservative rabbi, and some
Christian and Islamic fundamentalists will quickly consign him to
hell, not only because he is Jewish but because he is so open-minded
in matters of religion. In that sense, “Why Faith Matters” is a
profoundly ironic confession of faith. When Wolpe calls on us to keep
“an open heart to the testimonies of others,” he is appealing to a
core value that is wholly rejected by some of the most ardent
advocates of religion today. Jonathan Kirsch is the author of 12
books, including, most recently, “The Grand Inquisitor’s Manual: A
History of Terror in the Name of God.”

For great seafood, try Point Loma Seafoods in San Diego. Craving dim
sum? Check out ABC Seafood in L.A.’s Chinatown.

Britney Spears– pop princess or pop pariah — has listed her Beverly
Hills Post Office home for $7.9 million.

Religulous bill maher’s say it’s festival

My voice is still a bit shaky, PopWatchers, and my sleep schedule
remains all kinds of wackadoodle, but at least the remnants of Gustav
have finally (hopefully) pushed beyond the Ontario borders. That’s
right, the sun is shining bright on the Toronto International Film
Festival, which means I can at long last vlog outdoors! (Ooo. That
just sounds vaguely untoward, huh? It’s not, I promise.) So click on
to hear more about why I had to walk out of (starring Ben Kingsley and
21’s Jim Sturgess), what surprised Kevin Smith the most about Toronto,
what may be an advance look at a Religulous DVD extra courtesy Bill
Maher, and what some native Torontonians had to say about the film
festival that’s called their city home for over 30 years.

As a Torontonian who has been attending the festival for the last 8
years, I’d say that it definitely has changed. More star seekers, more
corporate and more expensive. But it’s still my favourite part of the
fall.

As to the celebrity question…I can’t imagine a case where I’d accost
someone on the street or stake out a hotel, but at the screenings
themselves I definitely grab my camera and take a picture or two.

First, let me comment on the obscene number of empty sponsor seats at
The Duchess gala premiere last night. What a waste. Dozens of people
would have loved to fill them. Secondly, I saw Religilous today and
LOVED IT! I haven’t laughed that hard in a while. (Wanted to post on
Bill Maher’s site but there’s nowhere to do that). Thank goodness for
people like Bill Maher who try to shake some common sense into the
general public and for exposing the ridiculousness of the belief
system. And it IS a system. Nice work, Bill!

Oh, Adam, Adam… Please learn fast because those vlogs are getting
hopeless. There’s potential, but most of us could probably get better
production value sitting at home filming ourselves with a cell phone.

If he did indeed give money to Obummer becase of a speech that the
next Vice President of the United States made, I have to ask if Billie
boy has a brain?

Isn’t it more scary that Obummer is as close to a Socialist that has
ever been running for president? Does he care that Obummer has Zero
experience (other than mimicking his preacher… oh yea that’s fine)
and changes his words (right in your face to Billy boy) to get the
vote?

Bill, I used to think you were funny and sharp. You blew it. I hope
that everyone boycotts your movie in October of this year. Since you
go with the buck, perhaps that will scare you more.

I couldn’t drag myself out of a Jim Sturgess movie if he was speaking
Klingon! Dude, REALLY.

The festival here in Toronto has definitely gotten a little out of
hand, but I think it’s chugging along at par with the rest of North
America’s celeb-obsessed culture, so it’s not really a surprise. It
was odd going to the see The Wrestler last night with tonnes of fans
lined up across the street, most likely with no clue about what they
were waiting for!

Yeah, I would probably check out all the celebrity happenings. But I
would also plan to go out and eat at a nearby restaurant, just to have
a legitimate excuse to be there.

My God! Is there any way you could possibly make watching these
“vlogs” any more boring!? Zero personality + nothing meaningful to say
= SNORE

ya need to hang out with more foreign english speakers to get to
understand them, I’m Irish and I live in Toronto and I hope people
understand me. I do find a big change here in TO with all the fuss, I
am a movie fanatic and it’s getting insane, I wouldn’t rush up to the
‘talent’ but thats just me, but the whole planet is celeb obsessive
now! I still wanna see the smaller movies, as I can see the
‘hollywood’ ones in a few weeks. I saw ‘Slum Dog Millionaire’ last
night and it was fantastic! best movie so far!

As an almost-native Torontian (I grew up in Mississauga, the city
immediately to Toronto’s west), and as one who had volunteered at the
festival for a few years, I can honestly say that, while I was
starstruck, I never approached any stars because I didn’t want to
bother them. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have any encounters, of course
–Emily Watson smiled at me, I was Farrah Fawcett’s seat holder, and
Brain de Palma even yelled at me–but I never initiated contact. The
only time I ever did that was with Ally Sheedy, and that’s because it
was my job at the time.

Bad Adam! That Word is officially verboten. Okay, let’s make a
deal…you don’t say That Word and I will stop using “verboten”. LOL

The rules: Keep it clean, and stay on the subject — or we may
delete your comment. If you see inappropriate language, . An asterisk
(*) indicates a required field.

When you click on the “Post Comment” button above to submit your
comments, you are indicating your acceptance of and are agreeing to
the .

The religulous bill maher religion maher film

TORONTO (AFP) — Sure to irk US evangelicals, Muslims and
Hasidic Jews alike, satirist Bill Maher aims to subvert what he claims
is mankind’s biggest threat: organized religion.

Maher, 52, was born and raised Catholic, but says he gave up on
religion as a young man.

“Religion is the ultimate taboo, and the one in most need of
debunking,” he told reporters at the premiere of Larry Charles’s film
“Religulous” at the Toronto film festival this week.

“A world without religion is clearly a lot safer than a world with
it,” echoed Charles, who previously directed “Borat: Cultural
Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan”
(2006).

“We don’t want to just debunk (organized religion), we want to destroy
the whole system,” he said.

In the film, Maher — best known for his hit US television show
“Politically Incorrect” — travels to Jerusalem, Vatican City and Salt
Lake City to interview locals about their faith in God, asking
polarizing and unsettling questions about God and religion.

It dashes from the serious, such as why bad things happen to good
people, to the silly: what’s with all the beards?

Maher religion holy in religulous bill maher

TORONTO — “Just call us the Woodward and Bernstein of religion.”
That’s how Bill Maher sums his quest with “Borat” director Larry
Charles in “Religulous,” a pithy, smart, and usually profane poke at
religion.

From the Holy Land to the Holy Land Experience theme park in Florida,
Maher travels the globe searching out believers and engages them on
their turf about what they believe and why.

That confrontation between the faithful and Maher’s logic makes this
documentary a little like Prince Judah going after the Roman heathen
Messala in “Ben-Hur” — without the showy chariot race.

“All I can say is religion won’t go the way of the button shoe,” Maher
joked with reporters at the Toronto International Film Festival.

“Oh I still found myself bargaining with this guy in my head at times
when I was trouble,” he laughs. “But no, I’m not for this disease that
religion has turned out to be.”

Confronting the faithful as Bill does is funny stuff. With his logic
in hand, Maher goes forth and finds a Jesus impersonater who explains
the Holy Trinity to Maher by comparing it to the three states of
water.

He unearths tourists in the gift shop at The Holy Land Experience who
nosh back and forth with him about the place of the Jews in heaven.
Add to that the everyday American Christians Maher takes on who
“believe in believing” because “what if you died without faith and
found out you were wrong?”

It all sounds like flimsy crap to Maher, especially when he’s talking
to self-styled religious leaders, Catholic higher-ups dressed in un-
Godly expensive suits and bible-thumping fundamentalists like Arkansas
Senator Mark Pryor.

Maher’s approach is fair. He listens to what everyone has to say and
thoughtfully considers every word. Then Maher goes for the jugular.

“How can you believe in a talking snake?” he asks. How can a man live
in the belly of a whale or come back from the dead? And what about
those Mormons? How can they believe that God is some real super-dude
happily residing on another planet?”

From the stormy religious opinions he finds in Jerusalem to the
radical Muslim problem in Amsterdam, Maher’s quest for “truth”
presents a force behind faith that he and Charles would unquestionably
call frightening.

“My country is dumber than your is,” Maher quipped before the Canadian
press. “Only in America will you find politicians in a presidential
campaign trying to out-love Jesus.”

Some may vehemently disagree with such commentary from a man sporting
a ZZ Top beard and a pair of lavender Crocs dangling from his feet.
But so what? Taking a little heat is worth it to these two anti-heaven
crusaders.

“Religulous” won’t appeal to people who loved “The Passion of the
Christ,” the 2004 movie that made devout Catholic director Mel Gibson
richer than God. As Maher says, “We’re giving those who value science
and reason above myth another alternative at the movies.”

Whether “Religulous” changes peoples’ minds as America gears up for a
presidential election has yet to be seen.

“I don’t know how much this film will sway voters. But I’ll tell you.
When Sarah Palin got onto the Republican ticket with John McCain I was
swayed to write a big check to Obama,” Maher jokes.

“I watched a lot of documentaries before I got Larry to sign on. It
was all so depressing to watch,” Maher laughs.

The religulous bill maher maher shepherd defamer.com

After Bill Maher sat down with TV Guide last month to ) film, the
controversial, religion-debunking Religulous. Would sparks fly?

Lord, yes. Things came to a head at the end of Maher’s segment, when
Shepherd asked the skeptical Maher whether he had ever spoken with
God. Needless to say, he had not, and when Shepherd replied that she
had, Maher recommended a stint in Bellevue. As Whoopi Goldberg
hurriedly threw the show to commercial, a grinning Elisabeth
Hasselbeck clearly exulted in the fact that for once, she wasn’t the
controversial one. Who needs a now, eh, Babs?

In order to view comments on defamer.com you need to enable
JavaScript. If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark
defamer.com as trusted.

Maher religulous god in religulous bill maher

Bill Maher Makes an Adolescent Case Against Religion in Religulous;
Muslim Comics Play It Safe in Allah Made Me Funny

Religulous Directed by Larry Charles Lionsgate Films Opens October 1
Allah Made Me Funny Directed by Andrea Kalin Truly Indie Opens October
3

Redolent of Roman decadence and authority gone mad, the title
Religulous rolls pleasingly off the tongue. But Bill Maher’s one-man
stand-up attack on religious fundamentalism is a dog that has more
bark than bite—a skeptical, secular-humanist hounding of the
hypocrites, amusingly annotated with sarcastic subtitles and clips
from cheesy biblical spectacles.

Initially quite funny in its head-on engagement with star-spangled,
self-righteous platitudes, Religulous is one small career move for the
left-libertarian tele-savant Maher and another, equally modest step
toward confronting the migraine-inducing, theocratic With God On Our
Side nonsense that defines much American political
discourse—John McCain gets a cameo insisting that “the
Constitution established the United States as a Christian country,”
but he’s hardly the only public figure out to sever the U.S. from its
Enlightenment roots.

Religulous opens with Maher in Israel at fundamentalist ground zero,
reporting from Megiddo, the designated spot for the Battle of
Armageddon. By way of an alternative vision of the apocalypse, the
movie breaks into a comic montage juxtaposing all manner of holy men,
true believers, and pious pols—then licenses the comedian to
spend the rest of its 101 minutes turning his blunderbuss on this
barrel of fish.

For some, Religulous might seem to articulate what has been imagined
as Hollywood’s secret agenda since the 1920s: Is nothing sacred to
these heathens? Maher, who explains that he was brought up Catholic by
a non-observant Jewish mother (dragged on camera to proclaim: “Every
family is dysfunctional”), seems unambiguously alienated from cosmic
consciousness. Recalling his boyhood, he says that God “wasn’t
relevant to my life—Superman was relevant” and maintains that he
would have worshipped any deity that let him jerk off. (The latter is
counterintuitive to the max: Radical psychotherapist Wilhelm Reich
theorized that it was precisely to keep kids from masturbating that
humanity invented the notion of an invisible, all-seeing God.)

Although his antics are directed by Borat showman Larry Charles, Maher
is hardly comparable to Sacha Baron Cohen as a trickster performance
artist. (His funniest act in Religulous is a brief stint, big glasses
on and ear-flaps down, preaching Scientology in Hyde Park, London. A
few minutes into his rant, a bystander steps out of the crowd and
crowns him King Ding-a-Ling, solemnly placing a garland of balloons on
his fevered brow.) Nor is Maher a swashbuckling provocateur like
Michael Moore, comforting the afflicted and confronting the infidels
with his intimidating bulk. Mainly, Maher is pleased to play devil’s
advocate; occasionally, he presents himself as celebrity Antichrist.

On a road trip through rural North Carolina, Maher and his unseen
entourage pause at a tiny truck-stop chapel for some good-natured
joshing with the congregation. Whereas religion sells “an invisible
product,” Maher explains to them, he’s peddling doubt. Sensing what’s
to come, one believer angrily makes for the door. Maher is always
pleased to challenge, debate, and laugh at the lumpen faithful,
willing as they are to cite “historical facts” to defend any position.
Still, as a polemicist, he’s hardly fair—more than a few
exchanges are recalibrated in the editing, and too many end with Maher
flipping Pascal’s Wager, rejoining a believer’s “What if you’re
wrong?” with an emphatic “What if you’re wrong?”

Such one-sided encounters are more depressing than fun. As a showbiz
wise guy, Maher is more effective when hanging with more public
personalities. He gets a dapper soul singer turned preacher to insist
that “Jesus [also] dressed very well!” and then go on to mangle
Matthew 19:24 (“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a
needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God”). He
maneuvers Senator Mark Pryor of Arkansas into accepting the premise
that religion is a remnant of the Bronze Age; unperturbed, Pryor
defends his beliefs by lamely pointing out that “you don’t have to
pass an IQ test to be in the Senate.” Maher confounds tourists and an
unhappy public-relations woman in Orlando’s Holy Land theme park by
engaging the star-struck actor who plays Jesus in a theological
debate.

These straw men are Maher’s more formidable opponents. It’s far less
enjoyable to watch him bait an anti-Zionist Hasid, a barely coherent
Scottish Muslim, a guy who claims to be a descendant of Jesus, the
proprietor of a creationist museum of natural history, or a Dutch
pothead who runs a “cannabis ministry.” The last half of the movie is
more or less spent with the freaks on the carnival midway in
preparation for Maher’s big spiel. Throwing his own brand of snake oil
on the fire, he insists that faith makes a virtue of stupidity,
identifies religion as dangerous because it encourages people to
believe they have all the answers, and warns the world to “grow up or
die.”

Heavy stuff. Freud, who devoted his life to the study of irrational
behavior and characterized religion as humanity’s “universal
obsessional neurosis,” concluded The Future of an Illusion on a
wistful note—arguing pragmatic, imperfect scientific thinking as
the only alternative to the delusional totality of religious faith.
Maher more or less short-circuits this line of thought with a fire-
and-brimstone crescendo of exploding nuclear bombs and a chorus of the
Talking Heads’ “Road to Nowhere.” The anthem isn’t inappropriate:
Religulous doesn’t really go anywhere either. It’s ultimately a
celebration of the old-time religion we call entertainment.

From the multiplex to the stump: It’s caped crusader versus community
organizer, and the end is nigh

Jesus is the Door no sinning people will be allowed in Gods Kingdom
no homosex people ,lairs murderers,, thieves… no talk show hosts
who sin.,.no false christans repent! openairpreacher utube

Bill does have his considerable moments, but all the advance on his
latest diatribe points out his hit-and-run weakness; until he truly
dives into the subject, he’ll never be considered a real trend setter
or opinion leader. The easy “talking snake” and “guy living in a
whale” have been around for decades (centuries?). There is a lot more
meat (so long as it isn’t Friday) to chew on regarding the “Big Three”
other than just the fairy tale aspects of their collective story
books. I like the movie concept, will see the flick and save final
judgment for later; but it looks like a back alley quicky than a real
passionate screw.

I am a great beleiver in God, but I have to say I really like what
Maher is doing. He, in his movies and overall lfe isn’t questioniong
God but us, and the way we beleive and how we show those beleifs. You
manage in your article to loose a lot of people who would agree with
you. Some of you religious types don’t get that you must write for the
everyman as the Bible is written. Not to prove you’ve had a great
education of man by man and have good use of words.You guys have to
stop overeducating us of god and start educating us in and with God.

The religulous trailer film films docs

I’ve beaten this horse silly, but I have to bring this up again, every
fall when I am inundated with terrific documentaries thanks to the
proliferation of film festivals, fall film bookings, cable outlets
that air docs, people who use film to espouse a political cause,
agenda-driven films and the like. Thanks to cheap, super quality
cameras and editing software and film programs that often start in
high school, America is awash in great documentary films. In recent
weeks, I’ve seen works on the dying art of county fair stunt drivers
(Hell Drivers), the fading cowboy world of the sandhills of Florida
(Cracker), a personal doc intended for a baby whose demented mom
murdered his dad (Dear Zachary), a fellow who took the life lived by
the Into the Wild kid, Chris McCandless, to heart (The Calling), and
more political fare than you can shake a campaign sign at.
Here’s the trailer to the terrific Finding Our Voices, narrated by
Martin Sheen (natch!), one of the better political dissent docs of the
fall.

Bill Maher’s scathing Religulous is coming to theaters in October,
Dear Zachary (very moving, sad) by the end of the year.

The are the main venues for a lot of these films making their way to
O-Town. Global Peace is all about the docs, this year, from an
intimate AIDS education in NYC story (All of Us), to a PBS piece
(American Idealist: The Story of Sargeant Shriver), an apolitical can-
do bunch of vets feeding and caring for refugees trapped in war zones
(Beyond the Call) and the chilling election-stealing doc, Uncounted:
The New Math of American Elections. More about their films next week.

Let’s hope the Orlando Film Festival matches Global Peace for quality
and that they further remedy the paucity of docs that make it to local
screens.

The religulous movie film => up

Male order: Josh Brolin (above) in W. and Daniel Craig in Quantum of
Solace are this season’s leading men.

Lee’s Miracle at St. Annatackles the efforts of our so-called
Buffalo Soldiers in Tuscany. I’m pumped for anything Spike Lee
has his name on, particularly after his outstanding 2006 one-two
punch of Inside Man and When the Levees Broke. But I also think old
Eastwood was onto something when he replied, “A guy like that
should shut his face.”

The kids told me to make sure to mention High School Musical 3: Senior
Year. I have no idea what this is, except I vaguely remember seeing
pictures of one of these starlets in her underwear on the Internet,
followed by a lot of Disney-scripted apologies. In an age when most
second sequels go direct to DVD, I guess there’s something to
be said for a series that inverts the paradigm. But whatever the
case, I’m 33 fucking years old, I smoke too much and usually
smell like booze. If I even tried to attend a screening of this thing
I’d probably end up on some sort of government watch list.

More interesting is the fall movie most likely to get at least one of
its participants assassinated. Larry Charles’ Religulous teams
the brilliant comedy guru and director of Borat with the insightful
but often too-smarmy raconteur Bill Maher for a guided tour through
the hypocrisies and absurdities of faith with a capital-F in our
troubled modern age. Anyone who’s watched more than a few
minutes of Maher’s indispensible HBO talk show knows exactly
where all this is going to end up.

But the question mark here is whether Charles might be able to
suppress his star’s more unseemly tendencies toward sanctimony
and get a productive discussion going. It doesn’t look good. My
esteemed PW colleague Matt Prigge caught an early peek and is
decidedly not a fan, and he’s one of the most godless heathens I
know.

Since we can’t get enough of the culture war, those rascally
righties strike back with David Zucker’s An American Carol, a
Fox News-friendly retelling of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol,
starring Kevin P. Farley (Chris’ little bro) as Michael Malone,
a slovenly, morbidly obese, America-hating documentary
filmmaker—hmm, I wonder who he’s supposed to
be?—visited by the ghosts of George Washington, George S.
Patton and JFK, who have presumably been enlisted to teach important
moral lessons about supply-side economics and government-sanctioned
torture. Bill O’Reilly plays himself because who else could?
(Larry Linville died in 2000.)

This independently financed production has become something of a cause
celebre for victimized Hollywood conservatives, so supporting roles
are filled by luminaries like Kelsey Grammer, Jon Voight and Dennis
Hopper. The film’s trailer plays as desperate and unfunny as
any non-ideological Grammer vehicle, but expect the “liberal
media” to bear the blame for this impending box office
disaster.

If Michael Malone isn’t cutting it for you and you want the real
deal, Michael Moore also has a flick this fall, except you
won’t find it in theaters. His Slacker Uprisingwill be made
available for free on the Internet, with the filmmaker magnanimously
declaring, “This is being done entirely as a gift to my
fans.” What he’s not telling you is that the film, a
chronicle of Moore’s 2004 college campus tour, was up until
recently called Captain Mike Across America and failed to land a
distributor after being critically pasted at last year’s Toronto
Film Festival.

In one of the kinder reviews, Variety’s Joe Leydon claimed
“this repetitious and self-indulgent hodgepodge comes across as
a nostalgia-drenched vanity project, with far too much footage of
various celebs at assorted gatherings intro-ing Moore as the greatest
thing since sliced bread.” That dang liberal media strikes
again.

Of course, the biggest dog in this hunt is Oliver Stone’s W.,
shot on the fly with one of those preposterously brief production
schedules that brings back fond memories of Stone’s early-1990s
heyday, when a steady diet of righteous indignation and (rumored,
ahem) suspicious substances sent the fiendish rebel knocking out
another broadly unsubtle, epic-length, formally dazzling provocation
roughly every nine months or so.

The early, freakishly convincing footage of star Josh Brolin wreaking
havoc upon the English language is already enough to stoke hopes for
this chronicle of “a life misunderestimated,” and we
still haven’t caught more than stray glimpses of Richard
Dreyfuss’ Darth Cheney, Scott Glenn’s Donald Rumsfeld or
Toby Jones’ Turd Blossom. In the Greatest Casting Ever
Department, former Daily Show correspondent Rob Corddry plays former
White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer.

And while we’re talking about insane schedules, the breathlessly
anticipated (at least by me) new James Bond flick benefitted most
from that aforementioned Harry Potter move, so the perplexingly titled
Quantum of Solace now has the luxury of a full eight weeks to complete
postproduction tasks that take some filmmakers (like Martin Scorsese,
for instance) more than a year. Good thing director Marc Forster,
known for agonizingly literal-minded, Oscar-grubbing dreck like
Monster’s Ball and Finding Neverlandwill never be confused with
Scorsese.

But the Bond Factory has become such a well-oiled machine over the
past 40 years it’s hard to imagine Forster mucking things up
too much, particularly with Bourne-movie stunt god Dan Bradley now
directing the action sequences, which will presumably comprise at
least half the picture. The presence of art-house icon and winner of
the Roman Polanski-lookalike contest Mathieu Amalric as the villain
augers well, but mainly I’m just looking forward to seeing more
of Daniel Craig’s ruthless, stonecold rottweiler-in-a-tuxedo
routine.

If you want to stir up da yoof, you can’t serve up some mom’n’pop
friendly pottage of family entertainment.9/26 – in extremis

A late season slugger, a smart young writer, an Entourage favorite, a
veteran interviewer and a perfectly executed magazine cover.9/25
– top 5 of the moment

“The case was politically motivated, because Milton Street has what’s
been referred to as a radical, or big, mouth.”9/24 – random act

film Bottom => film Middle => film Right1 => film Right2 => film
Right3 => film Position4 => film Top1 => film x11 => film x12 => film
x13 => film x23 => film x30 => film —!>