Religulous Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Choke
Even with the cult-led power of Fight Club, it took a long time for another Chuck Palahniuk adaptation to make it to the big screen. Finally, we were served Clark Gregg's Choke, a film that certainly relished its source material, but didn't inspire the rabid love of its predecessor. Still, it's a fun look into the life of a sex addict who fake-chokes in restaurants for money. Rent it.

Add to Netflix queue | Buy at Amazon | Read Erik's Review

Body of Lies
Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe get to face off in this political thriller filled with CIA intrigue and infiltration. Leo's the out-in-the-field op uncovering word of a new terrorist leader, while Crowe guides via satellite -- but is that guidance helping or hurting the situation? Rent it on DVD or Blu-ray.

Add to Netflix queue | Buy at Amazon | Read James' Review

Changeling
True stories made for successful cinema in this Clint Eastwood-helmed film about a woman (Angelina Jolie) in 1920s LA who's trying to find her abducted son. She gets a son, alright, but it's not her own, which triggers her own search for the ugly truth. As Kim Voynar said, Jolie "excels in a powerful performance." Buy it on DVD or Blu-ray.

Add to Netflix queue | Buy at Amazon | Read Kim's Review

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
Simon Pegg has made an amazing comedic name for himself over the last handful of years, fighting zombies and enforcing the law in a small and crazy town. But in comedies not created and whipped up by Pegg himself, they fall flat. Even if he is alienating the likes of Kirsten Dunst, Danny Huston, Jeff Bridges, Gillian Anderson, and Megan Fox ... we say Skip it.

Add to Netflix queue | Buy at Amazon | Read Jeff's Review

Also out: Midnight Meat Train, High School Musical 3: Senior Year, Flash of Genius, Quarantine, Alien Raiders, Feast 3: The Happy Finish, Moving Midway, Screamers: The Hunting, Still Waiting

The Halloween weekend scared up frighteningly weak numbers for bigger studio releases. How did independent films fare?

Winners:
1. My Name is Bruce (Image)
2. Noah's Arc: Jumping the Broom (Logo)
3. Religulous (Lionsgate)

Let's hear it for Bruuuuce! (Not, not Springsteen.) Ladies and gentlemen, the fabulous Bruce Campbell debuted at the top of the heap among limited releases, with a per-screen average of $18,800, according to estimates compiled by Box Office Mojo. Opening at one theater in New York, My Name is Bruce features Campbell as both star and director. Campbell's site lists upcoming screenings and appearances by The Man Himself.

Romantic comedy Noah's Arc: Jumping the Broom fared well in its second week of release, making an estimated $14,820 per screen, representing a normal drop of 50%. Are there enough loyal fans of the Logo TV series out there to support a wider release? It will expand to Detroit, Houston, San Francisco, Palm Springs, and Ocean, New Jersey on Friday; the official site has complete theater information.

Now in its fifth week, Religulous continues to draw audiences eager to see Bill Maher's take on organized religion. Earning $1,358 per screen, the film has grossed $11,452,000 so far; it recently became the highest-grossing doc of the year and is among the top 10 highest-grossing docs of all time, according to Docsider.

Not Winners / Indie Horror Scorecard:
1. Dear Zachary (Oscilloscope)
2. Splinter (Magnolia)
3. Eden Lake (Third Rail)

Despite our editor-in-chief's highest recommendation, Dear Zachary only made $2,800 at its single engagement. Perhaps word-of-mouth will build? That's still better than highly-regarded horror pic, Splinter, which managed only $2,200 each at four theaters (per Leonard Klady), or well-reviewed Brit thriller Eden Lake, which got dumped by the Weinsteins onto their loss-leader distribution arm Third Rail Releasing and drew just $550 per screen at 10 theaters.

Here are this weekend's box office success stories in the indie film world:

1. Frontrunners (Oscilloscope)
2. Rachel Getting Married (Sony Pictures Classics)
3. Fireproof (Samuel Goldwyn Films)
4. Religulous (Lionsgate Films)

Caroline Suh's documentary Frontrunners (pictured), which follows four teens running for elective office at a prestigious high school in New York City, had its world premiere at South by Southwest and was acquired for distribution by Oscilloscope, founded by Beastie Boy Adam Yauch, in July. Opening at one theater in New York, the film earned $7,400 over the weekend, according to Box Office Mojo, the third highest per-screen total among limited releases. That's a very good accomplishment for the fledgling Oscilloscope.

Jonathan Demme's drama Rachel Getting Married expanded from 27 to 69 theaters in selected cities across the country (including mine) and increased solidly to a per-screen average of $10,464. It's earned more than $1.75 million so far. I saw it on Saturday and was disappointed by its utterly ordinary, overly familiar dysfunctional family routines and excessive padding for what is a very thin story, but a ton of people showed up for the early afternoon screening, so I guess everyone loves weddings and the promise of battling sisters working out all their problems in a single weekend.

On the "pro" side of religion, Fireproof, a drama starring Kirk Cameron, added even more theaters (up to 905 now) and dropped very little, percentage wise, totaling more than $20 million in four weeks of release. On the "con" side, Religulous, a doc by Larry Charles featuring Bill Maher, dropped a few theaters (to 504 locations) yet still burst past the $9 million mark, a remarkable performance for a documentary.

Success Stories:
Happy-Go-Lucky (Miramax)
Religulous (Lionsgate)
Ballast (Alluvial/Required Viewing)

One Brit edged out another, as RockNRolla, Guy Ritchie's zippy yet utterfully forgettable "return to form" Brit crime flick, narrowly claimed the #1 spot among limited releases, according to estimates compiled by Box Office Mojo. To my mind, though, Mike Leigh's much riskier Happy-Go-Lucky ($20,000 per screen at four theaters) is the surprise winner in the independent world, with a strking lead performance by Sally Hawkins as a preternaturally cheerful schoolteacher who sounds as though she could set teeth on edge as easily as she warms hearts. I'm curious but wary. The film will expand wider on Friday; if you've seen it, is it a tonic for difficult times or a passive aggressive form of torture?

Speaking of possibly unpleasant experiences, I'm also surprised by the excellent returns for Larry Charles' Religulous. The doc has earned more than $6.7 million in just two weeks; A. J. Schnack of All these wonderful things points out that it's the first doc since Michael Moore's Sicko "to score back-to-back multi-million dollar weekends." I grew tired of Bill Maher's smirking, self-righteous ridicule years ago, but perhaps I'm in the minority. If you've seen the doc, are you a big fan of Maher? Or is it the subject matter that made it a must-see?

Lance Hammer's Ballast deserves a big hand. Not only did Hammer write and direct a highly-praised drama, he decided to take on distribution duties as well, opening it at a single Manhattan theater the weekend before last. The earnings were not stunning, but very respectable for picture without stars. It expands to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Washington, Philadelphia and St. Louis before the end of October, according to indieWIRE. Will you check out Ballast if it opens near you?

Eric D. Snider tried his best to trick me into watching Beverly Hills Chihuahua this week. It didn't work on me, but it worked on millions of Snider acolytes all over North America, who joined forces to give the talking-animals kidflick a strong $29 million, first-place debut. I didn't see it, as I say, so it would be wrong for me to bemoan the decline of civilization that this surely (if unsurprisingly) represents. Feel free to do so in the comments.

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist opened to $12 million and third place, which I'd have to say is okay for the low-profile, borderline-niche film. That number, though not terribly impressive, is actually a fair testament to Michael Cera's star power, since his presence was literally the only mass-marketable aspect of the movie. So the debut is at least a draw for Sony.

It was an interesting weekend in that there were several films opening in, or expanding into, semi-wide release. The biggest winner of that bunch has to be Religulous, Bill Maher's aggressively anti-faith documentary, which did $3.5 million on around 500 screens for $6,972 per screen. Given the preaching-to-the-relatively-small-choir quality of the film, I don't expect it to hold up too well in the weeks ahead, but this level of interest is a mild surprise. Facing off against Religulous ideologically was David Zucker's conservative spoof An American Carol which, according to the estimates, edged out Religulous with $3.8 million on over 1,600 screens.

Ed Harris's lightweight western Appaloosa expanded to roughly 1,000 screens and took in $5 million -- which is okay, but seems like a missed opportunity. Faring worse were Flash of Genius (1100 screens) and Blindness (1700), with $2.3 and $2 million respectively, both landing outside the top 10. The grim Blindness was a no-sale from the beginning, especially since the critics never got on board, but the unabashedly populist Flash of Genius underperformed. Maybe the ads emphasized windshield wipers too much.

A bit more plus the weekend's top 12 after the jump.

What were the breakout films at this year's Fantastic Fest? Which French horror film had audiences squirming and arguing at Fantastic Fest and Toronto's Midnight Madness? What question couldn't James shake during Zack and Miri Make a Porno -- and what, according to Scott, is that film's secret weapon? And which October films are waiting to be your new fave film of the fall? Joining James this week to talk about all of the above -- and more -- is Cinematical's Managing Editor Scott Weinberg. ... Cinematical's podcast is now available through iTunes; you can subscribe at this link. Also, you can listen directly here at Cinematical by clicking below:



As ever, you can download the entire podcast right here -- and those of you with RSS Podcast readers can find all of Cinematical's podcast content at this link.

Cinematical has just received this exclusive clip from the new documentary Religulous, starring Bill Maher and directed by Larry Charles (Borat). In the docu-comedy, Maher travels from country to country examining faith and religion and the role it plays in the world. In the clip below, Maher, demonstrating his pro-marijuana beliefs, discusses whether you can be high and spiritual at the same time.

On Religulous, Cinematical's James Rocchi said, "it's a funny film about some depressing things, it's a lighthearted tour through terrorism, injustice and intolerance. But those contradiction and challenges are, ultimately, what make the film linger uneasily in your mind, reaching past comedy and confrontation to challenge the audience with a fierce and forceful prayer that there might be no god." You can listen to our audio interview with Bill Maher over here, and you can catch Religulous in theaters this weekend.

(We're re-posting our review of Religulous from the Toronto Film Festival to coincide with the film's theatrical release this week)

By: James Rocchi

I contend we are both atheists; I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. -- Stephen F. Roberts

In Religulous, stand-up social commentator Bill Maher doesn't just assert how he believes in one less god than many of us, and he doesn't just craft bold, bizarre and hilarious moments of comedy and discussion with the help of director Larry Charles (Borat). More importantly, and more intriguingly, Maher states the film's thesis in an introduction filmed at Megiddo, the prophesied location of the final battle of Armageddon as written in Revelation; Maher, much like author Sam Harris does in his excellent (if dry) book The End of Faith, proposes that religious belief, in an age of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, actively endangers humanity through encouraging conflict, promising rewards for irrational behavior, justifying artificial divisions and enabling other unfounded and unkind forms of thinking. Or, as Maher succinctly puts it early on, "When Revelations was written, only God had the power to destroy the world. ..."

And then the opening titles kick in, a montage of Maher globe-trotting in search of people to talk to, and as the guitar riffs of The Who's "The Seeker" ring out, we recognize that we're going to get plenty of sizzle along with the steak in Religulous, lots of showbusiness to liven up the soul-searching. Like most documentaries dealing with weighty matters, though, the concern in Religulous isn't that there'll be no sizzle with the steak but rather if there'll be steak to go with the sizzle; does Religulous have the right ratio of factual points to funny punch lines, a balanced mix of context and comedy?

(Note: The following interview ran earlier this month during the Toronto International Film Festival. We're re-running it now in anticipation of the film's theatrical release this week.)

By: James Rocchi

Even after debuting Religulous, his new docu-comedy about faith in the modern world directed by Larry Charles (Borat), Bill Maher still has plenty of questions of his own: "I was saying to Larry in the car on the way over here: I suddenly realized that I don't know the relationship between the Devil and the Antichrist. Do you? I mean, we both know those terms, but they're not the same guy, I don't think. I'm not sure if the Devil works for the Antichrist? Or the Antichrist for the Devil? Or is it like the Joker and the Riddler -- neither of them work for each other, but they gang up on Batman ...?" Maher spoke with Cinematical in Toronto about the difference between 'changing your mind' and 'flip-flopping,' what wound up on the cutting-room floor, getting in harm's way for the sake of a great scene, why it's doubtful he'll follow Religulous with another feature film and much more.

Cinematical's podcast content is now available through iTunes; you can subscribe at this link. Also, you can listen directly here at Cinematical by clicking below:



As ever, you can download the entire podcast right here -- and those of you with RSS Podcast readers can find all of Cinematical's podcast content at this link.

Even after debuting Religulous, his new docu-comedy about faith in the modern world directed by Larry Charles (Borat), Bill Maher still has plenty of questions of his own: "I was saying to Larry in the car on the way over here: I suddenly realized that I don't know the relationship between the Devil and the Antichrist. Do you? I mean, we both know those terms, but they're not the same guy, I don't think. I'm not sure if the Devil works for the Antichrist? Or the Antichrist for the Devil? Or is it like the Joker and the Riddler -- neither of them work for each other, but they gang up on Batman ...?" Maher spoke with Cinematical in Toronto about the difference between 'changing your mind' and 'flip-flopping,' what wound up on the cutting-room floor, getting in harm's way for the sake of a great scene, why it's doubtful he'll follow Religulous with another feature film and much more.

Cinematical's podcast content is now available through iTunes; you can subscribe at this link. Also, you can listen directly here at Cinematical by clicking below:



As ever, you can download the entire podcast right here -- and those of you with RSS Podcast readers can find all of Cinematical's podcast content at this link.