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What Would Jesus Buy?

Shopocalypse flop
By BRETT MICHEL  |  December 12, 2007
2.0 2.0 Stars

VIDEO: Watch the trailer for What Would Jesus Buy?

“Are you people . . . or are you sheeple, led to the shopocalypse?” bellows Reverend Billy (Bill Talen), addressing a Mall of America crowd, backed by his talented Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir. He’s got people’s attention, but is his anti-consumerism message being heard? On a month-long cross-country bus tour during the 2005 Christmas holiday, this bleached-blond prophet spread his gospel from the Big Apple to Disneyland, railing against Americans’ “inability to distinguish between real life and simulated life.” What Would Jesus Buy? makes the same mistake. Not so much a documentary as a stunt, this record of Talen’s travels, directed without irony by Rob VanAlkemade, bears the imprimatur of producer Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me). Who paid for the biofueled bus? The choir? As much as Talen believes his shill, he’s a performance artist posing as a preacher, on a mission conceived with and funded by his producers.
Related: How To Cook Your Life, Spring brakes, Gotharama, More more >
  Topics: Reviews , Entertainment, Performing Arts, Morgan Spurlock,  More more >
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ARTICLES BY BRETT MICHEL
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  •   REVIEW: THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL  |  December 02, 2009
    Have you walked near a college campus lately? You might notice that the ’80s are creeping into fashion, the way the ’70s did a few years back, and with the same lack of irony. It’s happening in cinemas, too — something that’s not entirely unwelcome when it comes to the horror genre.
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    Born in Denmark in 1959, Lone Scherfig first gained international attention in 2000 with Italian for Beginners, a charming little film that won her the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. A couple of years later, she followed up with Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself, her first English-language effort, filmed in Scotland and starring Adrian Rawlins and Shirley Henderson.

 See all articles by: BRETT MICHEL

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