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What Would Jesus Buy?

Shopocalypse flop

By BRETT MICHEL | December 12, 2007

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.

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Topics: Reviews , Entertainment, Performing Arts, Morgan Spurlock, More

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