TIFF's second and final screening of Bill Maher's anti-religious documentary Religulous unspooled today, to generally raucous applause, at the Winter Garden. Though there was a small knot of protesters during the Saturday evening screening at the Ryerson, Maher and his director Larry Charles (Borat, Curb Your Enthusiasm) seem to have found in Toronto many people of a like mind, or at least audiences willing to accept that there may be reasons to be skeptical of religion. The duo were certainly treated respectfully during yesterday's press conference, which brought to mind the old canard, revived out of the blue (red?) during last week's Republican National Convention, that Hollywood and the so-called "media elite" in the U.S. is out of touch with the values of most Americans. So now that the Republicans have shown they want a culture war, they'll likely hold up Religulous, when it is released by Lionsgate on Oct. 3, as a prime example of the Ungodly Left. Given this, did Maher and Charles think it might have been wiser to hold the film back until, say, the middle of November (a perfect Christmas movie!) so that it wouldn't become a part of the presidential culture war, er, debate?
"You're right. Republicans have traditionally thrown out a lot of red meat at this time of year," said Maher. "Sarah Palin, by the way, throws out actual red meat. She actually snarls! I mean, I hate to give money to a politician, I don't often do it, but after her speech I wrote out a cheque to Obama pretty quickly."
Sitting next to Maher, Charles added. “I don't think it's our responsibility, necessarily, to hold this back in order to, in an abstract sense, not affect that election. If we can sort of create a little more debate before the election, it might actually help defeat McCain and Palin. So I can make a case for that scenario, as well,” he said, and then continued: “Republicans are, it's like an Apocalyptic ticket now. People who are not rabid right-wing Republicans, who are a little bit more moderate, a little bit more undecided, a little bit more ambivalent about this stuff, this movie basically says: This is what these people believe in, they want to destroy the world. You listen to Giuliani's speech, you listen to Palin's speech, they're talking World War III, very clearly.”
