What Would Jesus Buy?

What would Jesus buy? Having written to my local preacher at the tender age of 16 (to renounce formally any connection with a faith that I find repugnant), my answer would probably be, "I couldn't give a monkey's." But lest you be put off this rather entertaining documentary, let me reassure you it is not really about religion. Reverend Billy, its key protagonist, is not really a Reverend. And the Jesus catchline is simply to question your unserving faith to the more mundane god of cash-registers.

Think Michael Moore, Ali G, Aaron Barschak, or Super Size Me. Reverend Billy is a character created by actor-comedian Bill Talen, often accompanied by his accomplished artist-wife Savitri Durkee (Director of the 'Church of Stop Shopping'). Then there's the acoustically accomplished 'Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir'. Think protests in Starbucks, Walmart, Times Square and Disneyland. Rage against globalisation. Consumerism. The ever-increasing debt. Use the feelgood singalong style of modern Jesus-music-churches. Find a tagline line such as 'the true meaning of Christmas.' Get taken seriously faster than you can say, "thanks for the donation" (Billy's organisation is tax-deductible – yes, really).

Reverend Billy has even started to believe in himself. But is the message any good? Before we answer that question, let's ask if it is entertaining. The answer has to be, yes. Bill Talen is no Aaron Barschak, causing public disruption for the sake of it or begging for recognition. Firstly, he's actually funny. An accomplished entertainer, his puns and loaded lines are devilishly perfected. Visually, he looks like a slightly scary caricature of Elvis, shock of blonde hair balancing precariously on a less than angelical face. Wife Savitri coaches him before delivering the gospel: "Keep your eyes open really wide as you say that . . ." Secondly, he can persuade people he loves them before tearing them to shreds. A sort of Ali G on coke. Let us sing to the Lord, he exhorts on people's doorstep at Yuletide. He hands them a carol sheet. After a traditional start, they realise the lyrics they are singing have been altered. Firstly to damn with praise, then to excoriate. Big businesses, and the shopping sprees that support them, cast into hell. His tour bus meets local churchmen who think he's a holy crusader. Disneyworld-goers think he's part of the entertainment - till he gets arrested. Billy has been arrested many, many times.

Thirdly (just like the many churches, sceptics might argue), he pulls people in with enough factoids to convince them he knows what he's talking about. Slave labour in China. The horrors of globalisation. Families facing life-ruining debt brought on by merciless advertising. "Give something that costs nothing!" he exhorts. The highly simplified arguments are enough to arouse the emotions of the Outraged Campaigner in any of us. Enough to grab the brain as it hesitates precariously between thinking and laughter.

Billy walks into a shop and does a 'Laying of Hands' on the cash register. In confessional, he tells a girl she did the right thing for taking a pair of scissors to a dress she was trying on in a store ("It didn't fit"). He 'exorcises' a local Walmart from the nearby graveyard. It's very funny to watch . . . but let's face it, we're laughing at other people's expense. People who are mostly too polite to be as rude as he is to them. Do you want someone disrupting your hard-earned day out at Disneyland? When you're shopping for your kids' Christmas presents, presents you might be lucky enough to afford, do you want a preacher-lookalike telling you it's evil? There is a deep synergy between the Church, Christmas, and the commercialism that mutually reinforces that date in the calendar.

But to more serious issues for a moment. Reverend Billy (or Billy Talen) has his heart in the right place, but this stuff about boycotting goods from sweatshops abroad . . . It has been extensively proved, by trial error sadly, to do more harm than good. It tends to close the sweatshop and drive employees into begging and prostitution. Answers, sadly, are more complex than this juvenile barrage of love-and-peace would have us believe. They involve economic and ethical strategies, not a simple cutting-off of offending parties. Debt reduction is not about preaching the real meaning of Christmas (which Talen, as a strictly lapsed believer, is less than convincing about), but more about education and counselling. His point on 'giving something that you have created, or a song,' maybe gets close. Putting more love than just cash into presents. But his roadshow may be too commercial to sway most film-goers' hearts.

I would hate to be one to judge the Reverend Billy. He might do a Bono and or really make a difference. Or he might just be the lever that lets an ever bigger business concern reinvent itself. That concern, of course, being one of the most powerful financial conglomerates in the USA and the world today: Jesus' church itself.

This is a giddy,goofy little film with a vital message....ease back on the excessive consumerism. Reverend Billy (Bill Talen) is a performance artist that looks a bit like Elvis with a blonde Pompadour & delivers his messages much like one of those old time fire & brimstone preachers. The only thing is that instead of pounding Jesus down every body's throats (much like the Baptists do), Rev. Billy speaks out against the dangers of shopping. He takes his wife (who wears several hats as director of the performances,choir master,etc.)& his congregation on the road to speak out. A myriad of things happen on the road:some good,others not so good. One of the high points of the film comes when Rev.Billy & company go to Disneyland & manage to touch more than their share of raw nerves there. It kind of reminded me of that sequence in Terry Gilliam's 'Fear & Loathing In Los Vegas',when Hunter Thompson (Johnny Depp)drops acid at a casino in Vegas that resembles a circus (get the picture?). I'm told that there is another documentary about Reverend Billy out there. If the fates are good, perhaps I'll get to peruse that one,as well. CAVAET FOR THE BIBLE THUMPERS:Although religion isn't really slammed in Talen's performances,this film could be offensive to any & all fundamentalist Christians that are satire challenged and/or humour impared (in short:any body that wields religion as a weapon of mass destruction..please stay away from this film, so the rest of us can have a good laugh without fear of you going postal in the cinema during a screening of this very funny film)

Review Date 1/26/2018

PLEASE BEWARE OF SOME REVIEWERS THAT ONLY HAVE ONLY ONE REVIEW. WHEN ITS A POSITIVE THERE IS A GOOD CHANCE THEY WERE INVOLVED WITH THE PRODUCTION. NOW I HAVE NO AGENDA! I REVIEW MOVIES & SPECIALS AS A WAY TO KEEP TRACK OF WHAT I HAVE SEEN! I HAVE DISCOVERED MANY GEMS IN MY QUEST TO SEE AS MANY " C H R I S T M A S " MOVIES AS I CAN.

Now Someone keeps reporting my reviews. I guess they are jealous because I do tell the truth. I want to point out that I never make snide remarks about actors weight or real life sexual orientation. If there acting is terrible or limited "I talk about that". If a story is bad "I will mention that" So why am I being "picked on"? IMDB? When one of my reviews gets deleted IMDB will not even tell me what someone found offensive. Well on to this review.

This film has a message but it is lost with this mans screaming and grand standing. What isn't covered in this is that there are many people like myself that don't overspend and love the Christmas Season. To me "Christmas Season" is my football season. "Christmas" helps me get through the rest of the year. Christmas is a time of living (for me) guilt free.

The Rev. Billy Tallen and his Stop Shopping Choir embark on a cross-country crusade against the commercialization of Christmas is a good cause but isn't this film also made "To Make Money" and to spread the Billy Tallen's message?

Now many people in the USA are not Church Goers but love Christmas. Christmas brings many people together and that is worth celebrating.

Yes Americans overspend but they don't just overspend at Christmas. That is another point that is overlooked!

It would have also helped if the Rev do not look like Heat Miser from "The Year without a Santa Claus"

I just got home from the world premiere of WHAT WOULD Jesus BUY at SXSW. It received multiple standing ovations, especially when the audience was treated to a song by the Stop Shopping Choir. It wasn't just because of Morgan Spurlock, a festival favorite, was a producer. The film stands on it's own as a world class fun and informative documentary on the cancer of consumerism.

Focusing on the anti-consumerism crusade the Church of Stop Shopping, director Rob VanAlkemade focuses on the irrepressible Reverend Billy while touching on the facts. At first Reverend Billy simply seems outrageous, but he quickly brings his message home, using comedy. VanAlkemade uses several experts, and even allows Wal-Mart representatives to counter points.

This film is a Must-See before any shopping splurge. And you'll likely find you're going to spend more time researching where you shop and what you buy. Go out of your way to see this one!

While this film has amusing and humorous elements, it is NOT a comedy and to call it one is to delegitimize it. This documentary explores the commercialization of the Christmas tradition, which it rightly concludes has lost most of its spiritual meaning in favor of gift giving and the shopping that precedes it. The film further engages the viewer to consider the possibility that this obsession with commercialization bleeds into everyday life.

While many of the points are made by examining the sermons of the dubiously respectable self-styled "Reverend Billy" and his Church of Stop Shopping, which often makes for laughs, to say it is a comedy does not do it justice. This is a true documentary about a true phenomenon in America and a political organization that seeks to challenge it.