Ah, Bill Maher: caustic, hilarious and blunt. That’s why I love him. Last night there were protesters (though Nellie thinks they may have been a sideshow arranged for the movie) outside the screening of the new Larry Charles documentary Religulous (tiff), in which he starred. Here’s the premise: travel around America and the world challenging people to produce a logical argument for their religion. Hilarity ensues. The end.

High art this was not. To be fair, it was a smart man picking on people who might not have finished at the head of their respective classes, but to Maher’s point, non-believers are too quiet and passive by nature, so he was trying to stir things up a bit. Would almost certainly infuriate religious viewers, but that’s not his target market. He said clearly in the film he wanted to provoke the 16% of American voters who are non-believers that they should have a louder voice.

The introductions and Q&As were very funny. Maher’s best line of the night was when he started vamping on Palin: “5 kids…Jesus, don’t Republicans know how to pull out of anything?”

B-

[tags]tiff, tiff08, religulous, bill maher, larry charles[/tags]