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Joined: Sep 17 2007 Location: The Opium Trail Posts: 3475

Bill Maher is one of my personal heroes. Almost every Monday I look for the latest uploads of his show Real Time on youtube (because I don't watch HBO). I usually only watch the opening monologue and the closing New Rules, but they're practically genius everytime.

Anybody else a fan?

Posted: Oct 15 2008 12:02 pm

All I know about him is what I read relating to his movie Religulous. The movie certainly looks funny from the previews, but I'm not sure if that extends to the full one and a half hours of its running time. Making fun of religious nutjobs is so easy, it might get old really fast. I'll definitely give it chance though.

Joined: Apr 14 2006 Location: Lake Michigan Posts: 3332

I'm not a fan of the questionable tactics he uses - which is highlighted by the way he goes about his study of religion in that documentary. The Onion stated this in a review of it better than I can:

Quote:

...Maher sets off on a globetrotting journey that stops most frequently wherever the outliers of the world's faiths call home. The pattern is simple: Maher challenges, say, a guy playing Jesus at a religious theme park or an Orthodox Jew who attended Iran's conference on Holocaust denial. He asks provocative questions that the film chops up with the attention deficit disorder approach of an E! True Hollywood Story and accentuates with quick cuts to camp footage from old religious epics or cheap Mormon cartoons. Then it's on to the next target, for yet another variation on, "Would you get a load of this guy?"

...It's easy to appreciate his punkish commitment to absolute skepticism and hard to swallow the intellectual bankruptcy of the approach. There's probably a better movie in the raw footage of these conversations than in the flatteringly edited final product, which also commits the unpardonable sin of not being especially funny. That Maher often seems as self-righteous as his foils and director Larry Charles (Borat) gooses the gags with lame sound effects doesn't help.

(My emphasis) http://www.avclub.com/content/cinema/religulous

I may disagree with him politically, but the disrespectful way in which he presents his case is what I find distasteful. I can easily respect liberals when they come to their conclusions in a logical fashion. I'm sorry to say that he just bullies and insults in his debates. It's a shame, because I would normally enjoy a show that talks politics in an unbiased, politically incorrect fashion.

Joined: Aug 24 2005 Location: Mount Holly, NJ Posts: 1062

Cattivo wrote:

I may disagree with him politically, but the disrespectful way in which he presents his case is what I find distasteful. I can easily respect liberals when they come to their conclusions in a logical fashion. I'm sorry to say that he just bullies and insults in his debates. It's a shame, because I would normally enjoy a show that talks politics in an unbiased, politically incorrect fashion.

I agree. I can't stomach Bill Maher. As a Repub, I'm completely open to political debate and bouncing opposing viewpoints off one another. To me, he's a smug douche bag that assumes everything he says is correct and anyone that disagrees is an ignorant, misinformed dope. He's the personification of a closed-minded mentality pretending to welcome open discussion.

Plus he's not funny. Misreading jokes that someone else wrote for you does not a funny show make IMHO.

Posted: Oct 16 2008 04:14 pm

Oh god, Religulous. I unintentionally started screaming at someone at work when they said that looked great.

I gotta second the things that Kubo and Cattivo are saying. From the previews, Religulous looks to be an immensely stupid and ignorant movie. It basically seems to be two hours of Bill Maher traveling the world and yelling "Ha ha! Your beliefs are stupid!" at people and just generally being ass. It's classless, and it makes Bill Maher look like a fucking idiot. Maybe he is; he's certainly quite smug and egotistical. I am all for social commentary and religious satire, but Religious isn't either of those things, it's crass, unashamedly mean-spirited attack on organized religions that's cruel for the sake of being cruel. I've said it before and I'll say it again - Atheists often criticize religions as being intolerant and fanatical, but no modern religion is as intolerant and fanatical as the Grand High Church of Atheism.

When I want to watch critiques of religion of religion, I'll watch something that's actually clever. Dogma, for instance. Or the many episodes of South Park and the Simpsons dealing with religion.

That being said, I did enjoy Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher.

Posted: Oct 16 2008 05:29 pm

Syd Lexia wrote:

I've said it before and I'll say it again - Atheists often criticize religions as being intolerant and fanatical, but no modern religion is as intolerant and fanatical as the Grand High Church of Atheism.

I would have guessed maybe it would be Islam, due to the calling for assasinations in repercussion for political cartoons. So ummm yeah.

In any case if you want anything like a real critique of religion, I would recommend Dennet's "Breaking the Spell". Its really very good. If your an angry athiest and you do simply want to beat on religion you've got either Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, or Sam Harris to choose from. Or, the aformentioned Hitchens has a book called "The Portable Athiest", which has a collection of historical figures making arguments against whatever manner or manifestation of faith was about at the time.

For movies, maybe Marjoe? I don't know. This seems too weighty to be left in the hands of cinema. Particularly the Michael Moore/Borat/Dick from McDonalds school of harass people on the street school of filmmaking.

Joined: Aug 24 2005 Location: Mount Holly, NJ Posts: 1062

Syd Lexia wrote:

When I want to watch critiques of religion of religion, I'll watch something that's actually clever. Dogma, for instance. .

Dogma is one of the most underappreciated movies of the last ten years. It was brilliant not because it was necessarily a critique of religon per se, it was a critique of humans' tendencies to assume that their beliefs (or lack of beliefs) are the correct ones. I agree wholeheartedly with the message in that movie: believe what you want to believe, there is no one answer.

That's where I take issue with the aggressive contingent of athiests. They DO believe that there is one answer- nothing. It's no different than Christians belittling Muslims, Muslims belittling Jews, etc. etc. because they believe that their God is the one, true God.

As far as my own religious beliefs: I believe there is a Creator, but I don't pretend to know what he/she is like. I also believe that that Creator is infinite, and does watch out over us, as people. I think that people are (or at least want to be) for the msot part, good. I also think that the majority of aggression towards religion in general (by Athiests) and the fighting between the different religions is out of fear that one could be wrong.

To me, in the grand scheme of things, people should believe what you want to believe, even if you don't believe in anything. It's all gravy. And lastly, I think that one who goes out of their way to take away someone's beliefs (i.e., believe a Christian to be stupid for believing in God) for the sake of proving their idea right is one of the lowest forms of human on the planet. For lots of people, their faith (or lack thereof) brings them comfort, it takes a real douche-nozzle like Bill Maher to want to take that away from them.

Joined: Sep 17 2007 Location: The Opium Trail Posts: 3475

First off, read the fucking title. I didn't mention a goddamn thing about Bill's new movie. Hell I haven't even seen it yet. This is, really a thread about his abilities as a comedian (reading jokes the wrong way? You're an idiot.). Like I said, I don't even watch the debate parts of the show, because in the end, debates aren't going to cause violent revolution (which in my opinion is the only way things are going to change in theis country, but that's a seperate discussion altogether). I watch Bill's show to get a few laughs and learn something new (and yes, I've learned plenty). The only reason I could possibly think people writing Bill off as smug, is if they're from the other side, the right. I mean shit, I look at the way Bill O'Reilly interacts with people and it appears smug to me.

As for Bill's views of religion, you all can blame George Carlin for that. Bill has gone on record saying that George inspired him to speak out against religion. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if Bill made Religulous for George (and I also wouldn't be surprised if George ate that shit up too, after all he loves Keith Olberman Rolling Eyes

).

Anyways, in the hopes of steering this topic in the direction I'd intended, allow me to give some examples of why I am a fan of Maher:

stand-up bit about feminism:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z8j4QJ0oiY

New Rules, illustrating that the left vs. right is Civil War II waiting to happen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbRkSYWEIaQ

and everyone's apparent favorite, Rap lyrics translated into white:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pm2wTGgYAw

(and he actually does like Rap, hell that was the only genre he put on his Celebrity Playlist on iTunes)

Joined: Aug 24 2005 Location: Mount Holly, NJ Posts: 1062

JRA wrote:

First off, read the fucking title. I didn't mention a goddamn thing about Bill's new movie. Hell I haven't even seen it yet. This is, really a thread about his abilities as a comedian (reading jokes the wrong way? You're an idiot.).

1) Look at the second post in the thread. Someone mentioned Religulous, and the discussion went from there. So your thread went in a direction that is tangentially related to what you started it about- cry me a river.

2) Yes, misreading jokes. EVERY episode of his show, at least once, during the opening jokes, he looks off camera, laughs, and shrugs his shoulders in some weird dismissal of what he just said. That said, I recognize some people do like his stuff. So I don't like his delivery, his humor, or anything else that comprise his manner of comedy. Fucking sue me. And fuck you for calling anyone an idiot for espousing an attitude toward how they perceive his "comedy."

3) I think Bill Maher and your counter-example, Bill O'Reilly are both smug, know-it-all pieces of shit. You can add Keith Olbermann and Rush Limbaugh to that list, too. I don't need to refer to my political orientation (which is neither "left" nor "right") to recognize when someone is condescending to those he/she is interacting with, and every time I've seen Maher talk to either a Republican on his show or the people in the short clips I've seen of Religulous, he's exactly that.

4) Ups to you for taking away some education from Maher's show. Whatever people can learn about politics/the world around them is good, regardless of where it comes from.[/b]

Joined: Sep 17 2007 Location: The Opium Trail Posts: 3475

Kubo wrote:

1) Look at the second post in the thread. Someone mentioned Religulous, and the discussion went from there. So your thread went in a direction that is tangentially related to what you started it about- cry me a river.

2) Yes, misreading jokes. EVERY episode of his show, at least once, during the opening jokes, he looks off camera, laughs, and shrugs his shoulders in some weird dismissal of what he just said.

1) Yea, a related tangent. But it still isn't about the movie itself. Otherwise I would have just done a "Religulous" thread in the movie section. Besides who knows, maybe Maher in the future will recognize that many people didn't get it so he'll lament it as an failed attempt to get the point across.

2) You clearly pay more attention to the show more than I do, because I've never seen that. Either his jokes make a connection and they laugh, or they don't, and there's an awkward pause, after which the audience laughs anyway.

Posted: Oct 16 2008 10:41 pm

It was perhaps poor timing. When you start a thread about a show hosted by a guy who has a controversial movie coming out, of course the discussion will quickly turn in that direction.

Anyway, I did like Politically Incorrect.

Joined: Sep 17 2007 Location: The Opium Trail Posts: 3475

Syd Lexia wrote:

It was perhaps poor timing. When you start a thread about a show hosted by a guy who has a controversial movie coming out, of course the discussion will quickly turn in that direction.

Anyway, I did like Politically Incorrect.

Let me guess, Real Time got too left-wing for you?

Posted: Oct 17 2008 03:59 am

I'm with Syd on the movie. But I did also like Politically Incorrect and do like Real Time. My favorite thing I've seen on the show was when they were talking about a time table for Iraq and in New Rules with a pic of W. "Times tables. 4X2, 8X12,...Ah fuck it, stay the course." or something along those lines. I can't remember laughing so hard.

Posted: Oct 17 2008 06:22 am

Sorry for derailing that thread to Religulous. I just had never heard of Bill Maher until I read about his movie on the Slashfilm blog a couple of weeks ago, so that was the first thing that came to mind.

Joined: Sep 17 2007 Location: The Opium Trail Posts: 3475

Tyop wrote:

Sorry for derailing that thread to Religulous. I just had never heard of Bill Maher until I read about his movie on the Slashfilm blog a couple of weeks ago, so that was the first thing that came to mind.

Fair enough.

Posted: Oct 31 2008 08:25 am

JRA wrote:

and everyone's apparent favorite, Rap lyrics translated into white:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pm2wTGgYAw

(and he actually does like Rap, hell that was the only genre he put on his Celebrity Playlist on iTunes)

You don't think he did that on iTunes to pander to the people who called him racist or intolerant because of the link you posted?

Anyway, I hate Bill Maher. I hated Politically Incorrect, I hate Real Time with him, and I will never watch Religulous. Politically Incorrect was never anything but a shouting match, and no one really said anything funny. I remember one episode where the 4 guests where, and I'm not joking, some fat Irish comedian, a VFW who served in Vietnam, one of the leaders of like the wives of Vietnam Vets foundation or something, and, if I remember the title correctly, the former premier of Vietnam. This was the biggest train wreck I ever saw as it was just two guys standing up and shouting incoherently at the top of their lungs in the Vietnamese guy's face. Needless to say, there was absolutely no legitimate discourse on that episode.

Bill Maher is nothing but an arrogant, nihilist douchebag.