Culture - film
What Would Jesus Buy?
by Sarah Litvin
April 2, 2008
This feature documentary follows the Christmas tour of Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir, a group that traveled the country to use humor, spirituality and song to get Americans to stop shopping. Through sing-ins and protests in colleges and malls across America, the group encourages Americans to consider where their Christmas presents are made, and to stop the “Shopocalypse” by buying fewer and simpler goods that are made in the USA. The intentions of the filmmaker were excellent: Reverend Billy has an important message, and the tour was a terrific adventure.
That being said, the film has severe narrative and editing problems, and comes off as scattered, repetitive, and preachy. In his attempt to structure the piece both thematically and chronologically, and to make it both about promoting the Stop Shopping doctrine, and documenting the tour, the film fails at both. By 45 minutes in, I was watching the clock as I dug my heels in for another 45 minutes of Reverend Billy repeating his warnings, his songs, and his arrests. As a short, this film could have been interesting, but as a feature doc, it drags.
Barefoot In The Delta
Cinematastic!: Crossroads Film Festival 2008
Shopocalypse Now!
We Call it Irresistible
posted by on 04/02/08 at 03:48 PM. [printer-friendly version]
COMMENTS
[Kamikaze] The Media Fix Is In
J.T.: Amen to pushing a positive Jackson. And, yes, it is a movement. And, it is moving.
Aug 27, 2008 | 06:17 PM
Ban the Paddle?
ladd: A lot of kids in all our schools are "scary smart." Many just haven't had the chance to prove it, yet. On the not-know-how-to-ask-a-str anger-a-question point -- how many strangers are completely ...
Aug 27, 2008 | 05:33 PM
Ban the Paddle?
Tom Head: The kids I've met from the Jim Hill Civil Liberties Club are SCARY smart (they're not just the future; they're ready and able to get out and do stuff now), and the idea that anyone would consider ...
Aug 27, 2008 | 05:15 PM
Ban the Paddle?
ladd: you mentioned people should try to find out what is really going on with this generation. Damn right I did. And any given day, you will find up to 20 young people in their teens and 20s in my offices, ...
Aug 27, 2008 | 05:12 PM
Ban the Paddle?
ladd: Baquan, it's simple really: You generalized about all young people with statements like these: Discipline does not work any more on kids, whether it is beating them or putting them in time out. Young ...
Aug 27, 2008 | 04:49 PM
Ban the Paddle?
baquan2000: To Tom Head - lets just agree to disagree. You put yours in time out for stealing or cussing, while with mine, they will just have to meet their maker when they attempt to try it!? Sorry - I will ...
Aug 27, 2008 | 04:41 PM
Ban the Paddle?
baquan2000: Donna you did a good article a while back on this generation, where I think you mentioned people should try to find out what is really going on with this generation. Maybe what I said, was to ...
Aug 27, 2008 | 04:28 PM
Ban the Paddle?
Tom Head: Or for selling bad weed. Or for sleeping with your girlfriend. Or... Right. We teach the same pro-violence message with the Iraq War and the death penalty, too, not to mention when leaders go around ...
Aug 27, 2008 | 04:04 PM
Ban the Paddle?
ladd: That is a vast generalization about young people, baquan, and extremely offensive. I'm more impressed with young people today in their teens, and even tweens, than I ever have been. And the numbers bear ...
Aug 27, 2008 | 03:39 PM
Ban the Paddle?
baquan2000: after reading all the posts above; whatever it is we are doing; it is not working? Discipline does not work any more on kids, whether it is beating them or putting them in time out. Young men do ...
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