Tag: religion
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France burns with religious mania in Ken Russell’s The Devils
Ken Russell’s The Devils (1971) is a fictionalized account of the 17th-century Roman Catholic priest Urbain Grandier, tried and executed in Loudon, France. Questioning the authority of the Catholic Church is a controversial provocation at any time, but consider: if today, a sober movie like Spotlight (2015) is viewed as brave, then the The Devils’…
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Imagine There’s No Religion: Doctor Who and The Rings of Akhaten
Is the Doctor Who episode “The Rings of Akhaten” already one of the series’ most misunderstood? Almost two years ago, the Doctor urged his companions Amy & Rory not to live up to the title of “Let’s Kill Hitler”, for the vaguely-explained sci-fi reasons that changing history doesn’t always work out for the best. The…
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Bill Maher preaches to the choir in Larry Charles’ Religulous
Bill Maher, standup comedian and star of Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death, remade himself into a satirical political pundit on the cable TV shows Politically Incorrect and Real Time. He most famously spoke truth to power when he defied the conventional wisdom after 9/11 and correctly stated that one thing the perpetrators…