BELIEVING IN BILLY

What Would Jesus Buy?

Early in the new documentary What Would Jesus Buy? (opening this weekend at Cinema Village), New York City staple Reverend Billy holds up a stuffed Disney character and declares, “Mickey Mouse is the Antichrist!” to a very bemused department store crowd. Preachers love to parse the curious nature of sin, but few pundits have honed a unique and broadly appealing stance of the caliber put forth by the heated founder of New York’s Chuch of Stop Shopping. With a spirited choir echoing his rants, the Reverend (aka Bill Talen) rallies against the misguided cultural marriage of religion and economic consumption. It’s hardly your average fire-and-brimstone rant: Neatly embedded in the Reverend’s strident enunciations of unholy behavior lies the clear-cut delivery of brilliant performance art.

Read the rest of the review in the New York Press...