Saturday night saw the return of Larry Charles and Bill Maher to premiere their film Religulous.  During a Mavericks session at last year's festival, they showed us 10 minutes of footage from the film.  They left the audience wanting to see more and more they got last night.

Of course this film was to stir some controversy... As Charles and Maher arrived at the Ryerson theatre, protesters began shouting "Pray for Bill Maher" and "Maher's gone too far."  On our way out of the film, I overheard an audience member say that perhaps the film's producers had 'hired' these protesters because their signs looked too clean. That is just one example of the type of commentary & questions that came up during the Q&A. 

I will not tell you much about the film other than it's provocative, funny, and yes, controversial.  Larry Charles summed it up nicely, "I am addicted to controversy."  The dynamic duo received a standing ovation and were grateful to have such reception to their film.  Maher said, "I feel like Ziegfried and Roy,"  at the sight of such fan fare.  Charles went on to tell us that "we are not saying we understand this complex world... we are curious."  Maher also made a good point by saying that "you can never stop finding interesting things to talk about with this topic [of religion]." Charles and Maher also shared that on some occasions there was a lot of tension during the shootings.  But overall, they were able to avoid any confrontations.  Let's be honest, everyone likes publicity; in the words of Bill Maher, "even religious people are media whores."

It was evident that both Charles and Maher have lots to talk about and the Q&A session could've easily turned into another Maverick session, like last year's.  If you cannot catch the film at this year's festival, don't despair. It will be released soon; just in tme for the U.S. Presidential Elections.  As Charles said it best, "it's a miracle!"