Maher gets ‘Religulous’

Bill Maher and Larry Charles hit the Toronto International Film Festival to present a few minutes of their film “Religulous,” due out next year.

It is a marriage of Maher’s views on religion, expressed often on his HBO show “Real Time With Bill Maher,” and the run-and-gun guerrilla shooting style of the Charles-directed “Borat.” They showed five brief, rough-cut scenes.

“In many ways, people don’t usually talk about religion like it’s stupid and dangerous,” is how Maher described his impetus for the film to the audience Sunday. If most comedy that treads on religious topics looks to gently poke fun at it, “we stab it to death,” Charles said.

The closest the event came to being confrontational was when an audience member chided Maher and Charles for stacking the deck against some of their subjects.

Charles quickly and forcefully raised his hand to point at the speaker and said, “Thanks for the advice. You make your own movie, OK?”

-- Mark Olsen