Comedy tastes change over time. I’m sure a water-squirting daisy on a jacket lapel was a riot in its day. Knock-knock jokes kept me and my friends pretty entertained in second grade. And I’m sure Henny Youngman would not get the same laughs today if he were still alive doing stand up.

The new film Religulous starring comedian Bill Maher (HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher) and directed by Larry Charles (Borat, Curb Your Enthusiasm) seemed to fall pretty flat in the laughs department—like it was appealing to an audience that may have been amused by it twenty years ago. I was struck by how little laughter there was among those in the opening-weekend crowd. (In terms of magnitude, I use the word “crowd” here in the sense of the “crowd” that might attend a Joe Biden campaign rally.) Religulous was showing in the smallest theater in the multiplex (not much bigger than the “truck-driver’s chapel” that appeared in the film) and even then it was only about a third full. Read the rest of this entry »