Paul Middleditch/Chris Matheson's RAPTURE-PALOOZA: at last, a rapture movie for atheists!

TrustMovies is not absolutely sure why this funny, charming, raunchy-as-hell and irreverent (in the best way) movie about what happens after the rapture didn't get more notice when it arrived in a few theaters (June 2013, the same month as that other, bigger rapture movie, This Is the End, appeared). Perhaps because this is actually the better film. Unlike This Is the End -- which wants to have it both ways, making fun of The Rapture but of course believing in it, too, by having its characters try to get raptured themselves -- RAPTURE-PALOOZA, casts a dry eye on the whole Christian religion thing and comes up with its own smart, funny method of handling fundamentalism. I can understand why this film was undoubtedly not released in the USA's southern regions. Angry audiences might have burned down the theaters that dared to screen it.

But now -- because the film is available via Netflix streaming -- you can laugh your socks off, even as you are just a tad amazed at what the movie-makers get away with. Yikes! Writer Chris Matheson and director Paul Middleditch (shown at right) have done such clever stuff here -- some of it silly, foolish but awfully funny, other of it surprisingly flat-out raunchy -- that those of us who dearly wish that the great majority of the world's population did not insist on worshiping some wish-fulfillment deity can only bow our heads in gratitude to the smart and smart-assed pair.

The fun begins at once, as The Rapture, as seen here, uses the smallest of special effects, and manages to make all other movies on the subject seem like pikers (even with the vast special effects of This Is the End, what these two do beats all). The movie is narrated and stars one of Hollywood's quietest and least "showy" young actresses, Anna Kendrick, above, who doubles as a kind of stealth missle here. She has the aspect and affect of a valley girl, Seattle style, underneath which resides a depth of pure smarts.

Her antagonist in the film is played by Craig Robinson (yes, the same actor also starred in This Is the End: Careful, Craig, you're going to become the go-to guy for Rapture movies), who is hilarious holding up the raunchy end of the film. His piano/sex serenade to Ms Kendrick is one for the books. Robinson plays the AntiChrist come to big, Black life, and he is wonderful --funny, smarmy and double-dense in the role. People have cried racism here, but as Robinson also Executive-Produced the movie, I don't think so. "The Beast," the name that this character insists on calling himself, is a terrific role, and Robinson runs with it and scores big.

Ms Kendrick's boyfriend, Ben, is played by a fellow named John Francis Daley, above, right, who is fine, but the movie belongs to Kendrick and Robinson. In the supporting cast are the likes of Rob Corddry (at left, below) and Ana Gasteyer, playing parents of our hero and heroine, and both are their usually excellent selves. Ms Gasteyer, as a mother who was raptured and then sent back (finding out why provides yet another funny scene) is particularly hilarious.

You may think you'll know where the movie is going, so let me warn you: You don't.  It simply keeps growing more irreverent and funny, and when Kendrick finally announces, "No one is in charge, so let's act like adults," the irreligious among us will be whooping out a cheer.

Don't let this one get by you. You can view Rapture-Palooza -- from Lionsgate and running 85 minutes --  now via Netflix Streaming, Amazon Instant Video and on DVD.

WAITING FOR ARMAGEDDON: fundamentalist nut jobs on the march

If ever a movie screamed "religious nuts" at the top of its lungs, that would be WAITING FOR ARMAGEDDON, the absolutely straight-forward documentary from Kate Davis, (below, center) David Heilbroner (below, right) and Franco Sacchi (below, left). And yet this film barely raises its voice. It is content to let speak for itself that branch of the Christian-fundamen-
talist-right that is waiting for, praying for and perhaps helping to bring about a kind of Armageddon or, as they prefer to call it, The Rapture -- in which the world and everyone in it dies. Except, of course, for those who believe in Jesus. "Who wouldn't want the world to be over?" asks one believer. "Who wouldn't want to meet Jesus?" Talk about hubris. Talk about pyrrhic victories. Yikes.

The worst part of all, for this viewer, at least, is that some of these "believers" -- one sweet young, bring-it-on couple -- have jobs cre-
ating our missiles for U.S. warfare and defense. (With all the down-
sizing currently going on, couldn't we perhaps apply it where it does some good?) While the mother and father of another family insist that all things point to the Big A coming soon, two of their children -- teenage daughters -- indicate their belief that it will come, but maybe, uh... not too soon. These poor girls want a life that includes love, marriage and children. And who can blame them?

But, no -- for these folk, any nincompoop quote from The Bible turns every crazy belief, no matter how destructive, into fact. How happy faith can make you! Too bad that faith rarely seems to provide some kind of recognition of all the things we humans share and need in common. No: It has to be instead this consistently divisive, my-way-or-the-highway thinking. And when the movie, briefly, gives a us a quick look at some of the Christian fundamentalist politicians now (or recently) in power, the effect is a stunner.

One on-screen idiot talks about having the best seat in the house to watch the coming destruction of planet earth. Oh, the glee! And then we travel to Israel, where Christians want to get a look at Jerusalem before god has his way with it. It turns out that millions of dollars are raised by the fundamentalist Christian community and given to Israel for its protection against Islam -- which of course Israel happily accepts. We hear from Christians, Jews and Muslims -- each with the same rationale for possessing Jerusalem. They can't all be right, but it seems to occur to no one that they could all be wrong. Perhaps the most dispiriting information we learn is that any peace plan for the middle east is perceived by these people as a plot of the AntiChrist. Maybe they'll stumble upon Lars von Trier's film, have a much-needed epiphany, and go after each other with scissors and shovel! Ooops -- that wasn't very Christian of me, was it. Actually, if you're basing your actions on this fundamentalist version of Jesus' teachings, it pretty much is.

Listening to the stupid drivel spouted by Rapture-believers grows grueling after awhile. And though rational people (a few of which are heard from in the film) can easily dispel these faith-based theories, it is daunting to realize that millions of Americans are guided by this hogwash. One of the more rational speakers in the film explains cogently that the Bible's more apocalyptic books -- Revelations and Daniel, for instance -- were never meant to be scripts for those in power. "That's where the danger arises and the books become a self-fulfilling prophecy of violence and destruction."

Waiting for Armageddon, from First Run Features, debuts today, January 8, in New York at the Cinema Village. Further play dates around the country can be found here.

All photos are courtesy of First Run Features
and are -- with the exception of the ones
of the filmmakers -- from the film itself.