The Pope of Utah

The Pope of Utah

Arizona International Film Festival program film description: This wildly inventive black comedy about media technology and televangelism is the first feature film by Temple University film graduates Bianco and Saylor. Set in the year 2001, The Pope of Utah focuses on two "deliciously sleazy" characters, cocksure telepreacher Melvis Pressin (McCarthy) and his blackmailing in-house censor Del Shandling (Golden). Made for just $40,000, the film employs a dazzling variety of film and video techniques to explore different ways of looking--in TV studios and porno booths, at computer screens and surveillance monitors, through camcorder viewers, etc. The use of color is striking and the satire of televangelism is refreshingly original. In the words of film critic David Warner, "This is unmistakably an auspicious debut with a manic energy and a flair for the grotesque that recalls the work of the Coen Brothers."

Video (VHS)

English

Drama, Comedy

FEST 1990 - 1993 - 1994 FILMS

1993

100 minutes

Chaim Bianco, Steven Saylor

Lee Golden, Tom McCarthy

USA