Ellington

This feature documentary follows the Christmas tour of Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir, a group that traveled the country to use humor, spirituality and song to get Americans to stop shopping. Through sing-ins and protests in colleges and malls across America, the group encourages Americans to consider where their Christmas presents are made, and to stop the "Shopocalypse" by buying fewer and simpler goods that are made in the USA. The intentions of the filmmaker were excellent: Reverend Billy has an important message, and the tour was a terrific adventure.

That being said, the film has severe narrative and editing problems, and comes off as scattered, repetitive, and preachy. In his attempt to structure the piece both thematically and chronologically, and to make it both about promoting the Stop Shopping doctrine, and documenting the tour, the film fails at both. By 45 minutes in, I was watching the clock as I dug my heels in for another 45 minutes of Reverend Billy repeating his warnings, his songs, and his arrests. As a short, this film could have been interesting, but as a feature doc, it drags.

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