The Gods of Times Square

I saw this movie last week and I just can't get it out of my head. It's a feature-length video document of all the street preachers and religious fanatics that used to hang out on 42nd Street before Disney cleaned it up. The vignettes range from scary (black militants advocating a genocidal religious war against the white man) to ridiculous (a man who thinks he's Jesus and is predestined to marry Madonna) to comical (another man dressed as a priest carries a huge stuffed Mickey Mouse into the Times Square Disney Store yelling "Mickey Mouse is the Anti-Christ!"). It's sad how this parade of humanity uses religious fervor to mask their racial intolerance or mental illness. At various times the director claims to being a Jew and then a Buddhist so it's unclear as to his origins of faith. As this video was shot around 1993-94, we get depressing footage of those grand old 42nd St. grindhouse theaters being torn down and a family-owned hot dog stand with it.