Whoa, this one passed me by entirely last year!  There really is a movie called What Would Jesus Buy? - from docu-film maker Morgan Spurlock (Supersize Me) and director Rob Van Alkemade - and you can see the trailer or order the VD at the official WWJB website.

It's a docu-comedy about the American obssession with the consumerisation of Christmas: according to the movie, Americans spend around $455 billion during the Christmas season - with consumer debt running at $2.4 trillion. And 26 million Americans are addicted to shopping.

The fime is the true story of Bill Talen (aka Reverend Billy), a lost idealist who hitchhiked to New York City only to find that Times Square was becoming a mall. Spurred on by the loss of his neighborhood and inspired by the sidewalk preachers around him, Bill bought a collar to match his white caterer's jacket, bleached his hair and became the Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping. Since 1999, Reverend Billy has gone from being a lone preacher with a portable pulpit preaching on subways, to the leader of a congregation and a movement whose numbers are well into the thousands.

"According to the film’s subject, Reverend Billy," says a review in the New York Times, "the charismatic bleached-blond performance artist and mock evangelist whose real name is Bill Talen... his activism is the real deal, and his mission is to fight what he calls the “shopocalypse,” the buying frenzy Americans indulge in every holiday season. The film takes us on a 2005 cross-country tour with Reverend Billy; Savitri D, his wife and organizer of his Church of Stop Shopping; and the church’s gospel choir. Along the way they deliver their message — that peace and love, not spending, are the true backbone of holiday spirit — through witty speeches and songs to unsuspecting patrons at assorted problem spots like Wal-Mart, the Mall of America and Disneyland."

'Gotta have the Christmas spirit - with some brand new rims [alloys]', says one vox pop in the movie trailer. And a shop assistant said: 'I had a woman about 60 years old cuss me out and spit on me 'cos I didn't have a PS3 for her six-year-old grandson.'

Watch the trailer.