Oh, my — you know a right wing Christianist propaganda film is bad when even Fox News pans it.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Oh, my — you know a right wing Christianist propaganda film is bad when even Fox News pans it.
Oh, snap!
Pure huksterism:
According to the film’s Web site, the producers are in a whopping 45 theaters in North Carolina, and a mere seven in Massachusetts, 35 in Georgia, 11 in New Jersey, four in Connecticut and one in Vermont. And so on. There are huge numbers of screens in Florida and Texas taking the film, particularly seven in San Antonio. If I lived in the Deep South, I’d boycott the filmmakers for thinking of me as this gullible and unsophisticated.
I looked the movie up on imdb, and it was catagorized under the following:
Creationism
Fake Evidence
Christian
Conspiracy Theory
Propaganda
Jesus
Science Fiction Parody
Documentaries
Independent Film
Well done, imdb :-)
hehe… AWESOME.
The review shown in the first link isn’t the full review, and going to the actual source reveals it gets even more juicily excoriating. A delight to read, really. Here are some tidbits:
The gist of Stein’s involvement is: He’s outraged! He believes in God! God created the universe! How can we not avail our students of this theory? What do you mean we’re just molecules?
They’re hoping someone will latch onto an anti-Semitism theme … somehow the theory of evolution is so evil that it caused the Holocaust. Alas, this is such a warped premise that no one’s biting.
In a word: Urgggh. Suddenly Stein is not so amusing anymore. I want my eye drops from someone else.
If I lived in the Deep South, I’d boycott the filmmakers for thinking of me as this gullible and unsophisticated.
Brilliant Review! Now if they could only do something about Total Turd Bill O’Reilly. Oh, and Sean Hannity. Coulter?
Well, it’s a start.
in other words, junk science
Yowza, and from Faux News at that!
Lol!
I’m wondering if this cinematic epic will achieve the status of ‘Battlefield Earth’. The reviews for it (and there are many) are quite scathing and in the main, most hilarious.
Missus Gumby
WOW! That review dropped my jaw.
Ah, Battlefield Earth! Now THAT was a documentary!
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/05/02/colbert-romneys-not-a-mormonhes-a-scientologist/
As a liberal progressive who never watches Faux News out of principle, this nevertheless is deliciously surprising. Apparently, at least one person at Fox has a bit of principle left.
Amusingly refreshing.
It ain’t lookin’ so good for Expelled, is it?
Movie reviews from Fox News don’t necessarily toe the party line. They did give Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 a glowing review.
Hey, lookie …
follow the Fox News story right down to the bottom.
Off topic, of course, but who cares. It’s headline news in my book. Ben Stein? Footnote to a footnote to a footnote …
It’s like Christmas come early.
Every one together:
O schadenfreude
O schadenfruede…
*kkshhhhk*
Paging Keith Eaton. Keith Eaton, please call the operator. Paging Mr. Eaton.
*kkshhhhk*
Heh. I like the review. *evil grin*
Also, somewhat unrelated: Why can’t my state decide on how many theaters (and where) are showing Expelled? First it was one in one city, then it was one in another, now it’s eight – including both of the first two cities, but in different theaters.
Forrest@11: “It ain’t lookin’ so good for Expelled, is it?”
It depends on your standard for ‘good’. If it gets any favorable reviews, it wins. If it gets any local box-office successes (even if they’re all from theater-church complexes), it wins. If it wins just one award (no matter how contrived), it wins. Even if it fails miserably at all those, it wins.
It wins because it keeps this god-damned ‘Teach The Controversy’ meme alive for another day until the next creationist scheme comes along to distract the ignorant and gullible. Isn’t it great how that works?
Hallelujah indeed!
Lovely quotes:
“The whole idea of Stein, a Jew, jumping on the intelligent design bandwagon of the theory of evolution begetting the Nazis is so distasteful you wonder what in — sorry — God’s name — he was thinking when he got into this. Who cares, really, if “Expelled” is anti-Semitic? It will come and go without much fanfare.”
“Urgggh. Suddenly Stein is not so amusing anymore. I want my eye drops from someone else.”
“Following “The Passion” release pattern, “Expelled” will open wide on the 18th but mostly in rural and poor neighborhoods. It’s got just one theater in all of New York City, in Times Square, none in places like Beverly Hills or wealthier, better-educated urban neighborhoods where more “evolved” people might live”
“If I lived in the Deep South, I’d boycott the filmmakers for thinking of me as this gullible and unsophisticated.”
Love it :)
When the reviews came out for ‘Battlefield Earth’ many said it would be the worst movie of the millennium and I agreed, until NOW.
So, what does the Expelled team think of the Fox review? Mr Stein? Mr Stein? Mr Mathis? Mr Mathis? Mr Miller? Mr Kevin Miller? Anyone? Anyone?
“If I lived in the Deep South, I’d boycott the filmmakers for thinking of me as this gullible and unsophisticated.”
I can’t help but think my friends in Tennessee, Kentucky and Louisiana would agree.
Wow. This swings my morning pendulum of pessimism back toward the good side for sure. It’s enough to outweigh that car I saw on the way to work with a GetExpelled.com sticker in the rear window…
BTW, I don’t know about other cities but here in the Phoenix area the Expelled crowd has taken to using Ron Paul-style campaigning to get their word out…ya know, using fences around contruction sites to hang their crap, and the like.
(.)(.)
And the winner is….. SAN ANTONIO, TX
It wins with 10 theaters screening Expelled. Only 1 in New York City and Washington DC.
Gee, I’m sure some San Antonians (not sure if that’s correct) feel proud about this.
Schadenfreude war meine beste Freude!
(Glee [as in ‘malicious satisfaction’] was my greatest joy).
Yes, the misfortunes of ‘Expelled’ and those involved in making it are well deserved. May there be more to come!
Wow, that’s almost as bad as any of the reviews so far.
True, they’re not big on pointing out the lies. But that’s we care about, not what your average movie-goer is concerned over.
The fact that it’s not well-done (we didn’t really expect it to be so poorly done, initially), not funny, not interesting, and ineffectual as an “expose,” is the focus, and from what I hear, it’s all correct.
Stein really is going to pay for this. Money-wise, I don’t know, but he’s wanted more than just money, he’s wanted to be right and to be seen as intelligent. In this movie he appears to be neither, he just looks either really eager to sell his soul, or too damn stupid to know better than to promote pseudoscience, or to recognize a visibly poorly-done film. That his ego gets in the way of his judgment I don’t doubt, but it’s hard to not believe that his ability to judge must be very small, or even his enormous ego wouldn’t completely blot out all thought (I still can’t believe he’s actually as stupid as that film).
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
They still have a few days to change the screen credits for the film’s director to be Alan Smithee. Then again, they’re probably still proud of their masterpiece and want to the world to know who did it.
mothra @19:
Battlefield Earth came out in 2000 CE, which was technically part of the last millennium. This millennium started on 01 January 2001 CE. Therefore BFE was the worst movie of its millennium, and Expelled is the current front-runner for this one!
Duncan #17 wrote: “It depends on your standard for ‘good’. If it gets any favorable reviews, it wins. If it gets any local box-office successes (even if they’re all from theater-church complexes), it wins. If it wins just one award (no matter how contrived), it wins. Even if it fails miserably at all those, it wins.”
Even if it wins a slew of Razzies?
“Oh, snap!” is right. I was honestly going “WOW…” the entire time that I was reading. I knew from reading on this blog that it was bad, but I had no idea that it was THAT bad…
WOW.
Oops. That Battlefield Earth link to the IMDB should have gone here. Release date: 12 May 2000 CE.
With Bill O and Rush et all still squawking loudly about the dreaded ‘secular progressives’ I’m afraid this movie will still gain some traction with the real wingnuts. However, it’s extremely encouraging to know that a measure of objectivity still exists, even at Faux News, such that pernicious dreck like ‘Expelled’* can be called out. Woohoooo!
*Jazz hands
Truly, there is a Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Truly, there is a Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Something’s wrong here. I don’t recall Darwinian HQ authorising the infiltration of Fox News.
We might be dealing with a rogue operative here, and dammit, as Darwinists, we cannot abide dissent.
Quick, to the Spencermobile!
As if exemplifying the concept of Epic Fail isn’t bad enough, neither Battlefield Earth nor Expelled! can claim to possess even a trace of the loopy charm one finds in Plan 9 From Outer Space.
OMG. I agree with Fox News. Other than the temp in Chicago, I never agree with anything they say. This shakes my world view to the core.
Negentropyeater, if one looks at a radius of 25 miles around Washington, DC (the greater DC area), there are actually 16 theaters showing the movie.
J. D.
The review was evidently written by a Darwinist.
@28 I was expecting to hear the 2000/ -01 objection. The review I read was (I think) in the New Yorker. The comment was also made by Siskel or Ebert. You are absolutely correct but in practice and in dealing with bad movies, what is one year in fetid film making.
“I want my eyedrops from someone else?” Cue the coffee spewing out of my nose! That’s a great line. Well, now playing a Pixie on “Fairly Oddparents” is moving to the top of Stein’s future resume……………
I would hope so (if we take “Darwinist” as synonym of one who accepts science), since intellectually dishonest reviewers are not much to be desired.
I was thinking something else, though, which is that the guy has a Jewish-sounding name. I’m not surprised, of course, that Stein, Berlinski, and Schroeder, do not shield the film from criticisms of its misuse of the Holocaust (and Gulag), but I am pleased.
I think the dynamics of the whole issue of Jews and anti-Semitism will be interesting to watch, because most Jews will find it even more offensive in its misuse of the victims of atrocity than do the rest of us, and yet these would-be Xian theocrats won’t dare blame “the Jews” for all of the bad reviews written by Jewish authors.
On the other side they’ll continue to try to make out that they’re the ones who are against the causes of anti-Semitism, but I suspect that the weight of evidence will overwhelm their cheap tricks. The IDiots don’t know much about anti-Semitism’s causes (NT being an important one), but many other people do.
This film is likely to give ID a black eye for a long time to come. Indeed, ID might finally be abandoned by the DI, after it finally repudiates Expelled (not before trying to get donations from its appearance, however), and “teach the controversy” might have to do until they can think up a new scam.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Any word on if the reviewer is still employed by Fox News?
I’ve got a theater showing it right across the street from my office. I can’t picket it all day long, but does anyone have some good flyers I can hand out to anyone waiting in line, or other good protest advice?
Look at the ad that comes up:
ADVERTISEMENTS
“Teeth Whiteners Exposed”
7 Teeth Whitening Products Tested, Rated, and Reviewed. A Must Read!
It’s a Darwinist anti-Clear Eyes plot!
And on the same page as the damning review? Not one but TWO ads for the movie. I’ll have to give Fox a little credit for not being afraid to bite the hand that feeds it.
The goose people are getting out of this is a little unwarranted. There are no conservatives or Fox fans are going to be surprised by this. Fox’s entertainment section and Roger Friedman in general are well known to NOT toe the party line of the rest of the network: sort of in a light, contrarian way. This is nothing new from that perspective.
Friedman, for instance, gave Fahrenheit 9/11 a positive review, and panned Passion of the Christ. So, honestly, the “wow, if even Fox didn’t like it!” or “omg I agree with FoxNews” talk here is very overblown. It’s just one more reviewer who didn’t like it, not someone going against type.
#46
Frame-a while you can, monkey-boy!
Amanda Gefter wrote a review for New Scientist:
And that’s it without a subscription to New Scientist. This is just their teaser.
Gefter already discussed her movie experience at an Expelled showing, but I have the feeling that it will be worth reading this latest review of hers, whether by paying, or by finding it in the library some time.
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Our local rag covered the news of the film’s release, in a sickeningly respectful way. It included this statement:
In fact, since 2001, more than 700 scientists from the National Academy of Sciences as well as from universities such as Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of California, Berkeley and UCLA have signed the “Scientific Dissent from Darwinism” list.
How much of a lie/distortion is this? Because I’m certain it is, and I’d love to write and tell them so. The article is here:
http://www.dailynews.com/search/ci_8815467?IADID=Search-www.dailynews.com-www.dailynews.com
Wow. First MSNBC and now Fox news!
I mean, FOX NEWS!!
I felt dirty browsing their site to read the article, but it was worth it.
I was getting so depressed the last couple days. I really needed a little good news.
So. Given how few theaters this is going to be shown in, has anyone thought of putting together a flyer that can be handed out to everyone walking out of the movie? Something the exposes the lies and directs people to expelledexposed.com, etc?
Does the link still work? All I get is “500 – Internal Server Error.”
Susan, here’s a short discussion of the “700 scientists”:
Note that the 700 are not claiming that ID is science. And do we really care if chemists, neurologists like Egnor, or physicists “see grave inadequacies” in evolutionary theory? That 20% of them could be counted as biologists is probably generous, since they’re probably counting biochemists such as Behe as biologists (it’s in the ballpark, but one could be almost entirely ignorant of evolution and be a biochemist–Behe’s not almost entirely ignorant of evolution, but it’s clear that he knows relatively little about it).
The truth is that very few scientists who deal with evolutionary matters find great problems with current theory (a few do, and as long as they’re dealing with science, as ID does not, they get by–Behe admitted as much in a meeting I attended, but whined that his magic is not so respected).
Most importantly, they can’t answer our questions, or adequately question our answers to them. It really wouldn’t matter to the issue at hand if 50% of biologists were somehow so prejudiced as to believe in ID. It would still be bogus science, only it would be a lot harder for the courts to determine that it is in that case.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
#49
Susan,
For starters, there is only one member of the National Academy of Sciences on the list (Philip Skell). PZ can tell you about him. It is important to remember that the DI list states “Scientists listed by doctoral degree or current position” (emphasis theirs); if they went by current position the Harvard, Yale, MIT, Berkeley, and UCLA signers would vanish or all-but-vanish from the list (just Google their current positions). I can’t name any “Darwin dissenters” with scientific positions at those schools – anyone else have input?
The absolutely hilarious irony of this is, what if, by stupidly appearing in this film as he has, Ben Stein’s advertising/movie/television career comes to a screeching halt?
In a sense, he’ll have been “expelled” by a movie of the same name! Hoisted on his own petard, so to speak!
What delicious irony that would be!
Bloop, Bloop, Bloop
That’s the sound of this disgusting pile of celluloid dung sinking into the morass of thankfully forgotten and forgettable films, along with the career of its “star”.
This is probably a surprise no one, but yesterday Mr. Limbaugh came out strongly supporting the film–it reveals the career-wrecking, anti-American (1st Amendment, presumably), socialist/liberal evil darwinist hegemony.
“#46 Frame-a while you can, monkey-boy!”
Thank you for your profoundly stupid and pointless contribution. We’ll be sure to give a ring if Paris Hilton ever decides to do another season of the Simple Life.
“This is probably a surprise no one, but yesterday Mr. Limbaugh came out strongly supporting the film–it reveals the career-wrecking, anti-American (1st Amendment, presumably), socialist/liberal evil darwinist hegemony.”
He’s been pumping it for a while now from what I understand. I can’t wait until Michael Medved, Discovery Institute fellow, comes out with his celebratory review. I wonder if he’ll even bother to mention who he works for and their connections to the film.
By the way: there was a 30minute promo for the film on some Southern Baptist cable network, FAMNET this past weekend. Anyone happen to Tivo it?
I’ve always wondered how they could actually suppose that forcing scientists to discuss religion, which has never contributed to science at all as religion (yes, religion has promoted and effected science, but only as science), could possibly agree with the First Amendment.
Indeed, the protection of speech alone should prevent the government from dictating speech about any failed idea, such as ID (regardless of its religious aspect). And then the clause which prevents government from establishing religion provides the clincher.
I really don’t know how conservatism became dominated by such decidedly stupid people as Rush Limbaugh. I suppose the votes that these mindless ranters brought in was just too great a temptation to the intelligent members of conservatism, so that they failed to police their own.
Now they’re stuck with Limbaugh and Stein representing them, people who are anti-freedom, anti-intellectualism, anti-science, and an embarrassment to anyone who can think through the flimsiest claims of rabble-rousers.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Grumpy #43 wrote: “I’ve got a theater showing it right across the street from my office. I can’t picket it all day long, but does anyone have some good flyers I can hand out to anyone waiting in line, or other good protest advice?”
How about this?
No one with a modicum of education buys their blaming the Holocaust on “Darwinism”.
The truth is, it’s something like blaming the victim, since the Jews of Western Europe were typically more committed to science, including evolution, than was the population at large. Indeed, the US benefited from the Jewish influx from Europe during the Nazi period, because they brought a more cosmopolitan, rational, and science-oriented viewpoint to a somewhat provincially-thinking nation.
But no, the remaining provincial “thinkers” want to blame the Holocaust on Enlightenment thinkers, of which the Jews in the West have tended to be examples. It’s not going to sell, except among the more vulnerable sections of society. And it may turn out eventually to have a bad name even there, once the dishonesty has been thoroughly exposed.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
MH@60: Not to belabour the obvious, but I suspect that would go right over the heads of Teh Trve BeLivers™.
Thanks for the info on the “Scientific Dissent from Darwinism” list; I shall use it in my Letter to the Editor. I’d really like to know if they always just take everything anyone ever tells them on faith, or if they know any actual reporters.
Ow! That’ll leave a mark.
14: Second verse –
Wovon Mann nicht spechen kann
Deep and crisp and even
Good King Wenceslaus went forth
Daruber muss Mann schwegen
It’s Wittgenstein we’re caroling
Ben Stein ain’t Ron Reagan
If Stein’s career grinds to a halt as a result of his involvement with this turkey, you just know the that fact will be used as “proof” that he’s been blackballed solely due to his association with the ID movement.
Actually, he’s already complained about lost opportunities over Expelled:
I guess a know-nothing spouting vast amounts of ignorance deserves as many opportunities as someone who’s intelligent and knowledgeable.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
#63
Susan,
Wow, Glen D beat me to it – although the signers are probably pro-ID since they didn’t remove their names from the list, the fact remains, as he said, that the statement is hardly a ringing denial of evolution.
I suggest you mention “expelledexposed.com,” which will be a one-stop place to find all the reviews, info, and point-by-point rebuttal to the film.
Susan(#63),
While science is definitely not a popularity contest, it may be useful to reference Project Steve in your letter. Project Steve is a list, incomplete to be sure, of scientists with the given name of Stephen (or some variation thereof) who signed a statement in favor of the Theory of Evolution.
It should be mentioned that this was done as a parody. Listing a bunch of names doesn’t affect the validity of a claim. That said, Project Steve has better names ;)
This San Antonian is utterly ashamed, but not surprised. We have a ton of megachurches here, especially the infamous Cornerstone, bloated, repulsive shrine of infamy of the equally bloated and repulsive, John Hagee (aka John McCain’s new BFF). He can pack a few theaters here with his zombie followers, but not for long. But that doesn’t matter. He’ll do enough to give the Expelled folks ONE city where the film did well. So to speak. It will prove his cred with the fundies, so that he can take over the spot left by Jerry Falwell. One disgusting religious swine for another. Literally.
I wish somebody would catch Hagee getting blown in a truck stop bathroom, so we can rid an otherwise great city of his foul presence, but none of the gay men here are that desperate. Or ever will be. They can’t even bring themselves to consider it, even to ruin the man. He’s that damned icky. Or, as one of my gay friends put it, “Not even with someone else’s tongue!”
Couldn’t they use a dental shield, a whole lot of novocaine and some sort of hallucinogenic drug?
Aquaria,
but how is Hagee (who blames the Catholic church for Nazism) going to support Expelled (who blames Darwinism for Nazism) ?
Ah well, I guess contradictions are not a problem for these Evangelical bigots. Catholicism and Darwinism are probably all in one camp, that of the “Anti-Christ” who will cause the apocalypse so that Jesus Christ can come back…
Ah well, I guess contradictions are not a problem for these Evangelical bigots.
of course.
-Catholicism /= evangelical fundamentalist Protestantism
-Darwinism /= evangelical fundamentalist Protestantism
thus, Catholicism=Darwinism, and ergo, there is no contradiction in their logic.
*rolleyes*
So:
A /= B
A /= C
therefore
B = C
Is there a name for this bit of ‘logic’?
The anti-associative principle?
Hey, look. I found a positive review right over here. Imagine that.
Best line in the review: “Unlike Michael Moore’s anti-Bush propaganda flick “Fahrenheit 911” – which sold us a lemon with deceptive editing techniques and staged confrontations – “Expelled” is intellectually honest, cerebrally stimulating, and delectably provocative.”
This link works better (sorry)
http://www.illinoisfamily.org/news/contentview.asp?c=33833
I think the bad Faux review is the only real surprise that’s come out of the whole scripted ordeal to date. That, and the recent cease and desist plagiarism letter that the movie attracted.
Enjoy.
Wow, that review was great! I assume it was written on Opposite Day, right?
Speaking of which, this article from the same site must have been as well:
http://www.illinoisfamily.org/informed/contentview.asp?c=33339
What else could possibly explain the findings?
(The review I’m referring to is at #76, not the Fox News review of the posted original article. Sorry for the ambiguity.)
It’s called “you’re either with_us, or you’re with_the terrrists”, only genuine with the triple r.
It’s called “you’re either with_us, or you’re with_the terrrists”, only genuine with the triple r.
It’s so hilarious to see you guys having a collective orgasm over a gossip column. Man, that’s hard-hitting journalism right there!