Entertainment Weekly: I saw it, so you don’t have to: Ben Stein’s ‘Expelled’

In retrospect, I really shoulda known better. I’d clicked through the bottom-of-the-barrel Rotten Tomatoes rating, the various erudite bloggers slamming it, and, of course, my esteemed cubicle-neighbor Adam Markovitz’s scathing D-grade review. But still, it had Ben Stein! He was funny in Ferris Bueller! And me, I have a slight glutton-for-punishment streak. So I succumbed to the relentless TV ad campaign earlier this week and went to see a matinee showing of the anti-evolution documentary Expelled. Worst decision ever.

Anyone else sit through this monstrous excuse for a movie? I stuck around for the whole thing, and never have 90 minutes felt longer. I actually started groaning and muttering at the screen when Stein shamelessly exploited the memory of the millions whom Hitler murdered — which, apparently, was Charles Darwin’s fault somehow?! (Seriously, what was Stein thinking with that?) I’d apologize to the audience members who were irritated by my involuntary heckling, but there were only like four of them, and they were people who had paid money to see Expelled, so I don’t really feel too bad. Anyway, take it from me: Do not see this movie under any circumstances. Not ironically, not so you can mock it in the footnotes of your Ph.D dissertation on molecular biology, not even because you think it might make a funny “I saw it, so you don’t have to” blog item. And if you already made the mistake I did and subjected yourself to this stinker, go ahead and vent your feelings below — and please accept my condolences…”

Report comment to moderator

Evolution bill in jeopardy?

Report comment to moderator

Fla. Senate Passes Evolution Challenge Bill

On the other hand, ICR was just rejected in its bid to award “creation science” degrees.

Texas higher education board rejects ‘creation science’ degree proposal

Report comment to moderator

Yoko sues “Expelled” filmmakers over Imagine”

Report comment to moderator

Some of my fave paragraphs:

Okay, so Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, an anti-evolution documentary released in America this weekend, timed as an ironic salute to Charles Darwin’s birthday, casts Dawkins as a hate-monger, an academic boot boy – and the most dangerous Briton since George III. Yet such controversy should help sell a few more copies of The God Delusion, surely? Dawkins, provoked, still cannot bring himself to name Expelled’s writer, Ben Stein. “That man,” he sizzles quietly, “That man is… well, it’s just nonsense.”

Ben Stein is one big flea, however, and, to tangle the metaphors further, a man with a bee in his bonnet. Indeed, a bee with a mission – to prove that American academics are being expelled from universities for daring to suggest that creationism should be taught in science classes.
…
Stein does not attempt to detail the logic of creationism, instead focusing on half a dozen academics who claim their beliefs disrupted their professional upward mobility. Looking at them, though, you can think of other reasons why maybe they crashed and burnt.

Re: the “expulsion” of Myers at a screening

A producer of the film, however, spotted the American biology prof [Myers] in the queue and got security guards to escort him from the cinema because he was “not welcome”.

Good question! I searched in vain for Mickey’s answer, so I’ll have to speak on his behalf!

Heresy is worse than looking dumb! Telling your kids that an intelligent agent not God made their DNA is heresy. Reversion to paganism, in fact. At some point, someone turned on the light and the intelligent agent who was not God became inoperative.

Report comment to moderator

libruls hate freedom and Expelled is all about Teh Freedom.

Report comment to moderator

Report comment to moderator

Intelligent design film far worse than stupid
Ben Stein’s so-called documentary ‘Expelled’ isn’t just bad, it’s immoral

“Rarely has a movie subtitle so capably assessed a movie’s content as does “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.” There is not a shred of intelligence on display in this just released “documentary” purporting to be a careful examination of the fight over teaching creationism and evolution in America.”

I guess they didn’t like it ….

Report comment to moderator

If only I had more faith …

Report comment to moderator