Expelled Producers Cherry Picking Reviewers : Dispatches from the Culture Wars

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Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of Michigan Citizens for Science and co-founder of The Panda's Thumb. He has written for such publications as The Bard, Skeptic and Reports of the National Center for Science Education, spoken in front of many organizations and conferences, and appeared on nationally syndicated radio shows and on C-SPAN. Ed is also a Fellow with the Center for Independent Media and the host of Declaring Independence, a one hour weekly political talk show on WPRR in Grand Rapids, Michigan.(static)

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Expelled Producers Cherry Picking Reviewers

Posted on: March 14, 2008 9:02 AM, by Ed Brayton

The New York Times has an article about the lengths to which the producers of Expelled are going to to prevent non-evangelical movie reviewers from seeing the movie and commenting on it.

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The second "producers" in the title should probably be "reviewers".

Posted by: Aureola Nominee, FCD | March 14, 2008 9:21 AM

Ed et al - The Expelled website has information about nationwide free screenings. Detroit March 26 - You missed teh GR show.

http://rsvp.getexpelled.com/events/special/expelled

All you have to do is register - and a "Title" is required.
Pastor*, Bishop* and Cardinal* will all be good to get you in.

* BYOA - Bring Your Own Altarboy

Posted by: J-Dog | March 14, 2008 9:39 AM

Get ordained online at the Universal Life Church website, then use "Reverend" as a legit title.

Posted by: phil | March 14, 2008 9:51 AM

With all the vetting and secrecy, it's the beginning of a mystery cult.

Posted by: Ex-drone | March 14, 2008 11:41 AM

This gets reported as if it surprises people, which, it shouldn't. Pretty much everyone involved with Expelled has been dishonest and underhanded since the start. Why should the movie reviewers be any different? They know no rational person with the slightest bit of intelligence is going to go "Buh? What IS this crap?"

Remember their motto: No intelligence allowed.

Posted by: Heather | March 14, 2008 11:59 AM

Some friends of mine founded a church back in collage, The First Church of the Metric Week. The basic idea is that 10 is a holy number, as evidenced by beauty of the metric system. So should rework the week to be 10 days. They added three new days, Someday, Anyday, and Everyday. I participated in many theological discussions with them and eventually the declared me an honorary Bishop.

As tends to happen with religion we eventually we had a falling out. I held that the daily clock and months should also be decimalized, a proposition the elders strongly opposed. So, I formed my own splinter sect, The Church of Metric Time, and declared myself it's first prophet.

Now, putting prophet as my title might raise a few eyebrows. But the FCotMW never officially revoked my title of Bishop. So I could honestly put that down. Hmmmm.

Posted by: Abby Normal | March 14, 2008 12:00 PM

Now, putting prophet as my title might raise a few eyebrows. But the FCotMW never officially revoked my title of Bishop. So I could honestly put that down. Hmmmm.

In the early '80s, I was dubbed "Arch-Bishop of Battle Creek" at a Worldcon "Church of Herbie" party. That probably counts.

Posted by: phil | March 14, 2008 12:19 PM

Well, for anyone in Southern California, there is a showing of Expelled with Ben Stein himself as well as a "panel of experts"

http://www.biola.edu/academics/professional-studies/apologetics/events/#ExpelledtheMovie

Posted by: KeithB | March 14, 2008 12:28 PM

If the point is to change the publics view of this then it has to be shown to the public not just church people. Even if giving the benefit of the doubt of all honesty here, the appearance of this alone troubles me. The biggest charge that people will make against the movie is that the Religious Right and the Dobson crowd is behind it. Most will just ignore it based on that. So if the goal is to get the question the movie seeks to ask into the broader public discussion this is the worst way to do it. It looks like a bunch of counter-reformationists(Protestant) or counter-revolutionaries(French) trying to meet in secret to come up with a plot. Just not a good idea and certainly appears to go against their stated goal with the release of the movie.

A guy I knew stated: "500 years of Protestant Christianity is dying and something needs to replace it" if this is true why did it happen? It has taken on the attributes of the hierarchial ecclesiastical system it tried to replace. And we wonder, as a church, why no one takes us serious.

Posted by: King of Ireland | March 14, 2008 2:31 PM

Here is the actual review written by Roger Moore.
I find it bizarre that the Times article didn't link to it.

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_movies_blog/2008/02/is-ben-stein-th.html

Posted by: Felix | March 14, 2008 5:59 PM

"The biggest charge that people will make against the movie is that the Religious Right and the Dobson crowd is behind it."

No King, the biggest charge against this flick will be that it's a steaming pile of dishonest crap. I personally plan on using this one as the second biggest charge.

Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | March 14, 2008 6:17 PM

What stuck out to me from the article is Stein's argument that "there's just a lot of people who don't believe that big science and Darwinism should have a stranglehold on academic life, and they have been waiting for a voice."

Even if we ignore that he is a deluded crank and assume that he really is just giving a voice to the voiceless, so to speak, he's still a damned fool. His argument can work just as well for a propaganda film made by Holocaust denialists: "There's just a lot of people who don't believe that Big History and Judaism should have a stranglehold on global politics, and they have been waiting for a voice."

Posted by: Kevin L. | March 14, 2008 7:17 PM