James Hrynyshyn is a freelance science journalist based in western North Carolina, where he tries to put degrees in marine biology and journalism to good use.
I nominate this review of Expelled as the best yet. It's by Ken Hanke, film critic of the Asheville Mountain X Press, the alternative weekly in western North Carolina. The summary is priceless — "An interminable, shockingly bad and completely irresponsible slab of propaganda masquerading as fact." And the review is full of gems like:
Junk science meets even junkier filmmaking in Nathan Frankowski's Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed--a no more shameless, stupid and loathsome piece of propaganda has ever skulked its way into the theater.How about we start a little contest: nominate your favorite Expelled review in the comments to this post, and in a week we'll just how scathing the film criticism community can be, as judged by me. All nominations must be of published reviews....
The reality is that the film is as phony as Stein's "just folks" posturing. This is nothing but stacked-deck religious-right propaganda palmed off as a serious debate on intelligent design.
...
All this builds to the film going completely nutzoid as it proceeds to link eugenics to modern-day Planned Parenthood and the theory of evolution to Hitler, the Nazis and the Holocaust.... This may be the most morally vile exploitation of the Holocaust on record. Not content with the inserted horrific clips, we're also treated to Stein pretending he's just heard about Dachau for the first time and burying his face in his hands after the fashion of a 19th-century manual of dramatic gestures. It's one of the most stomach-churning moments in the history of film.
Whoever finds the best review will get a copy of a book on science fiction in the movies I picked up at this year's North Carolina Science Blogging Conference.
Comments
My favorite one, and I've read quite a few, was submitted by John Rennie of Scientific American.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=ben-steins-expelled-review-john-rennie
Posted by: Aaron | April 26, 2008 2:57 PM
Great review. I also liked the one in the Detroit Free Press.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008804180337
I believe these people who made "Expelled" have fallen victim to their own right wing dogmas. You can almost see these guys deciding if Micheal Moore can get by with fudging facts to attack the right they could do the same making this film. Little realizing the truth of the statement:
"The truth has a liberal bias" - S. Colbert 2007
Posted by: d simpson | April 26, 2008 2:59 PM
Tex linked this at Pharyngula. It is a gem, though the writer still hasn't seen the movie. Is that a requirement for this contest?
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZGYwMzdjOWRmNGRhOWQ4MTQyZDMxNjNhYTU1YTE5Njk=
Posted by: Efogoto | April 28, 2008 9:21 PM
I too vote for Derbyshire's review in the "National Review" at
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZGYwMzdjOWRmNGRhOWQ4MTQyZDMxNjNhYTU1YTE5Njk=
This is a right-wing attack on expelled and its devastating. Derbyshire is a bit of strange bird and may eventually come to his senses about the greedy crooks surrounding him on the Right. Great review.
Posted by: Omar Ali | May 1, 2008 4:35 PM
My favourite paragraph from the Derbyshire review:
I disagree with a lot of what is written at NRO, but this was spot on. It perfectly articulates what I've long felt about creationists.
So I vote for Aaron to win the book.
Posted by: Kate | May 6, 2008 7:00 AM
Whoops, I meant, I vote for Omar Ali to win the book.
Posted by: Kate | May 6, 2008 7:02 AM
Gaagh. I can't seem to get it right- Efogoto for the win!
Posted by: Kate | May 6, 2008 7:13 AM