The horrible Expelled is now available on DVD. I have no plans to view it. However, you can get it from a site called redbox, which has a bizarre synopsis.
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
Who better to interview fanatics than the hilariously deadpan Ben Stein? Here, the former host of "Win Ben Stein's Money" (and, it should mentioned, trusted Nixon advisor) hosts a documentary in which he sets out to ask the hard questions about the Intelligent Design theory to its most fervent believers.
I don't know what they were thinking when they wrote that.
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From FOX:
After seeing a new non-fiction film starring Comedy Central's Ben Stein, you may not only be able to win his money, but also his career.
Stein is that whiny little guy with the monotone voice that makes him seem funny and an unlikely "character" for TV appearances. But that career may be…
This past spring the science blogosphere was all a-twitter over the release of the creationist propaganda film Expelled. Was it a success? A flop? A big budget fluff piece that only attracted those already inclined to agree? Such debates aside, the release of Expelled and the opening of Ken Ham's…
They just keep coming. A few hours ago I posted about a lukewarm review of Expelled that appeared on the Variety website, and rottentomatoes.com has pointed me to a few more reviews of the film. A Slant review by Nick Schager skewers the film for the hypocrisy within it;
For a film about American…
You know, even though I know he's been a Republican talker for a long time, that he worked for the Nixon administration as a speechwriter and lawyer, I've always kind of liked Ben Stein. My wife and I used to like to watch Win Ben Stein's Money, and he was quite amusing as the principal in Ferris…
So ... they think that Expelled is an anti-ID film?
I absolutely love the irony of it.
What comes after "epic fail?" "Monumental fail?" "Gargantuan fail?" "Astronomical fail?"
Universal fail?
Well, since it bombed as a pro-ID film you might trick a few people into watching it if they think it is anti-ID.
James F:
"Black hole fail" - it's so large, it collapses into a singularity, threatening to suck everything with it.
Were they thinking: "Oh just imagine the looks on those godless liberals' faces when they pop this in the DVD player and discover..."?
Cosmic fail.
Intelligent Design theory
Magic is a scientific theory?
I think at least one of the reviewers watched it, but their brains dribbled out their ears, and left them in their chair drooling and saying "Gah! Gah! Gah!" (sort of like one of the occurrences in Infinite Jest). At that point, having bought lots of it, they decided to rent it out anyway, but couldn't spare any more reviewers, so they made a "best guess" on its content.
I could have suggested some people who could have watched it without apparent harm, but they are likely not be able to review it. Oh, well.
In Iowa City, we have a saying, "There is drunk...then there is T-Bone drunk!" To make a long story short, T-Bone could drink Otis from Mayberry and a Catholic Church hosting an AA meeting under the table.
This is T-Bone Fail.
Maybe they were going for subtle satire?
That's got to be a joke right?
trusted Nixon advisor?
I didn't know such a thing existed...
After epic fail comes fractal fail. Fail at every conceivable scale of resolution. Zooming in on any part of your epic fail finds fails every bit as epic as your initial epic fail.
PZ, you must stop posting these things, my side cannot take much more, between you and Fox News having the "terrorist fist pound" thing, I really don't know how long my ribs will last...
Well, it's clear that the premise of a global conspiracy of meanies conspiring to silence honest and curious scientists who think And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good is the title of a peer-reviewed journal article is so ludicrous on its face that they rejected it in favour of the much more reasonable and likely hypothesis that Expelled is an anti-ID film.
Even Occam's razor gets rusty sometimes.
Sweet, it's available to download. Time to grab it, take some form of mild-altering substance and laugh it up.
Why is "trusted Nixon advisor" an endorsement of anything? Kind of like advertising financial management "brought to you by the accountants at Enron" or male enhancement "brought to you by the scientistsXXXXXXXXXXsalespeople who brought you Enzyte"?
I guess it was better than "brought to you by the man who can tell lies faster than a Bush press secretary".
I think the wording is a trick to get sane people to watch it.
In Soviet Russia, movies make synopsis about you.
Irreducible fail, obviously.
It sounds to me like they're trying to capture the audience which loved Religulous.
When you click on the title, the description of the movies genre is: Comedy, drama, documentary.
Comedy? That's the first description of this? In a way, fitting, I suppose.
Have you folks seen the TV commercials yet? I saw one the other night that describes it as, to paraphrase, "Ben Stein goes to college - and get EXPELLED!" Not a word about Evolution/Creationism/Design - Intelligent or Otherwise. Makes it sound kinda like Ferris Bueller Takes a Day Off College or something.
The poll on the expelled website is rigged. Check out erv's blog.
This propaganda movie really is alot like a black hole of stupidity and failure.
Omega fail.
And this is an epic win.
Remember kids, although Ben Stein was a proud Nixon speechwriter, he did not write the line 'I am not a crook'.
At least, that's what his bio tells us.
Oh come on PZ, you weren't that bad in it.
Religulous vs. Expelled, courtesy of Box Office Mojo.
Comments on the blog indicate comments there shaping up to be just as hilarious as the first time round!
Example
"about to make a killing at the box office" ???
I noticed when I was watching BBC America last Saturday, every commercial break had a commercial for Expelled. Guess that's the "America" part. I already watch Primeval, that's all the bad science I need.
quantum fail.
Well sure, Religulous made 19% more money, but it's a longer film by 11 minutes.
If you divide the domestic gross by running time, the two movies are a lot closer in earnings, with Religulous making only 6.2% more than Expelled.
I understand that cdesign proponentsists use similar statistical methodologies when they calculate exactly how prokaryotic flagella confirm Jehovah's existence but not Kukulkan's.
My thoughts exactly.
And I think Fractal Fail is appropriate.
@Alex Besogonov #6
The "suck" part is at least accurate...
At least Religulous is beating Expelled at the box office!
It's available on The Pirate Bay. Not that I'm condoning or promoting piracy, I'm just reporting on the spreading of the movie.
Well PZ - you DID have plans to see the movie, but you were - well - expelled. They had their chance to convert you and they blew it!
Shorter, more accurate review:
"I couldn't watch any more of this pile of guano posing as a 'documentary', so I wrote a review that gets everything wrong, and in spades - even down to basic grammar. It's a great film if your idea of killing brain cells without the pleasantries of alcohol poisoning is your idea of a fun time."
I was trying to watch Primeval on BBC America (yes, they guy who bad-mouths British TV watches BBC America regularly) and in every single commercial break I had to put up with Ben Steins face, with them referring to him as , "An American Icon." Yes, they were putting the DVD into promotional circulation on BBC America big time.
I do not grasp the logic, ... are they thinking people that watch BBC America are more-likely, or less likely, to fall for their crap?
Someone explain?
Just torrent it. It's only 90 minutes long and despite what Richard Dawkins says it's not that boring.
Umm... That's not the review on the Redbox website.
Here it is, sounding like it was copied straight from the case:
His heroic and, at times, shocking journey confronting the world's top scientists, educators and philosophers, regarding the persecution of the many by an elite few. Ben travels the world on his quest, and learns an awe-inspiring truth...that bewilders him, then angers him...and then spurs him to action! Ben realizes that he has been "Expelled," and that educators and scientists are being ridiculed, denied tenure and even fired - for the "crime" of merely believing that there might be evidence of "design" in nature, and that perhaps life is not just the result of accidental, random chance.
#14: "fractal fail"
#21: "irreducible fail"
Clearly, the answer is both, despite their being mutually exclusive.
Discontinuity Fail?
Didn't Feynman determine the proper term to be "economical" fail?
I'll be "securing" a copy through the Devil's means; I'd been joking about holding a screening for my local atheists/agnostics club (yes, that one) in the same spirit I saw it in: Drinking game material. (I maintain: If you can separate yourself from the content and focus on the rhetoric, you will leave the showing laughing rather than screaming. Taking a shot every time Stein Godwins or non-sequitors also helps.)
Clearly, the answer is both, despite their being mutually exclusive.
doublethink fail?
interestingly, when i visited my local video-rental franchise this morning to buy a copy of the new Hulk movie, i noticed a blank space in the "E" section of new releases. i asked the manager, with whom i've been flirting for years, and she said with a wink that the copies they ordered mysteriously vanished, and probably won't be replaced. i'd like to take credit, but i can't
Redbox have been spamming me. I'd never heard of them, and I started getting emails to RENEW my account. Shady tactics.
Palin-scale fail.
Already grabbed it off the intertubes. No money for that bunch of liars. Now waiting for some vacation time to recover from the alcohol needed to watch the dreck.
This POS is back up to 3 stars on amazon.com, with 1-star reviews just ahead of 5-star reviews...
I'm pretty sure we know what to do about that.
Also, look at its sales rank:
#1 in Movies & TV > Documentary
#4 in Movies & TV > Comedy
#5 in Movies & TV > Kids & Family
I guess child-abuse is still popular in this country.
Hmm... a two-faced intelligently designed website which presents different reviews according to which IP address etc is looking at it? Has it been programmed to recognised PZ - and will they have forgotten to include Richard Dawkins identity again? :-D
Yeah, I'm thinking the same. I'm going to have to get really wrecked, either I need to abstain from alcohol so my tolerance goes down or try something harder.
Um... they didn't see the movie, right?
Well I guess that's good!!! ...Sorta?
I just watched it, out of sheer curiosity. I'd read about how terribly dull and utterly bizarre it is, but I'm not sure it is possible to imagine without seeing it. The first half: terribly dull and utterly bizarre. Most of the second half...well, you'll need a shower afterwards.
It's been available extra-legally for a week or so, now, which is how I finally got to see it last week. I'd actually consider paying to see this a vastly less moral action than stealing a look.
"[Ben Stein] sets out to ask the hard questions about the Intelligent Design theory to its most fervent believers."
FERVENT BELIEVERS! You'd have to be a believer to buy into intelligen design. I guffawed (well, I am at work; so I really laughted to myself) when I read this!!!
Ah! Trick question. They weren't thinking at all.
Presumably they read something Premise put out, and some ill-informed copywriter was told to cut it down. Reading about fanatics, said copywriter probably just thought Stein was skewering the IDiots.
It's the oddest thing, though, because its English is so fractured. "...and it should mentioned," and "...ask the hard questions...to its most fervent believers."
The thing is fun, in its way, casually maligning the very morons to whom it is supposed to appeal.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Is it really that easy to mistake "tragically braindead" for "hilariously deadpan"? Damn.
Just an FYI. The "company called Redbox" was started and funded by McDonald's, which still owns 47 percent of it.
Uh-oh. It's also now available for instant viewing on Netflix.
Andrew @ 43:
I'm seeing that too. Perhaps someone told them how comically bad their description was, so they corrected it?
Kel - I went to the theater to see it, and didn't miss a minute.
Trust me, alcohol alone isn't enough. Ace Bandage your ribs, for the groaning your going to do, helmet, depends undergarment, hide your firearms and power tools, put your dog in his kennel, and of course, have a barf bucket and chamber pot handy.
If I've forgotten any safety measures, I apologize. No one will tell on you if you start goosestepping with glazed over eyes, and blood running out of your ears.
Will a bottle of Absinthe and some pot cookies suffice?
So they are billing expelled as a dark comedy about ID. Its really a spoof to show just how fucking ignorant the IDIOTs are? Is that their spin now. JFC these people must walk around dizzy all day.
Patricia, you forgot to hide any rope strong enough to hang oneself.
Sounds like welder's goggles and airport rated earphones are also appropriate.
I wonder if Richard Dawkins is aware that he's listed second under "starring" on the Amazon page for Expelled. If it were me, I'd find that very irritating, to say the least.
When you think about it, it really does work as an anti-ID film.
I happened to be in my neighborhood Best Buy tonight, and I saw Expelled in the new arrivals section. There must have been a dozen copies of that DVD right there. How many of them do they think they'll be selling?
Downloaded and watched the first hour so far could not get any further in one go.
Oh thank goodness the stupid thing is on Google Video already, so I don't even have to rent it. What a ridiculous piece of trash it was too, but at least all I wasted on it was time.
I could have been reading The Watchmen. :P
Go have a look at their awful ad for the DVD, if you haven't been hit with it yet.
http://getexpelled.com/codelanding.html You'll get a discount! 10%!
There's something about that smirk that bothers me. "Trust me to lie 100% of the time", he seems to be saying.
And then there's the claim to "#1 documentary of 2008". Yecch.
Note: It was Jason Rosenhaus' fault that I was looking at blog.beliefnet.com and got 'Exposed' to the ad.
That's actually not that uncommon in the industry according the a television writer acquaintance of mine.
Googolplex fail.
The anti-ID summary is still up for me...
To be fair to Redbox and, judging by the glowing synopsis of the criminally dreadful Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull it's reasonable to say that they are not responsible for writing them. It's probably just copied from the back of the DVD box.
If you need a reliable torrent, go for links from mininova:
http://www.mininova.org/search/?search=expelled
This one looks promising due to the sheer number of seeds:
http://www.mininova.org/tor/1914558
"Now out on video --- the shambling, growling, foundationless juggernaut, the thing that just wouldn't die --- ID: Benstein's monster!"
"Remember: if you want chills, if you want a slight feeling of nausea, if you want to be terrified --- remember, it's spelled with an 'EX'!"
"As previously only in theaters... Now only on DVD... soon only in TV... and pretty soon only available in the church yard sale... buy Expelled: No intelligence allowed, presented by Ben Stein, intelligent design's seeing eye dog!*"
* 'rottweiler' and 'bulldog' were taken already.
@Patricia - #66 Too early in the morning to make me laugh so hard! Shame on you! ;-)
For a minute I thought evolution had been disproved when I misread this headline as: Dinosaur Graveyard Yields Fossil Bunny.
Maybe it's all been a horrible horrible Andy Kaufmann-esque joke?
Oh come on PZ... Even RD sat through it! It can't be that bad?
I'd donate $100 to charity just to watch it next to you and hear you guffaw, chuckle and shout out 'Sweet Zombie Jesus!' in disgust. :)
I see Religulous has out box-officed Expelled --
http://boxofficemojo.com/showdowns/chart/?id=controversus.htm
Well, he did write speeches for Nixon...
Something else I haven't seen mentioned regarding the DVD is that even though Yoko lost her lawsuit, the contentious "Imagine" segment was removed from the DVD.
That movie sounds interesting, I'll have to check it out.
:>
Link doesn't work.
And a useful suggestion for those wishing to obtain a copy via the file-sharing route, be sure to run Peer Guardian to limit your 'exposure'.
Good grief, why would anyone toss any money their way?
What's next in the progression? Cepic failists!
The reviews on amazon are somewhat entertaining.
http://www.amazon.com/Expelled-Intelligence-Allowed-Ben-Stein/dp/B001BY…
Andrew (quoting the authentic Redbox review, I suppose)
His heroic and, at times, shocking journey confronting the world's top scientists, educators and philosophers, regarding the persecution of the many by an elite few.
You have got to be fucking kidding me.
Karen Ann Quinlan braindeath-level Fail.
Animavore:
To be fair to Redbox and, judging by the glowing synopsis of the criminally dreadful Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull it's reasonable to say that they are not responsible for writing them. It's probably just copied from the back of the DVD box.
One would hope they were copying it from something; otherwise, Michael Medved would have to be pointing a .44 magnum at your head and feeding you quotes for anyone to write that drek.
Anyone here think the movie Expelled is bullshit?
You can complain about it here and accomplish nothing.
Or you leave some comments here and talk directly to the Christian retards who like the movie Expelled.
Haha, my dad listens to talk radio (he's a major conservative ugh) and an ad for Expelled came on claiming it was a "hit" in theaters. I burst out laughing after hearing that.
How's it working out for you?
Kel, I just think a major invasion of atheists into a Christian blog is more effective than a bunch of atheists talking to each other. Christians should at least know atheists exist and they should know there's millions of us. They're never going to know that if atheists hide in atheist blogs.
I'm aware of your sentiments Bob, and while I agree that something needs to be done, I'm just not sure that going onto a place where people have a huge base of positive affirmation is going to actually achieve anything - and may actually be negative in the scheme of things. That's why I'm wondering how much success you have had doing it in order to evaluate the consequences of the proposed methodology.
Kel, let's say there's a Christian blog and the subject of the thread is evolution. The Christian retards talk to each other and agree that evolution has zero evidence. Now what if 100 biologists suddenly appear and each one of them explains some of the massive evidence for evolution. Wouldn't that make a big impression? I think it would at least convince the Christian retards they can't expect to lie about science and get away with it.
I'm not 100 scientists. I'm just one non-scientist. So I can't say what would happen if 100 biologists visited a Christian blog and explained why evolution is a fact. I sure would like to see this happen but biologists would rather not bother with it. They prefer to talk to each other and nobody else. What we've got here is a failure to communicate.
I suppose so, but I suffer from the same problem as you as being a non-biologist. My degree was in computer science.
Or a resignation to the futility of the concept. Maybe it would work, maybe it wouldn't. Inevitably if you took people from here, the argument would then descend into a science vs religion debate where belief in God and belief in evolution are polar opposites. I don't know how a theist can resolve God and science, how would I be able to communicate with them? I'm just an atheist persecuting their religion to them.
Kel - No honey, pot cookies will not see you through it. You'll need your poor little ol' hand held by a finely corseted, highly scented lady, well versed in applying cool, lavender scented cloths to your forehead.
This ain't a picnic or a snipe hunt, it's down right vulgar. Why you couldn't even get anyone in Hazard County to believe this stuff. That terrifian bo-hemoth Warren Sapp would find it hard to charge through the bullshit Stien lays out.
PZ does make mother Myers proud though.
I like fractal fail, but offer 'brane fail' (finally, something useful comes out of string 'theory')
On talking to christians about evolution. A Baptist christian handed me a cobbled together page as to why DNA evidence disproves that Amerindians are a lost tribe of Israel, ala Mormon christian beliefs. I immediately pointed out that to accept such DNA evidence means he must also accept the existence and and extinction of another species of Human, H. neanderthalis. He replied, "oh, no, we don't accept the dating. I said, this is simple base substitution, we do not even need to consider molecular clocks. "I'll have to think about it." I may have made some headway.
Finally got around to seeing that. Talk about mixed messages - "Knowledge was their treasure" but knowledge will destroy you and the aliens will take their ball and go home and destroy all traces of that knowledge. Huh?
Fuck, I don't have one of those. Guess I'll just have to risk it with a cocktail of different alcohols.
@3:
I'd say it's a toss-up between complex fail or doubleplus non-succes.
Also, I like that the top listing at isohunt cotegorises Expelled as "Comedy" :D
Reminds me of the blurb on the DVD cover for Superbabies (Baby Geniuses 2):
"Superbabies has no redeeming qualities"