BenStein Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Just the other day, Eric Snider threw up a fan rant about Ben Stein's Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, and the dismissive box office reports about the film. The flick pulled in $2.97 million and came in 10th in the weekend box office, which he notes makes it the third best opening ever for a documentary. Well, whatever cash was pulled in, some of it might be going right back out.

CNN reports that Yoko Ono is suing the producers of the film for using John Lennon's "Imagine" in it. The lawsuit notes that while she never gave permission, bloggers have begun calling her a sell-out for licensing the song. Us bloggers, always making trouble! The suit, which was filed on behalf of Ono, as well as Julian, Sean, and EMI Blackwood Music, is looking for the filmmakers to stop distributing/selling/promoting the film, and asks for financial damages. Meanwhile, the producers of Expelled say that they've used only "a very small portion of the song," and "Unbiased viewers of the film will see that the 'Imagine' clip was used as part of a social commentary in the exercise of free speech and freedom of inquiry."

I haven't seen the film yet, but for those of you that have -- what say you on this whole "Imagine" drama? Should it be expelled from the documentary?

Up front, let me confess an error I made regarding Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, the new documentary about the Intelligent Design movement. In Friday's edition of "The (Mostly) Indie Film Calendar," I said the movie was "a documentary about how people who believe in evolution are big meanies who don't understand why 'Intelligent Design' (i.e., that God made everything) should be taught in science classes, too." This was a mistaken summary of what Intelligent Design is.

Having now watched the film -- which is terrible, filled with specious reasoning, false dichotomies, and self-contradiction -- I find that I did learn a thing or two. I had assumed that Creationism and Intelligent Design were the same thing. They are not. Creationism is the belief that God created the Earth more or less the way it's described in Genesis. Intelligent Design merely holds that certain things about life on this planet are best explained by something supernatural. Where there are gaps in scientific knowledge, ID fills 'em in.

There is plenty of overlap between Creationism and ID, of course, and I guess you could say all Creationists are also ID-ists. But you can certainly believe in ID without believing God made the world in six days. The film says that this misunderstanding is why so many scientists are so virulently anti-ID -- because they think it's Creationism, which truly doesn't have much scientific evidence in its favor.

College professors rule! Well, at least the one that Richard Jenkins plays so well in Tom McCarthy's The Visitor (Overture Films). The comedy-drama expanded to 18 theaters in its second week of release and averaged $9,055 per-screen to remain in the #1 position, according to estimates compiled by Box Office Mojo. Check the film's web site to see where it will be opening in the next couple of weeks (click on "in select theaters now").

Debuting indie films did not fare so well, judging strictly by per-screen averages, but it's notable that Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (Rocky Mountain Pictures), opened on more than 1,000 screens and made $2,997 per location for a total of more than $3 million for the weekend. The doc follows Ben Stein as he chases down Ferris Bueller ... oops, wrong movie! This one's about "intelligent design" in the classroom.

Opening on just one screen, Anamorph (IFC Films) grossed $3,000. Willem Dafoe stars as an NYPD detective investigating a serial killer. Critics were not kind: Anamorph scored just 28% positive at Rotten Tomatoes. David Hudson at GreenCine Daily rounds up pertinent quotes.

Two other holdovers did better as they expanded their runs. Young At Heart (Fox Searchlight), the "elderly folk chorus that sings modern rock songs" documentary, increased its theater count to 33 and averaged $4,393 per screen. Hou Hsiao-Hsien's gentle drama The Flight of the Red Balloon (IFC Films) proved its appeal beyond New York City, making $3,572 per-screen at 11 locations.

"Ben Stein says the people who were snubbed on Oscar night weren't the stars who were passed over for Academy Awards, but American troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. The conservative humorist, writer and political pundit said movie stars and film industry professionals failed to highlight the sacrifices of soldiers during the awards ceremony on March 5. "Not one prayer or moment of silence for those who have given their lives," Stein said, speaking Thursday at a Republican Party fundraising dinner."

-- Associated Press, Sat. March 18, 2006


Dear Ben:

Hi. We've never met. But you seem like a nice, smart guy – at least, you did on your game show. (Did you quit, or did that get cancelled? Congratulations or I'm sorry, by the way. …) Sorry I didn't write earlier; you know: Tax time. Uh, anyhow, please indulge me in a brief fantasy: It's some parallel universe. Not, like, Man in the High Tower parallel, but more of a Gwyenneth-Paltrow-gets-to-live parallel; a little different from our space-time. Maybe we've got Samuel L. Jackson on the $20 instead of Andrew Jackson, and Cronenberg didn't pass on directing Basic Instinct 2. Minor differences. In that universe, subtly different from our own, one of Hollywood's biggest stars – perhaps Tom Hanks; maybe Bruce Willis; possibly Denzel Washington or Julia Roberts (and hey, they all had movies coming up; they could have used the face-time) – stepped onto the stage of the Kodak theater with the lights muted and Bill Conti's orchestra quiet and asked for a moment of silence in honor of America's troops serving in peril abroad, and the fallen men and women who now rest in graves all across America. They would have done so sincerely; they would have used the plain-spoken sort of language one hopes will be heard on occasions like that; there may have even been a mention of God, or a prayer. And after a minute, they would have raised their heads and said something simple – "Thank you, and God bless America." The camera would then have cut to Jon Stewart, who's smart enough to take that kind of thing seriously and would have then found a deft way to segue to a musical number, the next clip, the next award.