Quote Of The Day

PZ Myers reviews a movie:

I went in with low expectations: I’d heard it was just a fun action movie, mere mindless entertainment. The reviews underestimated the movie; it wasn’t just mindless, it was in a vegetative state. This movie was so stupid it was stillborn with acephaly. This movie sucked so bad it was a miracle that the Hawking radiation didn’t kill the audience.

Star Trek: Into Darkness

What makes the quote for me is he's a biologist who thought of using Hawking radiation as part of a black hole metaphor.

I don't share the world's fetish for J.J. Abrams. Something about incoherent story lines that never quite end just doesn't appeal to me. So it's unlikely I'll be subjecting myself to whatever bad radiates out of this one. If I just stick to reading the reviews, I suspect I'll find that at least as entertaining.

Finally, Science Fiction Worthy Of The Name

I think I'm going to have to see this:



If you have to ask why, you'll never understand...

The IMDB entry for the movie is fairly sketchy at the moment, since it hasn't been officially released. About the only thing I've concluded from it is that Stephanie Paul looks way too young and perky to be playing the President. It's a comedy, though, so I'll withhold judgment.

Heck, the Nazis could barely get their rockets to land on London, let alone the Moon.

Saturday Entertainment: Guess The Movie

This photo was inspired by a movie. Can you guess which one?

Image credit: StudioArthur

Answer here.

To quote Dr. McCoy: Don't lose yourself in the part.

Imagine - It Went Straight To Video

It's hard to imagine that Hollywood could have come up with something worse than 10,000 BC, but it looks like they've managed:


It's something to do with a volcano that causes a glacier to move at transonic speed across North America. It sounds like someone got two disaster movie scripts caught in a paper shredder, then tried to glue them back together, and hired a rabid lunatic to edit the result.

Geology blogger Rachael adds:

There's a volcano. It unleashes a glacier. Don't ask me how. But it's a fast glacier. A really, really, really, really fast glacier that like a thousand miles across and can get from the Arctic to the US in a day or two, because it is seriously pissed off and has installed a turbo. And then it destroys New York City, because that's what you do when you're the world's fastest glacier that's been set free by a volcano. Because New York City once spat on your shoes and called your mom a fucking ice cube.

Hilarity Ensues: We've Declared War on a Glacier

I think you could put a slide show together of every explicit thing that Anthony Weiner has ever texted or tweeted, and it would be more inspirational. It would certainly be less preposterous.

The only good thing I can say about this one is that they clearly didn't waste a pile of money on it.

A Great Diversion

Found this thanks to a comment at FireDogLake:

Cowboys and Indians: The Great Diversion from Danielle Agnello on Vimeo.

It's a little comedy of grammatical errors and bigotry. Inspired, I suspect, by actual events. Or maybe this actual event.

UPDATE: If, like me, you're using the NoScript extension to Firefox, then you may have to enable scripts from Vimeo to make the video appear on your screen.

Wanna Hear Something Really Funny?

You know what's really funny about this?




Well, besides the wall of flaming alligators, that is. It's that I had no idea who Michael Bay is. Yet, not only did this xkcd comic mention him, so did an article in Daily Galaxy. He must be someone important, right? Turns out that, according to his IMDB entry, he's been responsible for a string of awful-sounding movies over the last decade or so. Who needed a remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, let alone a sequel? The only movie he's been involved with that I've seen was the reprehensible Armageddon, the first movie that actually made the idea of being hit by an asteroid even scarier than it should have been already. (Who'd want his fate to be in the hands of those clowns?) He was only a producer for that movie, but it seems to have set the tone for all his later accomplishments.

So that's what's even funnier - this is what passes for an important idea guy in Hollywood these days.

Another Concept Based On Sherlock Holmes

Caption: Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr., right) and Watson (Jude Law) discuss the game that's afoot.

I saw the new Sherlock Holmes yesterday. On the whole, I think George caught the gist of it at his blog:

I’ve loved Sherlock Holmes stories since I was a kid. On summer vacation I had a big volume of all the Holmes stories and looked forward to long sessions immersed in the cerebral mysteries of seemingly supernatural murders that turned out to have rational explanations. But not every film adaptation has been satisfying. I didn’t (sorry, fans) like Basil Rathbone’s interpretation, nor the bumbling Watson of that series. I did enjoy Matt Frewer’s Holmes. But it’s perfectly acceptable for there to be different portrayals of a given fictional hero (Batman, or the new Star Trek movie for instance).

Victorian House: Sherlock Holmes

It wasn't Sherlock Holmes, not really. If you want to see a show that depicts the original Sherlock, I'd suggest the old BBC series with Jeremy Brett. Brett's Holmes was both cerebral and isolated from his fellow human beings. Unlike this new Sherlock Holmes, he isn't so much dismissive of other people, but just uncomfortable with and irritated by their slowness or lack of imagination. David Burke's Watson is a smart man who is unaccustomed to being intellectually at sea, not the bumbling assistant of some earlier interpretations.

I try to let a work stand on its own, although it's not entirely possible when viewing a new interpretation of an old favorite story or character. That certainly wasn't a problem here. Holmes and Dr. Watson, the more affable but slightly less imaginative assistant, have become prototypical characters, particularly for crime dramas. To name but a few, CSI, Bones, and Inspector Morse are all very similar in concept, with a socially awkward but brilliant investigator who has one or more trusty sidekicks. Even the The Inspector Lynley Mysteries is only a slight variation, in that Havers, not Lynley, is the more isolated personality. As George mentions, House, M.D. is also based on the Holmes/Watson relationship, right down to the phonetic similarity of the protagonists' names. Even Doctor Who emulates Holmes in a science fiction setting.

So in the case of Sherlock Holmes, it's not hard to accept the idea that this is a different character that is based on Sherlock Holmes. If someone were to write a modern comic book interpretation of Holmes, in the spirit of Road To Perdition, this is very much the result I'd expect.

It even has the look of a comic-book interpretation. The film is, naturally, set in Victorian London, but it is a Victorian London that is always dark, claustrophobic, gray, and dirty. That seems like a historically accurate interpretation given what I've read of the time, but it's also the design of the film. The heroes are a part of this environment, even though their own impulses are for order and clarity. I suspect you'll have to see the film to understand what I mean by that, but it's true.

Of course, Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law are terrific as Holmes and Watson. They might not have worked so well as the "real" Holmes and Watson, but they play these characters that are based on Holmes and Watson very well.

This is one of those rare movies I can recommend seeing, despite its tendencies toward mindless action and explosions. There is plenty of plot, and there's enough of Sherlock Holmes in this Sherlock Holmes to make it enjoyable.

UPDATE: Dana Hunter has some interesting observations about the various characters in the movie at her blog.

But Does Spock Snog Uhura In This One?

Speaking of lightweight, hardly a day has gone by since I wrote this:

I don't get to see many science fiction movies anymore. The last one I saw, the new Star Trek, was a mindless explosion fest, so full of contradictions and absurdities I think I spent the last half of it dumbfounded.

District 9

and now I see this at xkcd:



We can either believe that they read what I wrote and took it from there, which is a thing I find distressingly unlikely, or else there's more than one of us out there who finds the average major Hollywood movie to be disturbingly mindless.

District 9

Image credit: Publicity still from District 9

I don't get to see many science fiction movies anymore. The last one I saw, the new Star Trek, was a mindless explosion fest, so full of contradictions and absurdities I think I spent the last half of it dumbfounded. So, it was with a fair bit of trepidation that I went to District 9, a South African production by Peter Jackson. Some of that trepidation came from having watched two of the three Lord Of The Ring pictures, which Jackson directed. They were good movies, but toward the end the story-telling gave way to mindless action.

I'd like to say District 9 wasn't like that, but it was. I just didn't mind it so much.

The story of the movie is that a group of aliens are stranded on Earth when their spaceship fails. Of course, anyone who has seen either the film or the TV series Alien Nation has seen this setup before. As in the Alien Nation productions, aliens come to Earth, and humans attempt to give them a place to live. Unlike the story of AN, in District 9 the aliens are put in a settlement camp, which ends up becoming a ghetto where human criminals take advantage of them. A large corporation, MNU, is put in charge of settling the aliens. Over the next twenty years, tensions grow between the aliens and the humans who live near them in Johannesburg. MNU is then contracted to move them to a new camp outside the city. The aliens, meanwhile, have plans of their own.

The man put in charge of this operation is Wikus Van De Merwe, a milquetoast who is the son in law of MNU's boss. Merwe is a great character - he is humane, but at the same time is neither self-assured nor broad-minded enough to do the job well. After being accidentally exposed to an alien chemical, he starts to turn into an alien, thus becoming an experimental subject of his own corporation, and then a fugitive from it.

At this point, the movie becomes more predictable. The aliens need the substance, which is down in the lab at MNU. Van De Merwe and the alien technician go to steal it back. Many explosions and vehicle chases ensue, and much ordnance is expended.

As alien-contact movies go, this one strikes me as more real than most. The aliens look only slightly humanoid. The best description I can come up with is that they look like a cross between a lizard and a cylon. They're advanced, physically strong, and very strange looking. The humans' reaction to them is something believable - these guys aren't E.T.. MNU is a corporate entity without a soul, sort of a Halliburton with an advanced biotech division. It's hard to miss the parallels with how much leeway corporations have been given in the last couple of decades. Given the setting of the movie, it's also hard to miss the idea that the situation the aliens find themselves in is a lot like what victims of human racism, and apartheid in particular, have to live with.

Sharlto Copley is terrific as Van De Merwe. His monologues in front of the camera are delightfully self-conscious, and as the movie progresses you really see a man progressively more out of his depth, and then learning to accept and grow into his new situation.

It would be nice if the plot device were a little less conventional and the resolution a bit less loud. Still, it's two thirds of a thoughtful movie, which is at least one third more than any other movie I've seen lately. If you're looking for science fiction with a little thought behind it, it's probably the best thing you're going to see for a while.

UPDATE: Babylon 5 fans might notice the presence of William Allen Smith as Dirk Michaels, an MNU executive. He played Jason Ironheart in the B5 episode "Mind War".

Farrah Fawcett

Speaking of mid-life crises, an icon of my youth passed away today:

Farrah Fawcett, 62, golden-haired sex symbol of the late 1970s most remembered for her appearance on bedroom posters and the detective series "Charlie's Angels" and who later found a niche portraying troubled women in made-for-television dramas, died today at a hospital in Santa Monica, Calif., of cancer.

Actress Farrah Fawcett Dies at 62

The poster of Fawcett that leads this article was, for a time in the late 1970s, as ubiquitous as Betty Grable's was in the 1940s. While I wasn't much of a fan of hers at the time, this poster evokes that time as much as disco music and the big hair she helped inspire.

The Washington Post story I quoted and this Guardian story provide synopses of her career. Suffice to say that after her brush with stardom, she did some good work, some of it in less-than-stellar productions.

Condolences to her family and friends.

Khan!!!

Image credit: screenshot of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan by Cujo359 (see NOTE)

The actor who played one of the most memorable bad guys in science fiction died yesterday:

Ricardo Montalban, the suave leading man who was one of the first Mexican-born actors to make it big in Hollywood and who was best known for his role as Mr. Roarke on TV's "Fantasy Island," has died. He was 88.

Ricardo Montalban Dies At 88; 'Fantasy Island' Actor

Yes, he also starred in that TV series with the little guy, but for those of us who grew up on Star Trek, Montalban was a very different character:

While making "Fantasy Island," Montalban also gave one of his best movie performances -- as Khan Noonien Singh in the “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” (1982), a follow-up to a beloved 1967 “Star Trek” television episode that also featured Montalban.

Ricardo Montalban Dies At 88; 'Fantasy Island' Actor

[links from original]
Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan is one of two Star Trek movies I unreservedly recommend to people who aren't Star Trek fans. Part of its charm is Montalban's just this side of over the top performance as Khan. It's an adventurous story about growing older and facing the consequences of one's actions. If you decide to see it, I recommend that you watch the director's edition DVD version; it includes scenes that flesh out both the main story line and the sub-plot of Kirk coming to terms with his life.

As one of the first Latin American stars, Montalban's efforts weren't limited to acting, as the Los Angeles Times article points out:

Although Montalban expressed appreciation for his success, he complained that Hollywood lacked respect for Mexican American actors. He said that while under contract at MGM, he portrayed Cubans, Brazilians and Argentines, but almost never Mexicans.

"Mexican is not a nice-sounding word and Hollywood is at fault for this because we have been portrayed in this ungodly manner," he said. He challenged Hollywood to stop stereotyping Latin actors by casting them only as prostitutes, maids, gang-bangers and bandidos.

Through Nosotros -- "we" in Spanish -- Montalban attempted to highlight and recognize Latino participation in the arts and entertainment. In 1970, the foundation created the Golden Eagle Awards, which annually honors Latino stars, shows and movies.

Ricardo Montalban Dies At 88; 'Fantasy Island' Actor

Image credit: screenshot of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan by Cujo359 (see NOTE)

Montalban's qualities of dignity and kindliness made him an interesting presence on the screen no matter what role he was playing.

We'll miss you, Khan.

NOTE: Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan is a copyrighted work of Paramount Studios. Neither they, nor anyone else associated with the movie or Star Trek in general, approved of or contributed to this article.

Where Do They Get Their Ideas From?

Hey, Klaatu barada frickin' nikto, Dude!

Where do Hollywood movie producers get those inspired ideas from? You just have to wonder how they can come up with stuff like this.

Via PZ Myers at Pharyngula, I learned tonight that another movie studio is going to shove another $100 million or so down another black hole:

They're remaking The Day the Earth Stood Still with Keanu Reeves! It looks very, very bad. What did they think they had to add to a SF classic? More special effects?

Nooooooo!

Calling this a bad idea is like calling sailing the Titanic near icebergs bad navigation. The original movie was a science fiction classic - charming, reasonably well acted, and profound. As Prof. Myers notes, the special effects weren't that great, but they were good enough to get across the idea. Any fan of Dr. Who can tell you that's as important as realism if the story's good.

Speaking of stories, Ain't It Cool News thinks it has a scoop on what the plot will look like. I hope they're wrong (need I mention that there are spoilers in here?):

Turns out that...because of Global Warming (and the destruction of our own planet with industrial waste and pollution)....the other galaxies deemed that we are not fit to survive. The glass spheres they sent down were to collect land and sea animal specimens to take back to their planet for study.
...
Needless-to-say, Earth goes through a violent energy field released through Klaatu's ship (wait a minute - wasn't Gort supposed to be the ultimate bad ass in this story?). But Earth survives, with Klaatu giving we humans a second chance as he dies - telling us that we must change our ways in order to survive, in a delivery that would rival Steven Segal's speech at the end of "On Deadly Ground."

No Gort!! No "Klaatu Barada Nikto"!! Uncapie Goes Postal On THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL Remake Script!!

[For those not familiar with AICN, that's the way they do their titles there. It's not a bad cut-and-paste job.]

Uncapie, the author of this article, notes one or two logic problems with the script. I have a more basic one - if humans are going to perish anyway, why go through so much trouble to save bits of the ecosystem? Any reasonably bright alien species ought to be able to figure out a way to do that surreptitiously. Heck, we cart away whole truckloads of our ecosystems every day. According to the story, they've had a spy on the planet for decades. Couldn't he come up with anything?

All this illogic, plus the basic illogic of doing a remake of such a fine film, not to mention the fact that Keanu Reeves has seldom managed to inspire me with his acting, lead me to the conclusion that this thing's going to suck big time.

Which gets us back to our original question: Where do they get these ideas from? There are plenty of good stories out there that are ready to be made into films. As Uncapie observes:

There are so many books out there just begging to be made into films, why does Fox have to remake a classic? Why not film Joe Haldeman's,"Forever Wars"? Or "Alfred Bester's "The Stars My Destination"? Or Arthur C. Clarke's "Rendezvous With Rama"? Or "Childhood's End"? Or the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson? Or quit stalling Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game" as a movie?

No Gort!! No "Klaatu Barada Nikto"!! Uncapie Goes Postal On THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL Remake Script!!

Of course, that's just what they could do based on recent science fiction books. How about a spin off from Babylon 5, Witchblade, or Strange Luck? (Hmmm. Looks like there might be a Witchblade movie, after all.) There have to be at least a half-dozen quality science fiction series that either had a bigger story than they ever got to tell, or had at least never had a satisfactory ending. The last Stargate movie made more sense than this thing, and it was about time travel!

Thankfully, it will be out on video soon, where it will no doubt provide a new generation inspiration for new drinking games.

W Is Batman? I Think Not.

Dana Hunter unleashes her Smack O'Matic ^TM on a particularly clueless wingnut who seems to think that George W. Bush is a real-life Batman:

Batman is villified and despised for being a dangerous, unknown quantity outside the law who also really fucks things up for the buggers getting rich off of other people's misery. Bush is villified because he's a raving fucktard who thinks he's entitled to do whatever he wants. Batman struggles with the morality of what he does and makes every attempt to put serious limits on his own actions. Bush uses other people's fear and uncertainty to grab as much power as he can, and you'd have to break his hands to pry it out of them. Batman ensures that the tools he has that could lead to people's rights being violated are used for uber-brief periods of time, in as limited a way as possible, and then immediately ensures their destruction, further adding a layer of security by placing the really noxious tools in the hands of a man guaranteed not to abuse them. Bush recognizes no limits in either time or scope, places the dangerous toys in the hands of completely evil fuckers, and uses every trick possible to permanently expand his toolbox. Is that enough, or should I go on?

Of Course He's Just Like Batman - In the Bizarro Universe

The wingnut in question is Wall Street Journal editorialist Andrew Klavan. The WSJ likes to have folks like Klavan writing editorials to counterbalance the reality that appears in the rest of their paper. He appears to be very good at his job, if this is any indication.

Watertiger has an intriguing response to Klavan's thesis.

What I found interesting about this is that once again we see wingnuts who can't see what is being said by the art they're viewing. It's always fascinated me that so many folks over at The National Review Online are big Star Trek fans. They clearly have no idea what the series was about.

Twenty years ago, A Fish Called Wanda put these guys in perspective in the scene where the ridiculously macho Otto and Wanda the con artist part ways:

Otto West: Apes don't read philosophy.

Wanda: Yes they do, Otto. They just don't understand it. Now let me correct you on a couple of things, OK? Aristotle was not Belgian. The central message of Buddhism is not "Every man for himself." And the London Underground is not a political movement. Those are all mistakes, Otto. I looked them up.

IMDB: A Fish Called Wanda Memorable Quotes

When you bother to look things up, you realize the confidence in their voices has nothing to do with them knowing what they're talking about. If anything, it's the opposite. I've learned to be deeply suspicious of people who are always sure of themselves. To me, it's the surest sign that they know nothing.

UPDATE: Fixed the sentence about the Star Trek fans, who as it turns out were at the NRO, not PM. Sorry for the mixup (no, not really). I also added the link I spent far too much time looking for.

Expelled: No Idiocy Allowed

[This is the graphic of Expelled Exposed, a website devoted to debunking the movie. Click on it to go there.]

Until a few days ago, I'd been blissfully unaware of a dreadful piece of fictional non-fiction called Exposed: No Intelligence Allowed. The subject of this catchy little title is a documentary film alleging that the academic world has excluded a plucky band of creationists from scientific discussions. They've done this, we are asked to believe, by firing them or not hiring them in the first place at our institutions of higher learning for no reason other than their beliefs.

To this, I have one thing to say, which is that this issue was discussed 150 years ago, and the outcome is where we are now. No one on the creationist side of the debate has added any real content to the debate since then. Dr. Micheal Shermer, a psychologist and the publisher of Skeptic magazine explains:

Intelligent Design Theory is not science. The proof is in the pudding – scientists, including scientists who are Christians, do not use IDT when they do science because the theory offers nothing in the way of testable hypotheses. Lee Anne Chaney, Professor of Biology at Whitworth College, a Christian institution, wrote in a 1995 article in Whitworth Today: “As a Christian, part of my belief system is that God is ultimately responsible. But as a biologist, I need to look at the evidence. Scientifically speaking, I don’t think intelligent design is very helpful because it does not provide things that are refutable—there is no way in the world you can show it’s not true. Drawing inferences about the deity does not seem to me to be the function of science because it’s very subjective.”

Intelligent-design theory lacks, for instance, a hypothesis of the mechanics of the design, something akin to natural selection in evolution. Natural selection can and has been observed and tested, and Charles Darwin’s theory has been refined.

ID theorists admit as much. At a 2002 conference on Intelligent Design, leading ID scholar William Dembski said: “Because of ID’s outstanding success at gaining a cultural hearing, the scientific research part of ID is now lagging behind.”

Not Intelligent, Surely Not Science

As if that weren't enough, the movie features a sequence in which Ben Stein, the movie's narrator, wanders around a Nazi concentration camp to the tune of John Lennon's "Imagine". It equates evolution with atheism, which it in turn equates with nazism, managing a triple play of offensive fallacy in the space of perhaps five minutes. I suspect Stein hasn't committed this many offenses against logic and human decency since his job as Richard Nixon's speech writer disappeared.

It scarcely seems possible, but the movie's producers' case has been further hampered by their behavior during the movie's pre-release publicity. At a sneak preview in Minneapolis, for which he was registered, biologist P.Z. Myers was excluded from attending. Richard Dawkins, one of the best known biologists on the planet, was apparently not recognized before he was allowed to enter. Dawkins takes up the tale:

Now, to the Good Friday Fiasco itself, Mathis' extraordinary and costly lapse of judgment. Just think about it. His entire film is devoted to the notion that American scientists are being hounded and expelled from their jobs because of opinions that they hold. The film works hard at pressing (no, belabouring with a sledgehammer) all the favourite hot buttons of free speech, freedom of thought, the right of dissent, the right to be heard, the right to discuss issues rather than suppress argument. These are the topics that the film sets out to raise, with particular reference to evolution and 'intelligent design' (wittily described by someone as creationism in a cheap tuxedo). In the course of this film, Mathis tricked a number of scientists, including PZ Myers and me, into taking prominent parts in the film, and both of us are handsomely thanked in the closing credits.

Seemingly oblivious to the irony, Mathis instructed some uniformed goon to evict Myers while he was standing in line with his family to enter the theatre, and threaten him with arrest if he didn't immediately leave the premises. Did it not occur to Mathis -- what would occur any normally polite and reasonable person -- that Myers, having played a leading role in the film, might have been welcomed as an honoured guest to watch it? Or, more cynically, did he not know that PZ is one of the country's most popular bloggers, with a notoriously caustic wit, perfectly placed to set the whole internet roaring with delighted and mocking laughter? I long ago realised that Mathis was deceitful. I didn't know he was a bungling incompetent.

Lying for Jesus?

Which I just suppose shows that you're never too old or well educated to learn something new. From exile across the street in an Apple store, Myers wrote this:

I'm still laughing though. You don't know how hilarious this is. Not only is it the extreme hypocrisy of being expelled from their Expelled movie, but there's another layer of amusement. Deep, belly laugh funny. Yeah, I'd be rolling around on the floor right now, if I weren't so dang dignified.

You see ... well, have you ever heard of a sabot? It's a kind of sleeve or lightweight carrier used to surround a piece of munition fired from a gun. It isn't the actually load intended to strike the target, but may even be discarded as it leaves the barrel.

I'm a kind of sabot right now.

They singled me out and evicted me, but they didn't notice my guest. They let him go in escorted by my wife and daughter. I guess they didn't recognize him. My guest was ...

Richard Dawkins.

He's in the theater right now, watching their movie.

Tell me, are you laughing as hard as I am?

EXPELLED!

[emphasis from original]

This story is confirmed by another witness, Kristine Harley:

The beefy cop patroling the audience at the screening of Ben Stein's Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed threw PZ Myers out of the theatre right in front of me!

For a second, Rev. Barky and I thought we'd be thrown out too just because we were talking to him. PZ Myers is interviewed in the film, but in order to see it, according to producer Mark Mathis, he'll have to fork over $10 on April 18.

Expelled From "Expelled"

In addition to displaying their lack of interest in real knowledge, the incident also points up just how difficult it is to engage creationists in an honest conversation. Here's what the movie's producer had to say afterward:

“It is amazing to see the reaction of PZ Myers, Richard Dawkins and their cohorts when one of them is simply expelled from a movie. Yet these men applaud when professors throughout the nation are fired from their jobs and permanently excluded from their profession for mentioning Intelligent Design,” said producer Mark Mathis. Mathis was at the event that has raised this controversy.

Mathis continued, “I hope PZ’s experience has helped him see the light. He is distraught because he could not see a movie."

EXPELLED Controversy Top Issue in Blogosphere

Read the Myers quote again. Does that strike you as "distraught"? He thought Mathis was an asshole, and an amusing one at that.

When they were interviewed for the film, Dawkins and others were lied to by the producers about what the show was about:

What? I didn't do any interviews for pro-creation films, and I certainly haven't said that "freedom of thought and freedom of inquiry" aren't part of the university. There must be some mistake.

But then I noticed in the credits for the movie that a certain familiar name is the associate producer, or ass-prod, as I'll henceforth consider him.

[graphic "assprod.gif" here]

Denyse O'Leary also ties Mathis of Rampant Films to this movie, and this page from Expelled uses the same graphic that Rampant Films used for Crossroads. The case is closed: Ben Stein's propaganda film for ID is the one I was interviewed for.

I'm gonna be a MOVIE STAR

Prof. Dawkins adds:

PZ and I had been tricked into participating in Crossroads without ever being told that the true purpose of the film was the one conveyed by the later title Expelled -- the alleged expulsion of creationists from universities. Mathis said that it was common practice for films under production to have working titles, which later change in the final version. That is indeed true. However, yet again, Mathis shows himself up as a willful deceiver.

Lying for Jesus?

Mathis claim was shown to be false by a commenter named Wesley R. Elsberry at a forum on creationism:

Genie Scott pointed out to me that I should check the date that they bought their domain name:

% whois expelledthemovie.com

  Domain Name: EXPELLEDTHEMOVIE.COM
  Registrar: TUCOWS INC.
  Whois Server: whois.tucows.com
  Referral URL: http://domainhelp.opensrs.net
  Name Server: NS1.FILMPR.COM
  Name Server: NS2.FILMPR.COM
  Status: ok
  Updated Date: 16-feb-2008
  Creation Date: 01-mar-2007
  Expiration Date: 01-mar-2009

February 28, 2007 is the very latest they could claim "working title" as an excuse for their ruse.

When did Scott, Dawkins, and Myers get interviewed? April, 2007 for Scott and summer, 2007 for Dawkins. Does someone have Myers' interview date handy? Was it before February 28th? I somehow doubt it.

Antievolution: The Critic's Resource - Topic: Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed., Sternberg, Gonzalez, Crocker - A film

According to his blog entry in August, 2007, PZ Meyers was contacted by Mathis by letter in April introducing himself as the prodducer of Crossroads: The Intersection of Science and Religion. Thus, he, too, was given the wrong name after the domain had been purchased.

To make matters worse, they've apparently used "Imagine" without permission.

What is so intellectually dishonest about creationism, you might ask? It's the fact that they really don't explain anything. Science is about posing explanations for how the universe works, and then testing those assumptions. Creationists don't bother with any of that. Amanda Gefter explains by describing her conversation with Mathis at a sneak preview (from which Mathis was sneaking away):

I said that the film spent a lot of time making the point that proponents of evolution can't explain how life arose from non-life, and asked how intelligent design explains it.

It doesn't, he acknowledged. "Then don't you think it's strange that you tried to pin that on the scientists?" I asked.

"Well, it's a real hole in their theory," he said.

"Actually, it's not - the theory of evolution never purported to touch on the issue of how life arose from non-life, it's about how species arose from other species."

I said that in science, criticising someone else's theory doesn't make your theory right, and that the film never bothers to say how intelligent design explains anything at all. He countered that intelligent design says there are things that are too complex to be explained by natural selection.

I asked how ID explains the complexity, but he said, "I don't have time for this," and walked away.

Are ID proponents being silenced?

In short, Mathis' claim is like saying that there's a hole in the classical physics laws of force, momentum, and speed because they don't predict chemical reactions.

The fact is, these folks have nothing to say worth listening to. Once you get past the vitriol, slight of hand, and the victimization, that becomes abundantly clear. If there's anything that this piece of celluloid tripe will add to this debate, it is a clear example of just how true that is.

UPDATE (Apr. 21): I should have mentioned that if you want to see more examples of the mendacity of the producers of this movie, read Kristine's roundup and click on the links. She's also linked to several reviews, none positive as far as I can see.

Arthur C. Clarke

Image credit: Clarke Foundation


The man whose writing introduced me to science fiction died on Tuesay. Arthur C. Clarke, who movie fans best know as the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and 2010: The Year We Make Contact, died of what the Wikipedia entry terms "breathing problems". CinemaBlend writes:

Arthur C. Clarke died on Wednesday at the age of 90. He had left instructions that no rites of any faith should be performed at his funeral, which will take place on Saturday in Sri Lanka. He will be buried at Colombo’s general cemetery.

Arthur C Clarke Dead At The Age Of 90

This isn't surprising. He's listed in the Celebrity Atheists list as of "ambiguous" beliefs, but in this interview in a Sri Lankan newspaper, he makes the case that he was an atheist:

Does Sir Arthur think much about death? ``When I was last in New York I met Woody Allen and I agree with him: `I'm not frightened of death. I just don't want to be there when it happens.' When I joined the RAF they put me down as C of E. I got hold of the man handling the paperwork and made them change it to `pantheist'. Now I say I'm a crypto-Buddhist, but I'm anti-mysticism and I have a long-standing bias against organised religion. I don't believe in God or an afterlife.''

Exclusive interview with Arthur C. Clarke: Life beyond 2001

Whatever his beliefs, clearly mysticism and nonsense weren't among them.

My first brush with Clarke's work was Tales From The White Hart, a collection of short stories supposedly told at a pub frequented by scientists. Clarke had a powerful imagination and an equally powerful grasp of science - his stories about alien encounters, including 2001, are still among the most imaginative and plausible. He also was among the first to imagine things like geosynchronous satellites and a "space guard" that would watch for asteroids on course for the earth.

The story of first contact that I found to be one of the most memorable was Clarke's "Encounter At Down", where an alien survey crew encounters primitive humans, but has to abandon them in order to return to their own world, which is in crisis. "If I Forget Thee, O Earth", featured in one of my high school English classes, involved a rite of passage for a young man on the Moon. His father takes him outside the habitat to show him the Earth, which has been ruined in apocalyptic war. While the characters weren't as deep as those of some modern science fiction writers, they were much more than cardboard cutouts. CinemaBlend observes:

The best sci fi stories are those that do not worry about a setting. Sci fi lives and breathes in its characters, and Clarke never lost sight of that. And while the tale was being told he also took the time to create a world that was based on a skewed version of our reality. In that way he inspired many young kids to dream of what could be, and there are more than a handful of adult scientists who are currently putting to work the dreams of a novelist. Not that Clarke was required for NASA to look at a possible moon base, but it didn’t hurt for one man to dream and imagine.

Arthur C Clarke Dead At The Age Of 90

Clarke wrote some of the most interesting stories I read as a young man, and now the world seems a little emptier knowing there won't be any more.

For those interested, researching this article has turned up some interesting sites related to Arthur Clarke. They include:

The Arthur C. Clarke fansite, which discusses many of his stories and novels.

CNet's Remembering Arthur C. Clarke, a collection of photos of Clarke and related subjects.

A BBC article on many of the things Clarke imagined in his novel.

And, of course, the Wikipedia entry.

More Bad SciFi

Fans of science fiction, particularly real science fiction, aren't likely to be impressed with the latest offering from Roland Emmerich:

For the wackiest portrayal of the Stone Age since The Flintstones, we have no hesitation in recommending 10,000 BC, an adventure that starts in an icy Pleistocene village and ends in a vast desert where an Egyptian civilization has magically taken form.

Windsor Star Review: 10,000 BC

Anyone who's seen the trailers for this thing shouldn't be surprised at the observations of the more thoughtful movie critics. Here's another one:

The new Roland Emmerich movie "10,000 B.C." can be recommended to those who have (1) never seen Mel Gibson's vastly superior "Apocalypto"; (2) never seen the matchless "Lord of the Rings" pictures; or (3) never seen a movie before in their lives. To call the film derivative would be to over-praise it. Much of the story and several key sequences - especially one set in a huge pyramid city swarming with slaves - are ripped straight out of the Gibson movie, while the stampeding mastodons and snowy New Zealand mountaintop panoramas (along with some sub-Howard Shore soundtrack symphonizing) will surely stir feelings of familiarity among Frodophiles.

'10,000 B.C.': Time Bomb, By Kurt Loder

Yes, I thought I'd seen that somewhere before - like on The Flintstones. Emmerich, as you may recall, was responsible for the stupid, but amusing, Independence Day. My guess is that this one will be just as stupid, but far less amusing:

Still, there are nanoseconds of accidental poetry, like the visible tear stains on Evolet's resting face. But then comes a moment of Mesolithic silliness, like a "Braveheart"-ish speech by D'Leh to his men, or a reference to snow as "white rain" or Omar Sharif's narration. And the less said about historical accuracy, the better.

'10,000 B.C.' quest for early flair is just too Neanderthal

Independence Day at least featured skilled and accomplished actors like Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum. Not so with this turkey:

While the plot might look good on paper, it falls flat on screen and turns out to be just another run-of-the-mill hero story. The end result was made worse by weak acting and poor dialogue across the board.

Watching [Steven] Strait is uninteresting and uninspiring; he may have the look of a hero, but lacks the emotions and speech.

Prehistoric epic gets trampled

Another critic observes:

While the CGI induces laughter and a little bit of confusion, purposeful attempts at humor fall flat. The dialogue, besides being trite, is randomly dotted with absurd guttural noises presumably aimed at mimicking the era’s speech. Especially insufferable is the young Baku, the bumbling comedic relief, whose antics fail to prompt anything but embarrassment and the odd awkward chuckle.

Despite Visuals, "10,000 B.C." Is An Epic Disappointment

I haven't seen this film, nor will I do so without being paid handsomely (very unlikely), or being threatened with bodily harm. The only reason I'm writing about this thing is that it just represents another example of Hollywood's attitude toward the genre. These days, if you want to see good science fiction, you should turn on your TV.

It's hard to remember the last film I saw that could genuinely be called "science fiction". I think it was Contact. It definitely was a long time ago. Ten thousand years ago, agricultural societies were just getting started. The old world of hunter-gathering humans was changing into the world we live in now. Considering how interesting and dangerous those times actually were, you'd think that someone could write an interesting tale about them that was featured a passably accurate setting. Instead, we're treated to colossally expensive tripe like this.