Smoke
Done here.
If anyone is still interested in Expelled, there's some interesting information here.
I wrote a review of Expelled on this site in December. The producers inadvertently invited us to a screening of it. As I said at the time, they were kind enough to invite me, so I feel bad about disliking it so much.
They disliked my review. So much that they now ask people who watch the film to sign nondisclosure agreements before they see it. (Expelled won't be officially released until April.) So much, that they put 72 links of commentary on their website, but omit my review, the only one of the 72 who had actually seen the movie. I am crushed, I tell you. Crushed.
Roger Moore, a reviewer for the Orlando Sentinel was also inadvertently invited to a screening, where he refused to sign one of these nondisclosure agreements, bless his heart. You can read what Moore thought of the movie here.
I thought the Expelled crowd was done with me, but lo! I received an email invitation to a telephone press conference with Stein and the producers in late January.
Now if Expelled can be said to have a theme, it is that all sorts of ideas should be batted around the ballfield of science and theology, that there should be freedom of expression. I was jazzed. I'd get to ask my questions. It would be American intellectual combat at its most naked. As producer Walt Ruloff put it:
But there are limits. Let's face it. We all have them. Freedom of expression is unseemly at an Expelled press conference. There was no give-and-take, no open marketplace of ideas, in fact, scarcely any questions at all. Ruloff and Stein batted one softball after another out of the park from those posed by Paul Lauer, a representative of the film's public relations firm. Questions from non-employees had to be submitted by email. Lauer (or somebody at his firm) screened them.
They disliked my review. So much that they now ask people who watch the film to sign nondisclosure agreements before they see it. (Expelled won't be officially released until April.) So much, that they put 72 links of commentary on their website, but omit my review, the only one of the 72 who had actually seen the movie. I am crushed, I tell you. Crushed.
Roger Moore, a reviewer for the Orlando Sentinel was also inadvertently invited to a screening, where he refused to sign one of these nondisclosure agreements, bless his heart. You can read what Moore thought of the movie here.
I thought the Expelled crowd was done with me, but lo! I received an email invitation to a telephone press conference with Stein and the producers in late January.
Now if Expelled can be said to have a theme, it is that all sorts of ideas should be batted around the ballfield of science and theology, that there should be freedom of expression. I was jazzed. I'd get to ask my questions. It would be American intellectual combat at its most naked. As producer Walt Ruloff put it:
"What we're really asking for is freedom of speech, and allowing science, and students, people in applied or theoretical research to have the freedom to go where they need to go and ask the questions."
This makes it ironic, at least, that they expected the Orlando Sentinel to sign a nondisclosure agreement.But there are limits. Let's face it. We all have them. Freedom of expression is unseemly at an Expelled press conference. There was no give-and-take, no open marketplace of ideas, in fact, scarcely any questions at all. Ruloff and Stein batted one softball after another out of the park from those posed by Paul Lauer, a representative of the film's public relations firm. Questions from non-employees had to be submitted by email. Lauer (or somebody at his firm) screened them.
