Ben Stein Shows He's No Michael Moore

[NoodleyAppendage]

Source: Deadline Hollywood Daily

"The only other newcomer in the Top 10 was conservative commentator Ben Stein's #8 documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed which makes the intelligent design argument. Playing in 1,052 theaters, the pic distributed by Rocky Mountain Pictures earned $1.2M Friday for what should be a $3.4M weekend. But the per screen average for Friday was a feeble $1,130 (that $3,000 ballyhooed on the Internet would be for the entire weekend), showing there wasn't any pent-up demand for the film despite an aggressive publicity campaign. So much for the conservative argument that people would flock to films not representing the "agenda of liberal Hollywood". (Just for comparison purposes: Michael Moore's most recent Sicko did $4.4 mil its opening weekend from only 441 theaters, and his Fahrenheit 9/11 did $23.9M its opening weekend from 868 venues.)"

Read more: http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/jet-and-jackie-nudge-out-judd-on-friday/

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Disappointing that a Rightwinger propaganda flick extolling the virtues of the "soft science" behind Intelligent Design bullsh*t didn't do better. :)

J

[msongs]

1. they were hoping to emulate the S&M splatter film about the jeus character nt

[muryan]

15. hahaha

terrible but hilarious

[ColbertWatcher]

2. Problem is...

...they've already shown it to everyone they wanted to.

At church.

For free.

Please check out this thread about "stupidity offsets"

[Hissyspit]

3. I imagine a good percentage were going to see how stupid it was.

[Ian David]

6. That's when you pay for a ticket to Nym's Island and sneak in to Ben Stein's movie. n/t

[ColbertWatcher]

7. The Cdesign Proponentsists are going after...

...the very small percentage of people who wouldn't know science if it bit them on the ass, gave them an infection, then killed the infection with antibiotics.

[Ian David]

9. Even Christianity Today gave it a crappy review. n/t

[ColbertWatcher]

18. LOL!

Do you have a link?

[mwb970]

20. Here is a link to the review in Christianity Today.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/reviews/2008/expelled.html

[bahrbearian]

4. Maybe if they didn't purge the audience they could have sold 2 more tickets.

"No soup for you, Next."

[Ian David]

5. The good news is, they wasted plenty of money advertising on The Thom Hartman Show.

I guess Thom wins Ben Stein's Money?

[ColbertWatcher]

8. They were advertising on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, too...

...but that benefits the network.

[muntrv]

10. Reich wingers are just not entertaining.

[Infinite Hope]

11. Interesting tidbit: Ben Stein endorsed Al Franken for U.S. Senate from Minnesota (against Coleman)

n/t

[harmonicon]

13. interesting

While the man is a bit of a right wing fruitcake, I guess he's not all dumb. He is an economist, and even a conservative economist must have been able to see how that could help business in MN. Or maybe he just likes Al Franken.... were they ever in a movie together?

[judasdisney]

19. Both Jewish supporters of Likud n/t

[harmonicon]

24. seriously?

That scares the crap out of me. Now, I'm not sure if I like Al Franken.... at least as a candidate for senate.

[Infinite Hope]

22. He said they were friends for many years...n/t

[bunkerbuster1]

29. Holy crow, you're right.

Didn't know that.

Well, that's one guy I won't be battering and deep-fat-frying after all. Guess he's not all bad.

Story link for the curious:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,303383,00.html

[DeSwiss]

12. When its all said and done...

...these are the most memorable words Ben Stein ever uttered:


"Bueller....Bueller....Bueller...."


- K&R


on edit: spelling

[WCGreen]

14. NO one is going to go see this flick...

Because you can't smoke pot in the Theater any more.

This was the kind of movie that would open for The Rocky Horror Picture Show or Woodstock back in the glory days of midnight movies.

Then everyone would take it on face value; snicks and giggles.

I do hope they stop putting this fellow on the political panels. He just displayed, for all to see, either his soaring ignorance or his blatant cynicism or worse, both.

[and-justice-for-all]

16. You could not pay me to watch this crap..nt

[LTR]

17. How the hell did this get in so many theaters?

1,052 is a pretty big number for a documentary, particularly since this eclipses the number of screens that a proven box office draw like Michael Moore got for his films.

Must be a bunch of RW theater owners who think people will go and see anything that's playing in a theater, even some lame-ass flick by Nixon's former speechwriter that denounces evolution. Or perhaps the theater was filled with couples having sex, drug fiends shooting up or people hiding from police. In other words, the ones who didn't want to be noticed.

I tried looking on Box Office Mojo for returns on the other documentary released this weekend, "Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?" It was also released on Friday, and I have yet to find anything about it on the site.

http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=whereintheworldisosamabinladen.htm

ON EDIT: Looks like it was released on only 102 screens so far.

[NoodleyAppendage]

27. Power of Corporate Media Manipulation to Passify the Xtian Fundy Moviegoers

I suspect many of the theaters are located in the South. I wouldn't be surprised if the theater placement tracks along the Bible Belt.

What this proves is the lack of general attention and intelligence in the Xtian community. They are more interested in seeing violent S&M Jesus porn (aka. Passion of Christ) than anything marginally intellectual (though flawed).

Lack of curiosity and critical thinking = Xtian

J

[The Wizard]

21. Looks like Ben

is getting in line with Josef Liebermann to have his foreskin reattached.

[roseBudd]

23. Is Stein jewish?

I haven't seen any jewish creationist propaganda. Anyone know the stance on literal truth of Adam and Eve in jewish belief?

My personal favorite BS in the bible is Jonah and the Whale. As if.

[harmonicon]

25. noway, dude - that part is totally real

I have this cousin whose best-friend-in-highschool's older sister went out with this guy who worked at this pizza place, and this guy that he worked with had like an uncle or a grandfather or something in Italy, and he knew a guy that basically the same thing had happened to.

[slampoet]

30. If he is jewish you'd think he'd have more brains that to open PASSOVER WEEKEND

[nichomachus]

26. I never, ever understood the fascination with Stein

I've never found him funny or interesting in any way. I always wondered why he was on TV. Nothing would make me reach for the remote faster than having his face show up on the screen -- except, of course, for Monkey Boy Bush.

[onager]

28. Ditto. And Ben Whine has been playing this "conspiracy " card...

...since the late 1970's, when he first came to Hollywood and discovered the existence of liberals. Before that, I think he spent years unsuccessfully searching for them in Spiro Agnew's underwear. Back when he worked for Nixon.

Way back in '79 or '80, Stein cranked out a quickie book about the "conspiracy" of the movie industry to silence conservatives. It was just gutted by all reviewers slightly to the left of Josef Goebbels.

After that, he continued to write occasional articles sniping at the movie industry, while expressing amazement that nobody wanted to hire a back-biting, two-faced sleazy little cryto-Fascist gossipmonger to write their movie scripts.

His magnum opus was the TV mini-series Amerika, which he doesn't talk about much. And no wonder. If you want to enjoy Amerika, with its jaw-dropping story line about American schoolteachers plotting with the UN in a Russian takeover of the US, you'll have to dig out your VHS player.

Yes, it sucks so bad, nobody will even pay for a transfer to DVD.

:rofl:

AFAIK, the only Stein book to make it to the big screen was his awful anti-Los Angeles screed 'Ludes. But the producers hired a real writer to adapt the book into a script--Darryl Ponicsan.

ROFL again...