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| Address URL | http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/ Registered: 31-Mar-2008 |
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Send to email | Jenna Jameson outstrips Ben Stein in Culture Wars | By Thoughts el 18-Apr-2008 | Here's the New York Times on porn actress/producer Jenna Jameson's new movie, Zombie Strippers:
Strewn with some surprisingly decent effects, this unevenly paced film delivers, if nothing else, on the promise of its title: lots of surgically enhanced nude dead women strutting their stuff. …
Though not nearly as clever as it aims to be, the film at least tries. In addition to drawing inspiration from Eugène Ionesco’s ever-relevant absurdist play “Rhinoceros,” it’s full of jabs at the Bush administration and philosophy references — for starters, Jenna Jameson, as the first stripper to succumb to zombification, reads and quotes Nietzsche.
But all intellectual touches remain secondary to the catfights and carnage of Ms. Jameson and her leggy colleagues, clearly the main attraction here. Meanwhile, Stein's schlock-fest Expelled gets this review:
One of the sleaziest documentaries to arrive in a very long time, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” is a conspiracy-theory rant masquerading as investigative inquiry.
…the film relies extensively on the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy — after this, therefore because of this…
Prominent evolutionary biologists, like the author and Oxford professor Richard Dawkins — accurately identified on screen as an “atheist” — are provided solely to construct, in cleverly edited slices, an inevitable connection between Darwinism and godlessness. Blithely ignoring the vital distinction between social and scientific Darwinism, the film links evolution theory to fascism (as well as abortion, euthanasia and eugenics), shamelessly invoking the Holocaust with black-and-white film of Nazi gas chambers and mass graves.
Every few minutes familiar — and ideologically unrelated — images interrupt the talking heads: … This is not argument, it’s circus, a distraction from the film’s contempt for precision and intellectual rigor. This goes further than a willful misunderstanding of the scientific method. …
Mixing physical apples and metaphysical oranges at every turn “Expelled” is an unprincipled propaganda piece that insults believers and nonbelievers alike. In its fudging, eliding and refusal to define terms, the movie proves that the only expulsion here is of reason itself. Now, both movies managed to get the words "intellectual" and "clever" into their reviews, an impressive feat on both counts. The thing is, having your editing described as "clever" is hardly a compliment. SImilarly, "contempt for … intellectual rigor" is not in the same ballpark as the "intellectual touches" in Zombie Strippers.
Something tells me this would make a fun double feature, even if you didn't go to see Expelled. Read the comments on this post...
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 | Thoughts From Kansas | Blogger | Weblog of a University of Kansas ecology and evolutionary biology student, fighting for progressive politics, evolution, and endangered species. Thoughts from Kansas You will notice that it lacks definiteness; that it lacks purpose; that it lacks coherence; that it lacks a subject to talk about; that it is loose and wabbly; that it wanders around; that |
| Jenna Jameson outstrips Ben Stein | | Here's the New York Times on porn actress/producer Jenna Jameson's new movie, Zombie Strippers:
Strewn with some surprisingly decent effects, this unevenly paced film delivers, if nothing else, on the promise of its title: lots of surgically enhanced nude dead women strutting their stuff. …
Though not nearly as clever as it aims to be, the film at least tries. [..] Read complete article |  | Published 18-Apr-2008 by Thoughts in Culture Wars Read 5 times. More hits in  |
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 | Thoughts From Kansas | Blogger | Weblog of a University of Kansas ecology and evolutionary biology student, fighting for progressive politics, evolution, and endangered species. Thoughts from Kansas You will notice that it lacks definiteness; that it lacks purpose; that it lacks coherence; that it lacks a subject to talk about; that it is loose and wabbly; that it wanders around; that |
| Ben Stein: Still a rat-bastard | | As Ben Stein's egregiously bad Expelled opens in Canada, the Canadian press is getting a taste of the offensive bile Stein unleashed in his US media tour. Peter McKnight, of the Vancouver Sun, asked Stein about the ADL's condemnation of his movie:
Nowhere does Stein mention the centuries of anti-Semitism before Darwin -- in fact, Expelled all but ignores anti-Semitis [..] Read complete article |  | Published 24-Jun-2008 by Thoughts in Creationism Read 2 times. More hits in  |
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 | Thoughts From Kansas | Blogger | Weblog of a University of Kansas ecology and evolutionary biology student, fighting for progressive politics, evolution, and endangered species. Thoughts from Kansas You will notice that it lacks definiteness; that it lacks purpose; that it lacks coherence; that it lacks a subject to talk about; that it is loose and wabbly; that it wanders around; that |
| Ben Stein is at it again | | Not content with mangling basic science and history, MediaMatters points out that Stein is misrepresenting Barack Obama's tax plan:
On Fox & Friends, Ben Stein misrepresented Sen. Barack Obama's tax plan to raise the capital gains tax rate on the wealthiest earners, stating: "[P]eople that have incomes in the five digits ... that's crazy to increase their capital gains tax [..] Read complete article |  | Published 12-Jun-2008 by Thoughts in Policy and Politics Read 4 times. More hits in  |
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 | Thoughts From Kansas | Blogger | Weblog of a University of Kansas ecology and evolutionary biology student, fighting for progressive politics, evolution, and endangered species. Thoughts from Kansas You will notice that it lacks definiteness; that it lacks purpose; that it lacks coherence; that it lacks a subject to talk about; that it is loose and wabbly; that it wanders around; that |
 | Thoughts From Kansas | Blogger | Weblog of a University of Kansas ecology and evolutionary biology student, fighting for progressive politics, evolution, and endangered species. Thoughts from Kansas You will notice that it lacks definiteness; that it lacks purpose; that it lacks coherence; that it lacks a subject to talk about; that it is loose and wabbly; that it wanders around; that |
 | Kotaku`s The Gamers Guide | Blogger | XBOX 360 Gamers Weblog
Gossip, news and leaks for obsessive gamers Kotaku As if you don't waste enough of your time in a gamer's haze, here's Kotaku: a gamer's guide that goes beyond the press release. Gossip, cheats, criticism, design, nostalgia, pred |
 | Thoughts From Kansas | Blogger | Weblog of a University of Kansas ecology and evolutionary biology student, fighting for progressive politics, evolution, and endangered species. Thoughts from Kansas You will notice that it lacks definiteness; that it lacks purpose; that it lacks coherence; that it lacks a subject to talk about; that it is loose and wabbly; that it wanders around; that |
| Happy Earth Day | I'm still digging out of the post-Expelled craziness. Our video about Chris Comer has gotten more views than the Expelled trailer on Youtube or the rapping Dawkins video, and traffic keeps streaming in to ExpelledExposed.com.
If you haven't done so already, there's still time to locate a stupid statement by Ben Stein (from anywhere, not the movie) and refute it as part of NCSE [..] Read complete article |  | Published 22-Apr-2008 by Thoughts in Creationism Read 5 times. More hits in  |
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 | Thoughts From Kansas | Blogger | Weblog of a University of Kansas ecology and evolutionary biology student, fighting for progressive politics, evolution, and endangered species. Thoughts from Kansas You will notice that it lacks definiteness; that it lacks purpose; that it lacks coherence; that it lacks a subject to talk about; that it is loose and wabbly; that it wanders around; that |
| ADL decries Ben Stein's Holocaust rhetoric | | It's not just the science groups who are upset with Expelled's misuse of the Holocaust for petty political advantage. The venerable Anti-Defamation League says that the anti-evolution film misappropriates the Holocaust:
New York, NY, April 29, 2008 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today issued the following statement regarding the controversial film Expelled: No Intel [..] Read complete article |  | Published 29-Apr-2008 by Thoughts in Culture Wars Read 0 times. More hits in  |
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