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Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed | 
 enlarge | Director: Nathan Frankowski
Actors: Ben Stein, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Sternberg, Mark Souder
Studio: Premise
Category: DVD
List Price: $26.99
Buy New: $14.00
You Save: $12.99 (48%)
New (49) Used (14) Collectible (1) from $12.93
Rating:  466 reviews
Sales Rank: 198
Format: Color, Dvd-video, Widescreen, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 95
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: MCMDPM0492D
UPC: 883476004921
EAN: 0883476004921
ASIN: B001BYLFFS
Theatrical Release Date: 2008
Release Date: October 21, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Ben stein travels the world & learns an awe-inspiring truth .. That educators & scientists are being ridiculed denied tenure & even fired - for the crime of merely believing that there might be evindence of design in nature & that perhaps life is not just the result of chance. To which ben says enough!. Studio: Uni Dist Corp (music) Release Date: 10/21/2008 Starring: Ben Stein Run time: 90 minutes Rating: Pg
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| Customer Reviews: Read 461 more reviews...
 Excelled September 18, 2008
418 out of 523 found this review helpful
Now that the DVD is out, how does it differ from the film version? Even though Vivendi/ Premise won the lawsuit that Yoko Ono filed against the film for using ten seconds of John Lennon's "Imagine", the reference has been cut out of the video. I greatly respected Yoko as a performance artist and had the original records of Two Virgins and Plastic Ono Band. How very sad if a great modern artist's only interest now is gathering greenbacks. More on this in Steve Turner's excellent and revealing The Gospel According to the Beatles, which is full of absolutely unknown Beatlemania.
If anyone actually watched Expelled, they'd see that it's not "thinly disguised creationism" but rather about the freedom to challenge entrenched views. Certain sectors are always taking the church to task for supposedly limiting Galileo's freedom of inquiry and speech (in a vastly distorted account of what actually happened). Hello! Exactly the same thing is happening now, although they seem rather more silent when the shoe is on the other foot. Ben Stein is merely trying to restore the freedoms of speech and inquiry guaranteed in the US constitution to the realm of academia and the hugely controlled "Big Science" of public science foundations and those funded by philanthropic grants, including the Smithsonian Institute, National academy of Science, and the National Science Foundation.
After seeing Expelled in a theater, I wrote a long review of it elsewhere on the web. Now I see it's sparked a rather lively debate among reviewers. Actually, among those who, by their own admission, haven't seen it. One reviewer asks why people are voting against his review (which is against the film). Probably for the same reason people are voting against my review of Dawkins' book: not because the review is "not helpful" but as a way of voting for or against the book or film, as it were.
Having said that, it's probably as impossible to be neutral about this film as about Michael Moore's Farenheit 911 or an Oliver Stone fictionmentary. In my view, however, it's a fine piece of film making. Witty, irreverent, inventive, thoughtful, and Ben Stein is at his likeable, deadpan best. A friend I watched it with said just the opening titles were better than most films he'd seen recently, and I'm inclined to agree. If this film had had the opposite message, I think it would be getting an Academy Award and the New York Times wouldn't stop raving about it (instead of at it).
That's all well and good, one may be saying, but you haven't said anything about the subject. No, and I'd really rather not. If you hold a view generally called these days "Neo-Darwinism" you probably still will after seeing the film. If you incline to an idea called "Intelligent Design", you'll still incline so. If you're interested in battles between factions of the Academy in universities, however, or in free speech and press versus censorship (and this would likely be the topic of many reviews if this film had a different viewpoint), here's an engaging look at the salvos flying back and forth in a social and intellectual debate that much of the media have to date declined to cover.
One interesting thing came out of this film, and that was a test case for "fair use" in relation to copyright laws, an idea everybody knows about, but which seems generally undefined. It concerned Yoko's suing Ben Stein and the producers for using a snippet of John Lennon's song "Imagine". Hasn't everyone and their dog used that song? Yes, but here it wasn't used to sell tennis shoes, but to be considered critically. Again, if the film had the opposite viewpoint, I don't think there would have been a suit, but the outcome was to define "fair use" in its original intent, so that common Joes and Janes don't have to fear cadres of corporate lawyers merely for referring to copyrighted songs, books, films and other materials.
As the film shows, the use of Darwin's ideas to support Nazi ideology and eugenics was almost universal during and following the Victorian era, and was generally known as "social Darwinism". One may argue that these were actually Huxley's ideas, or that Darwin borrowed heavily from Alfred Wallace, but whatever their pedigree, they were pressed into service nearly at once. G.K. Chesterton wrote tirelessly against the Nazis as they were beginning to come to power, attempting to expose their plan of eugenics. In reference to another reviewer, I have read Mein Kampf (sp.) also, and Hitler's plan was entirely based on "social Darwinism". So were the ideas of Margaret Sanger and numerous other crusaders for what was known as "scientific planning". Numerous authors have pointed out the racist motivations behind the Royal Society in Britain and the ages of Victorian and Edwardian exploration, in which races were contrasted in elaborate displays during the world expositions and fairs.
This was also the motivation in the Soviet Union, which forced a famine in order to coerce farmers onto state cooperatives. When Malcolm Muggeridge exposed this plan in the 'thirties, in Chronicles of Wasted Time he was widely denounced by Soviet supporters in the media who wanted this experiment in social planning to succeed. Among these were the Fabian Socialists, Sydney and Beatrice Webb. But Beatrice Webb wrote in her diary in 1933: "(There was) another account of the famine in Russia in the Manchester Guardian (a British newspaper), which certainly bears out Malcolm's reports....Fortunately for the USSR, the attention of the capitalist countries is today concentrated on the Mad Dog of Europe-- Hitler's Germany."
This film may induce a sense of vertigo, being chocabloc full of information and history barely referenced in the media. The effect may be akin to sailing in a calm sea, only to find one has unaccountably hit an iceberg. Or rather the tip of an iceberg, and the film may spark curious viewers to explore the vast reaches submerged below.
Extras on the DVD include: a trailer for Fossil Hunter, a novel by John Olson with a "female Indiana Jones"; An Important Message from Ben Stein (in favor of free speech and inquiry); an advance notice for Expelled: The Book by David Berlinski, not yet released as of this writing; "Practical Applications", called on the DVD cover: "Using Intelligent Design for Medical Research" noting breakthroughs resulting from assuming an engineered, rather than a random process; Theatrical Trailer (Called: "Theatrical Super Trailer" on the cover); Bonus music tracks by Andy Hunter: "Stars", "Technicolour", "Out of Control". Related links include: Expelledthemovie.com and AcademicFreedomDay.com.
Expelled is written for a popular audience, and those with more interest or background may wish for more discussion of science. That comes in an interview with David Berlinski, author of A Tour of the Calculus and many other books, on a DVD called "The Incorrigible Dr. Berlinski". It's from Coldwater Media, the creators of Icons of Evolution, and may later have a general release. For now, it's available from intelligentdesign.org.
Wow how about a real review August 18, 2008
214 out of 275 found this review helpful
I wholeheartedly recommend this movie. I saw it because several people I know who always claim to be open minded and thoughtful totally bashed it.
I had to see it then... Seeing all these reviews which appear to be nothing but second grader rants totally supports my theory that whenever anyone does anything of consequence the "authorities" start acting like children having a tantrum or run away and cover their eyes, ears and mouth.
Just for doing the movie in this hostile environment it gets five stars from me.
If for no other reason you should watch this movie for the interview with the author of "The Blind Watchmaker."
Mr. Stein simply asks questions and the answers are precious, sad, but precious.
I loved the interview because it exemplifies the argument Stein is making through the whole movie. Stein does not hit you over the head with it either--he lets you see it for yourself.
The movie presents the fundamental argument: That Scientists should be open to follow the evidence where ever it leads however uncomfortable. He also presents a powerful information concerning what can happen to individual human rights when those in power pick up on a novel idea and run with it...
Stein shows, throughout the movie, science is impotent when scientists try to force a belief system paradigm into their thinking. The paradigm or "wall" of interest is that there is no place for religion in science therefore there can be no creator and no means to understand the origins of life other than through random happenstance (but apparently its OK to consider "little green men.")
Clarified by this movie and the rantings (I mean reviews), people don't like to question what their teachers and TV told them ad nausea all their lives. It is uncomfortable and it takes intestinal fortitude many folks simply lack and would rather just be with the safe crowd and make them selves feel better by suckling on the teat of rage; scream down Mr. Stein, "liar liar liar..."
The movie supplies evidence origins of life cannot be explained by random events and Darwinism as it is understood even today, can be deadly for the citizenry from those in power who wield science like a bat. You may be thinking we are older wiser now, but then there is Al Gore...
Science is supposed to be the continued practice of ever increasing knowledge and debate without prejudice. Stein shows in interview after interview with the self proclaimed "open minded" there is little else but close minded prejudice within the halls of many academic institutions where Darwin and neo-Darwinism is concerned.
To them, the "debate is over."
If you've taken any time to read some of the movie reviews you can see this self evident arrogant antagonism unleashed.
It is very surprising to see the interviews with several prominent academics dismiss without consideration ideas which confront this belief system; so called scientists and academics reduced to name calling.
Its just sad.
What is sadder still is watching one of them later talk about experiments to determine if there is a "blueprint" in DNA... Just think on that one for a moment.
Stein walks you through several illustrative events; personal experiences of scientists--real scientists who are and have been studying Biology and Microbiology. And as a result of relatively modest ideas: Like the novel idea that life did not randomly start on this planet. That the complexity we see in a single cell cannot be explained by random mutations...
The result of these statements or proposals gets these men and women "let go" or ridiculed or not given tenure, treated like many of the persons reviewing this movie treat the movie. Not with arguments, not with facts but simply calling Ben Stein a liar then lying themselves.
Stein walks us through what the Darwinist ideology brought through the power of the state. About 30 US states and their effort to rid us of the undesirable species. About Margret Sanger and Planned Parenthood and of course we learn about Germany and its efforts for the "Arian" race and of course where those ideas came from.
I was very disturbed by the discussion about the US governments efforts to sterilize folks. Some of these folks are alive today-just disturbing.
Then Stein takes you to a real museum in Germany (it exists today and is not a lie) which shows what happens when you follow the thinking thread of "survival of the fittest" and meld that with unyielding belief in an ideology.
Surprisingly, the most disturbing, shameful and deadly behaviors were not from those evil Christians...
Negative Reviews Prove Stein's Points August 17, 2008
182 out of 244 found this review helpful
The negative reviews of this DVD prove the point of the film contained therein. Scientists, professors, and periodical editors find the concept of Intelligent Design so outrageous that instead of attempting to comprehend it or have an open mind in any way they simply smear the supporters, belittle them, fire them, drag them into court, etc.
Both creationism and evolution require faith. The first requires faith in an all-powerful, all-knowing, miracle-working God. The second requires faith that, without such a God, chance or accident can combined chemicals in a random, incalculable way and formed everything we see today. No one was around when one or the other happened, but for some reason; perhaps because it means there is no master to answer to, the godless theory is the superior one.
If you have eyes to see and ears to hear this movie is for you. If you can only see and/or hear what you agree with, then this film is to be shunned and avoided.
EXPELLED is "some movie." Don't miss it! October 23, 2008
40 out of 52 found this review helpful
If "Big Science" is truly science it should be big enough to withstand being questioned. Science is a body of knowledge or a system of knowledge concerned with phenomena that can be measured, studied, analyzed, and questioned. It is a pursuit of knowledge. It is problem solving. It is the collection of data. Anything that is truly a scientific hypothesis can be questioned. A scientific theory is a statement that has been proved; it is not a figment of someone's imagination.
Darwin developed his hypothesis (which everybody now refers to as a theory) of evolution 150 years ago. Since then scientists have learned about some things Darwin didn't know about, for example, DNA, microbiology, The Big Bang, and Eisnstein's theory of relativity. Many scientists -- more and more all the time -- are exmining Darwin's simple idea that life is the result of a random and purposeless event. There is more to the universe than Darwin every knew. Actually Darwin stated ideas that contradicted each other.
EXPELLED is a factual account of the way that some people in the scientific community have rejected the idea of Intelligent Design and anyone who has questioned Darwin. To hold tight to old ideas is a simplistic approach denying intelligent people the opportunity to reason.
Many intellectuals have their minds made up ahead of time that life is random and purposeless. They are threatened by the idea that there could be an an intelligence superior to humankind. These people are frightened to admit that God exists. In nations where people claim to have the ability to be open-minded, this subject is closed and suppressed. The secular humanist point of view, which requires complete subservience, is actually a religion, not a science. Sadly it is a religion that cannot be questioned.
EXPELLED as the trailers say is "some movie." It is very witty, acerbic, and cerebral. Don't miss it.
Mary Lou Cheatham
be your own judge September 6, 2008
50 out of 68 found this review helpful
First of all, I actually saw this movie, unlike most of the 1-star "raters" here.
There has been so much said here about this movie already, you should just watch it and decide for yourself... OR drink the kool-aid and condemn it outright with the understanding that when you do, you are just making Stein's point.
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