Sunday, August 30, 2009
The Garden
Just finished watching Scott Hamilton Kennedy's superb 2008 documentary, The Garden. The film tells the story of the South Central Farm which, at 14 acres, was perhaps the largest urban farm in the United States, located in South Central Los Angeles. Farmed by 350 mostly poor, mostly Latino families, for subsistence purposes, the story of the "garden" is a riveting tale of craven politicians, spectacular self-sufficiency as a response to poverty, extraordinary courage, deep-seated racism and soul-shattering greed. It's a heartbreaking story that tell us everything we need to know about human rights in the Unites States in the early 21st century. Everyone needs to see this film.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Lego of My First Amendment Rights!
This story is a week old now, but I've been away and I had to make a comment about it, because it's just ridiculous and a perfect example of corporate censorship due to abuse of intellectual property law. Here's the rundown:
Spinal Tap has been on tour, a kind of acoustic, old-timers tour (called "Unwigged and Unplugged"), which is pretty funny in and of itself. In addition to playing Tap songs and Folksmen songs, they joke around and show videos and stuff. Here's one of the videos, which was made by a high school kid and uploaded to YouTube and which Tap loved:
They loved it so much, for obvious reasons, that they actually played it at their shows. So this was all fine and good until it came time to put out a DVD of the tour, which would have included some of the kid's Lego video. Long story short, Lego balked.
Julie Stern, a Lego spokesdrone, told the New York Times, "We love that our fans are so passionate and creative with our products. But it had some inappropriate language, and the tone wasn't appropriate for our target audience of kids 6 to 12." (Because corporations apparently have the right to dictate, under the threat of a lawsuit, how consumers use their products.) The article continues:
"Kia Kamran, an intellectual property lawyer representing Spinal Tap, said the band could have prevailed had Lego sued alleging copyright infringement, because Mr. Hickey’s video does not show the brand’s logo and is satirical. But the band did not deem the fight worth the expense, he said. 'In my heart of hearts, I do think this is fair use' of copyrighted material, Mr. Kamran said."
And, after explaining that numerous Lego parody videos exist on YouTube, some with much more "inappropriate" content and pointing out that Lego has not attempted to take them down, the article returns to the aptly named Ms. Stern:
“'YouTube is a less commercial use,' Ms. Stern said. 'But when you get into a more commercial use, that’s when we have to look into the fact that we are a trademarked brand, and we really have to control the use of our brand, and our brand values.'"
Finally, the kid (Coleman Hickey, now 16) who made the video, after acknowledging his disappointment says, "It’s not like I was going to get any money for it, but it’s too bad. Lego has the right to do that, but it’s unfortunate that they don’t have a little more of a sense of humor.”
First of all, young Coleman, Lego does NOT have the "right" to do this. It is not your fault that you think this is the case, because we have allowed corporations to control the way young people are taught about intellectual property and the propaganda that they release is almost never challenged by the news media (which are, of course, almost entirely owned by the same corporations). Lego is merely throwing its weight around because they judged, correctly, that Spinal Tap would not want to pay the gigabucks required to fight them in court - NOT because they thought they had a legitimate case. Who can blame the band? Tap is three comedians in their 60s milking their most popular act prior to retirement. Lego is a privately held Danish company worth hundreds of millions, if not several billion, dollars.
Yeah, it's unfortunate that Lego doesn't have a sense of humor; it's more unfortunate that corporations are allowed to strong-arm artists (whether they are corporate artists or not) and effectively prevent them from exercising their First Amendment right of free speech without getting smacked down. The term for this is "prior restraint."
Second, the writer of this article blithely goes along with - or even creates - the impression that Lego was somehow asserting copyright in this case, by attributing the notion that, if Tap had used the video and Lego had sued, the suit would be based on a claim of copyright, to an IP lawyer (notice, however, that he's not actually quoted saying that). But that's a highly specious assertion.
The United States Copyright Office defines copyright as "a form of protection grounded in the U.S. Constitution and granted by law for original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Copyright covers both published and unpublished works." Further, copyright protects "original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture. Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed."
Note that plastic toys do not seem to be one of the protected categories. However, this is not made explicitly clear, as it would perhaps be a waste of time to attempt to list all of the specific things in the world copyright does not protect. Plus, since copyright applies to artworks like sculptures, perhaps a lawyer could make the case that Legos are sculptures and therefore subject to copyright.
It doesn't matter, though, because this dispute is not about a copy of Legos. It's about a depiction of Legos in a video and whether that video can be incorporated into another video. Legos used to be under a patent that prevented other companies from marketing similar plastic bricks, but that patent expired in 1988. Trademark law prohibits someone from calling their similar plastic brick a "Lego," but not from calling it anything else. Trademark certainly does not have anything to say about your "brand values," whatever the fuck that corporatist oxymoron is supposed to mean. Nope, all trademark means is that someone can't make the exact same thing that you do and call it the exact same thing that you call it.
Common sense - and case law, which is mostly all we have to go on in this type of case, since there is not much that is explicit about IP laws and these cases can only be decided by going to court - would seem to suggest that neither copyright, trademark or patent protections apply in this case. Maybe look at it this way: If you owned a Mustang, what's happened here is the equivalent of the Ford Motor Company telling you can't put your Mustang in a movie. If you are under the impression that this is Ford's "right," then you, too, have succumbed to the aggressive propaganda by which corporations have been siphoning up our rights as citizens when it comes to freedom of expression.
As a kid, Legos were my favorite toy, for many years. Now, they largely suck because they went from being a highly interchangeable creative building toy to being sold in super-specialized packs with much less interchangeability and much more cross-branding. That alone is a real shame; but what the company has done in this instance is simply a disgrace.
Spinal Tap has been on tour, a kind of acoustic, old-timers tour (called "Unwigged and Unplugged"), which is pretty funny in and of itself. In addition to playing Tap songs and Folksmen songs, they joke around and show videos and stuff. Here's one of the videos, which was made by a high school kid and uploaded to YouTube and which Tap loved:
They loved it so much, for obvious reasons, that they actually played it at their shows. So this was all fine and good until it came time to put out a DVD of the tour, which would have included some of the kid's Lego video. Long story short, Lego balked.
Julie Stern, a Lego spokesdrone, told the New York Times, "We love that our fans are so passionate and creative with our products. But it had some inappropriate language, and the tone wasn't appropriate for our target audience of kids 6 to 12." (Because corporations apparently have the right to dictate, under the threat of a lawsuit, how consumers use their products.) The article continues:
"Kia Kamran, an intellectual property lawyer representing Spinal Tap, said the band could have prevailed had Lego sued alleging copyright infringement, because Mr. Hickey’s video does not show the brand’s logo and is satirical. But the band did not deem the fight worth the expense, he said. 'In my heart of hearts, I do think this is fair use' of copyrighted material, Mr. Kamran said."
And, after explaining that numerous Lego parody videos exist on YouTube, some with much more "inappropriate" content and pointing out that Lego has not attempted to take them down, the article returns to the aptly named Ms. Stern:
“'YouTube is a less commercial use,' Ms. Stern said. 'But when you get into a more commercial use, that’s when we have to look into the fact that we are a trademarked brand, and we really have to control the use of our brand, and our brand values.'"
Finally, the kid (Coleman Hickey, now 16) who made the video, after acknowledging his disappointment says, "It’s not like I was going to get any money for it, but it’s too bad. Lego has the right to do that, but it’s unfortunate that they don’t have a little more of a sense of humor.”
First of all, young Coleman, Lego does NOT have the "right" to do this. It is not your fault that you think this is the case, because we have allowed corporations to control the way young people are taught about intellectual property and the propaganda that they release is almost never challenged by the news media (which are, of course, almost entirely owned by the same corporations). Lego is merely throwing its weight around because they judged, correctly, that Spinal Tap would not want to pay the gigabucks required to fight them in court - NOT because they thought they had a legitimate case. Who can blame the band? Tap is three comedians in their 60s milking their most popular act prior to retirement. Lego is a privately held Danish company worth hundreds of millions, if not several billion, dollars.
Yeah, it's unfortunate that Lego doesn't have a sense of humor; it's more unfortunate that corporations are allowed to strong-arm artists (whether they are corporate artists or not) and effectively prevent them from exercising their First Amendment right of free speech without getting smacked down. The term for this is "prior restraint."
Second, the writer of this article blithely goes along with - or even creates - the impression that Lego was somehow asserting copyright in this case, by attributing the notion that, if Tap had used the video and Lego had sued, the suit would be based on a claim of copyright, to an IP lawyer (notice, however, that he's not actually quoted saying that). But that's a highly specious assertion.
The United States Copyright Office defines copyright as "a form of protection grounded in the U.S. Constitution and granted by law for original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Copyright covers both published and unpublished works." Further, copyright protects "original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture. Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed."
Note that plastic toys do not seem to be one of the protected categories. However, this is not made explicitly clear, as it would perhaps be a waste of time to attempt to list all of the specific things in the world copyright does not protect. Plus, since copyright applies to artworks like sculptures, perhaps a lawyer could make the case that Legos are sculptures and therefore subject to copyright.
It doesn't matter, though, because this dispute is not about a copy of Legos. It's about a depiction of Legos in a video and whether that video can be incorporated into another video. Legos used to be under a patent that prevented other companies from marketing similar plastic bricks, but that patent expired in 1988. Trademark law prohibits someone from calling their similar plastic brick a "Lego," but not from calling it anything else. Trademark certainly does not have anything to say about your "brand values," whatever the fuck that corporatist oxymoron is supposed to mean. Nope, all trademark means is that someone can't make the exact same thing that you do and call it the exact same thing that you call it.
Common sense - and case law, which is mostly all we have to go on in this type of case, since there is not much that is explicit about IP laws and these cases can only be decided by going to court - would seem to suggest that neither copyright, trademark or patent protections apply in this case. Maybe look at it this way: If you owned a Mustang, what's happened here is the equivalent of the Ford Motor Company telling you can't put your Mustang in a movie. If you are under the impression that this is Ford's "right," then you, too, have succumbed to the aggressive propaganda by which corporations have been siphoning up our rights as citizens when it comes to freedom of expression.
As a kid, Legos were my favorite toy, for many years. Now, they largely suck because they went from being a highly interchangeable creative building toy to being sold in super-specialized packs with much less interchangeability and much more cross-branding. That alone is a real shame; but what the company has done in this instance is simply a disgrace.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
U.S. Airways: Worst Airline Ever?
So, I'm leaving today on trip for a few days. I'm flying from Oakland to Albany, New York. In order to do this, I have to fly to Phoenix, then Detroit, then Albany. It's going to take twelve hours and three flights. There was no simpler way.
Last night around 7 PM I get a robo-call from U.S. Airways letting me know that my first flight has been canceled. Instead of leaving at 9 AM, they are going to put me on a flight at 6, meaning getting up at 4 AM. The reason given for the cancellation is "routine, scheduled maintenance." So, I got up at 4 - and so did my wife and infant son, because she's driving me to the airport.
I went to the U.S. Airways website. My new 6 AM flight has been delayed. It now leaves at 8:50. I called the phone number to confirm and the reason given for the delay is that "the crew was required to complete a mandatory rest period."
I want them to maintain their planes; I want the crew to be rested. But this kind of thing is just a perverse jerking-around of a customer who is already paying too much to make a ridiculous all-day tour of the country, compounded by Orwellian lies. Insult to injury, I think that's called.
If you can avoid flying U.S. Airways, do so. But, like me, you probably can't.
Last night around 7 PM I get a robo-call from U.S. Airways letting me know that my first flight has been canceled. Instead of leaving at 9 AM, they are going to put me on a flight at 6, meaning getting up at 4 AM. The reason given for the cancellation is "routine, scheduled maintenance." So, I got up at 4 - and so did my wife and infant son, because she's driving me to the airport.
I went to the U.S. Airways website. My new 6 AM flight has been delayed. It now leaves at 8:50. I called the phone number to confirm and the reason given for the delay is that "the crew was required to complete a mandatory rest period."
I want them to maintain their planes; I want the crew to be rested. But this kind of thing is just a perverse jerking-around of a customer who is already paying too much to make a ridiculous all-day tour of the country, compounded by Orwellian lies. Insult to injury, I think that's called.
If you can avoid flying U.S. Airways, do so. But, like me, you probably can't.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Public Enemies
Yesterday, I finally saw Michael Mann's new gangster movie, Public Enemies, starring Johnny Depp as John Dillinger and Christian Bale as Melvin Purvis, the G-Man on his trail. I've been an admirer of Mann's for years, if not precisely a fan (or fanatic), and the qualities for which I've most admired him are well displayed here: restless, creative risk-taking to the limits of big-budget studio filmmaking, technological experimentation and almost casually virtuosic direction of action set pieces.
From the general audience standpoint, only the latter quality really matters. Most viewers will have no idea that they just watched a film that was not shot on film at all, but in high definition video, let alone that Mann changed frame rates a couple of times in the film to deliberately make it look like video as we're used to seeing it on TV, rather than video aping the frame rate of standard film projection (24 frames per second). This is not to say that these techniques do not affect the audience, necessarily. Most people just don't notice them and don't care about them.
In my book, this is how it should be. Technology - yes, even spectacular FX - ought not be noticed as such. An audience should be too busy engaging with the film on some human level, like emotionally or intellectually, to notice how well the technology works. For people like me, this is sometimes difficult, because we are too steeped in filmmaking itself to fail to notice the man behind the curtain, as it were. Though a small group over all, there are plenty of film fans who fall into this category. We can talk about Mann's color palette, which HD camera he used, why he shot this period film in an almost documentary style and what was behind his decision to sometimes shoot at a higher frame rate, thereby making scenes inspired by 30s newsreels appear to have been filmed by present-day cable news crews. Is this aesthetic choice a sly commentary on John Dillinger's celebrity, suggesting that things haven't changed all that much in America? Maybe, but why make such a commentary in a way guaranteed to sail over the heads of most viewers? Will they simply sense this aspect, without quite being able to put their fingers on it? (Or perhaps his critique is too commonplace, made many times before in superior films like Bonnie and Clyde and Badlands, to name two in a similar vein, as well as in many films of various quality, to have much impact.)
Whether the audience can sense the subtler changes that digital cinema can bring to the moviegoing experience is a pretty interesting question, for some, and it's questions like that that make Public Enemies an interesting film, for some. But this kind of experience is awfully cerebral, disappointingly so for a film packed with superb actors and based on such terrific characters and fascinating history. Barely anything human in the film registered with me - the only character I was really interested in was Billy Crudup's winking, bow-legged, feral J. Edgar Hoover. I applaud Mann for understanding we did not to see an elaborate backstory for Dillinger or his nemesis, for trusting his audience enough to drop us right into the action, but this does not mean every character should be a cipher. We all like Johnny Depp, but we still need a character. Christian Bale registers even less - practically anyone could have played the role to equal or greater effect. Marion Cotillard serves only a vague (and elsewhere wholly disregarded) historicity as Dillinger's girlfriend, Billie Frechette, but the affair delivers no chemistry, no romance, and only meager story- and plot-related value. Why is she even here?
Some of Mann's story choices, as friends have pointed out to me, are bold. There is no "final confrontation" scene between Depp and Bale, for example; instead, Dillinger's last words after he's gunned down are delivered to a supporting character, who tells them to Frechette in the final scene. This is one of many small ways Mann rejects conventional Hollywood storytelling - the almost complete lack of expository detail is another - and these are smart, interesting choices. I believe that this can be done, though, while still finding room for the kind of genuine, specific, shocking, documentary humanity that is required for truly engaging, full-throated storytelling.
As a postscript, I would add that it's truly weird to watch a film set in the early 1930s in which, perhaps, two cigarettes are seen. A key moment at the end of the film has Bale lighting a cigar to signal the other Feds that Dillinger has left the building - only, unless I blinked and missed it, we don't even see him light the cigar. We see the cigar, we see the matches, we see him raising a lit match out of frame, then on to something else. As an artistic choice, this smoking ban is fine, albeit weirdly and totally inaccurate, if that's really what was wanted. Except, that's not the story - this is just corporate self-censorship to spare us the shock of seeing Johnny Depp and Christian Bale smoke. The movie is already rated R. So what gives?
From the general audience standpoint, only the latter quality really matters. Most viewers will have no idea that they just watched a film that was not shot on film at all, but in high definition video, let alone that Mann changed frame rates a couple of times in the film to deliberately make it look like video as we're used to seeing it on TV, rather than video aping the frame rate of standard film projection (24 frames per second). This is not to say that these techniques do not affect the audience, necessarily. Most people just don't notice them and don't care about them.
In my book, this is how it should be. Technology - yes, even spectacular FX - ought not be noticed as such. An audience should be too busy engaging with the film on some human level, like emotionally or intellectually, to notice how well the technology works. For people like me, this is sometimes difficult, because we are too steeped in filmmaking itself to fail to notice the man behind the curtain, as it were. Though a small group over all, there are plenty of film fans who fall into this category. We can talk about Mann's color palette, which HD camera he used, why he shot this period film in an almost documentary style and what was behind his decision to sometimes shoot at a higher frame rate, thereby making scenes inspired by 30s newsreels appear to have been filmed by present-day cable news crews. Is this aesthetic choice a sly commentary on John Dillinger's celebrity, suggesting that things haven't changed all that much in America? Maybe, but why make such a commentary in a way guaranteed to sail over the heads of most viewers? Will they simply sense this aspect, without quite being able to put their fingers on it? (Or perhaps his critique is too commonplace, made many times before in superior films like Bonnie and Clyde and Badlands, to name two in a similar vein, as well as in many films of various quality, to have much impact.)
Whether the audience can sense the subtler changes that digital cinema can bring to the moviegoing experience is a pretty interesting question, for some, and it's questions like that that make Public Enemies an interesting film, for some. But this kind of experience is awfully cerebral, disappointingly so for a film packed with superb actors and based on such terrific characters and fascinating history. Barely anything human in the film registered with me - the only character I was really interested in was Billy Crudup's winking, bow-legged, feral J. Edgar Hoover. I applaud Mann for understanding we did not to see an elaborate backstory for Dillinger or his nemesis, for trusting his audience enough to drop us right into the action, but this does not mean every character should be a cipher. We all like Johnny Depp, but we still need a character. Christian Bale registers even less - practically anyone could have played the role to equal or greater effect. Marion Cotillard serves only a vague (and elsewhere wholly disregarded) historicity as Dillinger's girlfriend, Billie Frechette, but the affair delivers no chemistry, no romance, and only meager story- and plot-related value. Why is she even here?
Some of Mann's story choices, as friends have pointed out to me, are bold. There is no "final confrontation" scene between Depp and Bale, for example; instead, Dillinger's last words after he's gunned down are delivered to a supporting character, who tells them to Frechette in the final scene. This is one of many small ways Mann rejects conventional Hollywood storytelling - the almost complete lack of expository detail is another - and these are smart, interesting choices. I believe that this can be done, though, while still finding room for the kind of genuine, specific, shocking, documentary humanity that is required for truly engaging, full-throated storytelling.
As a postscript, I would add that it's truly weird to watch a film set in the early 1930s in which, perhaps, two cigarettes are seen. A key moment at the end of the film has Bale lighting a cigar to signal the other Feds that Dillinger has left the building - only, unless I blinked and missed it, we don't even see him light the cigar. We see the cigar, we see the matches, we see him raising a lit match out of frame, then on to something else. As an artistic choice, this smoking ban is fine, albeit weirdly and totally inaccurate, if that's really what was wanted. Except, that's not the story - this is just corporate self-censorship to spare us the shock of seeing Johnny Depp and Christian Bale smoke. The movie is already rated R. So what gives?
Friday, July 24, 2009
Polymeric Thin Films
That would be a good name for a film company, by which I mean a motion picture company. I often write about that kind of film, but the Google Advertising Bot advertised about the polymeric thin kind.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Additional thoughts
The previous post limns my disgust with Ben Stein's piss-poorly reasoned pro-Intelligent Design film, Expelled, although I didn't go into much detail on what I felt was so weak about his argument. Today, I've read an interesting piece by The Ethicist, in his weekly "Moral of the Story" column. On the subject of the current war over health care in the Congress, Cohen asks, "Is some debate so suspect as to be unethical?"
That's an interesting question - what he means is, when you're a politician or political operative making public statements and arguments on a contentious topic, such as whether there ought to be a "public option," do you have any kind of ethical responsibility to argue from logic employing truthful information or is it permissible to just lie your ovoid, turd-blossomy head off?
What do you think The Ethicist has to say about that?
As it relates to the Stein film, if you watch it you'll notice that the smug, arrogant, condescending Stein is about as lazy and partisan in his approach to his issue as many Republicans have been in considering the health care issue. It's as easy, and as devoid of any actual meaning, to simply say that Obama's a "socialist" as it is for Stein to hint that those who agree that evolution is science fact are Nazis. Or tantamount to Nazis. Or whatever he was saying.
That's an interesting question - what he means is, when you're a politician or political operative making public statements and arguments on a contentious topic, such as whether there ought to be a "public option," do you have any kind of ethical responsibility to argue from logic employing truthful information or is it permissible to just lie your ovoid, turd-blossomy head off?
What do you think The Ethicist has to say about that?
As it relates to the Stein film, if you watch it you'll notice that the smug, arrogant, condescending Stein is about as lazy and partisan in his approach to his issue as many Republicans have been in considering the health care issue. It's as easy, and as devoid of any actual meaning, to simply say that Obama's a "socialist" as it is for Stein to hint that those who agree that evolution is science fact are Nazis. Or tantamount to Nazis. Or whatever he was saying.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Baby with the bathwater
Recently, I have seen two very different documentaries on two very controversial topics.
Tony Kaye's 2006 Lake of Fire is a harrowing, 2 1/2 hour black and white take on abortion, a great piece of work. It manages to be convincingly balanced, giving time to many different voices, from crazies advocating the murder of abortion providers to Jane Roe herself to Pat Buchanan, Dershowitz and old man Chomsky, as well as to a number of mere mortals, and lesser creatures, such as Randall Terry. It's tough going, with graphic images of abortions and relentless craziness, no matter what your personal beliefs. Dershowitz and loony Chomsky are very amusing, at points, and right on target, of course. The film is worth seeing for its clarity and compassion for all its subjects - it will make you stop and consider your own attitudes more closely. I am curious to know more about how the final scenes were constructed - whether some events were restaged or if multiple cameras were used - but either way, a serious, thought-provoking documentary.
Also provocative, though I know not what of, is Nathan Frankowski's Ben Stein starrer Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, a well-shot but smug and disappointingly boneheaded film about academic freedom vis-a-vis Intelligent Design. Sadly, for him, Stein is also credited as a writer. The film makes an important point about the dangers of squelching academic freedom - in this case, in the way that (according to the film) many scientists have been ostracized, even to the point of ending careers, for the sin of expressing an open mind toward Intelligent Design - which is that science must always be willing to question its own assumptions, no matter how entrenched. Scientists must be willing - and have the freedom - to be wrong, in the name of seeking truth.
Scientists seek what we might call natural truth. Evolution by means of natural selection is such a natural truth; an accepted law of biology. Biologists who do not accept this are heretical, and few, but this is not necessarily a reason to fire them. However, religious faith is not in conflict with biology. There are plenty of religious Darwinists (the film's perjorative term for anyone who believes in evolution) who have no trouble whatsoever balancing these two worldviews. Indeed, I think most people are capable of holding multiple views on a single topic without feeling that they have to choose only one. This is what makes the extreme views on the topic of origins so perplexing - atheists who categorically insist on the non-existence of God and fundamentalists who insist that, I don't know, the earth is actually a six thousand year old walnut.
What Stein and Company do here is skate over the surface of an issue that could really use a compassionate, clear-eyed exploration, as in Lake of Fire. Instead, Expelled is hideous propaganda in sheep's clothing; I mean, for the love of Jesus H. Christ, by the end Stein is literally comparing proponents of evolution to Nazis. You see, the Nazis used eugenics theories based on Darwinism to justify the murder of the Jews. So that's where Darwin's theories lead. In other words, if some crazy-evil bastards twist science-based ideas beyond recognition to further their crazy evil, we should question the validity of the science? That's as stupid as the argument that says we should be atheists because bad things have been done in the name of religion. That's throwing out the baby with the bathwater. And, disturbingly, Stein goes to Dachau to make this argument. Look what evolution did! It killed 6 million Jews. Watch out, lest evolution do it again! Stein is Jewish, but he has no trouble trading on this unspeakable horror perpetrated against his own people to argue a totally unrelated and truly fatuous point.
There was a time when I respected Ben Stein. I thought he was a smart guy, even if I didn't always agree with him. But this film shows that he's just one more shallow, opportunistic conservative media whore. Now he's doing commercials for Comcast. Can he sink any lower?
Tony Kaye's 2006 Lake of Fire is a harrowing, 2 1/2 hour black and white take on abortion, a great piece of work. It manages to be convincingly balanced, giving time to many different voices, from crazies advocating the murder of abortion providers to Jane Roe herself to Pat Buchanan, Dershowitz and old man Chomsky, as well as to a number of mere mortals, and lesser creatures, such as Randall Terry. It's tough going, with graphic images of abortions and relentless craziness, no matter what your personal beliefs. Dershowitz and loony Chomsky are very amusing, at points, and right on target, of course. The film is worth seeing for its clarity and compassion for all its subjects - it will make you stop and consider your own attitudes more closely. I am curious to know more about how the final scenes were constructed - whether some events were restaged or if multiple cameras were used - but either way, a serious, thought-provoking documentary.
Also provocative, though I know not what of, is Nathan Frankowski's Ben Stein starrer Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, a well-shot but smug and disappointingly boneheaded film about academic freedom vis-a-vis Intelligent Design. Sadly, for him, Stein is also credited as a writer. The film makes an important point about the dangers of squelching academic freedom - in this case, in the way that (according to the film) many scientists have been ostracized, even to the point of ending careers, for the sin of expressing an open mind toward Intelligent Design - which is that science must always be willing to question its own assumptions, no matter how entrenched. Scientists must be willing - and have the freedom - to be wrong, in the name of seeking truth.
Scientists seek what we might call natural truth. Evolution by means of natural selection is such a natural truth; an accepted law of biology. Biologists who do not accept this are heretical, and few, but this is not necessarily a reason to fire them. However, religious faith is not in conflict with biology. There are plenty of religious Darwinists (the film's perjorative term for anyone who believes in evolution) who have no trouble whatsoever balancing these two worldviews. Indeed, I think most people are capable of holding multiple views on a single topic without feeling that they have to choose only one. This is what makes the extreme views on the topic of origins so perplexing - atheists who categorically insist on the non-existence of God and fundamentalists who insist that, I don't know, the earth is actually a six thousand year old walnut.
What Stein and Company do here is skate over the surface of an issue that could really use a compassionate, clear-eyed exploration, as in Lake of Fire. Instead, Expelled is hideous propaganda in sheep's clothing; I mean, for the love of Jesus H. Christ, by the end Stein is literally comparing proponents of evolution to Nazis. You see, the Nazis used eugenics theories based on Darwinism to justify the murder of the Jews. So that's where Darwin's theories lead. In other words, if some crazy-evil bastards twist science-based ideas beyond recognition to further their crazy evil, we should question the validity of the science? That's as stupid as the argument that says we should be atheists because bad things have been done in the name of religion. That's throwing out the baby with the bathwater. And, disturbingly, Stein goes to Dachau to make this argument. Look what evolution did! It killed 6 million Jews. Watch out, lest evolution do it again! Stein is Jewish, but he has no trouble trading on this unspeakable horror perpetrated against his own people to argue a totally unrelated and truly fatuous point.
There was a time when I respected Ben Stein. I thought he was a smart guy, even if I didn't always agree with him. But this film shows that he's just one more shallow, opportunistic conservative media whore. Now he's doing commercials for Comcast. Can he sink any lower?
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