BrockLi Soup

PZ Meyers was kicked out of a screening of Ben Stein’s new “documentary,” Expelled.

I went to attend a screening of the creationist propaganda movie, Expelled, a few minutes ago. Well, I tried … but I was Expelled! It was kind of weird — I was standing in line, hadn’t even gotten to the point where I had to sign in and show ID, and a policeman pulled me out of line and told me I could not go in. I asked why, of course, and he said that a producer of the film had specifically instructed him that I was not to be allowed to attend. The officer also told me that if I tried to go in, I would be arrested. I assured him that I wasn’t going to cause any trouble.

But who DID get in? Richard Dawkins. Read the whole story and the follow up.

Wow, Ben Stein has lost it. He has a new documentary coming out about intelligent design and the way it’s cast aside among real scientists…and how that’s a bad thing. Watch the trailer:

If that’s not enough, there’s a blog, too.

Things I liked about Grandma’s Boy:

• The cute girl from Freaks & Geeks. She’s cute.
• Nick Swardson. He’s a funny guy. His stand-up is hilarious, and I loved him in Blades of Glory.

Things I didn’t like about Grandma’s Boy:

• Everything else.

OK, maybe that’s not fair. A few lines made me laugh pretty hard, but on the whole, it was like a barely-entertaining sitcom that lasted almost two hours. If it were a series, I’d only watch it if it was on and I were too drunk to change the channel. Allen Covert sounds like Jon Stewart (and even looks like a slightly younger version of him), and he may be Adam Sandler’s buddy, but Jesus Christ is he an awful actor. It was sort of like watching a seventh-grade production of Fiddler on the Roof: the script ain’t half bad, but the performance wasn’t “acted” so much as “spoken word for word.” I probably would have liked it more if someone else played Alex (and I was baked out of my mind), but that’s neither here nor there.

I give it a D, because it may have been awful, but it was good for a few laughs.

Also, the scenes with all the tester geeks were hilarious.

• Poop jokes are still funny. From one of my recent favorites, Dethroner.com (”Where every man is king”): A Brief Guide to Public Restroom Etiquette.
• This evening I watched Kicking and Screaming, which was very much like someone predicted, ten years ahead of time, my first year after college.

  I’m nostalgic for conversations I had yesterday. I’ve begun reminiscing events before they even occur. I’m reminiscing this right now. I can’t go to the bar because I’ve already looked back on it in my memory… and I didn’t have a good time.

• This past weekend was Shamrockfest, and I had a full house for it: BP and JL came Thursday night, Eric, Tasia, and Fonny on Friday, and Dan came Saturday morning (in addition, of course, to Mel, Jym, and myself). The actual festival was a lot of fun, but the rest of the weekend topped even that. The thing I miss most about college is the ease with which I could pull together a dozen close friends for a weekend-long party at the drop of a hat.
• That’s about it. Now that this past weekend is behind me, I’m back to being busybusybusy, and probably will be for another month or so.

Best movie of the year, hands down.

I never even saw a preview for it, and the only thing I heard was from (maybe?) Kidder, who said it was funny and “sort of like The Royal Tenenbaums” (one of my favorite movies, incidentally).

It was in fact funny, and was sort of like The Royal Tenenbaums, at least in its sense of humor. Really, I don’t know what else to say about it; when I see a movie I really like, I can’t write a decent review - I leave with an overall “good” feeling about the flick, but that doesn’t really translate well to written word.

I’m glad I convinced myself that going to a movie alone on a Saturday night wasn’t totally lame, because I probably wouldn’t have seen it otherwise.

Fucking hilarious. It won’t be out for another month, but you need to see it as soon as possible. I can’t believe he wasn’t arrested or severly beaten in the course of filming.

Gotta love those free screenings. It was totally worth the three-hour wait and $14 cab ride home from Georgetown, and even dealing with MySpace to get the pass.

The first Jackass was pretty awful, so I didn’t have high expectations for the second one (but then, who had high expectations for the first?) I guess it’s not a big surprise that they managed to hurdle the low bar I set for them; there seemed to be less gross-out stunts (from what I remember) and more mindless self-abuse (my favorite kind).

And it was hilarious. I think I peed a little.

Honestly, it’s a wonder these guys are still alive. They wrangle anacondas, ran with bulls, and pretty much threw themselves bodily into everything they could find (I think my favorite was the velcro truck).

Plus, any movie with a musical montage finale is OK by me. Not $10-ticket OK, but definitely free-on-a-Tuesday OK. Don’t bother paying full price, and for the love of God, don’t take a date.

(Or your kids. Seriously? Compulsory sterilization. That’s all I’m sayin.)

On a scale from Club Dread to Super Troopers, I’d put Beerfest at an 8. It was pretty hilarious, but a lot of the dialogue in the first act was pretty bad, and they had a lot of cheese-for-the-sake-of-cheese later on. But, it also featured gratuitous toplessness, so it evened out. Plus, we went to Fado afterward, and that’s always good.

I had never been to an advanced screening before, so that was pretty cool. Apparently ytic.com gives away screening passes a lot, so I went and signed up for all of their contests.

I’m definitely willing to pay to see it a second time, and that’s exactly what I intend to do. I think we’ll be heading up to Gallery Place Friday night after BBQ and beer drinking, since Fonny and BP will be here.

Also, my t-shirts came in from Threadless and Oddica today, so that made me happy.

As far as evenings go, I can’t complain about this one.

I’ve never read the book, so I had no idea what to expect when I went to see The Chronicles of Narnia last night with Schmitty. Unlike V, I totally got this one - Aslan is supposed to be Jesus! I mean, he died for the sins of the Son of Adam, the thing broke and he came back from the dead, and then he bit off that lady’s face.

Just like Jesus.

I’ve never been able to read into films much - I’m always the one that just doesn’t get it. I just don’t think that way, I guess, but I can usually tell when there’s something to get, whether I picked up on it or not.

V for Vendetta certainly had something to “get,” I’m just not sure what it was. Ebert said it best:

Is this movie a parable about 2006, a cautionary tale or a pure fantasy? It can be read many ways, as I will no doubt learn in endless e-mails.

The original graphic novel was written between 1981 and 1988, so it certainly wasn’t intended to be a commentary on the state of international politics or the Bush administration’s attack on personal freedoms. I found another review that just couldn’t get over the anarchist elements, completely missing the point that the character in the movie was striking back at a fantastically totalitarian government, and could hardly be compared to the current Anarchist movement.

And then, of course, there’s the Jesus Freak review, wherein tolerance is played off as bigotry:

The rest of “V for Vendetta” not only depicts Christians as evil people who oppress and torture “innocent” people, it also depicts homosexuals as a persecuted, harmless minority of “nice” people. Both of these portrayals are hate-filled, false stereotypes, but the second one is actually contradicted by the secret stash of homoerotic pornography that one of the homosexual characters in the movie hides in a secret room in his house. If all homosexuals, and all homosexual activists, are such goody two shoes, how come so many of them resort to unsafe sexual practices that spread deadly diseases, and how come so many of them promote pornography, support the murder of unborn children through abortion and molest underage children?

I’m not exactly sure how this justifies his stance that the movie portrays a “hate-filled, false stereotype,” but he mentions God a lot so he must be right.

So yes. We’ve got political motives, confused Anarchists, and a heavy dose of bigotry for good measure. If anyone finds a decent review that’s worth reading, please let me know, because I just can’t decide how I feel about this one.

I had heard mixed reviews about Domino, and I can’t say I can do any better. I really wanted to like this movie - I mean, damn, Kiera Knightley with guns! The trailer was sort of misleading, though: she wasn’t shooting people nearly enough, and half of the movie was done in that style (which got old REAL quick). And what the hell was that thing with Tom Waits? The action movie suddenly turns into a Jesus movie.

Domino’s story is an interesting one, but I don’t feel it was told well. Seeing a crappy movie is one thing, but seeing a crappy movie that should have been good is just a disappointment, even is Kiera WAS prancing around with a shotgun.

Before I saw Serenity, someone described it to me as a space western. Having seen the movie and the first four episodes of Firefly, I can’t think of a better way to describe it. Hell, the episode I’m watching right now features a cattle drive - IN SPACE! I almost fan-boyyed the other day when we were talking about it, it’s so great. I don’t know where I’d be without Netflix.

National Treasure, starring Nicolas Cage as Nicolas Cage, is perfect for a Friday night. I’ve always had a soft spot for mindless action movies - especially ones that cash in on the popularity of The Da Vinci Code - and this was one of my favorites yet. They had me 15 minutes in, with an (accidental?) Weird Al reference when they were trying to solve a riddle.

“Prison.” “Albuquerque. See, I can do it too. Snorkel.”

I knew that I’d enjoyed I Heart Huckabees when I saw it last October, but I had forgotten how much. I really think it’s the best movie I’ve seen in the past year or two. I can’t think of any specific reason why I like it so much - half the time, the existentialist crap doesn’t make any sense, but it’s executed so well and the jokes are perfect. The cast is fantastic, especially Mark Wahlberg. I need to pick up the DVD one of these days.

This weekend I saw The Aristocrats at The Little with some people from work. One of the previews was for Everything is Illuminated (which, as it turns out, was made two years ago). The Ukrainian guy looked so familiar, but I couldn’t place him.

I was reading a post from Tom when I saw Tracy’s icon, which sparked my memory and reminded me to look into it. According to IMDB, his name is Eugene Hutz, and he is (gasp!) the lead singer for Gogol Bordello. It’s no wonder I recognized him: I just saw him up close and personal last month.

I’m looking forward to seeing that movie.