Man, Premise Media, Ben Stein and the filmmakers of the creationist propaganda documentary, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” are really rubbing their victory over Yoko Ono in her and our noses.
You’ll remember that Yoko Ono sued the film for using John Lennon’s classic 1971 anthem “Imagine” in the documentary without her permission.
We expected her bulldog lawyers to sue them back into the stone ages, but somehow they won the case with their fair use doctrine defense (‘Expelled’ essentially tricked the Vegas rockers The Killers into signing over one of their songs as well).
Now, the filmmaker are planning a theatrical re-release of the documentary this summer according to The Set List as the lawsuit forced the film out of theaters early (but it did take in a not too shabby $7.6 million total and is the highest grossing doc of 2008 so far). The Setlist notes that the filmmakers are lowering ticket prices in a bid to get more audiences and eyeballs on the film (as low as $6).
Note, ‘Expelled,’ may have done well at the box office witht the bible belt, but it has an abysmal 8% rating over at Rotten Tomatoes, which is surely one of the year’s worst and even lower than Eddie Murphy’s “Meet Dave” if you can believe it (man, that’s saying something). The Hollywood Reporter says the film sports a “simplistic, heavy-handed approach.” USA Today calls it, “a political rant disguised as a serious commentary on stifled freedom of inquiry.” And Entertainment Weekly writes, “Regardless of your personal views, ‘Expelled’s heavy-handed bias is exasperating.”
Even Christianity today warns, “If you’re looking for ammo to argue your Darwinist friends under the table, look elsewhere.”
