CBEB’s

Last week I was giving serious consideration to paying money to seeing Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. However, I recently had one of those “Eureka!” moments that made me ask myself, “What the hell were you thinking?”

Never mind all the publicity the movie has gotten over the past several days; this clip said it all for me.

I guess it’s been awhile since I’ve heard Ben Stein’s voice, because it took a few seconds for his whiny monotone to register. My immediate reaction was, “What on earth were they thinking?” Even if I was the most fervent of cdesign proponentsists, there’s no way I would be willing to sit through 90+ minutes of Ben Stein’s voice.

I realize that to the True Believers, Expelled is going to be the proverbial all that and a bag of chips, but I would think that anyone who is neutral on the issue is going to be turned off by Ben Stein’s voice.

Apparently, professional voice talent like Keith David and Peter Coyote weren’t willing whore themselves out and put on a silly schoolboy outfit.

I’ve read that Ben Stein was chosen because he’s not overtly religious. Whether or not that’s true, I don’t know. Judging by some of the idioitic things he’s said in the past, I tend to think the producers of Expelled saw in Stein the requisite amount of douchitude needed to capture the ridiculousness of the film. Furthermore, Ben Stein’s initials must have come in handy on the set. I can picture the producers hovering over the editor’s shoulder at the editing bay, saying, “I think this scene could use some more BS”.

Since Expelled will probably be nothing more than an hour an a half of “preaching to the choir”, the producers should have gone ahead and hired a Christian to host the film. Kirk Cameron’s schedule must have a few openings, and he’s got plenty of experience making a fool out of himself while cameras are rolling. If Cameron couldn’t be coaxed to remove his lips from Ray Comfort’s ass long enough to narrate a documentary, maybe Willie Aames could have done it. He at least has a great “willing to wearing silly outfits” reference in his resume.

If Cameron and Aames are too cheesy, perhaps the producers could have gotten Stephen Baldwin; he could pull in the dozen or so people who still think he’s cool based solely on his performance in The Usual Suspects.

Bunnell to Myers, Dawkins and Eugenie Scott:
“All three of you are in so much shit, it’s almost unbelievable.”

If I had a hand in the production of Expelled, my choice for narrator would have been Sheriff John Bunnell. He would have kicked ass:

These dizzy Darwinian dogmatists might have thought they were dealing Deistic Design a deathblow by defending their draconian dissertations with deftly-delivered doublespeak, but thanks to this sudden surge of sanctimonious sectarian pseudoscientists selling a sentient Sky-Daddy to susceptible schoolchildren, the only place these evil-utionists will be holding class is… in hell!

Shit, I’d pay money to hear some of that.

The more I think about it, the more I’m down with Cephus’s idea of going all Mystery Science Theater 3000 on Expelled. I’d like to see Expelled re-dubbed a la Shogun Assassin, or better yet, Kung Faux. Or maybe taking dialog and narration from existing movies and splicing it into Expelled would work. I think using some of Ron Howard’s narration from Arrested Development would be perfect.

My family and friends consider me a Movie Nazi; it takes very little for me to get turned off to a movie. For example, while most people would agree with me that Daredevil blew chunks, it was the fact that at the start of the movie, starving attorney Matt Murdock was prosecuting a case that did it for me. I realize that suspension of disbelief is part and parcel of the movie viewing experience, but too many filmmakers use that as an excuse to be lazy. Suspension of disbelief shouldn’t even apply to a documentary, anyway; I bring it up only to say that while I enjoy Droopy cartoons I wouldn’t necessarily want to see a documentary narrated by Droopy Dog. If I did watch a movie narrated by Droopy, I’d expect anvils to start falling out of the sky at some point in the film.

It’s the same thing with Ben Stein. A few seconds after hearing his voice, I’m either looking for the Visine, or changing the channel. It has nothing to do with what an asshole he is; we’ve all heard the expression “he has a face made for radio“… Ben Stein has a voice made for mime.