ben stein
‘Religulous’ Snatches Crown From ‘Expelled’ in Box-Office Holy War
7:00AM STV | The longer-than-anyone-expected-or-even-thought-remotely-possible reign of Ben Stein’s anti-evolution screed Expelled: No Intelligence Required atop the year’s documentary box office is nearing its end, we hear. And naturally, it’s the heathens knocking it down: After outlasting withering reviews and a desperate legal broadside by Yoko Ono, Expelled’s $US7.6 million gross is expected to succumb this weekend to Bill Maher’s godless hit Religulous — itself a $US7 million earner in two weeks of release. But while Expelled may lose the ticket battle, is it still the winner in the culture war? More »
Yoko Ono’s Legal TKO Vanquishes Ben Stein
8:07AM STV | A couple months ago, when Ben Stein’s documentary Expelled stunned industry and cultural observers alike by selling $7.6 million worth of intelligent-design hokum to its conservative Christian base, you might remember he found an unlikely foe in aggrieved widow Yoko Ono. Disapproving of Expelled’s inclusion (and criticism) of the John Lennon classic, “Imagine,” Ono and Lennon’s publishers at EMI filed an injunction temporarliy preventing the producers from including the disputed scene in their DVD release. More »
This just in! Swaggering $3 million man and …
6:30AM Defamer Hollywood | This just in! Swaggering $3 million man and new Yoko Ono lawsuit target Ben Stein responds to his latest nemesis via press release: “So Yoko Ono is suing over the brief Constitutionally protected use of a song that wants us to ‘Imagine no possessions’? Maybe instead of wasting everyone’s time trying to silence a documentary she should give the song to the world for free? After all, ‘imagine all the people sharing all the world…You may say I’m a dreamer But I’m not the only one I hope someday you’ll join us And the World can live as one.’” No doubt a fitting rejoinder from a man who once provided legal counsel to Richard Nixon. Good luck, Ben! [Movie City Indie] More »
Yoko Ono to Compete in Special Courtroom Episode of ‘Win Ben Stein’s Money’
6:25AM Defamer Hollywood | As one might have expected following the opening-weekend success of his anti-Darwinism documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Required, everybody in town wants a piece of Ben Stein. Among them: Yoko Ono, a huuuuuge Stein fan from back in his Nixon speechwriting days who nevertheless bristled at the part of the film that featured “Imagine” without the John Lennon estate’s permission: In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan, Ono accuses the producers of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed of suggesting to viewers that those who guard John Lennon’s legacy somehow authorised or sponsored the film. More »
