CHARLESTON, South Carolina (AP) -- IMAX theaters in several Southern cities have decided not to show a film on volcanoes out of concern that its references to evolution might offend those with fundamental religious beliefs.
"We've got to pick a film that's going to sell in our area. If it's not going to sell, we're not going to take it," said Lisa Buzzelli, director of an IMAX theater in Charleston that is not showing the movie. "Many people here believe in creationism, not evolution."
The film, "Volcanoes of the Deep Sea," makes a connection between human DNA and microbes inside undersea volcanoes.
Buzzelli doesn't rule out showing the movie in the future.
IMAX theaters in Texas, Georgia and the Carolinas have declined to show the film, said Pietro Serapiglia, who handles distribution for Stephen Low, the film's Montreal-based director and producer.
"I find it's only in the South," Serapiglia said.
Thanks, Ronald Reagan, for making stupidity a core American value. Stupid is as stupid does, and it's all getting quite repetitive and boring.
''When it's chartered [for extranational CIA torture renditions], it never has the logo of the Red Sox on it," [owner] Morse said. ''They cover it up."
The Enron documentary will have an invitation-only local premiere on April 20 at River Oaks Theatre, just a mile or so from the homes of its troubled two former top executives.
The film, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, which has already been shown at film festivals, will be available to all Houston moviegoers April 22 and in the other top 20 markets around the country a week or so later.
"I think it's important to have the premiere in Houston for the most obvious reason: Houston served as the headquarters of Enron and was the city most affected by the company's rise and fall," said Alex Gibney, the film's Grammy and Emmy-winning director, producer and writer.
Of all the characters in the complex dramatic debacle, this 110-minute film focuses most heavily on two River Oaks-area denizens, ex-Chairman Ken Lay and ex-CEO Jeff Skilling.
Both men have pleaded not guilty to multiple felony charges in connection with the company's death spiral and are scheduled to be tried in January.
[...]
The movie, which was well received at the Sundance Film Festival in January, features many Houstonians, shots of downtown, and even a surprisingly beautiful night scene over East Texas oil refineries.
Although there's plenty of Texas, it also spends a lot of time in California, in part because of the delicious audio tapes of traders cashing in on the state's energy crisis.
The film is based on the book of the same name by Fortune magazine writers Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, who appear in the movie.
For Lay and Skilling (and Fastow, et al.) to be The Smartest Guys in the Room, we are talking about a pretty small room. "The Second-Most Mendacious Guys in the Country" doesn't scan as well, though.
The trailer looks fast-paced, thrillerish and good. I'll review it when it comes out.
Although this was said by architect Thom Mayne, winner of the Pritzker Prize, it neatly summarizes the problem of political polling. People want solutions that work, not false binary Red/Blue choices, and we will never find them in a poll-driven political culture. When you ask people what they want and you give them two lousy options, they will generally pick something. That act of selection doesn't represent desire so much as deprivation and resignation.
