Your grief: An opportunity to sell my wares

We really need to find a way to communicate to preachers that relentlessly selling Jesus at a non-Jesus-freak's funeral is not acceptable.

It happens far too often. When a minister Christ-markets at a wedding, I find it somewhat tolerable. At least the instigators of the wedding have apparently agreed to let their ceremony become a false statement about how Jesus is soooo important to their lives and will be right there in the bed as they consummate their marriage. It's their ceremony, and if they want to launch their marriage with a big fat lie, well, they certainly aren't the first to go that route.

(I have been to exactly one wedding where the pastor's representation of the importance of Jesus in the couple's lives resembled the actual importance of Jesus in the couple's lives. This was so remarkable that the pastor felt compelled to point out to the audience that he really wasn't bullshitting this time, like he usually does. I remember squirming as he came as close to saying "These two are actually virgins!" as he could.)

But at a funeral, where the subject of the ceremony is dead and therefore largely defenseless, the hucksterism of pastors is less tolerable. Especially if the deceased would have found the pastor's words inappropriate, it almost seems like we in the audience have an obligation to interrupt the salesman and get the ceremony on the right track. Should be we really be expected to stand by as this helpless dead person is misrepresented as a sniveling coward who is desperately trying to get in good with God at the last minute and get that ticket to heaven? Is decorum really a good enough reason to let that happen?

Hey pastors: You have a nice little scam going. Many families, who you catch at their most vulnerable and irrational, feel that they need to hire you to usher their loved ones' souls into Heaven, just in case it exists. So you get a nice bit of cash and get to make yourself the totally undeserved center of attention as you pose as an authority on the matter of death. Those of us who see through your bullshit will tolerate a little bit of hocus-pocus; we realize it's all theater. But don't push it. You may have noticed that we godless are getting more vocal lately. So we're less likely to stand by as you turn our friend's death into an infomercial for your product. Do you really want a reputation as the preacher who can't maintain order at a funeral?

Pass the popcorn

I'm not planning to see the movie, but I'll enjoy watching this drama.

The Expelled idiocy knows no bounds

It's not unusual at all for early cuts of a film to "temp in" commercial music tracks. Sometimes those tracks end up being licensed for the commercial release of the film, sometimes they're replaced with cheaper songs, sometimes the film's composer just imitates them in a non-actionable way.

Nothing So Strange screened noncommercially a couple times with Rage Against The Machine's "Bombtrack" under the opening scene while I tried to get the rights. (Didn't happen. Communists, my ass.) Festivals look the other way at this kind of thing, and it's smart for labels and bands to do the same -- there's no money lost, and if the film gets picked up, then there might actually be money to license the track properly for commercial release. It's really not a big deal to screen a film privately/semi-privately/noncommercially with temp music on the soundtrack. Most of the time, nobody will care.

But you have to be completely idiotic to try to release a film commercially using uncleared music by John Lennon and The Killers. A commercial theatrical release is not a gray area. Damages can be claimed by the copyright owner. Easily. You have to license music for a theatrical release or any other commercial release. I'm pretty sure Yoko Ono and The Killers have lawyers, and I doubt they're afraid to use them.

Fair-use exceptions are possible*, but if the Expelled producers simply used "Imagine" and "All These Things That I've Done" to underscore the emotion of the film's images, which appears to be the case, well, that's not fair use. It's just...use. That's how all movies use music. Fair-use exceptions have to be, you know, exceptional.

These clowns really can't do anything right. Everywhere you look they're screwing up, lying about it, screwing up the lies, and then pretending it all didn't happen. It's a lesson in how not to release a movie to an audience that includes any intelligent people.

Oh, right. Never mind.

But there is a bright side to this. If Yoko sues, it's conceivable that she could win a judgment greater than the entire box-office take of Expelled. That's how absolutely brain-dead and reckless these asshats are. Yoko can sue them for what she would have made them pay originally -- and I'll bet that amount is a lot, possibly in the millions -- plus more for doing it without permission. Plus other stuff. I mean, these guys are screwed.

If I had invested in Expelled or its production company, I'd be getting myself a nasty litigation attorney right now, too. Because this is some world-class incompetence. Of course, I'd also be asking myself why I trusted my money to people who think that the book of Genesis is a scientific theory.

*One fair-use exception possibility would be if you made a movie claiming that the song "Imagine" caused the Holocaust. In this case, you couldn't expect to get permission from the song's copyright owner, but you might need to play parts of the song to illustrate your criticism. This use would not be a normal use of a song in a movie. It would be exceptional. You would at least have an argument from which to start. By the way, you're freaking insane.

Motivational posters

(Thanks, Maria)

Go shopping

Can you do it better than President Bush?

(Thanks, Jim.)

Your theater plans for the weekend

No matter where you are in the world, you are no more than a few thousand miles from one of these productions:

Los Angeles. The long-awaited revival of Mitch Watson's Klub opens Saturday at the Actors' Gang:

This LAist interview with Mitch is funny.

Maryland. According to its website, Catholic university Mount St. Mary's "is built on four pillars - faith, discovery, leadership and community." Fortunately, they were able to knock down the first pillar and put on a production of Bat Boy. Actress Megan Crampton (Shelley) gives the audience fair warning:

"People coming to see Bat Boy should probably be aware that this isn't your traditional musical like West Side Story or Oklahoma. As long as they don't mind a crazy West Virginian town that goes haywire over the discovery of a bat boy, and a twisted love story that exposes them to an animal orgy in Act Two, then they should have a good ol' time."

Toledo. Naturally, it's Bat Boy:

Bat Boy: The Musical opens tomorrow and runs through April 20 in the Center Theatre of the University of Toledo's Center for Performing Arts.

Sex and Death 101

My pal Dan Waters has a movie opening tonight in L.A. And I just happen to have a free pair of tickets for any show this weekend.

The movie's called Sex and Death 101, and it will make you laugh. It also reunites Dan, who wrote Heathers, with Winona Ryder.

I can assure you that it has both sex and death in it. And Winona figures into both.

If you're in L.A. and you want the free tickets, just be the first one to email me with the subject line "I love sex and death!" (Update: They're gone.)

If you're not some cheapskate who tries to win free tickets all the time, you can get regular-people tickets for the show here.

If you're not in L.A., well, I hope you have lots of sex this weekend and death continues not to find you.