88 Replies to “Perfect Timing”

  6. I like the casting.
    They’ve got color television, so it’s either an anachronism or they’ve modernized the setting from the book.
    It will be interesting to how or if they will mingle railroads with jet air transportation. Perhaps they’ll fashion it as high-speed passenger rail which is still contemporary.
    Frankly, the plot needs to be contemporaneous to touch audiences who haven’t read the book and wish to apply it to modern circumstances.
    The most chilling feature of the book is how many familiar people, ideas, and institutions there were, 60 years after the fact.
    I just started reading “The Road to Serfdom.” The writing sucks, but the forward did a good job of explaining how Hayek was one man rowing against the river of socialist tendencies sweeping the world. It’s amazing any of us have survived it.

  7. One of the many seeminlgy impenetrable mysteries nowadays is why so many young people read and LOVE Atlas Shrugged but fail to apply the lessons to real life around them [see youth and Obamapunk].
    Clearly “the right” has done a terrible job on “messaging”.
    We can see this daily with the robotic repetition of the meme that “capitalism has failed” whereas better informed people know that it was socialism/crony capitalism/corporatism/fascism that failed.
    Even Glenn Beck, despite my hollering, fails to explain that what failed WASN’T capitalism.
    One great lesson for young people is to disabuse them of the fallacious notion that BIG CORPORATIONS actually like capitalism.
    As some commenter said in these pages a few years back, “capitalism is what people do when they’re left alone.” That’s a thought most young people would grok.
    Compare and Contrast: my wife and I were at Saravanaa Bhavan, an economy Indian vegetarian eating place in Vancouver a while back. The young Indian cutie who served us told us of the story of the poor Indian who built this world-wide franchise. She told us that when she first heard the story, she got goosebumps. WOW, I thought, that’s something you wouldn’t hear a western youngster say today”.
    This film is a great start!

  9. I wonder if it will be filled with enumerable long, boring, repetitive, political rants like the book, destroying what was otherwise a good story.
    Presumably not. Presumably they will be able to get their point across with having the movie resemble one of Castro’s speeches.

  10. I think I’ll wait for Oliver Stone’s version. That one will likely be definitive. Casting Michael Moore as Hank Reardon, Jane Fonda as Dagny Taggert, and Al Gore as John Galt.
    But in a surprize ending, America becomes a prosperous and environmentally responsible socialist utopia, with evil capitalist renouncing the error of their ways just prior to their execution.

  11. It’s got a PG13 rating.
    so much for the steamy sex scenes. (sigh)
    The trailer looks hot. Yes it has a contemporary setting,, and I can live with that if it gets a conservative, free enterprise message out.
    I will miss a retro version of it though,,, if only for some of the cool aircraft of that era and unique cars.
    Here is an amazing aircraft of that era.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_Staggerwing

  12. I would have thought that being involved in something like this might mean flirting with career suicide in Hollywood. I suppose it depends how much it makes.

  13. The most heartening thing is the title “Atlas Shrugged – Part I”. Those who saw the 50’s version of “The Fountainhead” would doubtless agree with me the worst thing to do would be to cram this sweeping epic into an hour and 45 minutes. (Coop tried hard, but with so much to cut to squeeze it into the time allotted, everyone comes off as a caricature instead of a character.)
    I always thought the best way to bring AS to the screen was a TV mini-series – 12 to 16 episodes. That gives enough time to develop all the story lines (the parable about “20th Century Motors” should be an episode all its own!), but I hope this works as well.
    Wonder if Harper has the puckishness to publicly invite Iggy and Taliban Jack to the premiere?

  14. POWinCA – it must be contemporaneous. Bluetooth, cell phones, and I think a high speed train. The bureaucrat even looked like Barney Frank!
    OK Kate, I spend many an effort figuring out your veiled references. Does the title refer to Joe Biden’s train?

  16. KevinB. Yeah, I always hoped for a mini series. Impossible to fit it all into 1 movie. 3? Maybe, and do a decent job.
    Rabbit. You are cracking me up. Al Gore as JG? LOL!

  18. Self-styled academics continue to insist that Rand only wrote sophomoric “comic book philosophy”, mere pablum. Yet these same academics continue to take seriously Marx and his malodorous philosophy that sent over 100 million people to mass graves.

  20. uh-oh… the dirty little secret of objectivist society gets illuminated. there will be gnashing of teeth and heads exploding/imploding/it’s all good.
    perfect – a woman (with russian roots) says that there is another way to look at the world. i will be collecting the the “collective” reviews.
    thank you kate for the announcement. you can be my altruistic valentine.

  21. YES! Finally!
    MissAnthropy, exactly! And, the current followers of Marx want to send more to the same place.
    Hey, where has Prince Ruprecht been staying with his comments?

  22. “I wonder if it will be filled with enumerable long, boring, repetitive, political rants like the book, destroying what was otherwise a good story.
    Presumably not. Presumably they will be able to get their point across with having the movie resemble one of Castro’s speeches.”
    I disagree with you on this. I think Rand used the novel format to explain her philosophy. It accomplished that goal. I don’t think it was a great novel, but it was a great diatribe. For me, the long boring speeches were the best part. I will be the first in line to see this when it comes out

  23. Garbage. Frank Canon Hollywood garbage. A Quinn-Martin Production. I’ll be surffing past this piece of crap on commerical TV in about a Sunday in 2013.
    It’s like cutting out Seurat’s masterpiece “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte”, rolling Jeff Bridges, John Williams and Brad Pitt (yes, he’s in it) and smoking it.
    I’m writing Ayn Rand a fan letter because apparently she – judging from the cars and clothes and everything else in the trailers – wrote this book after Seinfeld went off the air.

  24. There’s so little worth watching in the movies these days, and the thought of Atlas Shrugged on screen is exciting at first. I am sure I will go see it.
    But, in the end, it cannot live up to the book it is based upon, and I suspect all of us true believers will be disappointed.

  25. Paul Johansson, the director, talks about the challenges of bringing this book to film and his take on the message of Rand he believes is the key one.
    (He also discuss casting and the impossibility of keeping everyone happy with this adaptation)
    On the Set of Atlas Shrugged: 53 Years in the Making
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooOfe_-5TlY

  28. This makes absolutely no sense. Why wouldn’t this perfect date movie come out for Valentine’s Day?!?
    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: first one to ask gets dinner and a movie on me! (certain restrictions apply, inquire within)

  29. I would personally prefer a more 1930s feel to it because the late 1800s are a bit too dirty and I think the style at the time is cool. I just have 1930s forever associated with rand because of bioshock what can I say?
    Black Mamba
    How much a movie makes never really has anything to do with career bonafides or acclaim. That’s just how the industry rolls.
    Also it probably is a career killer. I haven’t heard of any of these people and likely won’t hear from them again. It could be worse though, they could have David Russell direct it but he’s too busy ruining the Uncharted movie. Grrrrr….

  30. I saw the LED TV, but I didn’t notice the cell phones. I’ll have to take another look at the trailer.
    I found reading the book painful. I called it Atlas Lugged from having to carry it around for three months.
    Ironically, I bought it on vacation, April 15th, on the day of the first Tea Party rally in Phoenix. The hippie chick behind the counter with piercings said, “This was a really good book. I think this is the last one in stock”
    Ayn Rant desperately needed an editor to get it down to a manageable size. Most of the book was unnecessary.
    She just plopped a book of her Objectivist philosophy directly into the dialogue. She deserved the patent on Copy and Paste.
    I really enjoyed Frisco’s monologue at the party, but John Galt’s radio address was unnecessarily repetitive and lengthy. I would expect the real John Galt to have a more laconic style.
    It was disturbing that I looked at her picture on the back cover before I read the sex scenes. I had to skip those pages.
    Did anyone else notice there are no children in the book? She talks briefly about Dagny, Eddie, and Frisco as teenagers. There’s one character called “boy” but he was likely a young adult. All those families, all that sex, no birth control pills, and no children anywhere.
    Johannson had better do a good job with the film. I was ready to strangle Paul Verhoeven with his own intestines after he butchered Starship Troopers.

  32. An interview with Evva Pryror, a social worker and consultant to Miss Rand’s law firm of Ernst, Cane, Gitlin and Winick verified that on Miss Rand’s behalf she secured Rand’s Social Security and Medicare payments which Ayn received under the name of Ann O’Connor (husband Frank O’Connor).
    As Pryor said, “Doctors cost a lot more money than books earn and she could be totally wiped out” without the aid of these two government programs. Ayn took the bail out even though Ayn “despised government interference and felt that people should and could live independently… She didn’t feel that an individual should take help.”

  33. Don’t know why Ayn Rand shouldn’t take Social Security and Medicare if she had paid taxes all her life.
    The movie looks great – much better than I had thought. I can just hear Obama’s answer to a query if he has seen and liked the film: “I’m all for high-speed trains.”

  34. The idea is great but the soundtrack is awful. Is that the best thing they can do for music?

  35. I’m probably overly pessimistic, but, any bets on the insertion of left leaning imagery? The hard working illegal immigrant juxtaposed with the “cracker” welfare case for example?
    I have confidence in Hollywood.

  36. Do you notice on the poster that the world he is holding up looks a bit like obama’s o-logo

  39. Finally something -different- from Hollywood, the makers of tedious sameness.
    You know, I don’t even care if its complete made-for-TV doodoo. The mere fact that somebody dared put some different culture themes up on the screen makes it awesome. I can’t even watch most movies anymore, they’re all variations on Avatar.
    That one will forever stand in my mind as the very Platonic Model of over budget Post-Modern Leftist propaganda and Hollywood ego wanking.
    I saw it for free. I was very happy not to have wasted money on it, but its still two hours of life I’ll never get back.

  41. The production values are superb – that alone will be worth a watch. Based on that trailer, I can see many leftards being engaged by empowered females and missing the entire story. Beagle, make sure you take an adult over 50 with you to explain the big words and the plot. Oh, and Beagle, what makes you so sure that most of the production crew aren’t SDAers? The readership of SDA goes waaay beyond the few regular posters.

  42. Contemporizing the film is important – that brings the theme to present consciousness. Had it been shot in its historical context, it would simply be seen as an academic period piece.

  43. Perfect timing indeed…Just in time before the world dumps the greenback (IMF in serious talks about it)…
    In the near future:
    “Where can I see Atlas shrugged Part 1?”
    “See that unemployment line there?…It’s playing for 4$ in the theater beside it”
    Later:
    “Where can I see Atlas shrugged Part 2?”
    “See that welfare line there?…There showing it for 2$ in that rundown cineplex beside it”
    Some time later:
    “Where can I see Atlas shrugged Part 3?”
    “See that soup kitchen line there?…It’s playing in there, no charge.”

  44. Part 1??
    Is this because the producers believe this generation hasn’t the attention span needed to absorb Rand’s opus on free enterprise in one sitting?

  48. I find it amusing that most modern day conservatives count Ayn Rand as one of them. She was pretty adamant while she was a live that she was not a conservative.
    A capitalist, yes. A conservative, no.
    For instance, Atlas Shrugged not only contains Rand’s Objectivism philosophy, but her theory on sex. And Rand was very into sex. Quite openly.
    Her fondness of secular reason also made her a rabid atheist, in much the same bent as Richard Dawkins. Particularly, she viewed religion and socialism as two sides of the same coin (the denial or reason).
    Nietzsche saw religion and socialism as two sides of the same coin too, for much the same reason, but interestingly Rand hated Nietzsche, because he was a post-modernist. And she hated all post-modernists.
    Moreover, Rand a conservative icon. Funny, that.

  49. “I find it amusing that most modern day conservatives count Ayn Rand as one of them.”
    I hear her called “right-wing” a lot, and “libertarian”, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard her called “conservative”.

  50. @signal222: Agreed. Last time I checked Hollywood hadn’t undergone lustration. The lack of usual suspects from the cast list was encouraging though.
    Will this film be shown in Canada? All jokes about CRTC/CBSC/LOLBBQ agencies’ permission aside, I wonder if it will make it to theatres here.

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