Atlas Shrugged

[WarderX]

Is apparently going to become a pretty big budget 'lets get us some Oscars' movie for 2008/2009.

Angelina Jolie is playing Dagny.

Craziness.

[Mario Speedwagon]

All I know about this book is that it made Officer Barbrady never want to read again and I think that's all I need to know.

[Jedah]

Originally Posted by Mario Speedwagon

All I know about this book is that it made Officer Barbrady never want to read again and I think that's all I need to know.

Splice a Harlequinn romance novel and "The Will to Power" and you have everything Aynn Rand ever wrote.

[Vorph]

This would make an excellent Bruckheimer & Bay production imo.

[Khorum]

Telemachus Sneezed would be a much better movie imo.

[Awanka]

Feckin Christ. An Ayn Rand movie in this day and age. I'm mighty curious to see how her brand of rationalism goes over with mainstream America. I'm also curious to see how they update the characters from the book. I don't think today's audience can identify with railrood and steel tycoons, and what was that other dude's thing... copper? They're probably all going to be turned into dot commers and Warren Buffet types. I picture a bunch of internet billionaires sitting around talking about how lazy and dependent the masses are and what a bunch of power-grubbing scumbags government is made up of.

Or maybe they will keep the setting in the 1950's.

I wonder if Galt will still have that mirage shield like Magneto. That enclave of industrialists reminded me of the Xmen, holed away in their little utopia building technologies.

This will be interesting.

[Jabberwhacky]

Figures Jolie is in it, what with the fucked-up sex scenes.

I think the industrial-era could go over fine; what wouldn't is the bullshit where Dagny has the 3 most powerful men on the planet swooning over her, in one form or another. I have it on my Facebook profile and I'll say it here: Ayn Rand wrote this book with one hand. I have yet to read her other stuff, but as far as Atlas Shrugged is concerned, there's some serious wish-fulfillment going on. (To expand, you could argue that most stories are just the author's wish-fulfillment, but some are cool (IE Star Wars) and some are not (IE Atlas Shrugged).)

[ex-genj]

I read it last year, don't remember any weird sex scenes. I think it will be pretty good actually script dependent. Expect a 3-4 hour extravaganza though.

[Tea on tuesday]

You didn't find any of the pseudo-rape scenes kind of odd?

[Tabris]

They should do the Fountainhead (already a shitty movie back in the day) and then they can really go all out with the scene where Roark rapes Dominique.

[WarderX]

Originally Posted by Tabris

They should do the Fountainhead (already a shitty movie back in the day) and then they can really go all out with the scene where Roark rapes Dominique.

Enh, she was asking for it.

[Khorum]

There's a movie called The Passion of Ayn Rand that was a pretty brutal biographical pic on her life and various neuroses. Helen Mirren plays Ayn Rand spectacularly, it's Mirren's best part imo. It's a pretty nasty view of Rand's life and sexuality and goes some way to explain why Objectivism doesn't ever address--or survive contact with--the notion of childbearing, filial love or any form of unconditional selflessness. Eric Stoltz kinda stumbles along and drags the film though, but it's great seeing if you're a Helen Mirren fan.

[Tabris]

I always liked Whittaker Chambers's takedown of Atlas Shrugged 60 years ago. His famous line rings true still today:

From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: "To a gas chamber — go!"

NR's 50th Anniversary: Whittaker Chambers on Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged on National Review Online

[dak]

Dak shrugged.

[Veronica]

I would look forward to this, but casting Angelina as Dagny just ruins it.