I fully expect leftie critics to attack the movie's message before they attack the quality of the movie itself.
And considering how poor the movie choices out there right now, a film that encourages debate is much more welcome than the latest rom-com or 3-D chase flick.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
SS109 wrote: I fully expect leftie critics to attack the movie's message before they attack the quality of the movie itself.
And considering how poor the movie choices out there right now, a film that encourages debate is much more welcome than the latest rom-com or 3-D chase flick.
I think any controversies surrounding it will be more entertaining then the movie. With one lonely exception, I have never seen a movie based on a book that I have read that was not a disappointment.
Still, I think conservatives will like it based on the message and liberals will not see it but will dislike it based on what they are told to think.
And of course, lots of irrelevant attacks on Ayn Rand like the example that soulshiner was kind enough to provide.
I will like it just to see how my visualization of the book compares with that of the movie. From the trailer, I could see the images I previously saw in my mind, like I had been there before. :pop
Variety pans the Atlas Shrugged movie
by Joshua Zader
Writing for Variety, reviewer Peter Debruge disparages the new movie as a low-budget failure with almost no redeeming qualities.
His review begins:
A monument of American literature is shaved down to a spindly toothpick of a movie in “Atlas Shrugged,” a project that reportedly once caught the eye of Angelina Jolie, Faye Dunaway and Clint Eastwood. Part one of a trilogy that may never see completion, this hasty, low-budget adaptation would have Ayn Rand spinning in her grave, considering how it violates the author’s philosophy by allowing opportunists to exploit another’s creative achievement — in this case, hers. Targeting roughly 200 screens, pic goes out hitched to a grassroots marketing campaign, hoping to break-even via by-popular-demand bookings and potential Tea Party support.
I read the book, and it was waste of time then...I certainly am not interested in seeing a bad movie based on a bad book.
Edited to add: Even the review on "theatlasphere", which was obviously written by someone who was a Rand-believer ends with:
"While Atlas Shrugged Part 1 successfully adapts the storyline of Ayn Rand’s novel, it fails to capture the inner motivation of her characters and therefore the passion of Rand’s ideas. Ironically, some devotees of the novel may still thoroughly enjoy the film, already being intimately familiar with the state of mind of the characters. The uninitiated moviegoer, though, may very well wonder what the Rand hoopla is all about."
LadyJazzer wrote: I read the book, and it was waste of time then...I certainly am not interested in seeing a bad movie based on a bad book.
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Sales of the book for 50 years suggest otherwise. I think the success or failure of the movie at the box office could be a precursor of the '12 election.
Mein Kamp has been in print longer than Rand, and still sells books... That doesn't mean [fecal material].
Objectivism, i.e., "I've got mine--screw you", has certainly been around a long time... However, "Atlas Shrugged" was still a lousy book, and thinking that somehow the teabaggers will ride in on the wings of a bad book--and a bad movie--is just what I would expect....