Saturday, March 12, 2011

Testing Its Metal

A few years ago I heard there'd be a big screen version of Atlas Shrugged, and I doubted it could work.  And this was with a potential big budget and big-name cast.

Well, some tough Randians have made the film (of course--are you gonna stop them?) and apparently done it on the cheap, which makes me believe even more the film will be an unwatchable talkfest.  Early word is mixed, though Rand fans seem pleased.  I guess just seeing their heroes fight the moochers is already a victory.  After all, if Atlas Shrugged is as good as novels get, having handsome, well-lit people saying the novel's lines has to be great, too.

My friend Brian Doherty reviews the film in Reason (many Reasonoids have seen sneak previews) and gives it a qualifed thumbs up.  As far as I'm concerned, if it's not a complete train wreck (except for the actual train wreck), I'll be impressed.

The film officially opens April 15th, a symbolic date.  It will be rolling out slowly, so keep an eye out because it may be coming to your town.  Since the novel is extremely long, this is actually Atlas Shrugged Part One, the first of three planned.  I hope they make it to the end.  Gotta be better than the Twilight series.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Unwatchable because its source materail is unreadable?

5:45 AM, March 12, 2011  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Two or three years ago NPR had a summer reading series they did, in fact I believe they did it over a number of years and perhaps still are doing it. It involved interviewing celebrities and pseudo celebrities about their reading practices, and they interviewed Richard Posner, who talked about his literature professor mother and lawyer father. What he said was the only thing he read word for word was fiction. Legal briefs particularly don't require much, for the reason LAGuy pointed out years ago, that you have no hope of teaching Posner anything about the law, you can only hope to tell him something about the facts.

In any case, Atlas Shrugged should be read as if it were a particularly bad legal brief about a particularly good argument.

7:30 AM, March 12, 2011  

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