Nevermind My Optimism
I know I’ve been expressing some optimism about November in recent posts. But forget about it. A total game-changer means we should all give up on reelecting Barack Obama.
Apparently gluttons for more movie critic punishment, the producers of the first Atlas Shrugged movie have announced that production on Part Two will begin in the spring.
John Aglialoro, who independently produced and funded the first movie to the tune of $20 million, and Harmon Kaslow, another producer, announced that they would begin principal photography on the sequel in April, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Ever attentive to timing, Aglialoro and Kaslow said they chose to announce the movie on what would have been Ayn Rand’s 107th birthday and are shooting to release it this October, right before the presidential election.
Between the artistic brilliance of right-wing propaganda films, their huge market share, the legendary financial success of the first film, and the fact that Ayn Rand is better than all of us, I don’t see any reason to hope for an Obama victory. In fact, I’m going to start hording my money from the rest of you leeches.
You missed the part where they say that Part Two will be outsourced to an anime studio.
Please, please tell me you’re not joking.
I’m trying to get my head around the idea of cartoon characters playing cartoon characters.
I just want to see dagny show john she loves him by hitting him repeatedly with a giant hamer is that so wrong?
That’s better than showing her love with tentacles.
I disagree.
ooo! Now I have to go lie down for a while…
Most cartoon characters will insist on at least 2 dimensions for their characters.
Hey, that might actually result in something entertaining.
Its a proven fact that anime can make anything awesome.
So obviously it will never happen.
Hell if Rush can make Rand interesting and fun, it is possible that anime can do it too.
Heaven knows, it can’t be done with live action. What is truly scary is it will be the 3rd movie based on her works (4 if you count the biopic with Helen Mirren and Eric Stoltz)
I’m looking forward to the MMO based on Atlas Shrugged, where you win by going Galt (ie, logging off and removing the game from your computer).
But how does the Galtwinner get to see it stop working on every other computer at that point?
I mean, that is how the game will be made, right? It’d be so untrue to life if the game kept running without you (by which I mean “me”).
Galtians simply know that the entire network shuts down when they quit the game. They don’t need feedback.
They also know that the world temporarily ceases to exist when they fall asleep
A STRANGE GAME. THE ONLY WAY TO WIN…
How about a nice game of chess?
Either the market is infallible and the first movie sucked or the market is fallible and the first movie was wrong.
Luckily, philosophy never got in the way of Ayn Rand’s followers.
Actually, the Randroid response to this argument would probably be that true works of genius exist only for the self-expression of the Great Man who made them. The herd is predictably incapable of appreciating them.
Then why did Atlas Shrugged sell so well?
Because shut up, that’s why.
The book was released before government interference in the marketplace. The failure of the movie is PROOF that government meddling is bad.
Because there’s at least one group that buys them in huge quantities every year and ships them to schools. Think of them as the Gideons except with Atlas Shrugged. Also Gideon Bibles don’t get tossed on the “surplus materials” sale rack as soon as they arrive.
That’s “hoard” and “never mind,” you moocher.
Triumph of the Will to be re-released in October.
In 3-D!
FTW
With a new soundtrack by Queen.
Am I the only one who would like to see this?
No.
Here’s the next best thing then.
Shit, amigo, if you’re going that route, let’s make The Boys from Zanzibar, in which it’s revealed that Dr. Brian May* has cloned Freddie Mercury hundreds of times.
*Yes, I know he’s an astrophysicist, but in the best tradition of comic book supervillains, let’s pretend that he’s a polymath.
Will it have more Ewoks?
No, but I understand John Galt will be played by Jar-Jar Binks.
The…horror…
“Whosa Jar Jar Galtsy?”
I can’t wait to see McMeMeMegan’s thoughts – “Based on the receipts and this Sharper Image graphing calculator/Leatherman (not that way, Peter darling – later, no, put the gag away, I said), the prequels, starring Jar Jar, are central to my point, and this is a brilliant marketing/casting decision. As a former Obama supporter, I endorse Romney/Rand in 2012, least not because I expect the salt trade with Himalaya to open up.”
You and teh interwebs’ other Ellsworth Tooheys may try to make fun of this film, but you’re only doing it because you understand it’s a work of surpassing genius and that its very existence will threaten your cherished collectivism.
Even without seeing it I grade it: A = A!
Even better than the Gallant Gallstone!
A equals A factorial?
*ducks from the barrage of rotten tomatoes*
so A equals the number of people who will attend this movie?
So A=1 or A=2?
Man between this and the “quantum santorum” jokes in an earlier thread today was a fine day for science-wingnut puns.
Though the best one I saw today was on a different blog, to the effect of “Newt’s moon-base fantasies prove he’s a lunatic.”
Please, oh please let McArdle have a role in this one.
I’d rather see her on “Worst Cooks In America”.
But she can’t be a bad cook. She has a really, really expensive blender.
And Himalayan salt! Which she keeps within easy reach because she uses it so infrequently. Or something.
Having never read the book, is there a character who is a giant elf who likes discussing things?
No, but there is one who can produce 12,000 word screeds on demand.
There’s a scene where a lot of people die in a train accident, but it turns out it’s OK because they’re all evil. A businessman who took government loans, a woman (and her two children) whose husband worked for the government, a playwright who made fun of businessmen in his plays, a man who had inherited his wealth instead of acquiring it through his own industry – that sort of subhuman filth.
McArdle sounds perfect for the “housewife who believed that she had the right to elect politicians, of whom she knew nothing, to control giant industries, of which she had no knowledge.”
So, the first movie totally tanked and they’re rewarding failure by making the second movie any way. I have got to figure out how to get on the wingnut welfare gravy train.
The message is too universal, powerful, and important to abandon the 423 people who saw the first film.
Oh, yeah, and those two guys who thought that it was a sci-fi film. And those four couples who were just looking for a quiet place to make out. Them too.
You’re missing the point – when your whole ethos (even your whole life) is based on resentment, you need constant infusions of persecution to keep the bile bubbling. The last movie gave the Hatezis months and months of new reasons to rage at the elitist Lieberals; this will probably do almost as well. No third one, though – it gets old too fast, so you need a new source of bitter, self-pitying lack-of-appreciation to feed on. There’s a reason the Confederacy is celebrated almost as much as the Third Reich for many of these guys – failure is vital to them; especially failure combined with disgust and mockery. It’s hard to maintain a good hate without a good persecution mania.
This is, alas, all too true. As bored, powerless, self-pitying nobodies who suspect their lives are worthless, they also need to feel a part of a powerful, world-historical and (above all) exciting Movement. You have to have the boredom, doubt and self-pity first, though. Together they provide the need for the delusions of grandeur that conservative mythologies provide.
Awesome! Just in time to remind America what assholes conservatives in general and libertarians in particular really are.
Unfortunately for you, to those of us out here in the real world, swivel-eyed loony ‘conservatives’ (who are actually mad fascist revolutionaries by any reasonable standard) and libertarian assholes are two of the things that define the USA.
Dude, I live in Montana. It does not get any more real, nor do the wingnuts get any more extreme or delusional, than here. The reality, however, is that while such whackaloons are indeed authentic Americana, they are far from the majority, who actually support pogressive policies.
I hear that this one will be called Atlas Hugged. And they may follow up with We the Giving.
So, expect the Paul(R)-Tebow(R) ticket to siphon of a lot of lefties…Glenn Greenwald and Noam Chomsky are already abroad I hear, ever since the Paul Newsletter praised anti-war hero Robert Byrd, not to be confused with Larry.
::slow clap::
Manju, if this is indeed the self-parody I hope it is… congratulations. You’ve finally won a thread.
Indeed, congratulations are in order.
I feel I could read that comment for the rest of my life and not begin to begin to grasp whatever it is you thought you were talking about.
The
thing’scomment’s hollow—it goes on forever—and—oh my God—it’s full ofstarsRobert Byrd!Sometimes I wonder if Manju isn’t a Colbert-like character.
This comment is a thing of beauty, in its own way.
I’m pretty sure that there’s an extraneous r in Manju’s comment. I just can’t be sure.
Ooop… *100%*
*s*
No more weed, Atticus!
You’ve confounded the laws of physics by packing in so many rightwing tropes in just two sparse sentences.
Magnificent!
Atlas Hugged is pretty funny.
To be honest, a small part of me actually admires these guys. Sure, the first part of “Atlas Shrugged” was a critical and commercial failure, but at least these guys are putting their money where there mouth is and making something they believe in – knowing full well that what they make will probably be awful and may not even break even. And even if what they believe in is wrong and is basically used to justify being a selfish prick.
I feel the same about David Zucker and “An American Carol.” These guys could have gone all “Big Hollywood” and bitch and complain about how “Hollyweird” doesn’t make conservative movies (which is actually debatable – I think there are a lot of conservative themes in Hollywood) and why doesn’t “Hollyweird” make more movies that they like. Instead, they actually go out and make the conservative movies they want to make.
Like I said, only a small part of me admires these guys. I still disagree with the actual substance of the movies.
Of course, for this admiration doesn’t extend to Madonna’s new film in which, from what I’ve read, Edward VIII and Wallace Simpson aren’t fascists. But that’s for another thread.
And even if what they believe in is wrong and is basically used to justify being a selfish prick.
correction: what they believe in is being a selfish prick.
Madonna’s new film in which, from what I’ve read, Edward VIII and Wallace Simpson aren’t fascists.
This is a bit of a thing, though. We’ve had two biopics of Coco Chanel and they both carefully stop short of the bit in occupied Paris where she was shagging an SS colonel and collaborating with the Nazis.
Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson were more idiots than actual fascists.
I dunno about EddieVIII, but I’m from Baltimore, and Wallis definitely was a bit loopy. All those silly inventions – if she hadn’t had that incredible dog, things probably wouldn’t have ended well. I understand somebody decided to use her life as a model for some sort of thinly-veiled comic shorts.
So, let me get this straight–the first film was a commercial failure, but they’re making the second one because it’s got a message that the world needs to hear?
How very altruistic of them . . .
What they can never understand is that while they worship The Market, the Market hates their guts.
Well, Objectivism isn’t as market-worshipping as, say, the Austrian-economics types. Objectivism is more about worshipping capitalists than about worshipping the mechanisms of the market itself. Manly self-actualized ubermensches who make their way in the world driven by self-interest. The customers themselves are just a bunch of ignorant leeches so who cares about what they think?
Plus, there’s nothing more Objectivist than a vanity project.
Actually its more like this:
The first movie was a vanity project financed entirely by a couple of rich wackadoodles who wanted their names on screen as producer credits.
It was made for less than the donut budget of a Michael Bay film and probably made a good tax shelter for someone. Surprisingly it wasn’t a total loss. Only 1.5 million out of a 6 million budget.
Said rich wackadoodles didn’t become bankrupt after the failure of the first film, still had some loose cash lying around and enjoyed masturbating to the sight of their name in film.
So naturally a second film is in production
Sure, they’re making these movies at a loss, BUT they make it up on volume!
Think “cult classic”, “midnight showing”, “devoted fanbase”. Why, it’ll be just like Rocky Horror, but without the intellectual coherence.
Its an ego piece. It doesn’t have to make money. Just satisfy the rich moron who foots the budget.
Its like hiring Picasso to do a portrait depicting you riding on a white horse dressed like Napoleon.
Its going to be ridiculously expensive, utterly tasteless, a waste of talent for the artist, enjoyable only to yourself and out there for the entire world to see.
The free market for Rifftrax will judge this a success.
If the second movie is as bad as the first, it will take us back not to 1957, but 1964, as in massive Democratic gains.
I actually liked the book.
Still better than the Twilight series.
Instead of “Straight to video”, is there a “Straight to MST3K” catagory?
Did anyone else see this review, from a former Ron Paul staffer, about the first one?
Perhaps the greatest movie ever made.
I put it up there with Saving Private Ryan, and Schindler’s List.
Not kidding.
A total game-changer means we should all give up on reelecting Barack Obama.
Shit…first Trump endorses Romney, and now this. Well, my weekend’s ruined.
In 1959 the subject of my senior thesis in American Studies at Syracuse’s Maxwell School was the writings of Ayn Rand as the intellectual foundation of corporate facism in America. (The faculty was unanimous in decreeing my thoughts way over the top). Her malignant influence has been pervasive through the decades: witness Alan Greenspan basing his whole market theory of economics on her “philosophy” to Paul Ryan. The snark is fun, but there millions out there who vote for people who embrace the nonsense. It needs to be addressed seriously.
A looming horde of money! Quayle, moochers, quayle at my mite!
As someone who’s kinda-sorta worked in the production end of the biz for a while, a project which starts shooting in February with the goal of an October release strikes me as just a bit rushed. Sure, Roger Corman could do it, but that’s Roger Corman, whose films aren’t exactly known for high production values or quality FX. In fact, folks I know who’ve worked on Corman’s films and those produced by Charlie Band would always bitterly comment on how many stories were set in mansions or coprorate boardrooms. It costs $$ to replicate that shit, yo. So a low-budget movie about industrialists and railroads is just begging for the lulz, subject matter aside…