And the critics are really fired up. In a sense.
The Third Installment of the Atlas Shrugged Movie Is Out
33 responses to “The Third Installment of the Atlas Shrugged Movie Is Out”
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Totally off-topic, but comments are closed on the “Endeavour” item where it would be relevant (to the discussion, if not to the post itself).
I thought Janet and Louise, and perhaps others, might be interested in this: http://www.archaeology.org/news/2523-140917-egypt-armana-hair -
One of the commenters on that review refers to Objectivism as “a monumental significant philosophy”. There are few things that have ever struck me as less probable. It opens vistas of speculation and reflection.
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That’s funny, Paul, because I always think of Egyptians as having that long straight hair with bangs. Of course, in Akhenaten’s time they were less bound by tradition.
AMDG -
Monumental and significant, or monumentally significant? I guess there’s some justification for saying the latter, in that an awful lot of people have been influenced by it. But it’s sorta like the artistic significance of TV sitcoms.
I have the blog set up to automatically close comments on posts older than 60 days (or something). I did that a while back when WordPress was having so much trouble with the spam blocking software. Could try removing it now and seeing what happens.
My first thought on clicking Paul’s link was “Kate Upton [or other young beauty] a thousand years from now”. -
btw I only read two or three of the comments on the Rand review. I figured there would be a lot of angry Randians, although maybe they would be angry that the great book didn’t get a better movie treatment more than at the reviewer.
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WordPress?!? I meant TypePad.
And about that monumental significance, or whatever exactly the commenter meant: Randians complaining about professional (so to speak) philosophers not paying attention to her are, sadly, rather like the Christians who complain that Christian books and movies don’t get any attention or are “censored”. In both cases Not Very Good is the basic problem. -
I’ve never understood the taste for her work in any respect. The best you could say about it was that she could tell a story which would appeal to a certain niche audience. Her books, I believe, have never been out of print. Given that she died in 1982 and all the publications for which she was responsible (i.e. leaving aside anthologies assembled by her executors) were issued between 1935 and 1972, I would say that impresses for ‘a that.
Still, her characterization… blech. You have to see a fragment the film version of The Fountainhead for which she wrote the screenplay in 1949. You get hit over the hammer with the awfulness of it all and have to abandon watching. -
I think you can argue that Atlas Shrugged is the worst novel in the world, if you measure quality vs. popularity. There are many books that are much worse, but they don’t stay in print for generations. (Not sure if everything she wrote has stayed in print, but AS certainly has.) The reasons for the popularity interest me.
I forced myself to read it a while back, having decided that I wanted to have an informed opinion, and reviewed it here. That attracted the attention of Randians and I think the resulting comment thread was the longest ever on this blog. Unfortunately the end of HaloScan commenting took that discussion away with it. -
“That attracted the attention of Randians and I think the resulting comment thread was the longest ever on this blog.”
I remember that. shudder -
You know, b/c of the hair still being on that skull (Paul’s link) I feel slightly queasy!
Fascinating, though. I remember the conversation about the elaborate hairstyles of the past.
“My first thought on clicking Paul’s link was “Kate Upton [or other young beauty] a thousand years from now””
It’s rather a sobering thought, really. -
I will correct myself. New editions of all of her fiction have been issued in the last five years, as has one expository work. Four works of exposition have not been as far as I can tell, though the inventory is available.
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I think AS has not only been in print since it was published, but has been a pretty steady big seller. So even if some of her books have gone out of print, it doesn’t change the basic picture of huge popularity.
Maybe it was in that review I linked to, but someone or other said that Fountainhead movie wasn’t really that bad. -
Has anyone seen Calvary yet? My Catholic friends who’ve seen it, as well as one Evangelical friend who saw it in the U.K. some months ago, all rave about it. Alas, I wasn’t quite as impressed as they were. I liked it, and found parts of it very moving, but I also thought it was a little contrived, maybe trying to straddle a line between realistic drama and parable and not altogether succeeding.
But I’m thinking I should see it again (and it is the sort of film that could stand a second viewing) before making a final judgment. -
I watched Atlas Shrugged Part 1 on instant view and was surprised that it wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be. I probably had quite low expectations though, and I haven’t been excited enough to watch Part 2 (now available streaming through Netflix). Read the book back when I was an impressionable HS student and I can’t even remember why I did … who might have suggested it? Did I just happen to pick it up in the local bookstore? I did frequent a little privately owned bookstore in N. Miami, Fla when I was a kid, was into SciFi and the owner may have pointed me in that direction. Lately I’ve been reading famous books of dystopian fiction, which I suppose AS could count as one. After Brave New World and 1984 I am on to Fahrenheit 451. Without getting into what I think about these books one thing that is striking in comparison to AS is their length – BNW & 1984 are short novels; F451 is at best a novella. Perhaps the hatred of, along with rabid support of by the Randians, of Atlas Shrugged, has to do with its disproportionate length?
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Perhaps the hatred of, along with rabid support of by the Randians, of Atlas Shrugged, has to do with its disproportionate length?
Twenty-five years after it appeared, I took to Reader’s Guide and fished out the contemporaneous book reviews. There were repeated references to the length and repetitive quality of it. One reviewer offered that she’d read only 300 pages of it but guessed she had an adequate basis to describe the gist of it. -
She certainly did. Its size is part of the reason for its bad reputation, I think–the disparity between stated and actual achievement. I only finished it because I was determined to be able to say I had.
El Mis, I think you would find it a poor fourth to the dystopian novels you mentioned, just in terms of literary quality, if you were to read it now. A lot of people seem to find it a very gripping narrative, apart from its philosophy, and I just don’t get that at all. -
I mean, I was kind of hoping that I would find it engaging as a story, although I knew I didn’t like Rand’s philosophy. But as Grumpy said about The Mermen, it was not to be.
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Forgot to reply to Rob’s comment: no, I haven’t seen Calvary, or for that matter even heard of it.
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Also, note to Rob especially: I’ve now watched Twin Peaks through the big revelation in the middle of season 2. I really like it. And I thought of your remark, which I just went back and retrieved from the Favorite Movies thread: “There’s something in him, despite the weirdness, that sees love, forgiveness and reconciliation as the keys to human harmony. That sounds vapid, but in his vision the harmony achieved is never facile — it’s always earned, and usually through very difficult means.”
That’s exactly right. -
Here’s a brief review of ‘Calvary’ from one of our local papers:
http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/movie-reviews/2014/08/22/Movie-review-Mysteries-abound-in-gripping-gloomy-Calvary/stories/201408220004
One of my friends, who works for the Diocese of Pittsburgh and is a considerable movie buff, called it one of the best “Catholic” films he’s ever seen. -
everyone I know who has seen it says its great. I am waiting for it to come to South Bend.
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Glad you’re liking T.P., Mac. I think it’s marvelous stuff, some of the best TV ever.
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“some of the best TV ever” is a pretty low bar, very low for the time it was made, well before The Wire et.al. I think it’s one of Lynch’s best efforts, though I know it wasn’t all his. I think I read somewhere (I’ve been trying to balance curiosity about the show, the actors, etc. with need to avoid spoilers) that it was cancelled, in traditional TV fashion, due to low ratings. So I’m prepared for many of these fascinating plot and character threads to disappear without resolution.
Btw I knew Who Did It (humanly speaking) because I had seen Fire Walk With Me back in the ’90s sometime, and that part had stuck with me.
I could certainly do without David Duchovny in drag. -
Yeah, those scenes in FWWM were pretty powerful.
“a pretty low bar, very low for the time it was made, well before The Wire, etc.”
Very true, and I think it holds up remarkably well even in comparison with many of the later “quality” shows.
If I remember correctly, the ratings started to fall off as the solution to the mystery was postponed. The network, in response to this, not only gave Lynch and Frost a directive to solve it by a certain episode, but also took a measure of the creative control away from them. A lower quality product was the result, which of course caused further drops in ratings.
By the way, did you like the scene in the first season where James, Maddie and Donna are singing in the living room? I always thought that was the coolest thing…
That, and then the scene where ‘the giant’ appears and tells Cooper “It is happening again.” — brilliant. -
Yes, those are both great scenes. But I really didn’t want the living room scene to end the way it did. Looking at the sound track listing, I don’t see anything that looks like it would be that song. That’s too bad.
Was it your impression that the giant has some connection to the old room-service guy? Don’t answer if it would involve a spoiler–I still have about 10 episodes to go. -
There is a band called Twin Peaks, naturally. There are also bands called Audrey Horne and The Dale Cooper Quartet. The latter could just be someone’s name but they have an album called Metamanoir.
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We watched Shotgun Stories last night. I really liked it. I wasn’t sure I was going to at first, but it grew on me.
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See, I can do italics if I pay attention.
AMDG -
I kept thinking I might have seen that but finally realized I was thinking of Kitchen Stories.
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There is a connection between the giant and the room service guy, but I’ll leave it at that for now.
I’m a big fan of Shotgun Stories, Janet. Glad you liked it. Michael Shannon is just perfect there, like he is in Take Shelter.
Since you liked it you should also have a look at a very good little Canadian film called Small Town Murder Songs, which has a similar feel, if not a similar plot.
Speaking of great performances, I recently mentioned Tom Hardy’s tour de force solo flight in Locke. Well last week I saw The Drop, in which he plays a Brooklyn bartender with shady connections, as opposed to the affluent Welsh building contractor of Locke. Completely different role, and one where if you didn’t know it was the same actor you’d never guess it. But he gets it exactly right in both cases. I think that he (along with Shannon) is our best younger actor — seems like he can do pretty much anything. -
I see that Shannon was the groom in the wedding in Groundhog Day.
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Maclin, I was looking back at these comments to find the names of the movies Rob was recommending and I just saw your comment about Kitchen Stories. I missed it before. I love Kitchen Stories. I ought to watch it again.
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I watched that on your recommendation, as you may remember. I wasn’t as enthusiastic as you but I did like it.
Light On Dark Water 
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