Cinematical

I am not an Ayn Rand fan and I've always thought her Objectivism philosophy was a load of self-important crap. That being said, I really enjoyed The Fountainhead (although a scene that I took as a rape was very disasteful -- some disagree whether it was a rape or not, I believe it was). The Fountainhead on the other hand was too steeped in the Objectivism belief for me to like. I can't see the film being any better.

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There was a story to fountainhead? I only remember a thousand some pages of angry "enlightened selfishness" ranting.

I hope the film makers got their soap boxes handy because the actors are going to need them if this is going to be even passingly faithful to the novel.

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This will be garbage. Your criticisms are all correct, especially the one about the inability and unwillingness of any studio to accurately and _lovingly_ translate Rand's politics to the screen as the soul of the story.

"Money will take you anywhere you want to go, but will not replace you as the driver."

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I wonder if the Church of Scientology and the Ayn Rand Institute could meet to discuss merger negotiations.

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I wonder if any of this has anything to do with the success of Bioshock.

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I read through Atlas Shrugged after playing BioShock and thought that the book makes for a good story. What kills it is the"This is John Galt speaking" chapter. Rand does an adequate job explaining her philosophy through her characters, but the 60 explanation ends up feeling like beating a dead horse.

But this is a movie site, not a lit. crit. site. A movie version could be okay, as long as its handled well. What worries me the most is that they might cast Brad Pitt as Galt to cash in on Brangelina.

Also, I could easily see people hating the heroes.

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"And I'm not sure Hollywood -- even the relatively adventurous Lionsgate -- has the stomach for a politically faithful adaptation."

Have they the- organs somewhat below the stomach- to deal with an army of Peikoff's lawyers if they don't make it at least somewhat true to the politics of the thing?

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Aw, what's this, people who are critical of ayn rand's "philosophy" are being marked down? The libertarians must have come out in force.

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First, the climatic speech is only 53 pages in most paperback editions, not 60. It takes about three hours to listen to in audio editions. It is greatly overlong as are all of the speeches by the main characters in this book.

That said, length notwithstanding, there has never been a more damning critique of the intrinsic banality of socialism in print than that found in Atlas Shrugged.

That is why recent polls suggest that it has been read by 8 percent of American adults and has been ranked as the second most influential book in America behind the Bible.

I think intelligent readers should debate the book on the merits (or lack thereof) of its arguments. Calling it "screed" is merely a knee jerk effort to avoid dealing with its contents.

But then again, the way liberals deal with anything they disagree with is always to simply dismiss it, never argue the specifics of the case.

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I think this would work a lot better as an HBO miniseries event.

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Hollywood epitomizes Rand's philosophy. Do not be fooled by the words coming out of their mouths. Driven people who believe in themselves first and their ideals second; like most of us. They suffer the leaches and moochers like no other, other than maybe the taxpayer. They give us their best, usually, and are berated like no other. People like Jolie and Pitt ride this wave with grace and give and give and give and it is still not good enough. People should invest in themselves first and save the rest of us a lot of grief.

I am for the miniseries also.

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I can't wait to see how the actors portray Rand's endless ... and I mean endless ... use of smiles and other facial expressions to convey meaning. One of my favs ... "disinterested astonishment." Deleting the word "astonishment" alone could shorten the story by 10 percent. AS is bad art, regardless of the message, full of contradictions that the standard bearer of "rationality" should have edited out. But apparently Rand was too intellectually lazy to be bothered. Good luck making a screen play out of this pile of drivel.

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