Atlas Shrugged getting several movies

Humourous thought: Armin Shimmerman is in this (hopefully for Money, Dear Boy, because I would be very unhappy if he was a fan of the source material). Geeks know him best for playing Quark, who is a parody of materialist philosophies, of which Objectivism is a variation. So, who else is hoping that he channels some Quark into whomever he's playing? Because that could very well make the film worthwhile.

^ The character he's playing only has a very minor role in the book, someone from the "State Science Institute" who attempts to obtain the rights to Henry Rearden's company. It's possible he'll only be a One-Scene Wonder, and given what little development I can gather about his character, I'd better anticipate the Anti-Quark. That is to say, "a parody of the opposite of Ayn Rand's philosophy."

edited 14th Apr '11 10:27:10 AM by SeanMurrayI

I'm getting sidebars and bottom ads reading "Who is John Galt?" This distress me, largely because I do not care who John Galt is.

I've been seeing that a lot, too, though I haven't figured how big a role simply visiting this thread frequently has to do with it and how much of it is just me constantly Googling the movie just to see if there's anything new and noteworthy from anyone who isn't associated with any organizations with the words "Atlas" or "Rand" appearing anywhere in their names.

I despise everything this work stands for and everyone and everything associated with this movie's existence, and the frequent ads for it I keep seeing now are making me so self-conscious of all the times I try to look up anything new about its production.

edited 14th Apr '11 12:07:32 PM by SeanMurrayI

Those ads are following me across the Internet too, and I just visit this thread. The Advertisement Server must be an Ayn Rand fan.

or a sadist

It is currently at 0% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Ebert's review is there, for whoever wanted to see that.

Ebert's review is up. My favourite line is "The dialogue seems to have been ripped throbbing with passion from the pages of Investors’ Business Daily."

It seems like even the reviewers that *like* Ayn Rand hate the movie, by and large...

Percentage is not 6 percent. New York Post gave it a positive review.

^ It's a 2 & 1/2 star (out of four) review. It's the most positive professional review (and the only one at that) so far, but it's still only got a lukewarm reception from the Post, at best.

The general consensus from every professional review I've seen so far is basically, "It's difficult (if not, impossible) to follow the film's story if you haven't already read the book, the fact that this project is a low-budget affair shines through clear as day, and it doesn't leave much promise for Parts II and III (assuming this even makes enough money back to finance two more pictures)."

On the whole, it's practically everything most of us have already anticipated in this thread.

edited 15th Apr '11 8:38:58 AM by SeanMurrayI

Why am I not surprised that a conservative publication gave it a positive review?

^ I will point out though that Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal published a negative review.

While I'm not a fan of Ebert, his review was certainly entertaining.

Audience rating: 86%. Then again, the people who don't like it aren't watching it (well, mostly...)

Also, it only comes out today.

Yeah, there's always either an oddly high or oddly low "user rating" for movies before they come out. Me, I think any reputatable metareview aggregator should not even accept user reviews until release. . .

^ Even then, user ratings still aren't entirely reliable for anything. Did you know that Justin Bieber: Never Say Never has a 4 & 1/2 star rating on Amazon? I've never paid much attention to Bieber, but is his concert movie really that good?

edited 15th Apr '11 11:40:05 AM by SeanMurrayI

True, but at least if you prevent ratings from being entered until the movie is out, theoretically the votes will be from fans who've *seen* the movie.

It had a 61% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Yesterday a friend of mine who's a Randian asked on Facebook if anyone wanted to see a movie with him that night.

The funny thing is, even though he's asked people to see movies with him the past year or so, this is the first time I recall where he didn't say what movie it was in his post.

I saw this on the "Critic-Proof" page.

• Atlas Shrugged, Part I. Only one professional critic dared to plug it. However, audiences are going wild! Rand even noted in the book that critics have to carry the opinions of those who pay them - give praise to online customer reviews!

"Even then, user ratings still aren't entirely reliable for anything. Did you know that Justin Bieber: Never Say Never has a 4 & 1/2 star rating on Amazon? I've never paid much attention to Bieber, but is his concert movie really that good?"

Conversely, his Hatedom has been pretty active in giving it a rating of 1.2 on IMDb.

Also, LOL at Wikipedia's Reception section of the movie. Further evidence that you can easily manipulate them to propagate whatever viewpoint you wish.

edited 17th Apr '11 1:33:58 PM by Cliche

Wow. They really are polishing the turd, aren't they?

One person in the Wikipedia talk page even called Ebert a "moocher."

Also, now there's an ad for something that isn't the Atlas Shrugged movie, but is in the exact same format...

edited 17th Apr '11 2:10:12 PM by Pannic

Audience rating: 85%.

Well... There goes the "it's too early to tell" theory.