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By Big Tent Democrat, Section Other Politics
Posted on Fri Apr 15, 2011 at 12:24:51 PM EST
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I've always wanted to use Atrios' line as a title and Roger Ebert's review of the new movie "Atlas Shrugged," yes based on the Ayn Rand work, gives me the excuse. From Ebert's review:

But you’re thinking, railroads? Yes, although airplanes exist in this future, trains are where it’s at. When I was 6, my Aunt Martha brought me to Chicago to attend the great Railroad Fair of 1948, at which the nation’s rail companies celebrated the wonders that were on the way. They didn’t quite foresee mass air transportation. "Atlas Shrugged" seems to buy into the fair’s glowing vision of the future of trains. Rarely, perhaps never, has television news covered the laying of new railroad track with the breathless urgency of the news channels shown in this movie.

Read the whole thing.

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SuperTrains! | 32 comments (32 topical)

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Anyone notice, on Ebert's site (5.00 / 1) (#7)
by scribe on Fri Apr 15, 2011 at 01:59:08 PM EST

the stack of his books he's pitching, down the left side?

Like the one titled "Your Movie Sucks"?

I was going to ask where the producers of this flick (part 1 of 3, we're told) got financing, but then I remembered Ed Wood managed to get money for Plan 9 From Outer Space, and he wasn't making movies with a message that fellated the Rich.

Question for anyone who has seen or will see this: do they include the part where one of Rand's characters notes that the only people who should inherit money are the ones who wouldn't need it (to succeed and grow rich) in the first place? An implicit argument for a fully-confiscatory estate tax if there ever was one.....

Self financed, I heard (none / 0) (#23)
by ruffian on Sat Apr 16, 2011 at 08:18:44 AM EST

: You are better-informed than any! (none / 0) (#29)
by oculus on Sat Apr 16, 2011 at 02:00:58 PM EST

(A complinment.)

I can't believe users gave it 4 stars. (none / 0) (#1)
by lilburro on Fri Apr 15, 2011 at 12:39:03 PM EST

Right up there with Citizen Kane I guess.

The users who rated it (5.00 / 1) (#8)
by Zorba on Fri Apr 15, 2011 at 02:31:15 PM EST

4 stars may not all have even seen the film- they may just be Ayn Rand groupies (would-be libertarians and maybe a bunch of Tea Partiers). I certainly don't intend to go see it. I read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead when I was about twelve (heaven only knows why) and actually thought they were wonderful. By the time I was about 14, I had decided that Ayn Rand was full of complete and utter horse manure.


Me, too! (5.00 / 0) (#20)
by gyrfalcon on Fri Apr 15, 2011 at 11:14:39 PM EST

I thoroughly enjoyed them at the time, and it came as a shock to me to find out some years later that there were actually people stupid enough to take the philosophy seriously. It never even occurred to me that the author took the philosophy seriously. I just assumed she'd made up a nutty ideology as part of the fictional setting for some reason. After all, "Atlas Shrugged" is pretty squarely within the realm of speculative fiction anyway, so I thought the whole thing was. Imagine my surprise!


If you haven't seen it (2.00 / 0) (#14)
by jimakaPPJ on Fri Apr 15, 2011 at 03:47:46 PM EST

and don't intend to see it, then why are you commenting on the movie?


Because I object to (5.00 / 3) (#15)
by Zorba on Fri Apr 15, 2011 at 04:41:38 PM EST

Ayn Rand and almost everything she stood for. For the same reason I would not go to a movie based on Mein Kampf. (Okay, maybe that's a bit of hyperbole.) And I assume that this is still a free country, and I can damned well comment on anything I please. As can you.


You sure hit PPJ's (none / 0) (#16)
by Harry Saxon on Fri Apr 15, 2011 at 04:45:38 PM EST

'grump' button


Ah, well (5.00 / 2) (#17)
by Zorba on Fri Apr 15, 2011 at 05:16:40 PM EST

I'm very, very tired today, having spent a greater part of the day cooking, freezing, and preparing for a Greek festival that is upcoming after Easter. My back hurts, my knees hurt, and I don't have a whole heck of a lot of patience right now. So he hit my "grump button" as well. When I'm tired and hurting, I just don't give very many people a "pass."


There's (none / 0) (#18)
by Ga6thDem on Fri Apr 15, 2011 at 05:57:37 PM EST

something in the air right now that's making people grumpy. I sure am grouchy but I think it's because of fighting about the "War on Women" on facebook.


What???? (none / 0) (#19)
by Zorba on Fri Apr 15, 2011 at 06:05:13 PM EST

I rarely go on Facebook. What the heck is this "War on Women"? (Or maybe I don't want to know because it will just cause more grumpiness.)


It's called the War On Women in Ohio (none / 0) (#22)
by Harry Saxon on Sat Apr 16, 2011 at 07:58:18 AM EST

and it's about all the restrictions on abortion that have been introduced into the Ohio legislature.

But, hey, you got PPJ's goat and than makes you someone I admire and trust from now on.


The (none / 0) (#24)
by Ga6thDem on Sat Apr 16, 2011 at 08:55:32 AM EST

"war on women" is going on all across the country in state houses and even in the congress with the attempt to defund planned parenthood. They are trying to make abortion illegal and it legal to murder doctors. One numbskull here in GA wrote a bill making having a miscarriage punishable by the death penalty.


: Well, I'm getting sick and tired (none / 0) (#30)
by Zorba on Sat Apr 16, 2011 at 03:07:20 PM EST

of this. Really, I don't see much difference any more between the Muslim Taliban and our own Christian Taliban. BTW, I did note that Obama and the Dems already threw DC women under the bus- Washington, DC is not allowed any more to spend their own money to help poor women have an abortion. (This is possible because DC really doesn't have full self-rule, nor any voting representation in Congress. Taxation without representation.)

So you are not commenting (none / 0) (#25)
by jimakaPPJ on Sat Apr 16, 2011 at 08:56:29 AM EST

on the movie, just making a statement that you hate Rand. Is hate too strong a word?

And of course you can comment on what you want. It's just that the thread was about the movie.


If she read the book (none / 0) (#28)
by Harry Saxon on Sat Apr 16, 2011 at 10:40:53 AM EST

she has a good idea what the movie is like.

BTW,can you tell us when Jeralyn or BTD appointed you thread monitor for this site, PPJ?

Or are you not catching a clue again, as usual.

Thanks as always for the feedback. ;-)


Thanks, Harry (none / 0) (#31)
by Zorba on Sat Apr 16, 2011 at 03:10:03 PM EST

I really don't feel like "engaging" (if that's the correct term) with Jim right now. I'm tired again because I just spent the morning and part of the afternoon at church once more, doing yet more cooking. Thanks for running interference.


It's too bad some people seemingly (none / 0) (#32)
by Harry Saxon on Mon Apr 18, 2011 at 12:51:19 AM EST

dedicate their lives to making people feel uncomfortable when they ask the wrong people


: Should (none / 0) (#33)
by Harry Saxon on Mon Apr 18, 2011 at 12:53:05 AM EST

'ask the wrong questions' for ask the 'wrong people'.

Not... (none / 0) (#9)
by kdog on Fri Apr 15, 2011 at 02:49:46 PM EST

complete and utter manure, if I may beg to differ. Half full of sh*t? :)

She was an extremist, and kinda nuts...to be sure. But she did drop some science once in awhile...

"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. When there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."

Can't speak for y'all but that rings very true to me. Well said Rand.

And I remember really enjoying the novella "Anthem", but its been years.

Atlas Shrugged,, otoh, I couldn't even finish...I tried to slog through it but it got to the point where all I could think was "somebody shoulda got this lady an editor."


Dog, sweetie, (5.00 / 1) (#10)
by Zorba on Fri Apr 15, 2011 at 03:07:18 PM EST

I will admit that she said a few (very few) things that I can agree with (as Mr. Zorba is fond of saying, "Even a blind pig finds an acorn once in awhile"). And in a whole lot of ways, I am sympathetic to much of the libertarian philosophy. I consider myself, for instance, a fierce civil libertarian (I'm a long-time supporting member of the ACLU). And I do agree that we have too many laws that put way too many people in jail for things that do not hurt others, or society in general (they may hurt that particular individual- or not- but they don't hurt anyone else). Having said that, I still think that Rand is full of it. ;-)


Let Freedom of Thought ring baby... (none / 0) (#12)
by kdog on Fri Apr 15, 2011 at 03:24:14 PM EST

All I'm saying is lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater...that quote is almost prophetic of our current over-criminalized society.

Ever read about the absolute ideological loyalty she demanded of her Objectivist disciples? Downright cult-like, and dare I say un-libertarian. So she was crazy and a total hypocrite, but still there are lessons to be learned from her work.

Where we get into trouble is to treat any book like the bible...even the bible, especially the bible:) Or Marx or Rand or Thomas Paine or Pick Your Favorite Thinker. No person, no school has a monopoly on truth or good ideas...the wisest of them all borrows from them all.


: You have said it, my brother (none / 0) (#13)
by Zorba on Fri Apr 15, 2011 at 03:40:12 PM EST

Question everything. Pick the few nuggets of good out whenever you can. ;-)

Well (none / 0) (#11)
by Ga6thDem on Fri Apr 15, 2011 at 03:13:25 PM EST

since even innocent people have been sent to jail and are now being freed I'm thinking we've gone further than that.


Whoa! Sounds dreadful. (none / 0) (#2)
by oldpro on Fri Apr 15, 2011 at 12:54:32 PM EST

Even worse than the original with Patricia Neal and Gary Cooper and that was bad enough, although it did have the virture of spelling out the Rand philosophy in an unmistakable message, albeit set in a cloying (meant to be titillating) romance promotion for free love.

Yuck.

Well, that was The Fountainhead (none / 0) (#6)
by shoephone on Fri Apr 15, 2011 at 01:25:15 PM EST

and it was pretty terrible. I expect Atlas Shrugged to be about as popular as that John Travolta Scientology flick (but maybe not as unintentionally funny).


: Riiiight. Sheesh. (none / 0) (#21)
by oldpro on Sat Apr 16, 2011 at 02:33:02 AM EST

Chemo brain scrambled the two titles. Thanks!
Same song, though....second verse.

Sigh.. I wish we could have had a (none / 0) (#3)
by observed on Fri Apr 15, 2011 at 01:05:03 PM EST

dirigible age.

: Fringe (none / 0) (#4)
by Big Tent Democrat on Fri Apr 15, 2011 at 01:06:30 PM EST

It's alternate universe has them.

Wait a minute. Where is the link to (none / 0) (#5)
by oculus on Fri Apr 15, 2011 at 01:23:18 PM EST

Atrios' line??????

I will go see it (none / 0) (#34)
by Militarytracy on Mon Apr 18, 2011 at 08:29:45 AM EST

Because I must see it for myself

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