Atlas Fragged

Still on the subject of the Atlas Shrugged movie, RandZapper discovered a delightfully clueless report on the film, filed by longtime Objectivist Bob Bidinotto in July of 2006. The report shows up in the archives of the Laissez Faire Books website, but for some reason the page can be accessed only in Google's cache.

Posted on 7/13/06, the LFB entry breathlessly announces that Atlas will soon be a Super Duper Major Motion Picture. According to Bidinotto, who has all kinds of ultra-exclusive Grade A inside dope:

The plan is for the film to be shot and shown in three parts, as a trilogy, like "Lord of the Rings." Only that length, they said, would give sufficient scope to tell Ayn Rand's long, complex story. (The initial $40 million would go mainly to Part I.)...

Oops. Well, that part of the master plan seems to have fallen by the wayside, as there is now no hint of a three-part Atlas, but only a single two-and-a-half-hour snoozefest. Which is obviously just as well, since Lord of the Rings was a colorful, fast-paced story of heartwarming characters and fabulous monsters, while Atlas is a tedious ideological screed stocked with cardboard heroes spouting Randian cliches as they sit around their offices watching their profits shrink. Nobody but the most brain-dead Randroid is gonna pay to sit through nine hours of that.

But ... if "only that length" would do justice to Atlas, then can we assume that the producers now concede that the new slimmed-down movie will not do justice to the book?

LFB continues with its scoop:

The first draft of the script for Part I has been completed by James V. Hart, a veteran screenwriter among whose major credits are "Contact," "Hook," and "Tuck Everlasting."

Hart's script was promptly filed in the shredder, and a new screenwriter, Randall Wallace of Braveheart fame, was hired. It seems a natural choice. He has the word Rand in his name, just like Nathaniel Branden. And having worked with Mel Gibson, he's used to dealing with crazy people.

Philosopher David Kelley -- founder, past executive director, and now Senior Fellow of The Atlas Society (formerly The Objectivist Center) -- has worked closely with Hart to insure the screenplay's philosophical fidelity to the novel.... [Kelley] rates the screenplay about an "8" out of a possible "10."

That's the screenplay they trashed, remember.

The [producers] revealed that they have been deluged with major stars who want to play in the film.

Deluged with major stars, are they? Well, more than a year later no other "major stars" have been attached to the project, so can we assume that the deluge has slowed to a trickle?

While they were eager to hear our suggestions for various characters, the only name they emphasized, repeatedly, was Angelina Jolie for the Dagny role. They made it very clear that Jolie wants to play Dagny very, very much -- and that other actresses (e.g., Ashley Judd), while possibly excellent for the part, might not have the stellar box-office appeal that would allow the film to be a huge success, especially abroad....

RandZapper pauses for the laughter to subside. Jolie has "stellar box-office appeal"? In what star system, Alpha Centauri? In our solar system, the only profitable live-action flick Jolie has made in the last six years was Mr. and Mrs. Smith, co-starring Brad Pitt. It reaped a very healthy $186,336,279. Other than that, here is the dishonor roll of Angelina's big-screen flops since 2001:

Her most recent film, the star vehicle A Mighty Heart, grossed a pathetic $9,176,787.

The Good Shepherd managed to rake in $59,908,565, probably still not enough to cover production and advertising costs.

The laughable Oliver Stone epic Alexander amassed only $34,297,191.

Jolie did manage to make a profitable movie in Shark Tale - $160,861,908 - but since this animated kiddie film only relied on her vocal talents and was aimed at tiny tots, we're not sure it counts.

How about the retro sci-fi flick Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow? $37,762,677.

The serial killer chiller-thriller Taking Lives, another star turn for Angelina? $32,682,342.

Something called Beyond Borders, which we have never heard of: $4,430,101.

The sequel to Tomb Raider, called Lara Croft and the Cradle of Life - a disappointing and unprofitable $65,660,196. The sequel's poor performance killed the once-promising franchise stone cold dead.

Another nobody-has-ever-heard-of-it movie, Life, or Something Like It: $14,448,589.

And yet another exercise in instant obscurity, Original Sin: $16,534,221.

We're now back to 2001, and the glory days of the first Tomb Raider and the car-heist movie Gone in Sixty Seconds, both of which scored north of a hundred million bucks. Jolie had box office appeal in 2001, no doubt. But since then? Slim pickings indeed.

This is the "major star" who's going to shoulder the burden of making a stupefying yawner like Atlas Shrugged into a money-making venture? Good luck with that.

But really, none of this matters - since, as LFB informs us:

Relative star status is probably being overstressed in the minds of the moviemakers. If the movie is done well, it's going to be a box-office juggernaut no matter, world-wide.

Hell, yeah! A box-office juggernaut, just like the political juggernaut of the Ron Paul campaign!

These sad, clueless bastards really do believe there's a vast audience of Randinistas out there just waiting to see the greatest novel in history, written by the greatest thinker in history, turned into the greatest movie in history.

Here is RandZapper's prognostication. The movie will open big because of the book's notoriety and the long lines of Rand fanatics who will sally forth from their parents' basements to show up on opening night. It will quickly fizzle, killed by murderous reviews, toxic word of mouth, and general public indifference to all things Randian. Within a month it will be a punchline, not unlike the Bennifer bomb Gigli (domestic gross: $6,087,542). Comparisons to Plan 9 from Outer Space will proliferate. And Rand will be even more of a joke than she already is (if such a thing is possible).

For all these reasons, RandZapper wishes the producers success in getting this turkey off the ground. It could be the final embarrassment for Objectivism, the massive self-detonating bomb that will end the Randist movement for good.

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Update (11/20/07): Jolie's string of box office misfires continues with the overhyped Beowulf, which underperformed expectations on its opening weekend and seems primed to tank, big-time.

The Wisdom of Netflix Users

Lately there have been reports that the much-delayed movie version of Atlas Shrugged may be underway at long last. The producers have apparently enticed international baby-adopter/all-around nutjob Angelina Jolie to play the role of Dagny Taggart, the quasi-female protagonist of the apocalyptic story. Given Jolie's box-office track record of mega-bombs, it's hard to see why casting her in the lead role constitutes any sort of inducement for the money men to pony up the big bucks needed to finance this project, but as P.T. Barnum once said, "There's a sucker born every minute!"

On the eve of the dramatization of Rand's magnum opus, we at RandZapper thought it would be worthwhile to look at the last time Hollywood tackled one of her books. This was back in 1948, when The Fountainhead made it to the big screen, with the way-too-old, slow-talking Gary Cooper incongruously cast as young, dynamic architect Howard Roark, Patricia Neal going all melodramatic as crazy aspiring rape victim Dominique, and Raymond Massey doing his best to preserve his dignity as newspaper tycoon Gail Wynand. Rand herself penned the screenplay, refusing to allow any changes to her deathless prose.

Those unfortunate enough to have seen the resulting turkey know that it consists of embarrassed actors delivering stilted dialogue on expressionistic sets. Roark's "brilliant" architectural creations look like something an autistic preschooler might model out of dog poop. The mood varies from the lugubrious to the ridiculous. Frequent references to "the mob" (meaning ordinary folks) give the film a disturbing fascist air, despite the paean to individualism in the courtroom climax.

But don't take our word for it. Let's see what some of the ordinary folks - i.e., the mob - who rented this abortion on Netflix have to say about it. The most salient observations have been rendered in bold for your reading enjoyment.

So bad it's good. I am a huge Cooper fan, and came to this movie with no idea of what to expect. The lunacy of Ayn Rand's philosophy seems kind of creepy in a post 9/11 world. Blowing up a building to protest its architecture is really not something a likable or even sane character in a film should do. The plot is ridiculous and overblown, and the dialogue beyond trite and laughable.

This movie is truly awful, but entertaining and very compelling in its badness. When I first saw it, within 5 minutes I knew this was a stinker, but with every scene it keeps getting more absurd. So much so that I had to keep watching it to so how profoundly lousy it could get. It's the "Plan 9" of dramas. I don't have the time or energy to list all of the ridiculous plot points, dialogue and directing faux pas. My suggestion: watch this with friends and do a shot every time something idiotic happens or a character makes an overblown speech. You'll be trashed by the end of the flick and have a lot of laughs.

Occasionally interesting, mostly absurd, it highlights the strengths and weaknesses of Rand and her Objectivist worldview. It argues eloquently for freedom and individual achievement, but its absolute disdain and hatred for "mediocrities" borders on frightening as it seems to argue that the only point to their existence is as little more than cattle. What really sinks this movie, however is its absurdly, over the top melodramatic tone and almost religious worship of beauty and achievement. It's like a big, campy, philosophical soap opera.

It's full of ludicrously didactic speeches (by Ayn Rand herself) and mismatched performances (Neal's "expressionist" performance v. Cooper's exhausted naturalism). It is not a forgotten masterpiece, as some have claimed, but it is endlessly fascinating. Rand attempts to align Nietzsche (Roark = Nietzschean superman) with capitalism, as well as modernist architecture. Yet for all its attacks on the masses and mob mentality, the film seems to want us to submit to (to worship) the charisma and force of the male protagonist. How is this not unlike what the National Socialists attempted by claiming Nietzsche as a precursor to fascist ideology? Note, in particular, the final shot and its jaw-dropping symbolism: Roark astride the world's tallest skyscraper as the camera (simulating the POV of Dominique) slowly makes its ways towards his outstretched legs? You might think my write-up a bit exaggerated -- but wait until you see the film! My review is modest in comparison!!

It plays like a trailer, just showing off the highlights in Rand's novel. The music cues are so sledgehammer they end up being hilarious.

Phallus phallus phallus phallus phallus. The moral of the story: if you stick to our guns, you can have the biggest phallus in New York City.

Ayn Rand was a facile writer, and she's sometimes fun to read. But anyone who takes her at her own self-evaluation, as a philosopher -- nay, as a prophet -- has his head jammed where the moon don't shine.

As written philosophy, Rands work is at times compelling while in the end it rings hollow as a workable life philosophy. As theatrical art, Rands work is laughable. Most of the characters in the movie are one dimensional caricatures of Rands vision of good and evil. The only character that has a modicum of true character development is the publishing magnate, Wynand. His inability to maintain Rands view of purity and ultimate self-destruction seem the most human of all the characters. The monologues by the characters, while at first entertaining in its in-your-face manner, quickly becomes tiresome. Overall, this movie hits you on the head with a bat when a more subtle approach would have been more appropriate.

Irritating and bizarre. The novel has a sense of humanity -however marginal - that the film utterly and completely fails to convey. The film also fails to explore the dynamic between Peter Keating, Dominique Francon and Howard Roarke that makes the novel so powerful. Ayn Rand is a better novelist than she is a philosopher and, unfortunately, this film busies itself too much with Rand's Objectivist indulgences rather than just telling the story.

One of the funniest movies I've ever seen. Right up there with Mission Impossible 2 for the greatest all time unintentionally funny films of all time.

What the h#*l was this all about? Ms Rand's philosophical posturings here are ludicrous. The only person who'd enjoy this would be George Costanza who is in to architecture (oh, and importing/exporting and marine biology, of course). It was interesting as a look at a strange point in time when people actually took this story seriously but as entertainment well, the elevator came nowhere near the top floor.

Simply put: it is a mess. There is a point being made here, and that point takes over the plot, overriding any common sense or real drama. Most of the acting and dialogue in the film is very fake. It sounded like a high school kid trying to be a drama major wrote it. Almost every word spoken is stilted and cliched. The music is awful. It tries so hard to tell the story that it is distracting. Patricia Neal walks into the room, and DA DA DA DA, BOOM! It becomes kind of silly after awhile. All this adds up to a movie so melodramatic that you start to laugh. The movie is dead serious, and you're cracking up!

Whole sections of the text are spouted almost verbatim by the characters. And even from the mouths of several truly great actors, the dialogue is at turns mawkish, didactic and always tedious.

Stunningly awful: cardboard characters endlessly spout cliched dialogue in the service of a silly plot. Ayn Rand's screen adaptation of her novel stuffs so much of her very own loopy philosophy into this movie that only true-believing movement conservative types will find any humanity in it.

The dialogue and acting are so over the top that it is comedic. The final scene had us roaring with laughter.

Ayn Rand has some literary talent I will grant you, but as a philosophical tract this movie is positively awful. Very warped view of humanity.

This film is seriously unbelievable. While the architect may have some skills as an architect, he's a horrible leader and is unable to convince anyone to look at things his way. His lack of negotiation and leadership skills squanders what talent he has, making him egocentric, annoying and ultimately a failure. What confuses the heck out of me is that I think the author and director want us to side with him. How can anyone?

Sanctimonious malarkey. Wooden acting. Unlikeable characters.

Haven't laughed that hard in a long time--a five star comedy! Hilarious!

And, oh yes, there were a few - a very few - positive reviews from brainwashed Randolators blown away by the genius of it all. These people really do need to get out more.

RandZapper looks forward to reading the reviews of Atlas Shrugged when it opens in '08 or '09. We suspect they will be very similar to the ones above.

Angelina, baby, you'd better get busy and adopt some more kids. 'Cause when the notices come in on this flick, you're gonna need all the comfort you can get.