Poliwood watches Atlas Shrugged.
PJ Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that PJ Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. Please note that comments are reviewed by the editorial staff and may not be posted immediately. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pjmedia.com.
As I said here (don’t know why my trackbacks aren’t working), there was one very telling comment about 8:30 in;
If liberal Hollywood film-makers remembered that, we wouldn’t have seen such terrible dogs like Lions for Lambs, Rendition, and Redacted.
No “righteous indignation” on film? Weird. What about unroighteous indignation?
As for “loud declamation,” I didn’t see any of it in the movie. There are moments when Dagny tells off people in the movie, particularly the union mobster and her brother, “humanitarian” and crony capitalist Jim Taggart. These are among the best parts of the movie, but Dagny doesn’t speechify. (As I recall, she doesn’t in the novel either.) She just verbally and symbolically cuts their scholngs off. I wouldn’t want to see a preachy movie even if I agreed with the sermon (as I do here). If there’s any preaching or declamation in the movie it’s the State-humpers such as Mouch preaching self-sacrifice and collectivist economics (pretty much the way their non-fictional counterparts do in real-life. The film makers wisely decided to let the action largely speak for itself; which is why “liberals” I know enjoyed the movie, too.
I had doubts about this production to begin with because it was clearly being done on the cheap. I wasn’t surprised to see people like Roger Ebert diss it, but when Megan McArdle, P.J. O’Rourke, and Roger L. Simon all say pretty much the same thing (i.e., it’s not a very well made film and the story isn’t told in a compelling way) I’ve got to think we’re dealing with a stinker.
Like Stephen, I will wait for the DVD