Angelina Jolie, signed to portray Dagny in the film version of Atlas Shrugged, discusses the project in a recent interview.
“Everybody involved, the producers involved, we all sat down around a table and we all agreed that if we couldn’t do it right, if we couldn’t do it justice, if along the way any one piece didn’t come together like the right director or the right script, then we would all just fold it and not do it. So that’s where we’re at right now. We’re taking it step by step, and we’re going to make damn sure that it’s done right.”
Author: s1e2t3u4p5
Atlas Shrugged, World Is Flat Reviewed in URI School Paper
Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged was recently touted in the student newspaper of the University of Rhode Island, The Good 5¢ Cigar.
Normally, that might not be of much interest outside the student body of URI. But the review, which also includes a discussion of Friedman’s recent The World Is Flat, is not merely complimentary. It is objective, well written, and draws some interesting parallels to and distinctions from Friedman’s book.
Kudos to Joe Markman for that.
Atlas Society Summer Seminar
The Atlas Society has announced the location and dates for the 18th Annual Summer Seminar conference. The seminar will be held in the second week of July, 2007 (July 8-15) at Towson University near Baltimore, Maryland.
Make special note of the change in this year’s schedule. The seminar will start on a Sunday, rather than on a Saturday as in past years, and continue through Saturday night, rather than Friday as in past years.
More information at The Atlas Society/Objectivist Center website.
Braveheart Scribe To Pen Atlas Shrugged Screenplay
Daily Variety reports that Braveheart screenwriter Randall Wallace has been signed by Lionsgate to write the movie version of Atlas Shrugged.
The story states that the writer-director of We Were Soldiers will “finish the adaptation before he starts production next year on Catherine the Great,” also with Jolie.
No reason for the switch from Contact adapter James Hart was given.
Daily Variety quotes Wallace as saying “I was fascinated by Rand’s book. It was original and provocative.”
Letters from Atlasphere Couples
We get e-mails semi-regularly from Atlasphere members telling us how happy they are to have fallen in love with someone they met through our site.
Lately, the frequency of these e-mails has increased noticeably. This morning I received my third happy-couple message in less than a week. After living together for about a year, they’re now engaged and have chosen a wedding date in May. Judging from their photos and profiles, they look like they’ll make a fantastic couple.
I cherish each of these letters, because they really embody the hopes we had when we launched the Atlasphere. My wife and I just celebrated our sixth anniversary together. We are insanely happy in our own relationship, and seeing other happy couples only compounds our joy.
If you’re single and still looking, don’t lose hope. I look forward to seeing a message from you in my inbox one day soon! 🙂
The Atlas Society's Hudgins on CNN
According to The Atlas Society website, an interivew with Edward Hudgins about space privatization will air this weekend on CNN’s â??In the Moneyâ? at 3:00pm EST Sunday, Sept. 24. Hudgins is the executive director of The Atlas Society and the author of Space: The Free-Market Frontier.
Bernstein quoted on USA Today front page
Dr. Andrew Bernstein is quoted extensively in a front page article in USA Today about the soul of sport champions: Â
Andrew Bernstein, a philosophy professor at Marist College, believes he knows why sports stars are so immense-ly popular in modern culture: Humans have a deep yearning for the heroic â?? and for momentary glimpses of human perfection.
â??We recognize, at least at some gut level, that a great champion isn’t just supremely gifted,â? Bernstein says. â??The sheer will to excel is what we find so admirable.â?
â??The Greeks worshiped human excellence,â? Marist’s Bernstein says. â??The great athletes competed naked. The statues we have from the Greeks show human beingsas strong and beautiful and healthy. Michelangelo revived that in the Renaissance. This sort of wor-ship of the human body is almost religious.â?
Bernstein isn’t. He is an atheist who believes in the sanctity of human achievement. When Bernstein speaks of â??soul of a championâ? â?? he once wrote an open letter to Jordan with that title â?? he doesn’t mean soul in a religious sense.
â??It’s a spiritual thing,â? Bernstein says. â??It’s in someone’s moral character â?? some indefatigable quality that a person has that they’re not going to be denied.â?
Read the entire article.
Variety reports: Jolie to play Dagny
According to Variety magazine, Angelina Jolie has signed with Lionsgate to portray Dagny Taggart in the film adapation of Rand’s classic, Atlas Shrugged.
Click here to read more at Variety.com
Click here to read The Atlas Society’s announcement
Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales Defies Chinese Censors
From a new article at the Guardian:
The founder of Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia written by its users, has defied the Chinese government by refusing to bow to censorship of politically sensitive entries.
Jimmy Wales, one of the 100 most influential people in the world according to Time magazine, challenged other internet companies, including Google, to justify their claim that they could do more good than harm by co-operating with Beijing.
Wikipedia, a hugely popular reference tool in the West, has been banned from China since last October. Whereas Google, Microsoft and Yahoo went into the country accepting some restrictions on their online content, Wales believes it must be all or nothing for Wikipedia.
Wales is a long-time admirer of Ayn Rand’s writings, so his unwillingness to suffer censorsorship at the hands of Chinese bureaucrats shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.
Perhaps he will even be able to change their mind:
Wales will meet senior Chinese officials in an attempt to persuade them to allow the website’s 1.3 million articles to appear there uncensored.
‘One of the points that I’m trying to push is that if there’s a small town in China that has a wonderful local tradition, that won’t make its way into Wikipedia because the people of China are not allowed to share their knowledge with the world. I think that’s an ironic side-effect and something the people in the censorship department need to have a much bigger awareness of: you’re not just preventing information about Falun Gong or whatever you’re upset about getting into China, you’re preventing the Chinese people speaking to the world.’
Props to Jimmy. See the full article for much more. (Hat tip: Instapundit)
Sandra Bullock on The Fountainhead
This will be old news for some, but we’ve not posted it before.
From an interview with Sandra Bullock in 2004 in Marie Claire magazine:
If you had to pick 12 things you could take to a desert island, what would you choose? We challenged Hollywood’s favorite girl-next-door to name life’s essentials. […]
11. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
The main character, Howard Roark, being safe and strong enough to be the outsider, to be the lone voice, is such a great metaphor for what, in one way, the [movie] business promotes and looks for, and in another way, doesn’t allow. When somebody breaks out and completely shatters the mold, it’s inspiring. It’s scary to set off by yourself like that. But there are so many great books that I have yet to tap into. I think it’s so unfortunate that they force you to read all the classics when you’re a kid. I couldn’t have cared less about Moby Dick when I had to read it. All I could think was, Look at the size of that book! These books are written by people who have experienced life, which, at that age, you have not yet experienced. Honestly? I think there should be required reading for adults.
See the full article for Bullock’s full list of “The 12 Best Things in My Life.”