Variety.com is reporting that Vadim Perelman will direct the movie adaptation of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. The article also reports an early 2008 start of production. Perelman directed the 2003 film, “The House of Sand and Fog”.
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Atlas Shrugged 50th Anniversary Celebration
An announcement from the Atlas Society:
Atlas Shrugged 50th Anniversary Celebration on October 6!
Since its publication half a century ago, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged has inspired millions. Come hear leading scholars, experts and achievers discuss the literary, philosophical, moral, economic and political aspects of this great novel and its impact on our world–past, present and future. Our keynote speakers are John Stossel of ABC’s 20/20 show and Charles Murray, libertarian scholar. (See full schedule below.)
Hear any updates on the planned Atlas movie. Celebrate with others who love the book. Don’t miss the excitement! If your life and thinking were changed by Atlas Shrugged, this is a day you won’t want to miss!
You can get further information, updates and register online at AtlasEvents.org.
When: Saturday, October 6, 2007, 8:00am- 9:00pm.
Conference and banquet location: Merriott Renaissance Hotel, Washington, D.C.
Afternoon Reception: The Cato Institute, Washington, D.C.
Seminar costs for entire day, reception at the Cato Institute and gala banquet:
$210 before September 21. $250 after September 21. $150 student rate. $199 per night at Renaissance Hotel if registered by September 6.
The Program:
8:00-9:00am — Registration
9:00am — Welcoming Remarks: *Edward Hudgins, executive director, The Atlas Society
9:15-10:30am — Panel One
*Anne Heller, author of an upcoming biography on Ayn Rand — “Atlas and Rand’s Life”
*Mimi Gladstein, author of Atlas Shrugged: A Reader’s Companion — “Atlas and Rand the Writer”
*David Kelley, founder and senior fellow, The Atlas Society — “Atlas in Academia”
10:30-11:00am — Coffee Break
11:00am-12:15pm — Panel Two
*Tibor Machan, professor, Chapman University, philosopher and author — “Atlas and Ethics”
*William Thomas, director of programs, The Atlas Society — “Atlas and Loving Life”
*David Mayer, professor of law and history, Capital University — “Atlas and the American Revolution”
12:30-1:45pm — Luncheon speaker: Charles Murray — “Atlas and Achievement”
2:00-3:15pm — Panel Three
*Edward Younkins, professor of economics, Wheeling Jesuit University — “Atlas and Economics”
*Ed Snider, chairman, Comcast Spectacor — “Atlas and the Entrepreneur”
*Rob Bradley, president, Institute for Energy Research — “Atlas and Business Ethics”
3:15-3:30pm — Coffee Break
3:30-4:45pm — Panel Four
*Fred Smith, president, Competitive Enterprise Institute — “Atlas and Politics”
*Edward Crane, president, The Cato Institute — “Atlas and the Fight for Freedom”
*Edward Hudgins, executive director, The Atlas Society — “Atlas & the Future of Objectivism”
5:00-6:15pm — Reception at the Cato Institute. *Reflections on Atlas Shrugged by Nathaniel Branden and Barbara Branden.
6:30-9:00pm — Gala Banquet *Keynote: John Stossel, “Atlas and America Today.” *Final Remarks: David Kelley
CNN.com Links to the Atlasphere
We’re getting a ton of new members today because this morning’s CNN.com article “Dating menus: You can change yours” mentions that “Ayn Rand fans can find love at TheAtlasphere.com.”
Cool.
All the Debate That's Fit to Drink
Atlasphere interviewee Stephen Green will be drunk-blogging the Democratic primary candidates’ YouTube debate this evening.
Meantime, he’s got a few questions of his own for the candidates. His question for Obama is as good a place as any to start. But I recommend swallowing your drink before you click that play button. 😉
Atlas Shrugged Movie Dead?
A friend of mine posted this on his blog:
The word on the street is that the Atlas Shrugged movie project is in “turnaround” status. That means that the producers (Baldwin Entertainment Group) have given up trying to make the movie right now, and are willing to sell the rights to someone else (presumably for their accrued development costs).
This is a major turn of events since last year, when the film looked like a sure thing. It’s amazing how fast a project can hit a dead end in the movie business.
Sigh.
UPDATE – JUL 18: I’m removing the name of my friend who originally posted this on his blog, because (due to my relative inexperience with LiveJournal) I was quoting a friends-only entry from his blog.
That said, I have telephoned the original source of this rumor, who is a Rand-admiring movie producer uninvolved in the Atlas Shrugged movie, for additional information.
He pointed out — and verified while we were on the phone — that the Pro version of IMDB lists the movie as “Status: Turnaround.” This status, he says, was posted on June 18th.
“Turnaround,” of course, has a very specific meaning in the film industry — basically, that the producer wants to sell the movie.
So it’s either a typo in the Internet Movie Database or the movie is, in fact, in turnaround.
Orit Arfa Profiles ARI's Yaron Brook for JPost
Atlasphere member Orit Arfa has published a profile of Ayn Rand Institute Executive Director Yaron Brook in the Jerusalem Post, titled “You don’t fight a tactic.” It begins:
Dr. Yaron Brook, 46, speaks and carries himself like a Rand hero. His facial features are angular, his demeanor self-confident. His language is principled, logical, certain, fired by moral passion, replete with absolute terms: good and evil, right and wrong, defeat and victory. He has a slight lisp, which is easily overshadowed by the controversial and harsh words that roll off his tongue.
For the first time since he left Israel for America in 1987 – for essentially the same reasons Rand did – Brook gave a lecture in his mother country: “Israel and the West’s War with Islamic Totalitarianism: Why We are Losing.”
Born in Jerusalem and raised in Haifa, Brook met few intellectuals here who could nurture his interest in Rand’s ideas, which he first developed at 16 after reading Atlas Shrugged. The novel catapulted him out of the socialist-Zionist way of thought he had inherited from his South African-Israeli parents and from Israeli education and culture.
See the full article for much more.
Ayn Rand and Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink" Thesis
From a new article at Desicritics.org titled Book Review: Malcolm Gladwell and Ayn Rand:
[I]f you simply dig a little under the words Gladwell uses, such as “instincts,” “snap judgments,” and “thinking without thinking,” what you will realize is that Gladwellâ??s thesis is not novel in any significant sense, at least not to someone who is well-versed with Ayn Randâ??s philosophy of Objectivism.
Ayn Rand had decades ago stated that one must “trust your subconscious” while engaged in the task of writing. However, like much else of what Rand said, this little instruction to trust oneâ??s own subconscious mind can be extended beyond the context of writing and applied to practically every realm and action in life.
See the full article for more on the parallels between Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism and Malcolm Gladwell’s thesis in Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking.
Rand-o-rama at The Chronicle of Higher Education
From the Chronicle of Higher Education‘s “Rand-o-rama” post of two days ago:
This week The Chronicle features three articles about the intellectual legacy of Ayn Rand. (The intro is here; to get to the main courses, follow the links in the right-hand column.)
In this 2004 interview, the Ayn Rand Instituteâ??s director, Yaron Brook, briefly describes his â??plan to help [objectivist] graduate students get placed in top-level philosophy departments around the country. The program is still in its infancy. It is very ambitious, and we will not know its success for many years.â?
Is that kind of talk creepy and messianic? Or is it the commendable behavior of a group that believes it has a true and important set of ideas to bring to the world? That was one of the debates that occupied faculty members this spring at Texas State University at San Marcos, as they considered whether or not to accept a Rand-related donation.
See the full post by David Glenn for (much) more Rand-related coverage at the Chronicle.
Andy Garcia's "The Lost City" Is Excellent
Earlier this week my wife and I watched The Lost City (June 2006), starring Andy Garcia, who also produced and directed the movie.
It’s was best movie I’ve seen in months.
The film is Garcia’s own personal love letter to Cuba — the Cuba that existed before Fidel Castro’s “revolution.” It is a pulsating world of lively music, palpable sensuality, and tight-knit families.
The writing and acting are excellent throughout, and the cinematography is spectacularly beautiful. The movie is highly stylized — the opposite of naturalism, you could say.
Fidel Castro really takes it in the chin in this film. Predictably, mainstream movie reviewers panned the movie for its failure to conform to Hollywood’s preferred version of Cuban history, i.e., that Castro was leading a “people’s revolution,” etc.
Humberto Fontova — who was born in Cuba, like Garcia — wrote an article for NewsMax characterizing the left’s reaction to the movie:
Earlier, many film festivals refused to screen it. Now many Latin American countries refuse to show it. The film’s offenses are many and varied. Most unforgivable of all, Che Guevara is shown killing people in cold blood. Who ever heard of such nonsense? And just where does this uppity Andy Garcia get the effrontery to portray such things? The man obviously doesn’t know his place.
And:
Andy Garcia and screenwriter Guillermo Cabrera Infante knew full well that “the working poor” had no role in the stage of the Cuban revolution shown in the movie. The anti-Batista rebellion was led and staffed overwhelmingly by Cuba’s middle and, especially, upper class. To wit: In August of 1957 Castro’s rebel movement called for a “national strike” against the Batista dictatorship — and threatened to shoot workers who reported to work. The “national strike” was completely ignored.
Another was called for April 9, 1958. And again Cuban workers blew a loud and collective raspberry at their “liberators,” reporting to work en masse.
“Garcia’s tale bemoans the loss of easy wealth for a precious few,” harrumphs Michael Atkinson in The Village Voice. “Poor people are absolutely absent; Garcia and Infante seem to have thought that peasant revolutions happen for no particular reason — or at least no reason the moneyed 1 percent should have to worry about.”
What’s “absolutely absent” is Mr. Atkinson’s knowledge about the Cuba Garcia depicts in his movie. His crack about that “moneyed 1 percent” and especially his “peasant revolution” epitomize the cliched idiocies still parroted by the chattering classes about Cuba.
While political upheaval drives the movie’s plot, the movie itself is valuable and enjoyable on multiple levels — many of which have nothing to do with politics and everything to do with “life as it might be and ought to be.”
I recommend it highly.
The movie is available for purchase from Amazon.com. You can watch the trailer — which doesn’t really do the movie justice — at Apple. And you may also enjoy NPR’s interview with Garcia about the movie.
Hudgins: Let's Declare the Fourth of July a Tax-Free Day!
From a new op-ed by Ed Hudgins, executive director of The Atlas Society, published in the Washington Times and elsewhere:
On July 4, 1776, America’s Founders declared the country’s independence from Britain, largely as a revolt against excessive and unfair taxation. So in our nation, which is much more overtaxed than it was over two centuries ago, it would be fitting if, in recognition of our Founding principles, federal, state and local governments made July Fourth a totally tax-free day.
Many cities already suspend sales taxes for a few days a year on items such as clothing and school supplies, usually to garner the favor of overtaxed parents struggling to raise kids and to give mom and pop an incentive to frequent overtaxed downtown enterprises struggling to make profits. So wouldn’t it be appropriate for all of us who struggle every day to be allowed to keep our money on that day on which we celebrate our freedom?
The total direct tax burden on Americans – not counting the indirect taxes of regulations – is estimated at about 35 percent of our $13 trillion gross domestic product, or $4.5 trillion. That works out to more than $12 billion we would keep in our own pockets if we were truly independent on Independence Day.
We wouldn’t have to pay taxes on the hotdogs, beer and barbecue we purchase for Fourth of July picnics. And since for most of us this is a paid holiday, for that day we would receive our paychecks without income tax, Social Security taxes, unemployment insurance taxes and the like taken out.
Such a tax-free day would be the time to fill up large SUVs and save $10 a tank in various fuel taxes. Malls would soon see Christmas-season sized crowds as shoppers seek to stretch their dollars.