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.”
Category: Media Citings
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.
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.”
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.
At Nerve.com: Sex Advice from Objectivists
Wondering how to get an Objectivist to go home with you? How to persuade your boyfriend to partake in that threesome you’ve been dreaming about? Whether to tell your new girlfriend you’re actually a virgin?
Your wait is over.
Nerve.com has published its “Sex Advice from Objectivists,” including answers to all your most pressing questions — from a panel of undisputed pros, of course.
As owner of the Atlasphere, I was invited to participate. Yikes!
If you don’t get the answers you were hoping for, you can always consult their sex advice from tribute bands, Santas, or poker players.
'A Scanner Darkly' Features the Fountainhead
Sent to us by an, er, anonymous movie enthusiast:
Last night I saw the new SF film A Scanner Darkly. I thought it was totally incomprehensible and awful and was tempted to demand a refund. In one scene, a character attempts suicide, accompanied by a bottle of wine and a copy of The Fountainhead — which latter gets an enormous amount of screen time. (Although the film is presumably set in the future, itâ??s still the pre-Centennial quality paperback cover — but that error makes as much sense as the rest of the movie.)
Please donâ??t connect this report with my name as I donâ??t want to be informed that I wasnâ??t smart enough to understand the utterly confusing screenplay!
Heh. Yeah, despite the compelling pseudo-animations, it does look like a downer, based on the trailer.
Interestingly enough, The Fountainhead gets a little screen time even in the trailer for the movie. Here’s a screen shot:
That does seem like a rather conspicuous placement of the book. More like he’s brandishing a copy than reading it.
UPDATE: Here’s another review (no Rand background to my knowledge) from someone who liked the movie more.
Atlasphere in the Christian Science Monitor
The Atlasphere was mentioned in the Christian Science Monitor today, in an article about niche dating services titled “Single white Earthling seeks Klingon for romantic orbit.”
The primary focus of the article, as you might guess from the title, is on “Trekkies” — fans of the Star Trek series. But fans of Ayn Rand’s novels make a cameo.
We’ve been getting plenty of new sign-ups today from the article.
To all these new members: Welcome!
National Association of Scholars on the Institute for the Study of Capitalism
The current newsletter of the National Association of Scholars includes an upbeat article about the Institute for the Study of Capitalism at Clemson University. The Institute was launched last year with a grant from BB&T Charitable Foundation and is headed by C. Bradley Thompson.
According to the article, the Institute is unique in studying the moral foundation of a free society. Prof. Thompson is quoted as saying that “the Clemson Institute is the first and only university-related program in the U.S. that takes as its core mission the defense of Capitalism as the moral and just social system.”
The National Association of Scholars is committed to rational discourse as the foundation of academic life in a free and democratic society and promotes an informed understanding of the Western intellectual heritage. The article concludes with the note that “Professor Thompson would be happy to speak with NAS members and supporters who might be interested in adapting or replicating the Clemson program on other university campuses.”
The BB&T Charitable Foundation is sponsoring several academic programs on Capitalism, as pointed out on this meta-blog here, here, and here.
Univ Montana Objectivist Club Defends Free Speech
The Daily Missoulian provides a reasonably balanced account — “Secular, pro-individualist group holds solidarity event for magazine sued over publishing Muhammad cartoons” — of an event sponsored by the University of Montana Objectivist Club.
Atlasphere member Andrew Bissell is president of this club.
From the article:
The University of Montana Objectivist Club on Friday stood behind — literally — the right to publish a cartoon of the Muslim prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban.
As a show of solidarity with a Calgary news magazine that’s been sued over the matter, members of the student club pasted the cartoon and others — which are offensive to most Muslims — on a tri-folded placard in the University Center, then stood ready to defend it.
â??If no one has the guts to show these cartoons, it’s allowing the violence and the worst common denominator to dictate their terms to us,â? insisted Andrew Bissell, president of the Objectivist Club, which promotes the secular, pro-individualist philosophy of novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand.
And:
â??Even the moderate factions of Islam take this very seriously,â? said ASUM presidential candidate Andrea Helling, challenging Bissell and the club’s judgment. â??I don’t think the fear of Muslim violence should stop you from doing this, but there are other ways around it, like describing the cartoons. … It’s a respect thing.â?
Bissell said that respect has nothing to do with it. The West has been â??cowingâ? to the violent fringe of Islam and to multicultural sensitivities, he said, offering as proof Comedy Central’s stopping the irreverent â??South Parkâ? television show from showing an image of Muhammad in a spoof of the cartoon issue. It’s the policy of most U.S. newspapers (including the Missoulian), he noted, to refrain from publishing them.
Showing the cartoons is not only a defiant and bold defense of free speech, it’s the most effective way to get the point across, Bissell said.
â??We’re challenging the assumption that there’s a right not to be offended,â? he said. â??You can’t do that with gumdrop smiles and rainbows. I believe we have the right to criticize religion, and that extends to all religions.â?
At least one person was offended enough to tear off one of the cartoons and throw it away, Bissell said.
Our congratulations to Andrew and the rest of his club on their commendable efforts, and on the publicity they have succeeded in generating on behalf of free speech.
See the full article for more.