Atlas Shrugged (1 star)

www.rogerebert.com ^ | 04/14/11 | Roger Ebert

[Borges]

I feel like my arm is all warmed up and I don

[Chgogal]

I don't know. Roger Ebert gave Dinner with Andre 4 stars....

Half the movie goers were snoring half way through.

It sucked and I was bored to tears.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19810101/REVIEWS/101010347/1023

Hopefully, if you saw it you too didn't like it.

[Nickname]

I don’t get his scoffing at railroads. Ebert must live an insulated life and be unaware of how much of our “stuff” travels by rail.

I get stopped at the tracks often enough to know it’s quite a bit as long trains roll by carrying cargo containers stacked two high.

[Nickname]

I’d expect Ebert to pan the movie regardless of how well it was made simply because he’s a hard-core leftist. I’ll take this review with a grain of salt.

[higgmeister]

Her philosophy may look appealing, but inside its full of hatred and evil.

I only found much needed reason and logic in her work.

It appears to be something ... within you that attempts to ascribe some sort of truculence and wantonness into what is presented as a mutually beneficial code of social interaction between honorable men based on "The Golden Rule."

[Impy]

The only thing that sounds disappointing is that Taylor Schilling keeps her cloths on.

[Tenniel2]

Yeah. To something named “Chaz” that’s a dead ringer for Roosevelt Grier.

[DrC]

Reviewers: 0%
Audience: 88%

It would appear that reviewers are as liberal as the MSM rags in which they appear. I want to know who does the scoring on these things. Consider the review in the San Francisco Chronicle, which ends: “What is a selling point are the boldly drawn characters, played by a cast of unknowns, some of whom deserve to be known. I’m thinking in particular of Taylor Schilling as Dagny Taggart, a railway heiress, and Grant Bowler as Hank Rearden, a manufacturing magnate and the inventor of Rearden Metal. Even with director Paul Johansson practically missing in action, giving them nothing, Schilling and Bowler are forceful and attractive.

“I’d be willing to sit through Part 2 right now.”

Yet Rotten Tomatoes tags that review as “rotten.” Go figure.

[DrC]

“Ebert must live an insulated life and be unaware of how much of our “stuff” travels by rail.”

Railroads are astonishingly efficient at moving “stuff”:

“railroads are three or more times more fuel efficient than trucks”

““That’s the equivalent of moving a ton of freight all the way from Baltimore to Boston on just a single gallon of diesel fuel”
http://capdiamont.wordpress.com/2008/05/21/the-earth-times-railroad-fuel-efficiency-sets-new-record/

[DrC]

“Taylor Schilling keeps her cloths on”

My impression is that she takes them off, but the audience doesn’t get to see this.

[usconservative]

Throughout the history of Roger Ebert's movie reviews, I've found that anything he hates, I like, and anything he likes, I hate.

So this must be a pretty good movie, and I say that as an Ayn Rand fan who's making his FOURTH pass through "Atlas Shrugged."

[CSM]

“It’s a few years in the future. America has become a state in which mediocrity is the goal, and high-achieving individuals the enemy.”

Yo Roger, the future is now! I guess you missed the President’s class envy rhetoric the other day.

[fnord]

freedom is scary to a lot of people,
other people’s freedom even more so.

[IronJack]

Does it surprise anyone that Roly Poly didn’t like it? Thanks for the input, Rog, but I’ll wait for a review from someone who hadn’t written it a month before the movie was released.

[CharacterCounts]

People who reject the basic concept put forth by Ayn Rand (that the fruits of your labor should accrue to yourself, to dispense with as you please) are generally people who take for granted what they have. Money and material possessions are never as important to people who have them and take them for granted as they are to people who are denied them.

If Rand had stopped with this premise, I would applaud her work. (that is the shiny apple). Her philosophy goes much further, however, and that is the nasty razor blade.

I will wager that most people who attack Ayn Rand’s purported overt emphasis on materialism don’t observe that her “good” characters are not obsessed with material possessions as much as they are obsessed with the possession of their thoughts.

I noticed these people all too well, This is the part of novel and philosophy that makes it a fantasy. Ask yourself how many people you know of who are really like Hank Rearden? There are none. Rand makes these people "perfect" as a method of rejecting the perfection of God. Who needs a perfect God when we have perfect persons. Conservatism takes exactly the opposite approach and understands that we are all imperfect.

I agree that societies that attempt to vilify success, are evil and agree with Rand on this point, as does any true conservative. But, she goes well beyond conservative principles. She wants to build an exclusive city where only people of like mind are allowed to exist. What about the rest of us, why do I have to agree with my whole heart and sole to have an opportunity to exploit the resources within the city. The entire novel is about a conservative (Rearden) finally shedding his conservative principles before he is permitted to enjoy the fruits of her escapist sanctuary. But, what gives her or other city elders the right to decide who gets admitted. Her rant, does nothing more than substitute big government with tribalism.

And that is the ultimate terminus of objectivism a dark age feudal system where there are the elite and the serfs. In my mind that is just as bad as communism.

[CharacterCounts]

Like many, I do not buy her entire package of thought, lock, stock and barrel. But her basic premise, I do buy (as I believe, would many of our founders) that the fruits of a man’s labor should accrue to himself, not be taken for the purpose of giving to others at the whim of a governing body.

As do I. However, I believe that many conservatives are so enamored with her goal of living for oneself that they put on the blinders and fail to evaluate her entire philosophy which at its core is evil.

[CharacterCounts]

It appears to be something ... within you that attempts to ascribe some sort of truculence and wantonness into what is presented as a mutually beneficial code of social interaction between honorable men based on "The Golden Rule."

It appears to me that you have failed to properly explore the philosophy of Obectivism.

[CharacterCounts]

Conservatism is about freedom. That is my basic problem with Rand and her stupid philosophy. It ultimately does not lead to freedom - it leads to tribalism and feudalism. In Rands world, the conservative is just as evil as the socialist. She hated Reagan - because he was a conservative.

I find it interesting that so many conservatives wish to think that objectivism and conservatism are compatible, when Rand (the author of objectivism) says otherwise.

You can be a conservative or you can be an objectivist - but you can't be both.

[Lee'sGhost]

“It’s a few years in the future. America has become a state in which mediocrity is the goal, and high-achieving individuals the enemy. Laws have been passed prohibiting companies from owning other companies.”

AKA Obama’s America.

[ThomasMore]

I’ve seen hundreds of statues erected to famous and infamous people all over the world. But I have NEVER seen one erected for a critic.

[ConservaTexan]

Did you read the review? I don’t see how you could miss Ebert’s political beliefs influencing his opinion of the film. IMO he could have written this review while the movie was in pre production.