The characters in Atlas Shrugged have lived in our collective conscience for half a century now. Breathing life into them now is no less challenging than making a movie about the Bible–people will argue over who played Ezekiel and the color and texture of the milk and honey. But there are some core moments and character traits that have to be observed. This film’s obvious budget issues betrayed some key points, but there were others that wouldn’t have cost a cent to fix.

Francisco D’Anconia
Francisco is written as a playboy–not a washed up one. In my mind, he was always a Latin James Bond–cool, suave and very much a lady’s man and a man’s man at the same time. He is Antonio Banderas as Zorro, but, and this is crucial, at the end of the Zorro film–not the drunken mess that Anthony Hopkins finds at the beginning. In the film, Francisco is played as a washed up lout. He is not clean shaven, his clothes are disheveled and his hair unkempt. The effortless grace of the character is nowhere to be found, and he comes off as a hateful has been–not someone a James Taggart or Orren Boyle would trust with their fortunes.

James Taggart
James is meant to be an empathetic character. He is often found pleading with Dagny to fix things or to not make waves. In the film, he comes across as too self-assured and conniving. He seems to know he is evil and that he is manipulating the system–an attitude the undercuts the written character’s morality.

Lilian Rearden
Played by Rebecca Wisocky, who is the perfect choice, Lilian should have been a lot colder. Her character is a cold, heartless, sexless bitch. In the film, she comes across as too warm and almost understandable. She is supposed to be patronizing and mocking Rearden, as if his efforts, his work, even his libido are all a waste of time. A perfect example of the lack of emotion in the film is the scene where Dagny trades her necklace for Lilian’s Rearden Metal bracelet. There was no passion, there was no indignation–it barely would have caused a scene in real life.

Emotion
That scene should have been packed with emotion as well as exposition. Dagny is trading value for value–a core concept of the book–with a moocher who has no concept of value. It’s also the beginning of Rearden’s affections for Dagny, and her disdain for her lover’s wife. It’s meant to foreshadow the coming affair–it’s not just the bracelet that holds Lilian’s contempt and Dagny’s affection, it’s Rearden himself. If there is meat in Atlas Shrugged for a Hollywood film, it’s in the love triangle between Hank, Lilian and Dagny. As portrayed in the film, Rearden comes off as just another businessman who shags a coworker on a business trip.

The running of the John Galt Line is also a flat note in the film. This is perhaps where the low budget of the film shows most. A fundamental undercurrent in the book is that “public opinion” is being driven from the top down. That is best shown by the throngs of people standing and cheering for Dagny and Hank at each crossing as the John Galt rushes past. And when the union boss tells Dagny that his men won’t run the train, she asks for volunteers and every last one of them steps forward–ratifying her belief in her fellow man. Neither of these two core elements of “public opinion” are seen in the movie.

The film did fall flat in other places as well. When Hank and Dagny consummate their affair–Hank is wracked with guilt, and apologizes to Dagny for his base desire. Dagny laughs at him to carry the point that sex is not immoral or evil, but a beautiful act of two consenting adults. Her brash sexuality is meant to be a stark contrast against Lilian’s cold, manipulative view of sex as an animal desire to be used as leverage by a woman over a man. The film misses this and jumps to breakfast, where Dagny makes a snide comment about Hank being a “married man.”

Throughout the film, the lack of passion in the characters leaves many scenes too flat. There’s too much exposition and not enough umph. You never get the feeling that each vanished capitalist drains Hank and Dagny more and more. There is no sense of being overwhelmed, but carrying on anyway.

There are places, however, where the emotion is spot on. In the final scene, Taylor Schilling as Dagny lets out a blood curdling scream that still rings in my ears. That, overlaid with John Galt’s speech to Wyatt, is the kind of emotion that the film should build to.

On the whole, it was a good movie, but not fully worthy of Ayn Rand’s work.

When it’s planes in the sky,
bombing all day and all night,
That’s linguistics.

When the tanks form a line
Bullets whiz and then whine,
That’s linguistics.

The world reaches the brink
Don’t act, just sit and think,
That’s linguistics.

Lots of eloquent words,
Drop like candy-filled turds,
That’s linguistics

When you call it one thing,
Swing voters will swing,
That’s linguistics.

When our focus report shows,
That support ebbs and then flows,
That’s linguistics

Bombs will rain on the shore,
But we’re not calling it war,
That’s linguistics.

Apologies to UPS.

rip through your rib cage, grab your inner caveman and drag your latté drinking, blog reading, aeron chair sitting, metaphor mixing ass through [120] minutes of heart pounding, libido stirring, pride swelling man-venture. If you’re looking for subtlety, read Jane Austen.

The thing I appreciated most about G.I. Joe, after the tight leather bustiers and the phallic weaponry, is the villains.

The thing I appreciated most about G.I. Joe, after the tight leather bustiers and the phallic weaponry, is the villains.  You have Christopher Eccleston’s Scottish arms dealer.  You have “The Doctor,” played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt (3rd Rock from the Sun), who is a sociopath.  And finally Sienna Miller’s Ana Lewis/Baroness. Now these characters don’t really have much of a back story in G.I. Joe lore. Back when the cartoon series was created, bad guys were just bad. This was the 80′s, we had a President who knew evil when he saw it and called it by its name.  This time, it was up to Hollywood (God help us) to give them their motivation.

I would expect Hollywood to create a Destro whose father never hugged him and whose mother never breastfed him; a Cobra Commander who was an orphan raised by a greedy corporate executive as part of a social experiment gone awry.  I was half expecting a live action episode of Robot Chicken, with Destro sobbing into Cobra Commander’s arms “I couldn’t make the swim team daddy!”  [Pounds his metal fists.]  “Use your words, Dethththtro.  Uththe your wordth. Let it out.”  [Gentle rocking, rolls eyes, looks at watch.]

[Spoiler warning] Surprisingly, G.I. Joe finds a way to overcome Hollywood stereotypes.  McCullen/Destro’s motivation is simple and unencumbered by Jungian psychobabble.  He’s a greedy businessman who wants revenge for wrongs against his clan.  True, Hollywood thinks all businessmen are greedy, but McCullen is an arms dealer, and I think even arms dealers would say they have a point there.  As to being evil, greed is a sin, a deadly one at that, so Destro is sorted.  The Doctor/Cobra Commander is a sociopath driven insane by his lust for scientific achievement.  What is wonderful (if that’s the right word for it) about his story, is that he turns evil before his disfiguring accident.  He would be morally redeemable (and therefore more typical of a Hollywood villain) if it was his disfigurement that lead to his evil.

I would expect Hollywood to create a Destro whose father never hugged him and whose mother never breastfed him.

But much of the story centers on Duke and Ana and their mutual history.  Based on the story arc, the Baroness’s back story seems painfully clear, and her real back story is therefore all the more of a–for lack of a better phrase–pleasant surprise.  We are told that Duke and Ana are engaged and Duke promises to protect Ana’s brother Rex as they both deploy in combat.  Rex is killed and Ana and Duke split up as Duke cannot face his broken promise.  We are lead to believe then that Ana is not evil but just misunderstood.  Her grief overwhelmed her, and that’s why she was willing to kill millions of people.  Well, as it turned out, Cobra Commander was brainwashing her.  Fantastic twist that turned an action movie into a love story.

Medium version:  People complain too much.  See this movie and enjoy life.

Longer version: Critics have complained that the sequel to the blockbuster hit Transformers is too long, its violence is too gratuitous and its plot is nonexistent.  These are the same people who complain about the lack of any emotional context of the dialogue in porn.  Different movies fill different needs.  Michael Bay, Jerry Bruckheimer, Roland Emmerich, and Ridley Scott movies are not intended to make you think or feel in the way a Steven Soderbergh or even a Woody Allen film would.

These films are intended to rip through your rib cage, grab your inner caveman and drag your latté drinking, blog reading, aeron chair sitting, metaphor mixing ass through 210 minutes of heart pounding, libido stirring, pride swelling man-venture. If you’re looking for subtlety, read Jane Austen. These films are not about depth of character development, allegories and metaphors for Jesus Christ. This is about “Throg smash.”  If you’re not into that, shop somewhere else.

As for complaints about the lack of a plot, I won’t dismiss those so easily.  This film has a plot.  It’s not “I see dead people” complicated, but it’s a plot.  It hangs together and it is internally consistent (spoiler warning).  The plot centers around a Palpatine to Megatron’s Vader, known as the Fallen, one of the earliest of the Cybertronian race.  The Fallen was one of the “Primes”, an ancestor to Optimus, who, like Satan, fell from grace.  The Fallen did so when he tried to destroy the Earth’s sun and was stopped by the other Primes.  The Fallen has been somehow banished so long as a Prime lives.

Back in the present day, Megatron is resurrected with a sliver of the Allspark, and meets with the Fallen in a remote lair.  The Fallen tells Megatron that he can only be killed by a Prime and Optimus is the last Prime left.  He commands Megatron to kill Optimus, which he does.  Optimus out of the way, the Fallen returns to Earth to finish what he started.  The good guys fight to stop him and resurrect Optimus.  Boom, bash, bang.  Throg smash.  Aaah.

That is a plot.  Some snooty bastards might not like it, but it qualifies as a plot.  The mere fact that some movie critics have to look down their noses in order to see the kinds of people who would enjoy a Michael Bay films does not mean you should avoid this one.  After all, my enjoyment of a movie is often inversely proportional to the professional reviews of it.

As for the recent reports that the film depicts Obama was an appeaser, I disagree.  Obama is barely mentioned by name, and it is a generic “National Security Advisor” (played snivelingly well by John Benjamin Hickey) who is the cowardly foil.  There is no overt implication that Obama or his administration is attempting to appease the Decepticons.  And, for the record, this kind of tension is formulaic in films where an enormous destructive force demands the other side turn over one, usually innocent, person.  The fact that some people are so sensative when it’s Obama at the top of the chain of command speaks volumes.

The weirdest thing about this is the mildly-retarded smile Springsteen has afterward.

Got a wife and kids in Jersey, Barack
Sang the workin’ man’s blues, put my accounts in the black
Sang ’bout unions and big stores evil growin’
But Wal-Mart offers cash you know where I’m goin’

Everybody’s got a greedy heart
Everybody’s got a greedy heart
You sing what fans want and they’ll buy your art
Everybody’s got a greedy heart

Met Goodell at my agent’s Bar Mitzvah bash
Said, “Don’t like football but I sure like cash”
He said, “Shill new songs at the Superbowl”
I shrugged and said, “Aw hell, it’s just my soul”

Everybody’s got a greedy heart
Everybody’s got a greedy heart
You sing what fans want and they’ll buy your art
Everybody’s got a greedy heart

Every rock star wants a golden jet
All celebs want a throne on which to sit
Don’t make no difference what our music says
When money talks we’re fuckin’ hypocrites

Everybody’s got a greedy heart
Everybody’s got a greedy heart
You sing what fans want and they’ll buy your art
Everybody’s got a greedy heart

“It’s a Wonderful Life” is a terrifying, asphyxiating story about growing up and relinquishing your dreams, of seeing your father driven to the grave before his time, of living among bitter, small-minded people. It is a story of being trapped, of compromising, of watching others move ahead and away, of becoming so filled with rage that you verbally abuse your children, their teacher and your oppressively perfect wife. It is also a nightmare account of an endless home renovation.

Petty, snobbish Sodomites who think honest people should jump off a bridge into icy cold water.  Simpletons who think gambling will help the economy — any economy.  Jealous, spiteful little men who think it’s possible to be “oppressively perfect,” because personal character is a zero sum game.

I can’t imagine why circulation is down.  Good luck with those layoffs, Mr. Jamieson.

Anyone who can string together William Wallace, Sparticus and Fozzie the Bear has my vote for movie of the year.

We were having Chinese takeout Friday night and Sedona was peacefully sitting in her bed across the room. After we had eaten, the wife asked me to give her a biscuit. Thinking she meant the fried lo mein noodles, I grabbed one and handed it to the dog. Several “what did you just do”‘s later and ever since, we realized that Sedona seemed to be silently singing her new lament:

Some–times, I get fed at the ta-ble.
Not ev’ry time, but it happened one night.
I’ll wait here, as long as I’m a-ble.
And when they feed me, I’ll know I was riiight.

Conservatism is
The defense of states’ rights,
Instead of one massive federal program,
We want our tax bill to be light!

When you feel like the only kid in town
Who’s in the G-O-P;
Here’s a list of celebrity Neocons,
Just like you and me…

Frasier’s Kelsey Grammar
Is a red-state voter,
So is Paul Sorvino, Pat Sajak
and rich kid Ricky Schroeder.

Guess who supports Bush’s tax cuts
And thinks Code Pink is scary?
Catherine Bell from JAG
And San Francisco’s Dirty Harry!

Tom Selleck is a Conservative,
Heather Locklear is one too,
Put them both together,
And there’s nothing we can’t do!

You don’t need to pay high taxes,
Or turn over your beloved Glock.
You can lobby Congress with
Regis Philbin and The Rock!

[Chorus]
Pull out the superlatives,
Here come the Conservatives
Fiscal plans that’re preserve-ative
When you’re a Conservative!

Hanoi Jane Fonda [not a GOPper]
But guess who is? Easy Rider Dennis Hopper [He converted]

Guess who thinks the Democrats
Take advantage of taxpayers?
Don McLean, Meat Loaf, Bo Derek
And Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

So many Righties are in the show biz
Barbara Streisand isn’t
But I bet her accountant is.

[Chorus]
Pull out the superlatives,
Here come the Conservatives
Fiscal plans that’re preserve-ative
When you’re a Conservative!