Atlas Shrugged Part II Reviews

[9thdoctor]

I am also relatively certain that the guy with the white bushy beard that you see in the audience at Rearden's trial (actually more of a hearing to a panel of government bureacrats) is James Randi (of The Amazing Randi magician and later professional skeptic and investigator of the paranormal). Randi is shown several times with the camera shot being from the panel of bureaucrats, focusing on Rearden standing at a podium. Directly behind him is an "audience" of about 50 people. Randi stands-out.

I can't recall ever seeing him comment on Rand, one way or the other. He's certainly friendly with Penn Jillette and Michael Shermer, so there ought to be something somewhere.

You can see the scene here. The guy certainly qualifies as a James Randi lookalike, but I don't think that's him. Check out a recent appearance of Randi's, he looks quite a bit older now. Frailer. He's on Lillian's side of the audience, above her a couple three rows.

[9thdoctor]

There's quite a few things on the TAS site, interviews with the actors mostly. Embedding them is a bit of a pain, YouTube is much easier for that.

http://www.atlassociety.org/atlas-shrugged/atlas-shrugged-movie-interviews-stars

And here's James Randi six months ago, if you want to compare to the clip above:

[MrBenjamatic]

I will start out with the positive and say I'm glad the series was continued. I'm glad they made it and I liked how stylized Reardens office was, barely mediocre (which is VERY rare). I liked Dagny but the first Dagny was more believable and attractive. I didn't like the acting of he who played Francisco at all- he seemed very pretentious and made too much of an effort to be suave. I will say that, to the extent of my knowlege, naturally aristocratic posture, movement & suaveness, if thats a word, is possible only to virtuous creators- it comes with being virtuous, confident, courageous and recognizing ones own great ability to exist. The Washington crowd wasn't very accurate in their reactions and emotional display- it didn't match their philosophy. For instance, I seldom saw accurate sadistic expressions and reactions on the faces of the evil. Most sadists can't hide their sadistic expressions absolutely or pretend they're not anxious absolutely. They slip because they know they're unfit for existence no matter how much they pretend otherwise, that knowlege scares them too much to hide their fear, anxiety and hatred. Lillian for instance was a bit corny and I think the first movie's Lillian was much better at accuarate portrayal. The scene from Part I when Lillian Reardon and the mother were gracefully sitting, smiling watching Hank in his office having to give his other companies to looters was, for instance, deliciously accurate! They were sitting so gracefully, more so than usual (when they don't care enough to compeletly hide their sloppy display hatred for existence) because they believe their philosophy defies reality and wins when they destroy and watch others destroy the God of Hank Rearden. I think the first Dagny was much better at portraying the character with her solemnity and refusal to express emotion- the original Hank was the same way. The second Dagney had a very slight hint of sloppiness. Very accurate, however, was the mediocre "thinkers" constant refusal to take responsibility for ones thinking and actions and the panic that most people experience when they are blamed. The recent Dr Ferris did a delightful job at portraying an incompotent, gangster doctor who wanted power and meant it. Bravo! Bravo! I none the less look forward to the final - I liked the way Galt walked on his way to help Dagny and I liked his voice.

[Jerry Biggers]

There's quite a few things on the TAS site, interviews with the actors mostly. Embedding them is a bit of a pain, YouTube is much easier for that.

http://www.atlassoci...nterviews-stars

And here's James Randi six months ago, if you want to compare to the clip above:

Thanks for the links to the TAS site, which contains a video of the segment from Rearden's trial. If that is not James Randi, seen in several of the vfiews of the audience, then it is someone who was trying very hard to look just like him. Judging from the other video link that you provided, it seems to my eye that it is James Randi in both.

I will try to get an answer on this fron The Atlas Society or from the James Randi Foundation.

[9thdoctor]

If that is not James Randi, seen in several of the vfiews of the audience, then it is someone who was trying very hard to look just like him.

I agree that he is a look-alike, but trying to look like Randi is another matter. It takes quite a while to grow a beard like that, it’s not something you do just to be an extra in a movie. But he does have a certain prominence in the scene, notice that in some shots he’s positioned right next to Rearden’s head, then he keeps popping out behind Rearden’s ear. If it is Randi, and the director wanted to highlight his presence, this is what it would look like. Trouble is I see a rounder face, Randi’s cheeks are kind of sunken now, the guy in the shot looks to me a good 10 years younger.

Do you know of any comment Randi has ever made about Rand? No doubt he has a pat answer ready, he must have been asked thousands of times given the similarity of name. I tried looking for something, and came up empty. He’s certainly someone who would appeal to Rand-fans, but that’s no guarantee the feeling is reciprocated.

Here’s a new piece by Michael Shermer that’s partly about the movie.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-shermer/why-ayn-rand-wont-go-away_b_1961288.html

Shermer’s supposed to be in the movie, an extra in the wedding scene, though I didn’t notice him. He’s teamed up with Randi quite a bit in the past. For conferences and such.

[Guyau]

Andrew, concerning #25, I think there is a way to get some distribution of Galt’s speech within Part III itself, outside the radio broadcast, were a Part III to be made. Rand did a bit of that in the novel through Dagny’s conversations with people in the Gulch, especially at an evening soirée. Some ideas from the speech could surely be given in personal discussions between just Dagny and Galt while she is in the Gulch. (The voice of Galt was finally a right one at the end of Part II – hallelujah!)

[syrakusos]

The comment was made about "Happy Days." You can tell that it was shot in the 70s, but being placed in the 50s, the show does not age, even though no one smokes, and it was in color not black and white. On the other hand, the Star Trek universe must always include the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s, which was predicted in 1966 and never happened. So, too, with Atlas Shrugged, perhaps if it had been shot, in an art deco style for an alternate 1957, it would carry the same messages without the jarring inconsistencies and anachronisms. We will have to wait for the next remake.

Of all the characterizations, I liked Jeff Allen best. He was played by Jeff Yagher (IMDB here) who has a long list of interesting roles. He also has a specialty in make-up, so I wonder if he did his own beard?

[Ellen Stuttle]

They did the damn thing right!

I'm reading in consecutive order. Before going further, I want to say that that's just what I thought -- and said, those words exactly, when the movie was over, complete with exclamation mark.

I went to the movie not wanting to go, not expecting to like it any better than I liked the first part, which I thought wasn't as bad as I feared it would be but wasn't good either. I think "they" learned something from the criticism of Part I and that Part II is significantly enough an improvement to make the grade as a coherent movie. Not a great movie by a long way. But coherent as a movie on its own terms.

I liked Mathis better as Dagny than Schilling. The filming was different in camera angle and emphasis, so as not to feature Mathis' body. Schilling has a figure and a walk that photographed well. But I felt a response as to a person to Mathis which I didn't feel to Schilling.

--

Re "the Wet Nurse," the Doctor wrote:

The Wet Nurse gets a name, first and last. In the book we only find out at the very end that his name is Tony. In the movie, for reasons I cannot fathom, they renamed him Leonard. Leonard Smalls.

On hearing the character called "Leonard," I wondered if the name might have been chosen as a little dig at Leonard Peikoff. The character's appearance somewhat resembles Leonard Peikoff's as a young man.

Ellen

[9thdoctor]

On hearing the character called "Leonard," I wondered if the name might have been chosen as a little dig at Leonard Peikoff.

Nah. No way. It's a reference to Martin Landau's character in North by Northwest:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdFVxvAIaHM

Leonard the implacable henchman. Obviously!

[Jonathan]

On hearing the character called "Leonard," I wondered if the name might have been chosen as a little dig at Leonard Peikoff.

On hearing that the character's name was "Leonard," I wondered the same. On hearing that the character's full name was "Leonard Small," I was certain that it was a dig.

J

[Ellen Stuttle]

On hearing that the character's full name was "Leonard Small," I was certain that it was a dig.

The "Small" as the last name does heighten the suspicion, but, J, you aren't entitled to certainty, not even "contextual," without stronger evidence than plausibility.

Leonard the implacable henchman. Obviously!

But the character in the Atlas II movie isn't an "implacable henchman." He's indecisive, wavering, confused....again, resembling an erstwhile youthful Leonard Peikoff.

Speaking of Martin Landau, however, I think that in his middle years he could have done Francisco marvelously well.

Ellen

[9thdoctor]

But the character in the Atlas II movie isn't an "implacable henchman." He's indecisive, wavering, confused....again, resembling an erstwhile youthful Leonard Peikoff.

The Doctor, sometimes, is sarcastic…double plus obviously!!

[syrakusos]

Doctor, thanks for the reminder with the link to the Atlas Society interviews. I watched them all. I think that Kim Rhodes and Patrick Fabian really have their roles down well. Patrick Fabian, in particular, really seems to understand the book and the philosophy. The others are all fine, but those two stand out, at least in their chats with David Kelley.

Was a scene cut? Did I miss the part where Lilian confronts Hank and Dagny at the terminal? (In the book, it happens differently. She is looking for "the kind of woman he would like" and passes over all the usual types and then sees Dagny and she get it. When Rearden finds her, she looks shaken, and he notices.) But they showed a scene being shot and I do not recall viewing it in the theater. Such a confrontation would make the blackmail less of a surprise. It does, however, reinforce his desire for a divorce at all costs.

[9thdoctor]

Was a scene cut? Did I miss the part where Lilian confronts Hank and Dagny at the terminal?

I noticed another one. Francisco confronting Dagny as she fills up the tank of Jeff Allen's truck.

[syrakusos]

I saw that, too. It went by pretty quick, but he had no business being there according to the plot, and my mind's eye assessed it as the actors talking. For all we know the gas station is behind the Woodstock cottage next to the Afton Airport. But, I saw the same thing you did.

[9thdoctor]

I saw that, too. It went by pretty quick, but he had no business being there according to the plot

It would have added a major improbability to the plot. How would he know she's going to be there, at that gas station in the middle of nowhere? OTOH, I think the movie could have done with more Francisco.

I'm thinking more about the abbreviated money speech, and I'm coming around to the idea that it ought to have been done more like an opera aria. It was going to have to stop the action dead in its tracks, and it's the part people are going to come back to, so if you're going to do it, you may as well go whole hog. But be sure you leave a little space at the end, to give the audience a chance to clap. Kind of like this:

[9thdoctor]

Part 1 is streaming live right now, here:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/atlas-shrugged-movie

It's about half an hour in at this moment.

[Selene]

Part 1 is streaming live right now, here:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/atlas-shrugged-movie

It's about half an hour in at this moment.

Thank you Dennis. That was truly enjoyable.

[9thdoctor]

Thank you Dennis. That was truly enjoyable.

Glad you liked it. And here I thought you didn't go for Opera...

Yeah yeah I know, you mean the movie. BTW it's going to be available there for a couple days, plus there's a 20 minute making-of thingy about Part II.

[Kat]

I've enjoyed watching David Kelly's commentaries and seeing the stream of Atlas Shrugged Part I online yesterday. I realIy do like the second movie better than the first one. Maybe it was the direction or the cast. It certainly flowed better and they certainly seemed old enough this time around. The new Francisco and James were spot on. Showing Hank's affair but not his wife's wasn't fair though. She didn't come off as bitchy as the first one.

I also liked seeing Teller and others in cameo roles. I still don't think they have the right Dagny though, and I don't know if it was a crummy make-up artist or what, but she looked horrible. She never smiled and had huge bags under her eyes and her make-up and wardrobe had much to be desired. I almost expected to see the Very Hungry Caterpiller in the credits cast as Dagny's eyelashes..... They need real stars in the final version cast as Dagny and John Galt.

[PDS]

Kat:

Those eye-lashes were indeed longer than train smoke.

By the way, D.B. Sweeney is the actor in the credits named as playing John Galt.

[Brant Gaede]

I'm really looking forward to Atlas Shrugged, Part IV.

--Brant

[caroljane]

,,,in which the Men of the Mind stride forth to till the soil, freed at last from looters and moochers, but somewhat hampered by an absence of working ploughs or seeds.

[syrakusos]

Carol, physical problems do not "hamper" people of the mind. It is and always has been the looters. Even though labor is no longer invested in castle walls, armies of accountants and lawyers are needed for taxes and regulations. The money they are paid, the time of their lives they themselves invest, are all deadweight losses. Freed of that, recovery would seem miraculous.

People of the mind would have little problem regaining the technology: the plow has been invented and its production requirements in various forms from the steel blade to the sideboard are known -- even if they did not have ubiquitous workable plows, tractors, threshers, and combines to restart. Freed of the looters, the average farmer can work miracles -- and that's been true since the invention of agriculture. Moreover, the farmer you know is a person of the industrial age: plows and tractors are made in cities, not on farms. That point is from Jane Jacobs in The Economy of Cities.

In times of famine, farmers eat their seeds, but in times of recovery, more can be purchased from elsewhere, even on credit. In England of the Middle Ages, we have records of local crop failures but no records of local famines because food could be imported. Even at that level of commerce, an unregulated market channels what is needed where it is needed. In our day, seeds (like tractors) are made in cities. With biotech, they can be made quickly.

The philosophy behind Atlas Shrugged is not a matter of opinion. Necessary factual truths are not chocolate-versus-vanilla debates. Right and wrong make a difference. Describing the morality of Rearden's mills, Rand says that every girder was placed in answer to one question: right or wrong. It would be wrong to size a girder and then decide to make it out of aluminum or plastic instead of steel. So, too, with economics. To the extent that any claims are actually correct, they are unarguable; and to argue them is to await disaster. Taxes and regulations destroy wealth -- and prevent invention.

Unhampered by huge wastes of time and energy complying with the whims of people who hold guns, people of the mind - anyone who values their own mind - can create luxurious conveniences such as genetically modified foods, clothing from artificial fibers, and shelters 1000 feet high and a 300 feet on a side, and transmit your thoughts across thousands of miles at the speed of light, store them with lightening on slips of stone smaller than the width a hair or print them whole on paper, 10 sheets a minute, all in your home, play music or tell stories in full pictures at the press of button.

These all came despite the looters, not because of them. To look at a superhighway and say that it was "infrastructure" built by the government to make business possible is to see the walls of a castle and claim that city life was made possible by roving tribes of barbarians. Absent the barbarians, the cities would not need walls. Absent the superhighways, the resources would have been invested then in whatever will (we can hope) be invented sometime later.

[MrBenjamatic]

I'm really looking forward to Atlas Shrugged, Part IV.

--Brant

I couldn't have said it better!