The Time is NOW to Help the Movie Suceed

[jriggenbach]

Galt/Rearden '12? Apparently whoever created this bumper sticker either never considered or didn't care that Galt was offered in Atlas Shrugged a position in many respects equivalent to the modern American presidency -- head of the Bureau of Economic Planning and National Resources or, as Mr. Thompson described the position, "economic dictator of the nation". Not surprisingly, Galt declined the offer. So why should anyone with any familiarity with Galt's character even contemplate that Galt would accept the position of political/economic/military dictator of the U.S., otherwise known as the presidency?

Limited constitutional government . . . blah, blah, blah . . . checks and balances . . . blah, blah, blah . . . bullies . . . blah, blah, blah . . . hate America first . . . blah, blah, blah . . . "competing governments" . . . blah, blah, blah . . . Glenn Beck . . . blah, blah, blah . . . GOP . . . blah, blah, blah

Helpfully,

JR

[caroljane]

Galt/Taggart? Maybe they mean James. You know, balance the ticket.

[9thdoctor]

So why should anyone with any familiarity with Galt's character even contemplate that Galt would accept the position of political/economic/military dictator of the U.S., otherwise known as the presidency?

If duly elected and with a genuine "electoral mandate" to move towards laissez faire?

[Greybird]

It is very important that the opening weekend is a big success. [...]

If you're talking about the usual box-office hype factor, making or breaking a film's prospects in those first three days, well, that doesn't apply here. This is an independent film, one in such limited release as to newly strain the meaning of the term "limited."

The initial-weekend sweepstakes is only relevant for competing major-studio releases, where they're looking for bragging rights and investors' attention. And by "investors," I'm talking about multiple-tens-of-millions investment trusts, not a private investor of $5 to $10 million of his own money.

More attendance is always to be welcomed, but that first weekend is not going to make or break the three-part film project. That is, short of clamoring waiting-in-line mobs that make the local and national newscasts, demanding more showings. I doubt that Aglialoro is savvy enough to engage in such agitprop, judging from the flaccid promotion thus far.

In my case, I cannot afford $30 in gas these days for driving round-trip to see a movie, doing nothing else. Not when it could be used to take care of clients. That amount is what I would spend in going to either Southern California venue.

So unless something opens up within a few miles, I'm combining it with a supper-club trip on the following Monday to the same area, or at least that far in one direction. This is an important event, but it's not worth an expensive safari by itself across the wild traffic jungles of Los Angeles or Orange Counties.

[Philip Coates]

> that first weekend is not going to make or break the three-part film project.

Greybird, you couldn't be more mistaken. Here's how it works, as I understand it:

1. The first weekend "opening box office" gets a great deal of professional eyeballs, attention.

2. It determines length of run to some extent especially at out of the big city or 'art' theaters. If it's a short run, there's less time for it to show "legs" and get around the critics and spread by word of mouth.

3. The results for the full run in this handful of theaters will determine if it goes into nationwide release.

[Greybird]

> [...] that first weekend is not going to make or break the three-part film project.

Greybird, you couldn't be more mistaken. Here's how it works, as I understand it:

1. The first weekend "opening box office" gets a great deal of professional eyeballs, attention.

2. It determines length of run to some extent especially at out of the big city or "art" theaters. If it's a short run, there's less time for it to show "legs" and get around the critics and spread by word of mouth.

3. The results for the full run in this handful of theaters will determine if it goes into nationwide release.

None of this applies. Read, for once, what I actually wrote, if you are even capable of that. This is not a studio release. It does not have a major nationwide distributor.

It's never going to get a "nationwide release," not on thousands of theater screens. That is not a possibility, because the major studios and their distribution networks have no money invested in this film. They will not pick up any income from it.

This is, to be frank, John Aglialoro's vanity project, which might manage to return his own money and finance the next installment. Unless he gets other investors persuaded, who will not be among the studios and their backers who rejected this project — and apart from DVD sales — that is all it will ever be.

Kelley and Hudgins are whistling in what's not quite dark, but certainly dusky — and, unfortunately, so are you.

Edited March 23, 2011 by Greybird

[9thdoctor]

This is, to be frank, John Aglialoro's vanity project, which might manage to return his own money and finance the next installment. Unless he gets other investors persuaded, who will not be among the studios and their backers who rejected this project — and apart from DVD sales — that is all it will ever be.

I don't know if you're right or wrong, but I do hope you'll soon have reason to eat a large serving of crow.

[jriggenbach]

So why should anyone with any familiarity with Galt's character even contemplate that Galt would accept the position of political/economic/military dictator of the U.S., otherwise known as the presidency?

If duly elected and with a genuine "electoral mandate" to move towards laissez faire?

Did they have elected "public officials" in Galt's Gulch?

JR

[9thdoctor]

So why should anyone with any familiarity with Galt's character even contemplate that Galt would accept the position of political/economic/military dictator of the U.S., otherwise known as the presidency?

If duly elected and with a genuine "electoral mandate" to move towards laissez faire?

Did they have elected "public officials" in Galt's Gulch?

JR

Argh, no, it was a private estate. I believe that was covered in the book, or it may have been in one of the question periods after an AR lecture.

I was answering speculation about if John Galt were duly elected President of the US, would he take it? Being a fictional character, we can disagree endlessly about what he would or wouldn't do under limitless contextual variables. Sounds like a dull exercise.

[caroljane]

So why should anyone with any familiarity with Galt's character even contemplate that Galt would accept the position of political/economic/military dictator of the U.S., otherwise known as the presidency?

If duly elected and with a genuine "electoral mandate" to move towards laissez faire?

Did they have elected "public officials" in Galt's Gulch?

JR

Argh, no, it was a private estate. I believe that was covered in the book, or it may have been in one of the question periods after an AR lecture.

I was answering speculation about if John Galt were duly elected President of the US, would he take it? Being a fictional character, we can disagree endlessly about what he would or wouldn't do under limitless contextual variables. Sounds like a dull exercise.

Yes, and you should be engaged in the productive inspiring exercise of digging your own gulch before April 15. Dr Coates' people say that a tarp stretched over the hole is not acceptable, even with an air mattress, so maybe you should borrow some more lawn chairs from neighbours.

[kiaer.ts]

So why should anyone with any familiarity with Galt's character even contemplate that Galt would accept the position of political/economic/military dictator of the U.S., otherwise known as the presidency?

If duly elected and with a genuine "electoral mandate" to move towards laissez faire?

Did they have elected "public officials" in Galt's Gulch?

JR

Argh, no, it was a private estate. I believe that was covered in the book, or it may have been in one of the question periods after an AR lecture.

I was answering speculation about if John Galt were duly elected President of the US, would he take it? Being a fictional character, we can disagree endlessly about what he would or wouldn't do under limitless contextual variables. Sounds like a dull exercise.

Why do you keep pulling his finger?

[9thdoctor]

Why do you keep pulling his finger?

A slow night, inspiration from the red suds of George Killian, left over from St. Paddy's, who knows? Actually this was my first reply to JR this evening, so it's premature to try to identify a pattern.

[Philip Coates]

> This is not a studio release. It does not have a major nationwide distributor. [GB]

That's not how it works. Many 'small' films get pushed by a small distributor. If they do very, very well, the theater chains and owners say "hey, we want this picture!"

So a deal is made, it gets franchised out, etc.

[jriggenbach]

I "must enter a post," it says. I laugh up my sleeve. I will not be railroaded into entering a post when I'm of no mind to enter one. I defy this software!

JR

Edited March 23, 2011 by Jeff Riggenbach

[Martin Radwin]

So why should anyone with any familiarity with Galt's character even contemplate that Galt would accept the position of political/economic/military dictator of the U.S., otherwise known as the presidency?

If duly elected and with a genuine "electoral mandate" to move towards laissez faire?

I think that's a fantasy. You can't beat the house when the house sets the odds; you will always end up losing. Politics is a rigged game. The rules of the games are set by the ruling class to insure that, no matter who is nominally elected to office, they will always win and we will always lose. We can't beat them by playing their game. Politics is a bottomless sewer draining the energy of anyone who participates in it.

If liberty is ever to be achieved, it will be achieved from the bottom up, not the top down, by a critical mass of people who have figured out how to ignore the state and to replace its functions with voluntary, market based institutions. I am not optimistic enough to expect that this will happen during my lifetime, but it will ultimately happen either this way or not at all. Getting an objectivist/libertarian god elected president of the United States in order to turn the US into a libertarian paradise is a prospect no more real than Santa Claus.

Martin

[jriggenbach]

So why should anyone with any familiarity with Galt's character even contemplate that Galt would accept the position of political/economic/military dictator of the U.S., otherwise known as the presidency?

If duly elected and with a genuine "electoral mandate" to move towards laissez faire?

I think that's a fantasy. You can't beat the house when the house sets the odds; you will always end up losing. Politics is a rigged game. The rules of the games are set by the ruling class to insure that, no matter who is nominally elected to office, they will always win and we will always lose. We can't beat them by playing their game. Politics is a bottomless sewer draining the energy of anyone who participates in it.

If liberty is ever to be achieved, it will be achieved from the bottom up, not the top down, by a critical mass of people who have figured out how to ignore the state and to replace its functions with voluntary, market based institutions. I am not optimistic enough to expect that this will happen during my lifetime, but it will ultimately happen either this way or not at all. Getting an objectivist/libertarian god elected president of the United States in order to turn the US into a libertarian paradise is a prospect no more real than Santa Claus.

Martin

You speak the truth, Martin. Those who speak the truth aren't terribly popular around here (fantasies about checks and balances, the Republican Party, and Glenn Beck are far more widely acclaimed), but there are a few of us who do appreciate seeing it (the truth) on our screens. Bravo!

JR

[9thdoctor]

Getting an objectivist/libertarian god elected president of the United States in order to turn the US into a libertarian paradise is a prospect no more real than Santa Claus.

Since we’re talking about John Galt, a specific fictional character, I claim license to reference the text by way of a trump card. At the very end of the book the judge is shown to be adding a phrase to the US Constitution. From there, to infer that Ayn Rand thought the US system could work, or be fixed, is easy. To speculate that her hero would accept a position such as President, under the right circumstances, is but a step. A fantasy? Well, he is a fictional character after all.

[kiaer.ts]

So why should anyone with any familiarity with Galt's character even contemplate that Galt would accept the position of political/economic/military dictator of the U.S., otherwise known as the presidency?

If duly elected and with a genuine "electoral mandate" to move towards laissez faire?

I think that's a fantasy. You can't beat the house when the house sets the odds; you will always end up losing. Politics is a rigged game. The rules of the games are set by the ruling class to insure that, no matter who is nominally elected to office, they will always win and we will always lose. We can't beat them by playing their game. Politics is a bottomless sewer draining the energy of anyone who participates in it.

If liberty is ever to be achieved, it will be achieved from the bottom up, not the top down, by a critical mass of people who have figured out how to ignore the state and to replace its functions with voluntary, market based institutions. I am not optimistic enough to expect that this will happen during my lifetime, but it will ultimately happen either this way or not at all. Getting an objectivist/libertarian god elected president of the United States in order to turn the US into a libertarian paradise is a prospect no more real than Santa Claus.

Martin

You speak the truth, Martin. Those who speak the truth aren't terribly popular around here (fantasies about checks and balances, the Republican Party, and Glenn Beck are far more widely acclaimed), but there are a few of us who do appreciate seeing it (the truth) on our screens. Bravo!

JR

Why do I imagine that sounding like it was said by Burgess Meredith as the Penguin to Cesar Romero as the Joker?

[jriggenbach]

So why should anyone with any familiarity with Galt's character even contemplate that Galt would accept the position of political/economic/military dictator of the U.S., otherwise known as the presidency?

If duly elected and with a genuine "electoral mandate" to move towards laissez faire?

I think that's a fantasy. You can't beat the house when the house sets the odds; you will always end up losing. Politics is a rigged game. The rules of the games are set by the ruling class to insure that, no matter who is nominally elected to office, they will always win and we will always lose. We can't beat them by playing their game. Politics is a bottomless sewer draining the energy of anyone who participates in it.

If liberty is ever to be achieved, it will be achieved from the bottom up, not the top down, by a critical mass of people who have figured out how to ignore the state and to replace its functions with voluntary, market based institutions. I am not optimistic enough to expect that this will happen during my lifetime, but it will ultimately happen either this way or not at all. Getting an objectivist/libertarian god elected president of the United States in order to turn the US into a libertarian paradise is a prospect no more real than Santa Claus.

Martin

You speak the truth, Martin. Those who speak the truth aren't terribly popular around here (fantasies about checks and balances, the Republican Party, and Glenn Beck are far more widely acclaimed), but there are a few of us who do appreciate seeing it (the truth) on our screens. Bravo!

JR

Why do I imagine that sounding like it was said by Burgess Meredith as the Penguin to Cesar Romero as the Joker?

Your abject stupidity is my guess.

JR

[kiaer.ts]

Why do I imagine that sounding like it was said by Burgess Meredith as the Penguin to Cesar Romero as the Joker?

Your abject stupidity is my guess.

JR

Wow, that ranks up there with the all-time best stupid comebacks: Doofenshmirtz, Frank Burns, and Dr Evil

[Martin Radwin]

So why should anyone with any familiarity with Galt's character even contemplate that Galt would accept the position of political/economic/military dictator of the U.S., otherwise known as the presidency?

If duly elected and with a genuine "electoral mandate" to move towards laissez faire?

I think that's a fantasy. You can't beat the house when the house sets the odds; you will always end up losing. Politics is a rigged game. The rules of the games are set by the ruling class to insure that, no matter who is nominally elected to office, they will always win and we will always lose. We can't beat them by playing their game. Politics is a bottomless sewer draining the energy of anyone who participates in it.

If liberty is ever to be achieved, it will be achieved from the bottom up, not the top down, by a critical mass of people who have figured out how to ignore the state and to replace its functions with voluntary, market based institutions. I am not optimistic enough to expect that this will happen during my lifetime, but it will ultimately happen either this way or not at all. Getting an objectivist/libertarian god elected president of the United States in order to turn the US into a libertarian paradise is a prospect no more real than Santa Claus.

Martin

You speak the truth, Martin. Those who speak the truth aren't terribly popular around here (fantasies about checks and balances, the Republican Party, and Glenn Beck are far more widely acclaimed), but there are a few of us who do appreciate seeing it (the truth) on our screens. Bravo!

JR

Jeff,

Thanks very much for your kind words. They mean a lot, coming from a distinguished libertarian writer and scholar like you.

As for Ted's subsequent nasty reply to you, I'll say this about Ted -- the man has the perspective of a sociopath, at least with regard to his views of foreigners. I still remember, some time ago, making a post in which I pointed out that the Iraq war resulted in the likely deaths of several hundred thousand Iraqis, the creation of at least two million Iraqi refugees driven from their homes, the massive ethnic cleansing of Sunnis from Iraqi cities, and massive destruction of Iraqi infrastructure, all to replace a previously U.S. government supported dictatorship with a brand new more U.S. government friendly dictatorship. Ted's reply (and I paraphrase here, because I can't remember his exact words and I can't locate the exact post) was something like, "Ha! Ha! The Iraq war is over. We won!". To respond like that, and not even to give the slightest acknowledgement of the horror of the war, or the terrible injustice and tragedy of so many innocent people killed and wounded, driven from their homes, their lives destroyed, and not even to feel the slightest degree of sympathy or sorrow for the suffering of the victims, is indicative of a person with a depraved indifference to human life.

I see that Ted has now joined the just started torture thread. Naturally, he is a strong advocate of U.S. government torture as official policy. He seemed practically giddy with excitement at the very thought of it.

Martin

[kiaer.ts]

So why should anyone with any familiarity with Galt's character even contemplate that Galt would accept the position of political/economic/military dictator of the U.S., otherwise known as the presidency?

If duly elected and with a genuine "electoral mandate" to move towards laissez faire?

I think that's a fantasy. You can't beat the house when the house sets the odds; you will always end up losing. Politics is a rigged game. The rules of the games are set by the ruling class to insure that, no matter who is nominally elected to office, they will always win and we will always lose. We can't beat them by playing their game. Politics is a bottomless sewer draining the energy of anyone who participates in it.

If liberty is ever to be achieved, it will be achieved from the bottom up, not the top down, by a critical mass of people who have figured out how to ignore the state and to replace its functions with voluntary, market based institutions. I am not optimistic enough to expect that this will happen during my lifetime, but it will ultimately happen either this way or not at all. Getting an objectivist/libertarian god elected president of the United States in order to turn the US into a libertarian paradise is a prospect no more real than Santa Claus.

Martin

You speak the truth, Martin. Those who speak the truth aren't terribly popular around here (fantasies about checks and balances, the Republican Party, and Glenn Beck are far more widely acclaimed), but there are a few of us who do appreciate seeing it (the truth) on our screens. Bravo!

JR

Jeff,

Thanks very much for your kind words. They mean a lot, coming from a distinguished libertarian writer and scholar like you.

As for Ted's subsequent nasty reply to you, I'll say this about Ted -- the man has the perspective of a sociopath, at least with regard to his views of foreigners. I still remember, some time ago, making a post in which I pointed out that the Iraq war resulted in the likely deaths of several hundred thousand Iraqis, the creation of at least two million Iraqi refugees driven from their homes, the massive ethnic cleansing of Sunnis from Iraqi cities, and massive destruction of Iraqi infrastructure, all to replace a previously U.S. government supported dictatorship with a brand new more U.S. government friendly dictatorship. Ted's reply (and I paraphrase here, because I can't remember his exact words and I can't locate the exact post) was something like, "Ha! Ha! The Iraq war is over. We won!". To respond like that, and not even to give the slightest acknowledgement of the horror of the war, or the terrible injustice and tragedy of so many innocent people killed and wounded, driven from their homes, their lives destroyed, and not even to feel the slightest degree of sympathy or sorrow for the suffering of the victims, is indicative of a person with a depraved indifference to human life.

I see that Ted has now joined the just started torture thread. Naturally, he is a strong advocate of U.S. government torture as official policy. He seemed practically giddy with excitement at the very thought of it.

Martin

The horror, the horror . . .

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

... the Republican Party, and Glenn Beck...

Jeff,

Just curious.

Why do you keep putting Beck in the same breath with the Republican Party?

As for checks and balances, you might as well get used to the idea. You yourself happen to be one such mechanism.

Michael

[Martin Radwin]

The horror, the horror . . .

Thanks, Ted. After I wrote the above post suggesting that you have the perspective of a sociopath, I figured I'd have to dredge up some of your old posts to prove my point. You've now made that quite unnecessary, proving my point in your single, one line response.

There are quite a few self-identied objectivists, including many here on Objectivist Living, who don't seem to be the slightest bit disturbed that their own government is going around the world bombing the shit out of a bunch of countries, killing, maiming, and destroying the lives of untold thousands of people, in a seemingly endless series of evil, senseless wars. Some even attempt to justify this, using a twisted interpretation of objectivist ethics.

But you are the only poster I have ever seen on Objectivist Living who, when confronted with the reality of the destruction of a country and the mass murder of its citizens, responds by telling cheap jokes, as though this were somehow something to laugh about. You are one sick, twisted sub-species of humanity.

Martin

[Dennis Hardin]

The horror, the horror . . .

Thanks, Ted.

But you are the only poster I have ever seen on Objectivist Living who, when confronted with the reality of the destruction of a country and the mass murder of its citizens, responds by telling cheap jokes, as though this were somehow something to laugh about. You are one sick, twisted sub-species of humanity.

Martin

More "sick, twisted sub-species" on video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_9ECWIaIoY&feature=related

It just doesn't get any lower or more despicable than this. Thanks so much for helping us innocent souls to see the depravity and evil that lurks all around us.