They got it right.

Sure I would have loved to see the $40 million dollar version of the same movie, but the bottom line is that it works and works well. With the executive summary out of the way, let’s go into a bit more detail about the film itself. (If you want to read about my night out at the premiere, that’s here.) …

The story is really the star here. It’s a film on gleaming blue rails that carefully follow the curves of the landscape Ayn Rand created over 50 years ago. There won’t be any unpleasant surprises for devotees of the novel. No Jar-Jar moments to make you cringe. In fact, the producers have put together a top notch cast of character actors, many of whom will be familiar to audiences even if their names aren’t quite household words.

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The major characters in this section of the book are Dagny Taggart and her brother James, Hank Rearden and Ellis Wyatt. All four offer performances that match their characters in the book. First off, Graham Beckel does a great job with Ellis Wyatt. He gets the least screen time of the four, but really livens up the proceedings every time he enters the frame. The scene where he has Dagny and Rearden to his house for dinner seemed to come right out of the book. He embodies a kind of everyman elitism that sounds contradictory but really works in the novel. Graham Beckel simply becomes Ellis Wyatt.

Matthew Marsden is younger than I imagined James Taggart being but he has the scheming, slightly petulant character down. You won’t like James Taggart and if you’ve read the book you know that’s exactly how you should feel about him. Taylor Schilling’s Dagny Taggart is sexy but a bit cold. Again, this makes it hard to warm up to her at first, but it’s also exactly how Dagny comes off in the book. As the film goes on she warms up (especially to Hank) and begins to carry the emotion of the film from the high of the John Galt line to the low of Wyatt’s torch.

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I’m tired of hiding it. Everybody knows anyway. So it’s time to come clean, just like the Klan hoods I’ve got spinning in the dryer as we speak. It’s time for the Neanderthal knuckle-dragging, open mouth-breathing, racist, sexist, Klan and Timothy McVeigh-loving Montana militia member gun nut conservative Republican religious zealot in me to be set free. Repression is a bitch, and so am I.

I go to bed full of hate and wake up the same.  I hate blacks, Hispanics, gays, women, abortion doctors, liberals, Lefties, Democrats, you name ‘em, I hate ‘em if they’re not like me. I especially hate President Obama for being black. Just ask Janeane Garofalo, although being a Stalinist Socialist doesn’t help Obama’s cause any with me. Fact is, Obama could be a GOP Michael Steele Uncle Tom, and I’d still hate him even more than liberals hate Steele. Skin color trumps all. Thank God I was born the right color, or I’d probably kill myself. Wait, the hoods are dry! Be right back. (more…)

In a new listing of film and TV’s coolest heroes, James Bond emerged in the top spot — while rival spy Jason Bourne was MIA — finishing behind the likes of young Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

In its 20 All-Time Coolest Heroes in Pop Culture rankings, Entertainment Weekly listed 007 #1 — a move not likely to please fan’s of every hippie’s favorite spy (other than Valerie Plame), that assassin with a conscience, Bourne. In fact, if EW was going to run a Top 2 All-Time Most Cheesed Off Folks right now, it might rank Bourne’s cinematic creators –Team America star Matt Damon and United 93 director Paul Greengrass — in that order.

Damon or Greengrass seem obsessed with attacking the James Bond films and the character himself every chance they get. Mixing up a bitter soup of professional envy at Bond’s legacy and success, personal insecurity at producing movies beholden to Bond and (of course) self-righteous political arrogance, both artists froth at every opportunity to brand Ian Fleming’s creation a soulless killer. Ignoring Bond’s efforts to battle terrorism and global crime, they stamp him a militarist imperialist misogynist. (more…)