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.

For me the real surprise was Grant Bowler as Hank Rearden. He is in many ways the most complex character in the film. He has a family that doesn’t treat him well and a cold and unkind wife. Through the course of the film he falls for Dagny and begins an arc that will carry on until part 3. It probably helps that Grant/Hank had all the funniest moments (there are several). Bowler plays Hank in a way that is instantly likable and relatable, maybe even better than he comes across in the book. Grant looks a bit like Daniel Craig and so I found myself comparing his performance to Craig in Casino Royale (one of the best Bond films ever!). Obviously Atlas isn’t an action film, but there is something similar about the way both Bowler and Craig are able to humanize scenes with a smile or a quirky look. He’s the spine of part 1 and he really makes it work.

Read the full review at Verum Serum

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.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Joe is my hero and role model, Archie Bunker a distant second, Ted Nugent a close third. I have posters of all of them lining my walls, alongside such conservative Republican heroes as Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Richard Nixon, Adolf Hitler and Darth Vader.

I used to have one of Robert C. Byrd, but he lost me when he left the Klan and became the Conscience of the Senate. Whatever that means. Didn’t know the Senate had one. But I never understood that. How can a white guy in good conscience leave the Klan? But I digress.

I have a mega-gun collection and a huge stockpile of hollow-point Teflon-coated ammo that’s just itching to be used. Haven’t decided yet on which abortion doctor I’m going to target next. Maybe I’ll just go down to the border and shoot brownskins for sport. dHs, sToP mE BefORe I KilL aGAiN!

And though I really hate homos like the Good Book says I should, I spend a lot of my free time cruising aiport rest rooms and tapping footsies like Larry Craig. If I’m lucky, I’ll get some real teabagging in. If not, I’ll try to get some in at my local Tea Party. Of course, my shotgun wedding Handmaid’s Tale wife with the nice tooth doesn’t know about any of this. She’s usually home watching Jerry Falwell and the “700 Club” most of the day, and role-plays being Sarah Palin for me at night. Is that kinky or what? God, I love my wife! Would never be unfaithful to her with another woman.

As to being with other men, well, nobody in the GOP’s perfect. But it beats being a liberal! Except for the part where they get away with murder, and we get stoned for jaywalking.

Our favorite day is Sunday, named after our favorite radical fire-and-brimstone preacher Billy Sunday. We sing hymns like ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ and wash ourselves clean in the Lord. Really necessary for me. A conservative Republican can get real dirty during the GOP workweek. Good thing my wife’s family is rich. Her toothless redneck dad gave us a beat up ‘78 Ford pickup with NASCAR and confederate flag bumper stickers and an Easy Rider rifle rack. Pride of the Bayou!

I want war. Lots of it. Want the economy to get a boost? Works every time! Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran! Of course, in the interest of disclosure, I must confess to being a consultant for Blackwater, Halliburton, the Carlyle Group and Big Oil. And so what if we all staged 9/11? Made a ton of dough and dusted enough Islamist ragheads to fill the new Yankee Stadium, didn’t we?

Liberals are such pussies! And screw Global Warming! I WANT the world to burn! Only then can Jesus bring Paradise to earth. Speaking of which, where’s that landing strip for Christ in Yosemite National Park James Watt put on order? Days are gettin’ short! And don’t forget, Jesus is white, and might is right. I’m sorry, what was the problem with slavery again?

Actually, I have to confess yet again. All the above is only what I aspire to be, i.e. the best GOPer Repug Nazi I can be. Like most mortals, I fall far short of my goals and dreams. I don’t even own a gun or hollow-point Teflon-coated ammo, but I support the Second Amendment, which is just as bad. May as well be a co-conspirator with Scott Roeder and James von Brunn.

I detest the corrupt Mengele-like genocidal statutory rape-hiding abortion industry that needs reform even more than Iran’s government, but support a woman’s LEGAL right to choose. It’s the law. Until and unless it’s overturned, what can you do? Shoot up clinics? Ya, in my Rethug dreams!

I’m really not a bathroom footsie player, or like cock and hairy ass in general. But gay marriage is legal in my home state of New Hampshire and I haven’t been sodomized yet, so live and let live. What can I say, I’m weak. And even though as a six-year veteran I believe in General Douglas MacArthur’s axiom that “no one hates war more than the soldier,” sometimes they just gotta be fought if civilization as we know it must survive. Be it a cold war with the Russians or hot ones with Hitler and bin Laden, the dirty deeds must be done. And without quarter until victory is complete.

Fight a war to the end or don’t fight it. You can’t do both. One way assures victory, the other defeat. The Art of Fighting Without Fighting doesn’t work with the abu Musab al-Zarqawis of this world.

Worst of all? I was born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Now THAT’S a confession! How can I ever face my conservative redneck Republican sister-banging moonshine-guzzling Zionist drinking buddies at the NRSC and AIPAC again?

I put it all on the table, people. Now, if only liberal Democrat lefties would freely admit to all the world that they’re all hypocritical, mentally disordered, drug-addled, tree-hugging, America-hating, nihilist anarchist recruiting office-bombing, terrorist and dictator-loving, tinfoil hat, limp-wrist pansy spoiled brat full-grown trust fund Stalinist toddlers who couldn’t get gangbanged by the Green Bay Packers hard or fast enough (practice squads included), maybe we’ll get somewhere in this country.

I seek progress, not perfection. We can all sit down together and have one big ideological circle jerk. Get it out of our systems, you know? Hey, we’re all Americans here! Confession is good for the soul. Or your metaphysical, Pagan or Wiccan existential plane of being, depending on your religious or non-religious proclivities and inclinations.

God, I feel so good now. Got it all out. Okay, let’s hear it in the comments section now. No holding back. That includes you, Unrighteous Bubba and Cognitive Dissonant. Tell us about all the kinky things you like to do with tinfoil, Vaseline and vacuum cleaners while watching sick online German porn in your mothers’ basements

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.

That’s a lot of “ist”s to heap on a fictional character, and the Damon/Greengrass vitriol festival seems unwilling to turn the same critical eye toward their own non-corporeal screen creation. While Robert Ludlum’s character is an impressive and skilled killing machine, the movie Bourne is gloomy, bitter, self-absorbed and motivated only by personal revenge and the desire to be left alone (a trait of questionable heroic value).

But Bourne fights predominantly middle-aged white men in suits who are part of the military and intelligence establishments. Combine that with the character’s inherent narcissism, and he’s the perfect screen hero for the hard left.

But EW left him out of their Top 20 — a decision that could indicate Bourne is already fading into also-ran spy status as Daniel Craig and the Bond franchise flourish. In fact, whether the magazine’s editors realize it or not, the EW list is very conservative friendly, including fine, upstanding badasses like Dirty Harry, Jack Bauer and Batman. Then again, the left alienates itself from heroic qualities when it so frequently surrenders to moral relativism and the simple-minded “weak always good, strong always bad” mentality. So, it’s hard to balance such a list politically.

There’s talk of another Greengrass/Damon/Bourne project in Hollywood, but that series will never match Bond’s pop culture significance and historic resonance with movie fans — and that will forever burn in the guts of hard left ideologues who forget “it’s only a movie.”