Got your popcorn ready? Atlas Shrugged --- The Movie!!

[MindPilot]

Yes, part one opens at theaters everywhere tomorrow. I was reading an article in the Hollywood Reporter just this morning; it is a very low-budget production...only $10m and the distributors are counting on the tea-bagger buzz to do the marketing.

If this is as successful as other attempts to round up some right-wing movie dollars, I think somebody is gonna lose $10 mil.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480239/

[Brigid]

1. I hope people stay away in droves.

There is no way this can be anything but drivel.

[LynneSin]

3. Yeah that's what they said about "The Passion of the Christ"

nuff said.

[Bluenorthwest]

20. No actually not. Gibson had won best director for Brave Heart

among other things. He might be many things, but he was at the time he made that very difficult film an experienced director, producer and had been an actor under many far more experienced directors. There is no comparison whatsoever. The people making this film are not Mel Gibson. Who might be a very bad man, but he was never a bad director, kind of good at it actually.

[SpiralHawk]

21. Nota Bene: The Gibster went Flaky Froot Loops after the brutal torture-fest of 'Christ'

...and he ain't come back from la-la land since he exploited that story to max out the blood lust & fear factor in the, um, so-called fAiThfUl. Meanwhile, the RepubliCon Faux xTians went on their own blood-lust torture-fest Crusade at Abu Gharib, Gitmo, and elsewhere. Co-incidence? Um hmmmm...

As usual, the Republicon faux-xTiaNs pay no attention to the message of the REAL J. Christ: "As you do unto the least of these you do unto me."

[Hugabear]

48. Hold on, let me correct that for you.

among other things. He might be many things, but he was at the time he made that very difficult film torture porn an experienced director, producer and had been an actor under many far more experienced directors.


There, fixed.

[Dorian Gray]

74. That's true

Mel is crazy and ugly, but he can make a good film (Violent, but good). This just looks like a total turd.

[lame54]

22. that was a great film...

and he marketed it very well

[Keith Bee]

59. With a HUGE assist from Abe Foxman,

blasting the film for eight months prior to release. Didn't anybody tell him, "there's no such thing as bad publicity"?

[NYC Liberal]

27. Well...at least Passion of the Christ inspired one of the funniest DU threads evah

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=818212

[Blue_Tires]

28. holy.fucking.shit THAT WAS AWESOME

How did I ever forget about that??

Lots of long lost names in that thread, too:-(

[hifiguy]

37. Oh man, that predates my first incarnation on DU.

Funniest thread EVAH! :rofl:

[thelordofhell]

40. I have the Director's Cut

15 more minutes of Jesus beating footage and a Mary Magdaline nude sex scene.

[LTR]

56. I always thought the funniest one was...

..."I am the son of God. Ask me anything". The poster was named Jesus Christ, and he was tombstoned and asked to find a different username, IIRC.

I'd have to go look for the thread. It was a classic!

[Le Taz Hot]

58. I remember that poster!

He was brilliant and did absolutely nothing to get banned except that the religious fanatics Alerted on his screen name. Apparently, the 11th Commandment is Thou Shalt Not Have a Sense of Humor. :shrug:

[Dorian Gray]

76. Damn

didn't know he was banned. I loved that poster.

[uppityperson]

70. oh my god

I wasn't a member then and missed that. laughing so hard here

[DCKit]

73. MoFo... I'm laughing so hard it hurts, and I'm on post #4

Focker. How could you do this to me? To us?

[Dorian Gray]

75. I never saw that thread before

awesome!

[Warren DeMontague]

36. If I wanted 2 hours of S&M I would go to that porn store on 6th and Mission

except, it's closed while they put out that burning, masturbating dude.

[Joe Bacon]

23. I smell a RAZZIE contender!

And I will fill my RAZZIE ballot full of nominations for this MESSTERPIECE!

[deacon]

53. CNN may preempt all scheduled programming to show it in it's entirety. :)

[gratuitous]

2. Must . . . fight . . . urge . . . to . . . see . . . crapfest

If I'm patient, the magic of the market place will allow me to see this dreck (be still, my heart!) for free or practically free. As big a fan as I am of movie schlock, I must resist the urge to see this before it becomes a midnight movie cult show for people to mock and make rude comments about.

[XemaSab]

67. The problem is that it's only part 1

I can't see hipsters staying up until 6 AM to heckle all three parts. :shrug:

[MineralMan]

4. My entire reaction:

:shrug:

[last_texas_dem]

60. MineralMan Shrugged- Part 1!

haha

[Vinnie From Indy]

5. The political version of Battlefield Earth

[EOTE]

9. Foolish man-human! Battlefield Earth is far more realistic than anything Rand has ever written! NT

[Warren DeMontague]

34. Ebert had the best review of Battlefield Earth, if I remember correctly.

He had some line about "there's a moment when you realize you're not just watching a bad movie, you're watching a movie that is transcendentally bad, that is simply epic in it's terribleness" ...something like that.

[FVZA_Colonel]

44. At least that had lines like "YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBOURHOOD BARKEEP?!",

the dummy cow, and the thousand-year-old sign.

I doubt this'll have anything that... good.

[XemaSab]

68. I found the review

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20000512/REVIEWS/5120301/1023

He didn't say that, but he did say, ""Battlefield Earth" is like taking a bus trip with someone who has needed a bath for a long time. It's not merely bad; it's unpleasant in a hostile way. The visuals are grubby and drab. The characters are unkempt and have rotten teeth. Breathing tubes hang from their noses like ropes of snot. The soundtrack sounds like the boom mike is being slammed against the inside of a 55-gallon drum."

[Poll_Blind]

52. +1 I was thinking this myself- and why all similar productions are bound to fail.

PB

[Ian David]

6. I'll wait for the porno version in the adult video store. Atlas Schtupped! n/t

[FVZA_Colonel]

45. Atlas Sharted.

Wait a second...

[Joe Bacon]

64. ...Atlas Shagged...

:rofl:

[meegbear]

7. I'm Going Galt so I won't be seeing it

[EOTE]

8. Where did that $10m go?

Jeebus. Sam Raimi did the "Evil Dead" films for a few grand a piece. $10 million and they couldn't get one decent actor in the entire cast? I saw a clip of Dagny Taggert confronting the Union Representative before the maiden voyage of her new train. The production values were MST3K bad and the acting was even worse. What's even more priceless is that you'd have NO IDEA who the protagonist is by watching that scene, if you were to assume anyone, it would be the Union rep. Here's Dagny thumbing her nose at such quaint issues like "Human rights" (said with a vicious sneer, of course) while the Union rep is simply trying to have the Union workers he represents not get killed. By Rand's standards, that's as evil as a person can get.

[XemaSab]

69. I didn't think that the production values were THAT bad

The acting, however, was terrible. Dagny and the union rep are supposed to be having a heated argument about The Fate of Her Business vs. The Lives of His Workers and instead they sound like they're talking about whether the train should have a white stripe or a taupe stripe, and the scene ends with them deciding to put it to a vote. :P

For a film that's all people sitting around bullshitting, with the occasional train whizzing by, you'd think 10 mil would be a lavish budget.

[marmar]

10. Right-wingers don't "get" the arts.......

They might as well screen this at a coin-operated peep show booth.

[hifiguy]

11. It has to be a piece of unmitigated garbage, if for

no other reason than that it is based on one of the worst-written books in the history of printing.

[FSogol]

12. Sales of Ambien will flatline as the Nation's Insomniacs finally get a good night's sleep.

Thank you, Atlas Shrugged!

[peace frog]

13. Unless you want it messy, don't sit too far away from

the Vomitorium when you see the film.

[frylock]

14. a handfull of reviews are up on RT..

it's sitting at 0%. will prolly stay in single digits.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/atlas_shrugged_part_i/

[Brother Buzz]

15. Straight to DVD release and bargain bin

Bank on it

[romantico]

17. I

I do not recognize ANYONE in the cast.The acting in the trailer looks so campy.

[Brother Buzz]

18. With a 10 Million dollar budget they couldn't afford Charlie Sheen

[jmowreader]

29. They would have in six months or so...

[blondeatlast]

31. Michael O'Keefe--Caddyshack and ex of Bonnie Raitt. That's all I got. nt

[Javaman]

16. Fine. If they want to make it into a movie, then depict it exactly as rand wrote it...

then watch the halfwit teabaggers heads explode.

They will then see how much of an elitist jerk rand was and how she hated people like the tea baggers.

And I certainly hope they use all the wooden dialog that rand wrote, it's laughably artificial.

[Zax2me]

19. I heard the book was long and boring.

Have no interest in seeing the movie.

[Bluenorthwest]

24. My favorite thing about the whole story is that they actually call it

'Part One'. That is just so very, very funny to me. Link to Ebert's review, the poor man has to watch this crap for the greater good. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110414/REVIEWS/110419990

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

47. I especially liked this part of Ebert's review:

"Oh, and there is Wisconsin. Dagny and Hank ride blissfully in Taggart’s new high-speed train, and then Hank suggests they take a trip to Wisconsin, where the state’s policies caused the suppression of an engine that runs on the ozone in the air, or something (the film’s detailed explanation won’t clear this up). They decide to drive there. That’s when you’ll enjoy the beautiful landscape photography of the deserts of Wisconsin. My advice to the filmmakers: If you want to use a desert, why not just refer to Wisconsin as "New Mexico"?"

:rofl:

[MindPilot]

57. That must be how those palm trees got planted in

downtown Madison.

[MilesColtrane]

25. Word is you can see every penny of that $10 mil in the special effects.

[Blue-Jay]

26. Atlas Shat.

[tanyev]

30. A titanic fail.

[TNLib]

32. huh I wonder if anyone is going to see this mess

From Eberts review it sounds pretty pathetic.

[JHB]

33. JHB Shrugs

mmmmmmmeh!

[Warren DeMontague]

35. Telemachus Sneezed.

...When are they going to make the movie version of Illuminatus!, that's what I want to know.

[hifiguy]

39. If done well, that would be a mind-roasting film

Might even get the bong out of storage for that one. :hippie:

[Warren DeMontague]

42. I never thought they could do justice to Fear and Loathing, and I was wrong

so I suppose anything's possible.

[hifiguy]

38. I am reminded of Dorothy Parker's immortal review

of some poor sap: "This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It should be flung with great force." Applicable to both source material and film adaptation in this case, I should think.

[sendero]

41. I'd rather get...

.. an emetic.

[FVZA_Colonel]

43. Apparently, Armin Shimerman is in this.

Yep, Quark. And Andrew Ryan.

I just find that hilarious.

[Frank Cannon]

71. Poor Armin was in "What the *$(# Do We Know?" too

Guy's had an amazing career since his Star Trek days.

[white_wolf]

46. 5$ says Scream 4 makes at least twice as much as this piece of trash.

[FVZA_Colonel]

54. Being the 4th film in a slasher franchise, getting even 62% on Rotten Tomatoes is incredible.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/scream-4/

It's almost guaranteed.

[white_wolf]

49. So far, it has a 0% rating on Rottentomatoes.

Enjoy reading about the trainwreck: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/atlas_shrugged_part_i/

[Hugabear]

50. Directed by the same genius who directed the TV series "One Tree Hill"

Paul Johanssen...check out his impressive resume:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0424035/#Actor

:rofl:

[deacon]

51. scott walker will get busted with a video camera inside the theater. :)

[FVZA_Colonel]

55. Well, he'd be staying true to it's moral vision.

[Dappleganger]

61. Objectivism is a great philosophy...for teenage boys.

[Jakes Progress]

62. This book is a good test.

If you read it and it rings true, if it feels like reality to you, then you need help, serious help.

[FVZA_Colonel]

63. Well, it finally got a positive review,

and what a shock, it's from Kyle Smith at the New York Post: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/atlas_shrugged_part_i/comments.php?reviewid=1977645

[backscatter712]

65. Sounds like epic material for Joel, Crow and Tom Servo. n/t

[varkam]

72. May they rest in peace

[backscatter712]

77. Ah, but the show goes on!

http://www.cinematictitanic.com/
http://www.rifftrax.com/

[varkam]

78. Be still my overjoyed heart!

:rofl: That's awesome!

[krispos42]

66. Atlas Shrugged just before he disappeared into the rugged Black Hills of South Dakota.

This is The Onion Radio News.

Historians and Ayn Rand fans worldwide were stunned to find that the ancient Greek god Atlas, a member of the powerful Titan deity race, had shrugged off the weight of the world from his shoulders and left for solitude in South Dakota.

"I'm just tired of being associated with her," he said through his lawyer. "Have you read her stuff? Have you seen the movie? Can you blame me for wanting to disassociate myself?" When pressed, his lawyer said "Atlas plans to live off the land for a century or two, until he feels conditions are right for his return to his former position of prominence in culture".


Ancient Greek historians quickly formed search parties in the Black Hills National Forest but were quickly overcome by the scent of pine and a complete lack of cell-phone coverage.



This has been Krispos42, reporting for The Onion Radio News, online at TheOnion.com