Skip to main content

A Look at the Atlas Shrugged Movie

One of the exciting privileges awaiting students who attended the International Students for Liberty Conference (recap here) a week ago, was a private screening of about fifteen minutes from the upcoming Atlas Shrugged movie, set to premiere on April 15th -tax day in the United States.

I couldn't help but squirm in my seat along with five hundred other TGFLs (total geeks for liberty... just made that up) as we viewed footage that only one other audience had seen before us. I sighed with satisfaction as I considered the many thousands of audiences who would see it after us, along with the rest of a movie that I believe might have the potential to change the world, just like the book that inspired it. It was no wonder that I saw Students for Liberty's executive director, Alexander McCobin, an objectivist pursuing his Ph.D. in philosophy, positively beaming before and after the event.

Then again, I've never seen him not smiling and projecting genuine warmth and joy into a room. Anyone who thinks of Ayn Rand's objectivism as angry, cold, or adolescent should meet McCobin, who quite perfectly exemplifies the joy and love for life that should jump out of the page at anyone who reads Ayn Rand's novels without a preconceived bias against her (or the tendency of adolescents who encounter Rand for the first time as teenagers to selectively interpret everything they read through an angry adolescent filter).

If you haven't seen it already, below is the trailer for the Atlas Shrugged movie:



And here is just one of the exclusive sneak peaks the libertarian students got that night at ISFLC, which was released a few short days later. In it, metals magnate Henry Rearden returns home to an insufferably rude and ungrateful family:



Though it's an independent film, you can see from the two examples above that the Atlas Shrugged movie seems to have pretty excellent production value, and listening to its producer speak at ISFLC, I am hopeful that it will faithfully render the plot, message, and meaning of Ayn Rand's novel on the big screen. My prediction is: look for Atlas Shrugged to be a runaway hit, driven by demand and word of mouth (much like Ayn Rand's novels), and fueled by a Tea Party movement hungry for artful depictions and explorations of its limited-government agenda.

Thanks to Students for Liberty for whetting my appetite in advance of this momentous achievement in political philosophy and cinema.


Wes Messamore,
Editor in Chief, THL
Articles | Author's Page

Popular posts from this blog

Obama keeps pushing the bipartisan religion of interventionism

Michael Scheuer is deadly accurate - foreign interventionism is a bipartisan religion (or disease, whichever you prefer). Too often, I believe, Americans think about Washington’s interventionism only as the actual physical intervention of U.S. military forces abroad in places where no U.S. interest is at risk. That activity certainly is intervention, but President Obama’s despicable decision last week to have his administration leak intelligence claiming that Israel has concluded an agreement with the government of Azerbaijan to allow its use of Azeri airfields for an air strike on Iran is just as much an unwarranted intervention by the United States government. Readers of this blog will know that I carry no brief for Israel, that I believe it is a state that is irrelevant to U.S. national interests, and one whose U.S.-citizen supporters are disloyal to America and involved in activities that compromise U.S. security and corrupt the U.S. political system. That said, Israel — l...

How Thorough a Brainwashing

Saw this on Facebook: Left this comment: It's more thorough of a wash job than that. They don't just believe they are not brainwashed, the question has never occurred to them and as long as they keep reading TIME and watching MTV, it's *impossible* for the question to occur to them. Oh brave new world, that has such people in it. EDIT: And one more thing-- don't ever stop considering what questions it is currently impossible to occur to you . This is what I've been thinking about a lot lately and I'm worried just how large and numerous my own blindspots are. The only solution is to be as intellectually curious as possible. To learn voraciously. To read things that challenge us. To read things that are hard for us to understand and then try to understand them. To expose ourselves to ideas far removed from our present culture and place on the timeline. Read old books. Read foreign books. Turn off the TV. You have already absorbed its biases and blindspots. ...

How To Gain More Twitter Followers

Earlier today, I wrote : "My goal is to write a book before the end of March. My goal is to spend no more than a week from start to publication, spending as much time as I need in order to get it done during that week. My goal is to give it away to you for free here on HumbleLibertarian.com. What's a goal you have? Something you may have been putting off for years? Something you could accomplish in one month if you were determined? If it's near-term enough of a goal, and specific enough of a goal, and you share it in the comments below, feel free to tell me how I can help you and I'll do whatever I can. If it's a libertarian / news / politics-related goal, my manner of help would be easy to determine. I could promote it, introduce you to someone via email, (etc.). If it's something apolitical like quit smoking cigarettes, start exercising, learn guitar, start a business, gain more Twitter followers, learn another language, eat a paleo diet, or...
–––As Featured On–––