July 22, 2009

Is Hollywood Finally Going Galt?

<a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charlize_Theron_at_Meteor_2008.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, Penguin Group USA

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In a world…of disappointing literary movie adaptations, one film must make it to the screen with its nuance, political integrity, and 50-page monologues intact: Atlas Shrugged. At least that’s the hope of Ayn Rand fans in Hollywood, who have long sought to bring the Objectivist tome to the silver screen, without much luck. Angelina Jolie was recently rumored to be interested in starring in the tale of top-down class warfare, but the latest reports from Tinseltown say that Charlize Theron is eyeing the project—on the condition that it be made into a cable TV miniseries so its subtleties aren’t diluted. Assuming this gets off the ground in the next three years, this could be exciting news for the Go Galt crowd, the folks who, as Amy Benfer writes in our current issue, are creatively reading (or skimming, or just Wikipedia-ing) Atlas Shrugged for clues on how to rebel against the United States’ recent transformation into a collectivist totalitarian gulag, i.e., the election of Barack Obama. So far, the Galt movement—named after Atlas‘ protagonist, capitalist übermensch John Galt—hasn’t done much more than inspire lots of online fist shaking. But with Theron playing kinky railroad magnate Dagny Taggart, things could really pick up for it. Now who to play her lover and the namesake of the current recessionist movement? For some reason, I really like the sound of the line (use your best movie trailer voice here): “Nicholas Cage IS John Galt.” And this one, too: “This summer, America is going, going…Galt!“

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It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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