Atlas Shrugged (the movie) Part II

Atlas Shrugged (the movie) Part II

Tibor R. Machan

This could have been a movie review but I am not quite qualified to write one given that we are talking here about a craft, namely, movie making, which I am not sufficiently familiar with.  What I am writing, instead, is a simple thank you note to the producer John Aglialoro and his crew, technicians, writers, actors, director, et al., who against all odds brought the movie to screen.  After all, given the Hollywood elites’ hostility to Ayn Rand’s ideas--especially the ideas of rational individualism and free market capitalism that are both on very stark display in the movie--the project should be a bit of relief to anyone who champions the human individual and a bona fide free society. It is out and out heroic to have become the producer if this movie.

I saw Part 2 last evening (10/04/2012) in Hollywood--courtesy an invite from David Nott, president of the Reason Foundation, an outfit I helped launch back in 1969--and it was very entertaining and stimulating.  (I saw Part I over a year ago, courtesy the Cato Institute at a donor’s bash in Southern California.)

Since I have been close to AS since 1961 when I first read it, even wrote a little book (Ayn Rand, Peter Lang, 2001) on its author, it might have been tough to make the movie exciting for me but, very honestly, it was surprisingly riveting, especially the second part.

My one wish while watching the movie was that all those allegedly independent voters could see it before November 6.  They might be inspired to think twice before they jump on board with those who want to sell America down the river, lead by Obama & Co.  Sadly the opposition offers very little hope for providing the free society a needed defense, given its conservative, traditionalist bent of mind. Rand’s unabashed, unapologetic humanism, her rejection of the prevailing misanthropy among the bulk of the country’s intellectuals, is a badly needed antidote to what mainstream thinkers and artists peddle.  Her ideas still are the freshest, in line with the revolutionary ideas of the American founders and all those who appreciate what it is to stand up for the proper life of human beings.

           If you get the chance, go out and see the movie, all of it eventually (once it is available), and at least get a respite from what is promoted by the New York Times editors and columnists and the MSNBC--now renamed NBCNEWS.com--crowd. Celebrate what all is possible if we only wake up to the great potential within us.