Entertainment

I watched the film finally on my ipad and while I could see room for improvement it was certainly an acceptable film in terms of quality. Could have used more humor and snappier dialog. But it did a fairly good job of showing the kind of statist take over of business we’ve been seeing in the last three years. Its certainly a timely movie. If you haven’t read the novel by Ayn Rand this is just part one of three. Its hard to say if the other parts will be finished but they certainly gave it a good effort here and one thing struck me as ironic about it. The plot involves a railroad baroness trying to update her railroad lines with metal against government wishes, The state is trying to put the squeeze on her company and Rearden steel which has some new super-metal that might put steel companies out of business. So in the film the state is trying to stop a high speed rail project while in real life the state of California is trying to shove one down the people’s throats in the middle of a budget crisis.

The problem I have with Rand’s story is it makes some good points but is missing a larger point about government. It colludes with companies favoring some at the expense of others. In Rand’s story successful companies are punished so the failures can prosper. The reality is a little more complex. But as we saw with the corrupt bailouts of GM and Chrysler all kinds of sick favoritism went on and the public had their money wasted on the Volt, a car no one wants.

This week we get to see if the Supreme Court strikes down Obamacare another case of the government overreaching its power and destroying industries. Hopefully the film makers of this series get to finish what they started.

Here’s John Stossel talking about the film and why its relevant

The full trailer. The one with Julia Roberts and Lily Collins looks like a farce. I’ll probably see this one and avoid the other/

So they made it a comedy. It looks somewhat amusing. But they’re dropping this trailer pretty late in the game. It’s coming out soon.

I vaguely remember the TV show. It was popular for a time. The idea of a gothic soap was original. I’m curious even though Burton has been hot or miss lately.

I saw John Carter tonite and I really enjoyed it. I can’t understand why some critics have been so hard on the film except it shows how much George Lucas swiped from Burroughs, who wrote the Mars books 100 years ago. Way before Lucas was even born. And perhaps some people who grew up on Star Wars might feel this film is too familiar, but it’s faithful to the spirit of Burroughs and has some really great action scenes.

Is it perfect? No. It has some slow spots. In some ways it’s kind of old fashioned but that’s why I liked it. It may be chock-a-block with CGI, which it had to be, in truth (unlike Lucas Star Wars prequels), but it has more heart than any of the aforementioned Star Wars films combined. And I did care enough to want to see it again. In 2D. I saw it in 3D and it wasn’t necessary. But I did get to see the new Avengers trailer in 3D. (win)

So, while the haters want to carp on this being a “megabomb” even before it made one thin dime, I have to say I thought it was well done and not at all corny or even campy, even though it could have easily gone that way. And Taylor Kitsch won me over as the film progressed. One of the cool things about the film is hero is a old school male prota. And that may be part of the reason some critics hate it. Well, who cares what critics think anymore anyway?

UPDATE: Thanks to Instapundit for the link. I hope you Instareaders check out my two posts on my friend Andrew Breitbart below this one. Thanks.

With Brian Cranston. I definitely will be seeing this in the theater.

I’m warming up to seeing this after seeing more clips.