I maintain a certain fascination with – if not necessarily adherence to, by any means – Ayn Rand. Yes, yes, I know… an antisocial nerd with a soft-spot for Objectivism? Shocker.

Look, I’m no Objectivist, but I’d be lying if I said that the broad sweep of it – particularly the whole “live for yourself,” “to hell with the Greater Good,” “traditonal-morality and social-stability are secondary to the freedom of visionaries to realize their potential” aspects – didn’t appeal tremendously to what I recognize to be both the best and worst aspects of my personality. Yes, I recognize that the “philosophy” is a lot more about the author’s own pathology and self-justification… but on the other hand “The Fountainhead” IS probably still the most absurdly-potent “Artist Versus The World” story ever, and more-indirectly, “Trees” is a really good song.

Basically, I appreciate it just enough that seeing Objectivist lingo and imagery being whipped out by the Tea Party as of recent is like a stabbing pain in the gut for me – it’s akin to watching a caveman using an M-16 as a club. “Atlas Shrugged” as the banner of barely-literate “family values” yahoos for whom “elitist” is a curse-word? Have these people no concept of irony whatsoever? Sarah Palin is Dagny Taggart like I’m Erroll Flynn. Egh. Anyway…

I’ve always maintained that there’s a good movie somewhere inside “Atlas Shrugged,” but that to find it would require a top-down reworking, merciless trimming and oversight by filmmakers who could “respect” the story without needing to worship the philosophy (such as it is.) For the longest time, Angelia Jolie was trying to get it off the ground, but apparently that’s been stalled. Instead, an indie outfit decided to put a version together as a “keep the rights” move, and they’ve now released a trailer…

…which looks like a Syfy/Asylum level production. Love the ominous “Part 1”, too, indicating that they’re keeping the interminable, meandering length of the thing. This could be the “Battlfield Earth” of political movies.

Incidentally, want a sobering glimpse of just how much political thought in the U.S. has degraded over the last few decades? Google “Ayn Rand” and “abortion,” and marvel at what “conservative” USED to mean in this country.

On the off chance that people haven’t checked it out yet, here’s that “New Yorker” profile of Paul Haggis that’s ultimately the biggest-yet expose on the Church of Scientology. It’s LONG, but seriously worth reading through even if you do it in pieces – just fascinating, chilling, damning stuff.

What really makes it worthwhile is that it’s not at all just another “ha ha alien ghosts!” dressing-down, by now we all know about Xenu and Thetans and all the nutty business of the actual dogma – this is the REAL down n’ dirty stuff: Serial abuse, slave-labor, people vanishing, brainwashing, etc; and Haggis specifically comes off as a genuinely tragic figure in it.

Give it a read.

http://cdn2.themis-media.com/media/global/movies/player/flowplayer.commercial-3.2.5.swf

Intermission: “When In Rome.”

Here’s what’s going on over at the other blog:

http://v.giantrealm.com/saf/272828ab50091da6eb1ae85133def12ae9a44eb4

I think this might be my favorite “OverThinker” episode ever, honestly. Had a ball making this, and it came out really good as far as I’m concerned.

Can Matthew Vaughn restore what Brett Ratner destroyed?

Looks like it, yeah 😉 Cast looks good, action looks big… Cuban Missile Crisis? Nifty!

And yes, you saw that right: The new “girl Angel” is, essentially, a human-sized Faerie. Kickass. Also: No, that’s probably not Nightcrawler – but they probably want you to think so.

I love how “bright” this all is – not just in the “hooray for yellow spandex!” sense but how much of it seems to be set in the daytime and in tropical environments – about as clean a break as you can get from the urban/winter-forest locations of the first two movies (and that one that didn’t happen.)

Yes indeed. Let me add my voice to everyone else out there in agreeing that – if Marvel Films and Robert Downey Jr. really ARE seriously considering Shane Black, writer of some of your favorite tough-guy movies of the last few decades and writer/director of the AWESOME RDJ mini-comeback“Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” as a candidate to replace John Favreau as writer/director of “Iron Man 3 – then HELL YES that should happen!

Normally I’d be given to dismiss the web-wide geekgasm over this sort of thing – sure, great idea, but no use getting worked up since our enthusiasm or worry can’t really effect a hiring decision. But for better or worse, Marvel Films does things differently than other studios – not only would hiring an out-of-left-field “huh?” choice be in keeping with their practices up to this point, but don’t forget that Marvel is widely believed to have picked Chris Evans for Captain America after “floating” his name made the geek-o-sphere go wild. So yeah, might as well get loud and try to get this awesomeness happening.

Pictured right, Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady.”

The Academy’s most favoritest actress ever? Doing an accent? Doing a BRITISH accent? In a period piece? About a tough-yet-dignified woman making strides in a tradtionally-masculine political role? Ye Gods! Why even hold a vote at this point?

Director is Phyllida Lloyd, who previously worked with Streep on the insipid “Mama Mia!”

http://cdn2.themis-media.com/media/global/movies/player/flowplayer.commercial-3.2.5.swf

Hat-tip, BAD

Someone tweeted the Mayor of Detroit, Michigan a wacky idea: Erect a statue of RoboCop, arguably the most famous fictional character to be associated specifically with the city. The Mayor, naturally, said no.

Y’know what, though? I think it’s actually a brilliant idea. Detroit should totally do this.

Anyone who knows anything about Detroit knows the place is in trouble – the collapse of the U.S. Auto Industry has brutalized that whole area, and it’s in serious need of new revenue streams. Lots of economically-shaky regions have successfully rebuilt themselves as tourist destinations, but thus far most attempts at turning nostalgia for the Golden Age of American manufacturing into landmarks have fallen short… y’know what DOES sell, though? Kitchsy, semi-ironic pop-culture relics.

I live a short drive from Salem, MA, a city that relies on tourism for the overwhelming majority of it’s revenue. A few years back, TV Land lobbied for and bankrolled the construction and installation of a statue of Samantha from “Bewitched” downtown (on the rather shaky premise that the show had done an episode there once), and it’s become a very popular site in a city that lives and dies by it’s landmarks. This is the best-known one, but TV Land has actually done this for other icons like Andy Griffith and Ralph Kramden, too.

I bring that up less as precedent and more as a suggestion of how something like this ought to get done: Whoever owns the rights to “RoboCop” (whatever’s left of MGM, I believe) isn’t really doing anything with them that this point – it wouldn’t cost much, in “Hollywood dollars,” to buy a piece of property in Detroit and stick a statue on it, and you have to imagine the city would be more amenable to it if it weren’t costing THEM anything. It’d be a HUGE publicity-coup for the rights-holders, and a net-positive for the city in terms of press coverage, tourism and image-building.

There’s actually some pretty solid precedent for this, too: Remember those monuments of the Ten Commandments that caused so much trouble in the U.S. recently? A LOT of those weren’t put there for specifically religious purposes – they were publicity-stunts to promote Cecil B. DeMille’s “Ten Commandments” movie in 1956.

Seriously, someone needs to get a letter-writing or facebook/twitter campaign going to both Detroit and the owners of the Robocop character. There’s no reason for this NOT to happen.

I do sort-of wish the first look at this was a proper, more deliberately-paced “story trailer” as opposed to a frenetic action/action/joke/action/joke/joke/action/joke Superbowl spot; but otherwise FUCK YEAH, looks good. Suit looks great in motion, overall palette looks much more Raiders than Ryan (good call) and Chris Evans looks 100% believable.

Two things to look out for: That looks like The Howling Commandos flanking Cap going through the door, and it looks like (at least at some point) Hugo Weaving is actually wearing a human mask over his (100% source-faithful) Red Skull face; which is a fun twist considering it’s usually the reverse.