★★★ 1/2 The best comedy of the year so far.—esby
Atlas Shrugged was advertised as premiering at a movie theater in town, a couple of weeks after it opened. After it opened in town. Some progressive friends called me to ask me if I'd like to go, apparently because the film is doing so poorly it cannot be downloaded even as an iPhone-recorded-in-the-theater torrent. "What other movies show at this theater?," I asked a friend of mine.
"Oh, dollar movies." Dollar movies. Excellent!
I arrived at the theater and entered to look for my friends, but I was first. This must be ground zero for the Tea Party! I around looked keenly for the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. But there were only about 15 people there.
These patriots, without powdered wig or donned tricorner hat, sadly looked like you or I. Sure, they may have a few extra pounds on the rest of us, but who will be laughing when the world currency is Goldline issued? They will be laughing, in their bomb shelters, where goats are good as cash (GAC). And their huge bellies will jiggle and sway, full of dehydrated apples and Metamucil.
My friends arrived, and we ordered beer, our painkiller of choice. It was bandied about that we would drink every time we saw a train, but prudence set in, as many of us were driving and some of us worried that so much train footage would render us so inebriated we wondered if we could even find the exit. A hush fell on the audience as the thirty or people fawned at the screen.
Anyway, set in a dystopian future, which looks exactly like today if you want to be a smartass, Atlas Shrugged is about *oh yeah, spoilers* America, where gas is $38 dollars a gallon and Dagny Taggart, a woman born with silver spoon in her abboccatura must work for herself, mainly by pushing buttons that open massive window blinds, as well as having a chauffeur drive her alone in a limousine that is about a half a block long. The stress of a ticking fuel gauge threatens her existence.
Years after Republicans have turned down money for high speed rail, she has the idea for...high speed rail. But train tracks can't be built fast enough because her brother is getting them from a union company or some bullshit. Meanwhile, a guy in a raincoat who may or not be a setup for the prequel to Darkman IV: Crazy Train, is going around asking people, "Who is John Galt," causing them to disappear while a X-filesish computer printout of their name, time, and last whereabouts is displayed on the screen all futuristic and shit.
Ms. Taggart decides she will get steel from Rearden Metal, and let's just say he wants to lay more than rail—rowr! One of the main reasons he wants to have sex with her is because the magic is gone from his marriage. "All done then?," his wife asks after he rolls off of her. "Make me a drink?" Unfortunately, one of the things you really have to do for yourself in Atlas Shrugged is have sex with your wife. The butler can do it for you, but it's frowned upon.
The other reason he wants to have sex with Ms. Taggart is that it's in the script. She wants to see his John Galt. Anyway, more people disappear when they talk to the alien in the trenchcoat, and everybody goes to a lot of dinner parties where everybody works for themselves and wear tuxedos. Work for themselves, that is, except for those evul revenoors.
You see, now the gubmint wants to stop trains, for no apparent reason, and also too as Sarah Palin would say in a run-on sentence like this stop people from owning more than one business. So they eat a lot and smoke cigars and give a lot of press conferences, almost all which are on a TV which is conveniently in whatever location the characters are. So anyway, then there's some more dinner parties and I think I kind of missed the middle because some guy sitting in my seat was laughing at inappropriate times.
So then they meet Ellis Wyatt, a guy who is gonna find oil in America in spite of his massive girth, which threatens to overshadow everything, especially if he stands in front of one of them liberal curly cue light bulbs or accidentally blocks the shot. So they all start randomly just pop up unannounced miles from anywhere just to propel the dialogue, such as it is. Then Wyatt disappears too, while everybody is having sex upstairs, even though he's got people to wash the sheets.
Anyway, Reardon and Ms. Taggart randomly find some train engine blueprints in a secret room in a factory, instantly reading them because they are sooper geniuses, but who designed this engine? Ou est le ingénieur? Apparently few people have phones in this futuristic America, so they go on a road trip across America trying to find this guy. Then they split up because this ain't a horror movie, I mean, it has its elements, but whatever.
At Ms. Taggart's last stop, the fifteenth diner in the movie, there is yet another TV on that says Wyatt's oil fields are on fire a thousand miles away, so of course she drives there. By the time she gets there, it's like two minutes later, I think the newscaster is still talking from the TV she watched earlier. She climbs this hill and lets out a pretty good scream. But it's kind of funny, like the overhead shot of Jon Stewart when he yells out, "Noooooo."
When it was finally over, one of my friends started clapping way too loudly (he had to put down his prop Fountainhead book). Apparently the tea baggers forgot what movie this is. But then they got the drift and a couple of them clapped, too.
I might have to see it again because obviously I was having a hard time concentrating on the movie, especially when I was laughing too hard or not paying attention to what I was supposed to.
For instance, the union guy, about 1:50 at the end of this scene is so still I thought the film projector was frozen, and then he buttons his jacket which is so closed that I didn't know it was unbuttoned! And they want me to listen to dialogue? Also, I want to say that since there is only one black guy in the whole movie, they should have cast Tim Meadows. He is way funnier than this guy.
Apparently we boosted sales a bit to $363 per theater last Sunday, as can be seen here. As a comedy, like I said, I give it three and a half stars. If it doesn't win at least three or four Golden Raspberries, then those awards are fixed.
Update: Thanks for the recs everybody!. There is one person who has issues with my review, and that person is Stephen Colbert:
Update 2: Thanks for putting me on the rec list. I am also funny on Daily Kos on Tuesdays. Shout out to my three fans! Now, I don't have anything left to say but, as part of the problem, will throw rocks at unfortunate souls. I am not John Galt. But apparently there are hundreds of people who think they are.
Update 3: How did I miss Andrew Breitbart? Where was he? In a uncredited role at a cocktail party. No wonder!
Update 4: I really do suggest renting it for a party with your progressive friends who like making fun of bad movies. If they release a 2-DVD Mystery Science 3000 version, even better!
Update ∞: Dude, I so forgot the bumper stickers we got at the theater. That I will never, ever put on my car.