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Friday, April 29, 2011 - 10:37amSanction this postReply
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Only that Graham Beckel portrayed well the western entrepreneur with his belly over his huge belt buckle and his forceful delivery of everything up until the triumph of the John Galt Line when, leaving Hank and Dagny alone, he had the offhand delivery of a man whose pride comes not from owning things but from creating the wealth that makes that possible.

He leaves them to his home.  What if they packed it up and drove off? He would not care.  Just before the State of Michigan looted Henry Ford's $25 million Feb 14, 1933, causing the Great Depression, Ford warned the Washington Boys that he felt young enough to start over right now. That is what I perceived in Beckel's delivery of Ellis Wyatt.

Yes, I liked Taylor Schilling.  I saw a shot of her legs, and recognized them immediately.  But beyond that, as good as she was at delivering Dagny, I had to give first place to Beckel.  The same considerations apply to Grant Bowler.

I have served as a judge at MSNS and  CSNS and I qualified at an ANA.  The difference between 3rd place and First might be 5 points out of 100. 

When I was a kid, there was a beer commercial during the Indians games.  The umpire sings: "I calls em like I sees em and I always sees em right."

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 4/29, 10:38am)


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Friday, April 29, 2011 - 7:30pmSanction this postReply
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I voted for Hank, though I thought his loathsome wife Lillian was played fairly well, too.

The other villains seemed a bit over-the-top -- the real-life counterparts of politicians and other smarmy influence peddlers I have known up close and personal at the state legislature have tended to be smoother, much more charming, and more inclined to use euphemisms to describe what they are up to. Though, considering the decision to stick with the dialogue from the book, that limited the ability to play that aspect of their parts completely realistically, since Ayn Rand seems to have opted for clarity of motives over realistic word choices.

Perhaps politicians and their hangers-on from Ayn Rand's time were more blunt about their villainy, but considering the book was set in the near future, I found that aspect of the movie to jar me out of my willing suspension of disbelief.

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