I'm With the Rand: Celebrity fans of the cult of selfishness.

[HiPointDem]

Angelina Jolie: "I just think [Ayn Rand] has a very interesting philosophy...You reevaluate your own life and what's important to you."

Brad Pitt: The Fountainhead "is so dense and complex, it would have to be a six-hour movie."

Christina Ricci: "My favorite book is The Fountainhead...I relate to it because of the idea that you're not a bad person if you don't love everyone."

Vince Vaughn: "The last book I read was the book I've been rereading most of my life—The Fountainhead."

Rob Lowe: "Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand is a stupendous achievement and I just adore it."

Eva Mendes: Any potential boyfriend "has to be an Ayn Rand fan."

Mark Cuban: "I don't know how many times I have read [The Fountainhead], but it got to the point where I had to stop because I would get too fired up."

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.): Recently tweeted, "Still reading Atlas Shrugged, quite the read."
Hugh Heffner

Hugh Hefner: The Fountainhead "is a compelling tribute to man's quest for personal freedom."

Billie Jean King: "Like Dagny Taggart, I had to learn how to be selfish, although selfish has the wrong connotation. As I see it, being selfish is really doing your own thing."

Jerry Lewis: The Fountainhead is "a very profound book...Makes you think!"

http://www.motherjones.com/media/2009/07/im-rand


...what I don't know about Ayn Rand could fill a library. So why do I care enough to plug those holes in my knowledge? ...because every person I talk with who has read all her works, seems to talk about her with a passion bordering on religious devotion.

And one of those people is Angelina Jolie.

Regarding the long in development project "Atlas Shrugged," which has been in some form of creative flux for over 35 years, Jolie didn't hesitate to call it a "once in a lifetime" project. And this is coming from a woman who has won one Oscar...

"'Atlas Shrugged' is one of those, I think, once-in-a-lifetime films that you feel, 'If I only do a few more in my lifetime, that has to be one of them,'" she insisted.

Jolie has been confirmed to play the role of Dagny Taggart, the protagonist of the novel through whose eyes we see the battle between John Galt, striking leader of the intellectual upper class, and the "looters and the moochers..."

http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2008/06/18/angelina-jolie-calls-atlas-shrugged-once-in-a-lifetime-film/


hubby was going to be in it too....

[Sheldon Cooper]

1. lol

[HiPointDem]

3. real quotes, unfortunately. apparently rand's wooden dialogue and 30-page speeches are some

kind of high point of western lit.

who knew?

[rocktivity]

2. After the last election, you'd think she wouldn't be heard about again

http://vimeo.com/48781343


rocktivity

[Enrique]

4. i remember being grabbed by Atlas Shrugged

it lasted about half way into the book, at which point my interest turned into disgust.

[upaloopa]

5. Selfishness is ok until you need someone's help.

You can't have a society made up of selfish individualists. At some point we need others and you would hope they aren't as selfish as you were.

[SidDithers]

6. ...

Oh wait. Different Rand.

Sid

[RandiFan1290]

7. Paul Rand would be proud!

[Deny and Shred]

8. Depressing. I actually liked some of them.

Let's not pretend that those actors invented a revolutionary alloy, nor anything remotely similar. Without their looks and bods, they'd be among the great unwashed they apparently revile.

Atlas Shrugged is filled with simplistic strawman arguments, John Galt's first speech the worst. Ooh, someone at work once abused the health plan. I'm quitting society. No fighting to improve things, nobody gets second chances. You moochers are all beneath me.

May all Rand fans take her advice, collectively go to some remote part of the Rockies, and never be heard from again by the the rest of us. I'd love to see them give up their palatial existences to go barter with each other. I'll take my chances with the rest of you in a society without their "brilliance."

May the movie cost billions, and been seen only by the 1%.

[WCGreen]

9. Of course self absorbed people would be attracted to a self absorbed author...

Look, I read Fountain Head when I was about 15 or 16. Even then, I had a problem with the plodding pace of the novel and how melodramatic the characters present.

[RevStPatrick]

10. For the millionth time...

[otohara]

11. Pitt & Jolie

can't even fathom what their carbon foot print is. They don't give a shit about anything but $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Vince Vaughn turned out to be a real creep too.

[Johonny]

13. I think that's the whole joke: they all invision themselves the struggling artist

struggling in obscurity rather than compromise his artistic and personal vision just like in the book. In reality they are the establishment they think they are fighting about. Sure they occasionally do make artistic movies, but they make a lot of duffer for the money movies too. They are exactly the thing they read the book to fight against yet are so egotistic they don't get it.

[DirkGently]

12. Good to know. Rand love is an easy index to assholery.

I knew Vaughn was a RW ass. Ricci and the Pitt-Jolies and B.J. King are kind of sad to hear about.

[gopiscrap]

14. Exactly, what a selfish fucking piece of shit Rand Paul is!!!

[Ken Burch]

15. Do Brangelina understand that Ayn Rand MOCKED the idea of charity?

That spiteful old hag would have dissed them for helping with refugee aid(as Angelina does)and working to rebuild New Orleans after Katrina WITHOUT wanting to get rich off of it(as Brad did).

[Ken Burch]

16. Billie Jean King was a progressive and feminist hero in the 70s.

What the hell happened to her?

[HiPointDem]

17. slol. she taught herself how to be selfish, as she says.