Thanks to absolutist firebrands such as Rand and Ron Paul, laissez-faire economic sentiment has been gaining momentum in the GOP for some time. But with the nomination of deficit hawk wunderkind — and notable Ayn Rand devotee — Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's running mate, movement libertarianism has officially been added to the Republican presidential platform.
Regardless of whether Romney is elected and Ryan’s controversial budget proposals are made law, the rebranding has already created two decisive effects: first, it has excited the fiscal-conservative base enough to warrant representation at the penultimate level; and second, it has convinced swaths of more marginal voters, who vaguely recall skimming through Atlas Shrugged as undergrads, that they were ardent “objectivists” all along.
In honor of the libertarian strain of Republicanism getting its RNC coronation this week, here are the top nine films that evoke a reverie for free markets and, in some cases, the dystopian nightmare that's sure to follow if we ignore Rand's literary prophecy. more »
Tony Scott apparently had been diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer, preliminary reports have said. The Top Gun director died Sunday after jumping from a bridge in near Los Angeles.
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As Hollywood processes the apparent suicide of filmmaker Tony Scott reports — included a report that he jumped to his death wearing the lucky (faded) red baseball cap that he first donned on the set of his blockbuster his Top Gun — I prefer to dwell, not on Scott's tragic death, but his life in movies. In Roger Ebert's review of Scott's essential True Romance, the critic wrote: "This is the kind of movie that creates its own universe, and glories in it." I actually think that assessment applies to most of Scott's work and is what made him special as a filmmaker. Even when his movies weren't cohesive — Domino or The Hunger come to mind— they were still worth watching and impossible to dismiss because they were filled with provocative ideas, images and themes that amounted to something more than a collection of scenes, acts and dialogue. Below, my list of Scott's best movies. If you have a different list in mind, check out our Movieline poll where you can vote for your favorite Scott movie. more »
Fans of Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, steel yourself: The guy who last put Denzel Washington on top of a runaway train (and made bank at the box office doing so) wants to remake the groundbreaking 1969 Western. Deadline reports that director Tony Scott -- whose most recent film was last year's Unstoppable -- is negotiating to reboot the classic Peckinpah film. He also wants to remake his own Top Gun, so clearly nothing is sacred. Read the news after the jump and weep into your cowboy boots.
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