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Melkor

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  1. I usually tip, but generally it's because I've worked in the service industry myself for the last three years and I know how much it sucks. I don't do it because they need it, but I tend to tip in the hopes that it will encourage other people to tip me when I deliver their pizzas or wash their dishes or what-have you. I don't tip on a percentage scale because it doesn't make any sense to me. Carrying $20 worth of food to a table isn't noticably more difficult than carrying $30 worth of food to a table--and it makes even less sense to tip delivery drivers based on check amounts since the effort involved is nearly identical anyway: driving to the edge of my delivery zone to deliver a $10 is actually more of a pain in my ass than it is to do it for a $30 or $40 order. I usually throw a couple bucks on the table usually regardless of the check amount, with the knowledge that said tip would take the server an hour or three to earn on wages [especially with taxes]. That said, I agree implicitly with Mister Pink's discourse on tipping in the opening scene of Reservoir Dogs. I don't get angry when people don't tip, and I don't expect it as a given. Sure, it's nice to have an extra few bucks in my pocket [i just finished up a stint as a delivery driver no less], but then again I can't exactly tell folks how to spend their cash. I'd be a lot more vocal about the issue though if my employer hadn't already provided a trip-by-trip payout for gas; especially given the recent prices.
  2. Clive Owen played Dwight in Frank Miller's Sin City and, as far as I'm aware, will be a major player in the sequel as well. If you haven't seen this movie yet sign off, shut down your computer, drive to Blockbuster or whatever video rental outlet is closest and go see it now! Easily the best movie of 2005; as far as I'm concerned it's the best movie to hit the screens since 1994's Pulp Fiction. Errr.... I disagree. A lot. Not only is Bean much more good looking, he's got more of what I imagine to be Galt's facial features. They do look like brothers in LotR, but Faramir's face is a bit softer--not something we want for Galt. I don't like Crowe either [even though he's a good actor and could probably handle the role]. His face is too squat. My previous list was something of a collaboration between me and my brother; the more I think about it the more I favor my initial suggestion of Mickey Rourke; bulked up like he was in Sin City for the role of Marv. I disagree with this one too. Kilmer doesn't have any qualities which strike me as being anything near Scandinavian; Mortensen has the advantage of being Norweigan, just like Ragnar. I think he could handle the role better, even if Kilmer is better looking. As far as Depp for Francisco, the thing you have to remember here is that the Latin look will have to be authenticated primarily by means of the makeup job and accent coaching. If I recall correctly, Francisco is from Argentina anyway, and they tend to be a bit paler than most Latin Americans [i know as I happen to be in love with one of them]. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch and I think Banderas is a bit over the top for that role. Peppard is dead [i think], and Galt doesn't have blonde hair anyway; it's brown. The minor facial differences could be fixed with makeup; and at any rate my major lynchpin for Owen as Galt has to do with his voice and how he carries himself onscreen. Also, a few other names have occured to me that I'd like to see in a project like this but I can't find a place for them [maybe someone else can]: Ed Harris, Jude Law, and Guy Pierce. Guy Pierce played the main character in Memento and the main villain in The Count of Monte Cristo. He might make a good Pritchett.
  3. For some reason I'm really partial to the idea of this movie being an animated one; for some reason I'm fond of that medium and I think it's a good way around some of the character roles everyone seems to be fearing for certain characters. The geometry of Galt's face, for instance, is pretty important [the "angular planes" and such are meant to indicate his tendancy towards the man-made as opposed to the circuity of nature and what-not] and I have a hard time imagining who could assume this role. That said, I will still offer my suggestions from a live-action standpoint, since if it IS ever produced it certainly won't be animated anyway: and besides, live action is more fun to speculate anyway. I'm currently favoring Clive Owen for Galt; perhaps not so much on virtue of his appearance [the particulars of which can be handled fairly well with makeup], although it's close enough. To me, the defining measure of this particular pick is his voice: Owen delivers his lines in a manner which I have not seen in many other actors; he speaks with a certain clarity in every role I've seen him in to date, and that's very important for Galt. I can't believe anyone would suggest Christian Bale with a straight face. I really like Sean Bean for Galt too; Sean Bean has a certain air about him I've always liked and he also has a voice I've liked--I particularly enjoyed the way he delivered the best line in Fellowship: "It's strange that we should suffer so much fear and doubt over so small a thing"--for some reason that [and Owen's] is the kind of voice I'd imagine for Galt. I like Sam Neil for Rearden. Don't know how to qualify this any further; I just do. Dagny's a tricky one; and I really don't think anyone here is prepared to agree with just about any suggestion, because most actresses have done roles we hated and we don't want to see Dagny brought down to the level of $HOLLYWOOD_ACTRESS, and frankly I can't say as I'd blame anyone for that. From what I can remember of her physical description, she's good looking, but not too good looking. We also have to remember to scale her age appropriately with Taggart's [my suggestion for him will follow shortly], so the age discrepancy shouldn't be so great as to prevent us from believing that the two characters came out of the same woman. From what I've seen so far I'm liking Jodie Foster, and can't think of anything better although if there's a better suggestion I'll know it when I see it. Ragnar is a tough one, but I really like the Viggo angle here. I know Rand characterized Ragnar as being uber-beautiful, but if we want to follow too closely for that we'll just end up with some pretty-boy. If we wanted to follow convention [eww] we could always go with Orlando Bloom, but I think he's a tad too young--and I don't think anyone in the audience could ever be made to believe he went to college at the same time as Clive Owen, who is infinately more age-appropriate in the first place. I have no idea who could or should play Francisco, so I'm going to go with a really oddball pick here; you might laugh at first, but he has a really flexible look, and with the right makeup work and character direction, he could do it. Brace yourselves: Johnny Depp. James Taggart should be played by David Huddleston; the guy who played the Big Lebowski in... uhh... The Big Lebowski. This is one of the picks I refuse to budge on; it's goddamn perfect. I like Morgan Freeman as Askton; he's probably the most cerebral character in the book and Freeman is always really good at coming off as a good thinker-type. In Bruce Almighty, he did a better job of convincing me that God really exists than the Bible could ever hope to do. Anthony Hopkins should be Richard Halley; nice and aged and distinctive; probably looks really good in a tuxedo too. I like Ed Norton for Eddie Willers. Ed Norton kicks ass. Might have to age him a few years but he works. I liked the Elijah Wood suggestion but he's too young; we have to remember here that Willers hung out with Dagny and Francisco as children. If he pulls off the Ceasare Borga role [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0358241/] Colin Farrell may have the chops neccessary to be our Ellis Wyatt. If not, I may have to revise this pick. He's sort of on the fence, but his performance in Minority Report was good; seemed similar personality-wise too. For Midas Mulligan, I'm all about Bruce McGill--the guy who played the boxing promoter in Cinderella Man. Now for the villains [exceptiing Taggart who I've already covered]: Rickman is the best suggestion I've seen for Dr. Ferris; can't really go against this. Ian Holm for Stadler. I think he'd do a good job of losing his mind near the end. Alex Norton for Wesley Mouch. Can't find a pic of him offhand, but he's a sort of pudgy, balding bookish-looking type dude. He was in Patriot Games and The Count of Monte Cristo--he played Dennis Cooley and Napoleon, respectively. I think Philip Seymour Hoffman would make a good Mr. Mowen. I had suggsted him to myself originally as Orren Boyle, but Hoffman is a little too sly for that, I think. Now I might be a bit biased with this next pick, but Bertram Scudder is the worst character in the book to me--I've found him so far to be the most consistently irritating, obnoxious and depraved character: I dont want anyone who watches this movie to take him seriously so if I were producing this I'd write an obscenely large check to Gilbert Godfried and hope he'd jump aboard for something of a pseudoserious role. Intellectually, he [scudder] is what I consider to be the comic relief anyway; his ideas are so ridiculous that my mind almost refuses to consider anyone else for the role. Geoffrey Rush is my pick for Orren Boyle, since he's not exactly a face you could get attached to, and he's a good enough actor to not screw up the role. He's also a pretty good villain in Pirates of the Carribean [he was Barbossa], so I'm pretty confident with this one. Completely age appropriate too. I think that just about covers it; if I left anyone out I'm sure I'll rush back here to add my two cents.
  4. This comic, I feel, accurately encapsulates the message of Kong, which I have to say I have something of an issue with. I'm having something of a hard time believing that man is some kind of "monster" for trying to get a giant goddamn gorilla off the Empire State building. When you get right down to it, it's an animal "rights" issue [i use the term loosely], the supporting logic for which I've always found shakey at best. Still, I'm probably going to go see it; I want to see how well Jack Black handles a serious leading role.
  5. Seems like this question has been answered rather rigorously, but I actually started with OPAR, as it seemed to be the most comprehensive treatise on the subject at my local bookstore. From there I moved to The Virtue of Selfishness and then on to Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought, which is admittedly still sitting in my car. I'm actually not a tremendous fan of Rand's fiction; I find her style a bit obtuse and while I agree very much with the message and the actions described in her works, she's still not as good as writers like, say Orwell--who's politics I abhor, but whos talent cannot be denied. Rand was too literal-minded to write effective, symbolic literature in my opinion. One could reasonably make the argument that, since Rusisian was her native language, she suffered an understandable handicap, and taking this into account she's not a terrible writer: in fact, she wields the language much better than many of its native speakers. Her ideas are delivered with unquestionable clarity and in a refreshingly unambiguous fashion, but some of the situations she puts the characters in are a bit ridiculous. I had a hard time believing that the crowd at James Taggart's reception would have had the attention span [or intelligence] to stay with d'Anconia's speech about moeny, as spot on as it was. Most of them would have turned back to their martinis after about 90 seconds, I wager.
  6. A friend of mine [he had liberty spikes--I trust his opinion] said glue was the best thing to use, actually. Yeah, you heard me. Glue
  7. We fixed that. There's over 150 issues now. Yeah, I read most of it, and I happen to think it makes some pretty gross errors. It seemed to say to me "Corporations can do bad things, therefore we should limit them to the greatest extent possible." It never ceases to amaze me that the only real difference between socialism and blatant totalitarianism [in this context--I happen to think they're more or less the same thing in most cases] is the replacement of the word 'corporations' with the word 'people.' That said, the author is a funny guy; I'm kinda sorta acquainted with him through the site; he sent me a Christmas card a couple of years ago. I haven't really had the chance to butt heads with him over politics or ethics, and I don't think I'll ever bother since we both know where the other stands. I'm sure it tickles him pink that I've got to answer to him though. Also, most of the site's denizens actually haven't read the book; the reason that there are so many idiots on there is because most of them are teens going through their Socialist phase. Reading the book doesn't necessarily lead them to the site [quite the opposite in fact]. Galt's Gulch was a surprisingly large region last I checked, which was heartening.
  8. I tend to agree. Lately, there's been a lot of talk about this on my other forum, largely as a result of the Stanley Tookie Williams execution, which was carried out [thank 'God'] anyway. The prevailing argument in this thread disgusted me so much that I decided to take my leave around post 40 or so. The topic had been revistited a number of times in the following days, and that didn't make it any easier for me to stomach the argument "Hes doing good for society so we ought to let him off the hook." Even if I am on the fence about the death penalty, I certainly don't endorse the idea of contradicting verdicts.
  9. Ironically enough, [despite my attendance to OSU this Spring], I've been a Michigan fan since about... oh, age 5.
  10. Meh, I wasn't particularly interested in that movie. I haven't seen it and I doubt I ever will.
  11. That was the only part I was kind of iffy about, but one look at the expression on the character's face makes it readily apparent that he has no desire to be doing this; he really looked like he didn't want to be there and it's not like he wasn't trying to work. I was also pleased that they didn't glorify FDR [Christ I hate that son of a bitch]; in fact he was only mentioned once and even then they weren't exactly singing his praises. The writers avoided a lot of pitfalls that would have been very easy to make.
  12. I'm really on the fence about this. On one hand, I really don't like the idea of the government having the power to execute its citizens [since corruption int hat department would be horrendously powerful and almost unstoppable], but on the other hand I really don't like the idea of my wages being put to use as dinner for the bastard who shot those poor sons of bitches a couple years ago in that tenement downtown. What really sticks in my craw though, are these goddamn liberals [thanks for stealing our term, by the way, "Liberal" used to refer to Classic Liberals " i.e. people with more than just gray mush in their heads] who whine and bitch about how "inhumane" our killing procedures are, and how at the very least, condemned killers desrve some modicum of "dignity" in their passage, if only on the merit of their status as human beings alone, a concept which has never sat well with me. I suppose, as long as prisons are tax-funded, I'll have to support whichever option results in my being able to keep more of my own money. I've heard both sides argue that their way is cheaper, but I find the claim that keeping someone alive for fifty years as being cheaper then sending them back to court twice and throwing a switch somewhat dubious at best, which is why I lean [for the moment] towards the death penalty. I bet there's about a million things about this that I haven't thought of yet, and this looks like the place to be made aware of them. What are your thoughts on the subject? EDIT: I totally didn't see this thread; thanks for the merge. I even looked for one!
  13. OMG, other Objectivists in Ohio! One in Columbus, no less! Be still, my heart! Looks like that "A Is A" vanity plate I've been hoping for may have already been taken.
  14. Basically through Wiki; I was reading up on some of the more recent changes they had made to the "Objectivism" entry [since I link to it on my sig from Nationstates], as I make it a point to watch it closely for any glaring inaccuracies. I hopped from site to site to site thanks to the multitude of links at the bottom, and eventually found a link to this board after reading the transcripts of Ayn Rand's testimony in the HUAC hearings on ORI. There were four or five boards listed, and I picked this one as it seemed the most comprehensive.
  15. I was really dubious coming into this one [especially as it was set in the Depression], but I was very pleased with its message, and more importantly with how they portrayed Jimmy Johnson. I figured going into it that they would treat the wealthy boxing promoter as something of a villain, since after all it's the Depression and he's rich at a time when few other people are. In one scene, Mr. Johnson is warning Russel Crowe that he's aging and that his next opponent [Max Baer, who I understand was not nearly as caustic as the movie made him out to be] had killed several people in the ring, and that he didn't want to be hung out to dry if Baer ended up putting him in a casket. He shows Crowe a film reel of one of the fatalities, and explains his position. Joe Gould, the manager, stops Johnson and says "Gee, you're just all heart aren't you?" Johnson turns around and retorts "My heart is for my family, Mister Gould. My brain and my balls are for business; and this is business." Needless to say, Gould is rather soundly shut up. So did anyone else see this film, and if so what did you think? I may have missed some nuances of it, and while the film isn't completely sympathetic with Objectivism [few films are], the overall message of it resonates nicely, and Johnson's line is an excellent one.
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