18 thoughts on “Walking Into Mordor”

  1. Of course Hollywood lacks a Sauron.
    And anything resembling Sauron would have to be USSR. And that EYE has already been destroyed.

    Though perhaps the fundamental cure to this ailment would be opening up the Space frontier

  2. As I’ve said before, crowd sourcing conservative oriented movies is a great idea. Like any investment opportunity, however, it has to look like a good bet and not somebody’s hobby. Get back to me when there’s a professional screen writer with a track record of success attached to the project.

  3. K says “Get back to me when there’s a professional screen writer with a track record of success attached to the project.”

    If you read David Mamet’s new book The Secret Knowledge, sounds like there’s a top-flight writer and director with conservative credentials now available…

  4. Mamet’s “The Spanish Prisoner” (my favorite of his) is the closest movie he has made to the mythical “Old Hollywood” to which Whittle alludes. In fact, it IS Old Hollywood, with Mamet’s peculiar directing and even more peculiar wife (Rebecca Pidgeon) superimposed.

    I hope we get to see a movie from the newly-minted Mamet…

  5. I’m a bit disappointed that they are looking for donations rather than selling shares with the expectation of ROI. Movie making is a risky investment, but if they really believed in what they were doing (and capitalism) wouldn’t that be the way to do it?

    I’m thinking of the model of lending sites where people ask for money with a specific interest rate of return and other people take a piece of the action until the full loan is covered… then the loan is made and manage by the bank underwriting the process.

    So for movies they would have an outline of several projects each having a million shares each for a specific price. The money is not available until all shares are sold then the movie is made. Until that time people could buy and sell their shares. Shareholders would then get residuals for as long as the movie sells.

    But that would require that people believe in both capitalism and the merits of their projects.

  6. But seriously…the narrator notes that Marxism arose in Russia and not the prosperous industrial nations. There’s a reason for that.

    The prosperous Western nations got that way because they had considerable freedom. The general culture isn’t obsessed with taking the rich plutocrats’ stuff because the prosperity is widespread. There isn’t a Bentley in every garage, but the average working-class schmo can build a pretty decent life through honest work.

    Authoritarian regimes like Czarist Russia don’t have widespread prosperity. The plutocrats have virtually all the wealth. People who haven’t experienced free markets don’t know how they work and what they do, and thus have no basis for trusting them. All they’ve seen is prosperity-through-theft. So Lenin reads a book on Marx, and tells the comrades that the only solution is to steal it back.

    This is why Marxism tool power in economically repressive states – where there isn’t vibrant trade, theft-based prosperity has its most eager audience.

  7. I wish him luck but there is a serious story telling problem: The modern left uses rhetoric that is so stupid, it activates social conventions against making fun of the mentally handicapped.

    Suppose in a movie you have a character say something like, “Some people can’t tell the difference between George Washington and a terrorist.” You could have another character enumerate the many differences but it would seem like the one character making fun of another with a mental disability.

    Rain Man works because the Tom Cruise character is frustrated with the Dustin Hoffman character’s inability to connect emotionally. It wouldn’t work if Cruise was forever correcting Hoffman for his inability to distinguish the cost of a candy bar and a compact car. In fact he’d seem exceptionally cruel. But the arguments of the modern left fail precisely at this level.

    The left can connect rape and calculus and call it philosophy. In confronting that in story, you can seem like a bully confronting helpless idiot unless you’re very careful.

  8. “I’m a bit disappointed that they are looking for donations rather than selling shares with the expectation of ROI.”

    The expense and difficulty of doing that is astronomical. It’s far, far easier to ask for donations, and offer nothing in return, than to offer securities in a business venture. In fact, if that little “Donate” button on this page were replaced with an “Invest” button, Rand would be a federal felon, AND wanted for securities fraud in all 50 states (or 57 if you’re the President). From a pure business perspective, this is certainly more attractive…provided it raises a sufficient amount of cash.

  9. Do all angel investors fall under SEC rules?

    {always nice to see ya as well Robot Guy}

  10. I have OINKaphobia!

    It’s a fear that pigheaded liberal people will drive us into the ground!!

  11. >Do all angel investors fall under SEC rules?
    Yes they must be accredited investors….

    SEC definition:
    http://www.sec.gov/answers/accred.htm

    Short version for individuals:
    Net worth >1 M or income >200K for last two years and expectations that level will continue. If your filing jointly the number is 300K.

  12. …must register the securities with the SEC or find an exemption…

    So if they limit themselves to individuals below that criteria they are exempt?

  13. You have the sign wrong. Individuals ABOVE that criteria, IE worth more than 1M excluding primary residence or income >200K, are exempt, people below that threshold are not exempt.

    Aren’t arbitrary government rules fun!.

  14. This is a bit pessimistic even for me. I don’t see where Whittle gets the idea that there’s some huge majority against fossil fuels and nuclear energy; the polls say the exact opposite.

Comments are closed.