• • ‘BioShock Infinite’ review, with an addendum 
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BioShock  | The original BioShock is a definite contender for the Greatest Games of All Time list. The 2007 undersea dystopian adventure could have been just one of the niftiest first-person shooters ever. But creator Ken Levine infused the game with a surprising amount of intellectual depth. (How many games do you know that deconstruct Ayn Rand?)  

• ‘Bioshock Infinite’ snap judgment: Taking to the skies, and taking on religion and race 
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BioShock  | One of the most highly anticipated games of 2013, BioShock Infinite hopes to do for airships and American Exceptionalism what 2007′s BioShock did for underwater cities and Ayn Rand-ian Objectivism. Which is: Make them really, really cool.  

• • ‘30 Rock’: Liz Lemon gets married! 
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The Fountainhead  | Lemon wore the only white dress she owns, her Princess Leia costume. She even kept the infamous Leia hairstyle so she’d feel like a true princess. Jack did a reading from Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. And Liz and Criss exchanged bling they purchased at a police auction.  

• • Romney is a ‘bullsh***er’ and 9 other things Obama told ‘Rolling Stone’ 
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Capitalism  |Paul Ryan  | 7. Ayn Rand’s economic philosophy is child’s play. Paul Ryan may be a studly poster-child for the Objectivist philosopher, but Obama views her libertarian ideals as nothing but adolescent fantasies.  

• Superhero Showdown, Day 2: Batman! Jean Grey! Wonder Woman! Black Panther! Deadpool? 
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[Alan] Moore’s specific inspiration for Rorschach was The Question, a faceless street vigilante guided by rigid code derived from Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism.  

• • Mike Wallace: Some of the ‘60 Minutes’ journalist’s great interviews 
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Video  | Here is Wallace grilling author and Objectivist Ayn Rand.

 

• ‘Park and Rec’ curmudgeon Ron Swanson is what he eats 
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When the Emmy nominations come out on July 14, Nick Offerman’s name better be announced for Best Supporting Actor. So help me, Ayn Rand. His government-hating bureaucrat Ron Swanson on Parks and Rec is not only the most lovable curmudgeon since Archie Bunker, but he’s the greatest inspiration for viral art going.  

• • Who is the coolest ‘DuckTales’ character? 
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The Fountainhead  |Capitalism  | You could argue that Scrooge McDuck is the very image of insatiable capitalism unbound. He owns every company in Duckburg, an unthinkable monopoly that could only exist in a world with a financial system managed by Ayn Rand zealots. (There is something of Fountainhead protagonist Howard Roarke in Scrooge’s recurrent mantra: “I made my money by being tougher than the toughies, and smarter than the smarties! And I made it square!”)  

• Steve Jobs introduces the iCloud, launches direct assault on Google and Amazon ... 
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Apple CEO and Randian superhero Steve Jobs arrived at the annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco with a simple message for Apple’s customers: “You truly belong here with us among the clouds.”  

• ‘Green Lantern,’ ‘Twilight,’ ‘BioShock’ action figures doll up Toy Fair 2011 
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BioShock  | For no good reason besides the fact that I finally finished BioShock 1 yesterday, check out some groovy Big Daddy figures from the new BioShock collection. Hooray for the cyborg goon worshippers of Ayn Rand!  

• What books are, in your opinion, unfilmable? 
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Atlas Shrugged  | I asked some other kids in the PopWatch gang for their personal picks for utterly unfilmable books. [....] Jeff Labrecque chimes in with Atlas Shrugged and “Don DeLillo’s best works.”  

• • ‘V’: Jane Badler stole the show! 
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Anna’s plan now involves isolating the human soul and destroying it. This could either be fun (like an Ayn Rand novel) or incredibly belabored (like an Ayn Rand novel.)  

• • Patricia Neal: Five essential film performances 
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The Fountainhead  |Video  | Here’s a look at her five essential movie performances: *The Fountainhead (1949) In King Vidor’s adaptation of Ayn Rand’s bestselling novel, Neal plays Dominique Francon opposite Gary Cooper — a role Barbara Stanwyck reportedly wanted badly. The movie may seem a bit melodramatic today (and maybe it was back in 1941, too), but Neal, then 23 and in only her second big-screen role, acts circles around her costar, oozing romantic desperation and battling her pride. Off-screen, the romance between the two leads was equally heated (and doomed). Neal fell head over heels for Cooper, then 48. But, in the end, he refused to leave his wife for her.  

• ‘True Blood’: Grant Bowler reflects on his ‘love scene’ with Stephen Moyer 
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Atlas Shrugged movie  |Atlas Shrugged  | Bowler [...] phoned PopWatch yesterday while on a break from shooting the adaptation of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.