May 21, 2008

MPI Is Doing a New Version of Harrison Bergeron!

These are the people who distributed Mine Your Own Business and The Singing Revolution—and helped Evan Coyne Maloney's Indoctrinate U gain a lot more traction than it otherwise would have.

Here's an interview by Sonny Bunch at DoubleThink that discusses the new short, and also gives some more background on MPI, one of the most professional indie production companies around (and certainly the most libertarian-minded).

Harrison Bergeron is a terrific story all by itself, vaguely reminiscent of Brad Bird's The Incredibles. (Well. I mean that the other way around, of course. It's just that the last two times I watched The Incredibles I couldn't remember what it was tickling in the back of my brain. And now I know. "If everybody's special, then nobody's special." Uh-huh.)

The MPI version is supposedly going to be the best adaptation of the story ever, though I thought the 1995 production with Sean Astin, Eugene Levy, et al. was nicely done. I do like the fact that MPI will be changing the name, since I've always had a mental block about it. (The reasoning? The Vonnegut fans will watch it anyway. And Harrison Bergeron is hard to spell. Yup.)

Anyway, keep a lookout; it's always going to be hard to find a screening of a short movie like this; I do hope it'll be out on DVD at some point. And I hope it brings the crew at MPI to a new level.

MPI: Call Bruce Willis and Michael Yon. They might have an idea for you to kick around . . . something about an outfit called Deuce Four, as I recall.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 08:41 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 oooooh! I would so love to see that! keep me posted, eh? let's go!

Posted by: Rin at May 21, 2008 09:31 AM (f8xXa)

2 But you forgot!--you're a socialist, and don't want the social inequality that comes from people using their talents and standing out. Okay, okay--if you ask nice, we can have a nice Harrison Bergeron night with both the new version and the 1995 production. And then we can watch Phantom of the Paradise. Yay!

Posted by: Attila Girl at May 21, 2008 09:49 AM (Hgnbj)

3 naughty naughty! play nice! ;-) I want socialism, or robustly democratic and demotic capitalism of an extremely benevolent sort, to provide enough health care, day care, education, and encouragement so that EVERYONE is talented and remarkable, each in his or her own way. With enough of a level playing field before the age of 22, we can have competition and talent, and it'll be ok that those who are smarter or more interesting or creative or talented or hardworking get greater rewards. Just so the least clever, least talented, and only so-so hardworking still have enough to eat and a decent place to live. There are absolute minimums that must be provided! From each according to his ability, to each according to his ability. Though, really, practically speaking I'm not a communist, am certainly NOT in favor of uniforms or unisex haircuts and bathrooms and stuff like that. I only like uniforms in extremely limited contexts. ;-)

Posted by: Rin at May 21, 2008 10:19 AM (f8xXa)

4 can you please remove my double posts (the ones with the errors, not the gooder ones) so I don't look like a dork to your esteemed readers? [Ed note: Are the "esteemed" ones the other lefties? :p]

Posted by: Rin at May 21, 2008 01:24 PM (bSHZa)

5 Keeping silent.

Posted by: Darrell at May 21, 2008 01:46 PM (l06B9)

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