Xixax Film Forum

I guess I'll post this in the News and Theory section since you all are HARDASSES about not putting stuff in the Grapevine until there's no way in hell the movie's not coming out.  And I couldn't find a Sorkin thread.

AARON SORKIN TO WRITE FACEBOOK: THE MOVIE
Source: Yahoo!

Aaron Sorkin is developing a movie about the creation of Facebook for Sony Pictures, to be produced Scott Rudin, a Sony spokesperson confirmed Wednesday.

Sorkin made arcane public policy debates seem like the stuff of high drama in The West Wing. Can he do the same for the programming nerds who launched Facebook from a Harvard dorm room?

Of course, to hear some tell it, the story of Facebook's origins is one of back-stabbing, betrayal, an ultimately, mind-boggling wealth...

As part of his research, Sorkin has launched a Facebook page, which was first noticed by the Hollywood blog Defamer on Tuesday.

It was unclear whether the Sorkin Facebook page was legit until Rudin confirmed his involvement to NYMag.com Wednesday. A Sony spokesperson later confirmed that account to the L.A. Times and Portfolio.com

Facebook, meanwhile, is playing it coy.

In a statement, company spokesperson Brandee Barker said: "We are routinely approached by writers and filmmakers interested in telling the Facebook story or the stories of the more than 100 million people who use Facebook to share and make the world more open and connected. At this point, we have not agreed to cooperate with any film project, but we are flattered by the interest."

The next question, of course, is who should play Mark Zuckerberg.

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'WEST WING' WRITER TACKLES FACEBOOK
Source: BBC

Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has agreed to make a film about the founders of social networking site Facebook.

Sorkin, who created US TV drama The West Wing and wrote the Tom Hanks movie Charlie Wilson's War, has even opened a Facebook account to aid his research.

"I figured a good first step in my preparation would be finding out what Facebook is, so I've started this page," he wrote.

He said the project was a joint venture between Sony and producer Scott Rudin.

Sony has confirmed the as-yet-untitled project is in development.

Relying on fans

Sorkin added he was aware of other pages on Facebook from people who claimed to be him, but had decided it was "flattering more than creepy".

"This is me," he insisted. "I don't know how I can prove that but feel free to test me."

The 47-year-old admitted he did not really understand Facebook, or "how I'm going to write the movie", so was relying on fans to help him.

"I honestly don't know how this works, which is why I'm here," Sorkin said.

"If anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to answer them as best I can. If anyone has any comments, I'm glad to listen."

Before signing off, Sorkin joked: "I feel about this introduction the way I felt about Sophie's Choice - It could have been funnier."

Since joining Facebook, the writer has been responding to questions and comments from fans, leading to some further revelations about the forthcoming film.

"I have a fairly specific idea of what the first 15 pages of the screenplay will be and no idea what will happen on pages 16 thru 130," he wrote.

"I have very strong feelings about the internet and its effect on our national culture, but frankly those feelings are being countered by the sophistication, kindness, curiosity and wit of the posts in this site.  "You people are screwing me up with your civility and intelligence."

Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004 while studying at US university Harvard.  In the website's early days, membership was restricted to US students, but it now has more than 100 million users worldwide.

----------------------------------

Sorkin's Facebook Movie Group Page can be found at:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=33807262256 (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=33807262256)

There is ONE obvious casting for Zuck... MICHAEL CERA

Exclusive: David Fincher is in talks to direct Aaron Sorkin's Facebook script
Source: EW

David Fincher is in early talks to direct Aaron Sorkin's Facebook script for Sony Pictures. Sources tell EW that producers are very high on securing the acclaimed director's involvement on the project, which centers on the drama behind the Harvard dorm room creation of Facebook by founder Mark Zuckerberg and his roommates. Producers Scott Rudin, Mike DeLuca, and Kevin Spacey are hoping to get the film into production this year or first thing next year. The movie would mark Fincher's follow-up to last year's Academy Award-nominated The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The script, supposedly printed on hard-to-photocopy red paper, is being kept tightly under wraps. All parties declined to comment.

Fincher circles Facebook movie
Source: Variety

Columbia Pictures is in advanced talks with David Fincher to direct "The Social Network," the Aaron Sorkin-scripted film about the formation of Facebook.  The film will focus on the evolution of Facebook from its 2004 creation on the Harvard campus by sophomore Mark Zuckerberg to a juggernaut with more than 200 million members.  Scott Rudin and Michael De Luca and Trigger Street are producing for Columbia Pictures.  The hope is to begin production later this year.  Fincher last directed "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."

Hwehhhh...hwoooeeehh...and other barfing noises.

DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMMB.

BORING.

Put a fork in Fincher. He's fucking done.

i get the skepticism but maybe it's a great script. i don't know the story. Fincher seemingly liking it is still a good sign to me.

Maybe Fincher of 5 years ago, but Fincher post-Forrest Button has shown he can't pick scripts for shit and seems to be going after the most commercially viable options available.

"The kids love facebook! This is a great idea for a movie with tons of financial potential!"

I think the challenge for Fincher would be to make a movie about a website interesting. It's the new craze in our world, but it comes off as very uncinematic. The challenge for Fincher would be to make it exciting. I doubt the movie would just be a human interest story about a couple of kids who make a major venture out a small hobby. That's too general.

I remember when David Fincher existed in the goth realm of Hollywood tales. He leaned towards darker films because it allowed his imagination for over production to go wild, but ever since Panic Room, he's calmed down and showed other sides to his personality. I don't know if it's for the better or a Martin Scorsese transition to the mainstream. Time will only tell.

Quote from: Stefen on June 23, 2009, 09:48:24 PM
Maybe Fincher of 5 years ago, but Fincher post-Forrest Button has shown he can't pick scripts for shit and seems to be going after the most commercially viable options available.

"The kids love facebook! This is a great idea for a movie with tons of financial potential!"

two years ago he made zodiac. you're way too quick to say he has no taste.

First casting decision...
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Fincher Makes Facebook Connections
By: Mike Fleming; Variety

Columbia Pictures and director David Fincher have set its core cast for "The Social Network," the Aaron Sorkin-scripted drama about the formation of Facebook.

Jesse Eisenberg will play founder Mark Zuckerberg, Justin Timberlake will play Sean Parker, the Napster co-founder who became Facebook's founding president, and Andrew Garfield will play Eduardo Saverin, the Facebook co-founder who fell out with Zuckerberg as the social network became a financial juggernaut. 

Production will begin next month in Boston and then move to Los Angeles.

Scott Rudin, Michael De Luca, Dana Brunetti and Cean Chaffin will produce. Kevin Spacey is executive producer.

The pic focuses on the evolution of Facebook, the social network created in 2004 on the Harvard campus. And how overnight success and wealth changes the lives of the classmates who created it. The trio were the subject of internet rumors as Fincher zeroed in on his leads. 

Eisenberg, who went from "The Squid and the Whale" to "Adventureland," locked the coveted role as Zuckerberg as Columbia prepares to release his latest film, "Zombieland," on October 2.

Timberlake was most recently seen in "The Open Road," and Garfield in the Terry Gilliam-directed "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus."

Quote from: polkablues on September 22, 2009, 07:09:10 PM
Remember back when people were calling Justin Lin David Fincher this bold, fresh young cinematic voice? Yeah, that was hilarious.

fixed again, polka.

why couldnt this just go to Richard Kelly? everyone has already forgotten him being called a bold, fresh young yadayada.

Set photos (not worth clicking): http://www.allfacebook.com/2009/11/pictures-of-todays-filming-of-the-social-network-at-johns-hopkins/

i hope the Facebook kids hate it.

Jones logs in to 'Social Network'
Thesp joins Sorkin-written pic about Facebook
Source: Variety

Rashida Jones is the latest to log in to Columbia Pictures' "Social Network."

Justin Timberlake and Jesse Eisenberg have already boarded the David Fincher-helmed pic, which revolves around the founders of the social-networking website Facebook. Aaron Sorkin penned the screenplay.

Pic is currently lensing in Los Angeles.

Jones, who recently wrapped the bigscreen drama "Monogamy," sold her script "Frenemy of the State," which she co-wrote with Will McCormack, to Universal. In addition, she and McCormack's screenplay "Celeste and Jesse Forever" is in development at Overture, with Team Todd producing. Jones will also star in the comedy.

The actress-scribe, who most recently starred opposite Paul Rudd in the DreamWorks comedy "I Love You, Man," can currently be seen on the smallscreen in NBC's "Parks and Recreation."

aww she's funny and pretty and she writes!

I'm on a binge of reading scripts for movies not out yet, to see what I'll be able to learn by doing so.  So I decided to read this.

The script is quite good, and the film is well-cast, so I expect that this movie will surprise people with how good it is.  It will actually suit Fincher perfectly (it reminds me of Zodiac, in parts).  Mark Zuckerberg is a more interesting character that I would have thought.

I don't know if this is the place to do any sort of detailed review (there are reviews of the script elsewhere if you really want to know about it), but I thought I'd pop in to say that it's on track to being quite a good film.

thanks matt. where's the script?

You can find the script at http://www.mediafire.com/kristyatmsp which is a great resource for scripts.

There are a few other hot scripts there, such as the new Cameron Crowe project and Will, a script by Demetri Martin, both of which I plan to read in the coming days.  Also other buzzed about scripts there like The Beaver (coming out soon with Jodie Foster directing and Mel Gibson starring), Black Swan (Aronofsky's current project), Black Water Transit (Tony Kaye's project)... buncha other stuff.

I didn't know how much to say about it or whether I should post it here because I'm not sure if there are any unwritten rules about that sort of thing.  Do you think, in the future, if I find a script for a movie that's not out yet, it would be fine for me to post the script and/or a review of it for those who may be interested?

Oh, I also forgot to say about The Social Network that the script is 161 pages, so we can expect a 2 1/2 hour movie.

good lord!

reviewing/posting sounds fine.

I also read the script, Eisenberg should kill it, it's a great role. Can't wait to see this one, especially after the disappointment of hearing Fincher was making a movie about the origins of Facebook. It's really well written.

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500millionfriends.com (http://500millionfriends.com)



edit: fixed poster link.

fixed the poster image above so it shows up now.

maybe someone will want to comment on it now.

also i like the poster.

That's not the whole poster!  It leaves out the title on the right side.

I know but it's better than what was up before which was nothing. You get the gist of it now.

Does that one work?

Not particularly interesting poster.

http://mashable.com/2010/06/25/social-network-teaser-trailer/

from the playlist:

QuoteThe promising Aaron Sorkin-scripted drama is based on the novel "The Accidental Billionaires" and centers on the controversial story surrounding Mark Zuckerberg and his little online creation called Facebook. Fincher's subsequent adaptation boasts the strong cast of young up-and-comers in Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield (aka Spider-Man), Justin Timberlake, Rashida Jones and Rooney Mara and has just seen the release of a teaser trailer and poster in anticipation of the October 1st release which we can't wait for.

On top of all that, Nine Inch Nails frontman and all-round maestro Trent Reznor has now revealed he is finishing up on creating the score for the film with his regular collaborator Atticus Ross — who himself recently scored the Hughes Brothers' "The Book Of Eli" — with their work soon to be compacted into a "satisfying record (or two)" that will see a release weeks before the film's release.

"David Fincher started inquiring about my interest in scoring his upcoming film, The Social Network," Reznor writes on the NIN blog, via Pitchfork. "Yeah, the movie about the founding of Facebook. I've always loved David's work but quite honestly I wondered what would draw him to tell that story. When I actually read the script and realized what he was up to, I said goodbye to that free time I had planned. Atticus Ross and I have been on a creative roll so I asked him if he wanted to work on this with me and we signed on."

"Months later, I'm happy to tell you we're nearing the completion of this and I couldn't be happier with how it's turned out. The level of excellence that David operates on is inspiring and the entire process has been challenging and truly enjoyable. As Atticus and I near the end of the scoring process, we're looking forward to the next phase - distilling the large amount of music we've written for this down to a satisfying record (or two). The film opens Oct 1 in the US with the record likely available a couple of weeks ahead of that."

Was that then perhaps some of Reznor's work we heard in the teaser trailer? It was some dark, omnious even if slight stuff which, in hindsight, falls somewhat into the umbrella of Reznor's work. The evident recruitment of the defunct NIN leader should also provide a better sense of what tone Fincher is aiming for with the former music video director known for a strong emphasis on the importance of music — he personally chased David Shire for his "All The President's Men"-inspired work on "Zodiac" and The Dust Brothers for "Fight Club" and has also worked with regular film composers Alexandre Desplat for the acclaimed 'Benjamin Button' score and Howard Shore for "Panic Room."

Oh, and perks of scoring of a film? Reznor's already seen the film months in advance. "It's really fucking good. And dark!" he adds. For us regular folk, October 1st can't come soon enough.

i read the script a couple of months ago, this is going to be massive. very excited about fincher directing it, because this story has the kind of grit he excels at.

Teaser #2: http://www.joblo.com/index.php?id=32902

Extra Tidbit: THE SOCIAL NETWORK is a whopping 3 hours and 10 minutes long.

from an Anonymous Playlist commenter:

Anonymous said...

    I've seen the rough first cut (which is pretty complete)
    this is Fincher's best film.

I'm very curious to see how well this movie does. Rave reviews and inevitable repeat viewings from Fincher fanboys aside, most non-movie freak people I've talked to have been like "A movie about facebook? WTF?"

i wanted to post the following thoughts back when no one gave a shit about the poster.. now crono has shown that at least one person is taking this movie seriously, so i think i better just put it out there before i end up being the 500millionth instead of the 2nd:

ok i don't think ppl are appreciating how good this movie is gonna be. (i haven't read the script)

the only reason for not giving this the attention it deserves would be if you happen to be stuck on on the simple fact that it's about facebook and your perception could be masked by your experience with that site. i think a lot of ppl are feeling like that and it's not hard to see why. this film is going to be amazing for reasons that ppl are still to even get used to. it's not simply capitulating on a fad, it's not simply making money from something that is wildly popular among stupid little children, it's not the hannah montana movie. by extension, it's not simply a rushed-to-the-presses biopic based on a similarly worthless figure behind something that "only the kids" care about. it's not about a bunch of people in suits sitting in a conference room talking about ways to "Rasta-fy" their product by 10% and getting perfectly predictable results and a nice return on their investment -- well, at least that's why it concentrates on the beginnings of facebook and not whatever it may/will become (myspace who?).

all those are intuitions ppl will need to be re-programmed to overcome if the film is going to be truly successful. obviously a lot of kids will see it cos to them the idea of a film about facebook IS just a hannah montana movie, it's brand recognition, mark zuckerberg being played by a smarter version of michael cera makes it a perfect sell. that is of course part of the business strategy of the film, but it's not aimed at children and i don't think they will like it any more than they liked a three hour investigative procedural where the serial killer is never found.. which they knew as "that jake gyllenhaal movie with the puzzles".

any dismissive attitude to this film is actually representative of an OLD point of view. the social network is about young people, it's about the power a young person can have, it's about the new emperors of the new world.. the premise and actual details of the film provide a fresh setting to investigate something that is  in fact not new at all, something that is not bound by technology or fashion, something that in fact is of relevance and importance to people at any time..

let me refer firstly to the site that modage linked to earlier wherein some dude goes into a little analysis about why the film might be better than anyone expects. he's SPOT ON. below are the relevant paragraphs:

The tag line for the film, "You can't make 500 million friends without making a few enemies" seems to sum up some of those early days, and the film (or at least the version of the script that I read) is as much an exploration of young people coming to terms with creating something bigger than themselves as much as it is about loyalty, jealousy and money.

Some have questioned why Facebook and its story was worthy of a film, let alone a film from A-level writers and directors. Well, think about just how much Facebook dominates the online communication space today. Think about how much bigger it is than it was even a year ago. Now consider that it was started only six years ago. Its overwhelming success and the fact that it has become important enough to drive ongoing discussions regarding privacy and data ownership is indicative that it is a force.

Plus, think about it: Movies are an inherently social experience. A movie about a social network and the social factors, stories and melodramas that went into the founding of that network makes sense on a weird meta level.

this guy, whoever he is, covers a lot of ground. he appears to be even doubtful of his own insights as you can see in the final line where he softens his accute observation by calling it "a weird meta level". that aspect of the film is indeed a bit heavy to get into and not exactly the kind of thing that will make anyone interested in a movie unless they love filmmakers as much as they love entertainment. it's just one thing that marks the film as ambitious but to address it here is extremely premature so instead i'll return to what makes the film truly relevant,. the passages i've bolded are most important because they succinctly distill the weight of the story, at least part of it, that i've been referring to.

the social network is thus not a website that you log in and out of at your own choosing, it's not something that we have such total control over (the idea of privacy is not the main concern but it may have its place as a sub-sub-extension of the main themes of the film.. to be addressed later i'm sure). no, the social network being the title of the film, sets the tone for the GRAND scope of the story's concerns.. it's at once a reference to the small circle around the main protagonist and the story directly formed by the explosive events marked by his relation to them, alluded to succinctly in teaser #2.. so in this sense it is an individual at the centre of an emotional whirlpool.. and it is also at the same time referent to the rules that affect any and all social interactions, the things that bring people together and the things that tear them apart.

jealousy, loyalty, money.. which of these things could be the plausible reason for the decisions of individuals to form or destroy friendships versus the reasons by which large groups of people make decisions under the collective banner of company or nation. the idea of the social network extends directly to its role as a billion dollar company, businesses and nations all make alliances and break them for some of the same reasons as individuals. this premise lends itself to understanding in a fucking brilliant and amazing way some pervasive aspects of human nature. one of the ways i see the film is thus about the creation of an empire or a superpower and a study about the potential FALL of such, skillfully played against its own formation. the new world is not defined by the conquest of nations by means of invasion.. geographical conquest is no longer the real mark of power, it is in the accumulation of information and wealth. and so the study of individuals in power and their immediate social networks can lead to an understanding of the cogs as they extend to the greater empire.

but what is the greater empire exactly. what is being empowered by the advances (or i would say the unveiling) of the new world.. is it the old world models of wealth clearly clamoring over themselves to absorb the novel permutations and so making this in the end a lamentation on Neo becoming Agent Smith? no, the second way i see the film is as a blue print for the progress of our generation and a meditation on our good fortune. this is clearly the intetion with its focus on young people, and with a timescale that only makes sense to young people --- just think about the fact that facebook and zuckerberg were NOTHING a mere few years ago, it is only in the eyes of young people that such a short amount of time might yield sufficient life changes to understand that it's in fact plenty of time to review who we are.

for a moment let's dissassociate the misfortunes of poor countries and generations in those countries that do not share the possibilities that we all do as inhabitants of THE MODERN AGE. that may be something you don't think about when you are wondering how you're gonna live a MINUTE longer without the latest iphone a whole DAY after its release date.. that is in my mind the only thing that always threatens anything that cares to privilege the young people of developed nations. this too is part of our social network, everything that is excluded from our peripherals is part of the definition of everything inside our zone. the important idea of this film is NOT diminished by everything outside of it, or that a young afghan boy is probably doing heroin right now.. that is because in the same way that Zuckerberg and his small circle of rich enemies exists outside our own world so too do we all exist as privileged and beneficiaries of unforseen good fortune well outside the developing world.

the film is a story about US. any one who still thinks they are yet to achieve something in the world, and have the opportunities to do so. that is the spirit of youth which comes easy to those under 35 but can still be found with anyone who hasn't surrendered to the unchanging nature of the old ways. the role of technology in our daily lives is central to our understanding of the way we are headed.. the idea of facebook in this story is something that reveals itself to carry more weight than any of its creators anticipated. this realization is a necessary step for the maturation of any generation that has any hope in the future. it's the equivalent of the transition we all made from infancy, to realise that things were more serious than we had previously thought. the repetition of these transitions in our life is now augmented by the sheer level of connectivity and immediacy we all feel with others undergoing the same experience. the recognition of our own power is so far the ONLY thing we know about what it means to be part of the new wave of social change.

the immediacy with which we communicate with our entire generation is unprecedented. we take for granted the speed and scale that we exist in. something like this only occurred in the times of global war.. under the opposite of circumstances, opportunities were scarce and individual realisation sacrificed in the name of preserving a collective ideology. now i can be part of the world without representing anything greater than my own self. my ideas can spread without the enforcement of an army. my social network is not just the people i see every day but the people who share my values and beliefs globally.

the last era of global connectivity left us with an unprecedented realisation of the potential for global destruction, something that generations have been coming to terms with since then. the space age gave us the image of our blue planet for the first time as it appears outside our terrestrial viewpoint, and as is well established helped engender a generation's realisation of our planet's singular and fragile place in the greater system of nature. the modern era of connectivity signals something even greater and seems to combine the two previous realisations, with the knowledge that the threat of global destruction grows ever stronger in the form of our effect on nature, as well as the persistent terror of humankind that continues to threaten our ability to come together. the threat of global destruction is now only comparable in scale to our potential for global salvation.

of course, i only think this because i'm young.. i'm just trying to come to terms with something bigger than myself.

Movie About Facebook Will Open the New York Film Festival
Source: NYTimes

Here's a bit of news you may want to share on Facebook, Twitter or whatever it is you Web-savvy kids are using these days: "The Social Network," David Fincher's much anticipated movie about the creation of Facebook, has been selected for opening night at the New York Film Festival, the Film Society of Lincoln Center said on Thursday.

"The Social Network," is directed by Mr. Fincher ("Zodiac," "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button") with a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin ("The West Wing") adapted from Ben Mezrich's book "The Accidental Billionaires." Starting in the long-ago year of 2003, it tells the story of how the Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg (played in the film by Jesse Eisenberg) helped hatch an idea that became the wildly popular Facebook Web site – and the complications that its success quickly yielded.

Scott Rudin, a producer of "The Social Network," said that the film is told in an "All About Eve" style from multiple points of view, including the perspectives of other young entrepreneurs who sued Mr. Zuckerberg, saying the site was their idea.

"Everybody believes they're right," Mr. Rudin said in a telephone interview. "But the movie leaves you to make up your own mind about what you feel about how Facebook was founded."

He added: "It's an examination of how hard it is to find out what the truth is about anything."

Though Facebook might seem like an all-too-topical subject for a piece of cinema with high ambitions, Mr. Rudin said the overarching themes of the film would give it dramatic weight, whether or not we're still using Facebook five years from now.

"Movies have a very hard time being current, and this is the rare example of a movie that is about something that is happening at this very moment," he said. "It's about ambition, it's about greed. It's about betrayal. It's about friendship. It's about trying to be on the inside of something when you feel, terminally, on the outside of everything."

The New York Film Festival will show the premiere of "The Social Network" on Sept. 24, before the movie is released on Oct. 1. The full festival runs through Oct. 10 with additional films to be announced.

I'm so forwarding P's post to the next person who bitches about this movie. Great work as usual, my friend.

Quote from: ©brad on July 08, 2010, 01:12:31 PM
I'm so forwarding P's post to the next person who bitches about this movie. Great work as usual, my friend.

thx. the idea of sharing this outside our small dank pit of freaks prompted me to flesh out my conclusion.. confident that it makes a bit more sense now, so forward away!

fuck, great post.

it's been baffling that people don't see the importance of facebook beyond a simple fade. they all sound like an uncle you have to patient with.

you nailed it, p. i've been saying for a while that these computer engineers are the closest we have in contemporary culture to renaissance men.

yeah good post p.  :salute:

just want to say that ive always been in the Fincher bandwagon, I have blind faith in the man.

Quote from: Fernando on July 08, 2010, 04:39:47 PM
just want to say that ive always been in the Fincher bandwagon, I have blind faith in the man.

I want this to rule as much as the next fool but

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.lynn.edu%2Fthejetstream%2Ffiles%2F2009%2F09%2Fnever_forget_wtc1.jpg&hash=0ac405ce8d9229364d06a5c3c28c10f1d88cd3e0) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0421715/)

i really hope this movie lives up to your post, p. love that second to last sentence.

i can't believe this needs to be said:

it's pretty obvious that Fincher's less than great films have been the result of a shitty script. the man has no input as far as we know to the steer the quality of the scripts he works with. Fincher takes blind faith in his scripts to the point that he feels he can make anything work by his sheer technical brilliance. he goes to a film knowing EVERYTHING there is to know about how to shoot it and what it needs to look like.. his films are technically so taut because the time he has saved by not writing the script has been used to absorb the story and its themes so that the style he employs works in total service to them.

faith in this film can be based on Aaron Sorkin as much as Fincher. the man is in his element with this film. it ties in perfectly with his obsession and omniscience in his specialized field of tight knit groups of professionals having to deal with the balance of their jobs and personal lives. it sounds very "thirtysomething" (whatever that means) but he's made an art of the way people deal with responsibilities of their professional lives and the way their humanity comes across precisely in how seriously they take their jobs.

for better or worse the dude has remained consistent to his one obsession. he found his perfect subject in The West Wing, but you can see that Sports Night was almost exactly the same in the way that he respected the weight of his characters professional lives in contrast to their personal qualities.. this same quality is what brought Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip to concede defeat against the much funnier 30 Rock, not that i saw the show but i can imagine that it failed for the same reason that Sports Night never took off: people had trouble believing that anyone could take TV that seriously.. the audience reaction to those two shows is directly comparable to the reaction people are having to the idea of "a movie about facebook".

Sorkin is the reason this film will be Fincher's best. just like the half assed Eric Roth rehash of old material turned CCBB into Forest Gump without the soul.

agreed the worst thing about fight club is the script. oh wait... no actually the worst thing about fight club is the script and the male on male love on for the artistic craft. i said this years ago, and when fincher gets in this mode his films age poorly. also the worst thing about panic room is a shot through a coffee cup for the sake of it, very similar character flaw in fincher on that one and after it's no longer visually impressive it serves no purpose. he needs more restraint.  the kind of restraint he had in the game.

Quote from: cronopio 2 on July 08, 2010, 02:37:45 PM
you nailed it, p. i've been saying for a while that these computer engineers are the closest we have in contemporary culture to renaissance men.

Especially the guys who did Farmville! That's some Voltaire shit right there.

To say that you guys are giving way too much importance to Facebook is a euphemism.

Facebook is in major expansion because teens and old people are finally getting on it. When 14 year old girls and your grandma is into something you love, please reconsider. Every couple days now I hear people getting off Facebook... All the bullshit wasn't worth the hot friend spying anymore.

Renaissance men lol come on

'The Social Network' as this fall's 'Hurt Locker'?
Source: Los Angeles Times

It's probably too early to start handicapping fall awards movies, but probably not too early to predict that Sony's Aaron Sorkin-penned, David Fincher-directed "The Social Network" -- informally known as The Facebook Movie -- is going to be a hot-button film this fall.

Not just an awards contender, like Fincher's previous "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," but the kind of movie that migrates to the news pages and gets people talking about film outside its fictional context, the way "The Hurt Locker," "Frost/Nixon" and "Syriana" did for their respective topics. Mark Boal and Kathryn Bigelow got commentators going about the rigors and ethics of war; this will get tongues wagging about the rigors and ethics of social media.

The first tangible sign of its cred came today, when the New York Film Festival took the unusual step of announcing the picture as its opening-night movie. The New York Film Festival almost always chooses highbrow, twee movies to kick off its fall festivities ("The Queen" and "The Class," among some recent examples), and although this selection may say something about the availability of distribution-ready art-house films, it also speaks volumes about how both a sober-minded festival jury and Sony view this picture.

In conjunction with the NYFF world-premiere announcement, there's also a new Social Network teaser trailer, which you can see here (no embed code yet). The spot audaciously uses nothing but messages typed into a faux Facebook page, though from the way the tone and sound ratchets up throughout the spot, you'd think Iran disarmament was at stake.

This anointing comes as the movie begins to make waves because of its depiction of former Harvard students and Facebook founders Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin and the early days of the site. As this is a movie about the founding of that company, you might think that Sony would want to market it on the immensely popular social-networking site, but on the Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital blog, Kara Swisher writes that there won't be any Facebook movie ads on Facebook itself.


The reason, the post explains from both the Sony and Facebook points-of-view, is that Facebook policy requires approval of all ads that reference its brand, and Sony didn't want to cop to those conditions.

Of course, the talk about Facebook policy elides the more commonsensical point that, since it's likely that the film is not hugely complimentary to Zuckerberg and Saverin -- at the very least, the book on which it's based, Ben Mezrich's "The Accidental Billionaires," was the subject of some pretty strident criticism from the players it spotlighted -- it would give Facebook pause about taking an ad, policy or no policy. And besides, why would a movie that seeks to tell a hard-hitting story of Facebook want to look complicit with the site even if said site did want to accept its ads?

Guess Sony will have to settle for cable-news chatter, print stories, blog posts and tweets. There will be plenty of that.

Quote from: Pas on July 10, 2010, 08:04:06 AM

Quote from: cronopio 2 on July 08, 2010, 02:37:45 PM
you nailed it, p. i've been saying for a while that these computer engineers are the closest we have in contemporary culture to renaissance men.

Especially the guys who did Farmville! That's some Voltaire shit right there.

To say that you guys are giving way too much importance to Facebook is a euphemism.

Facebook is in major expansion because teens and old people are finally getting on it. When 14 year old girls and your grandma is into something you love, please reconsider. Every couple days now I hear people getting off Facebook... All the bullshit wasn't worth the hot friend spying anymore.

Renaissance men lol come on

not to distance myself from crono's statement too much, since he probably has good reasons to back up what he said, but i assume when you say "you guys" you are referring to me as well and so MUST have read my post and therefore MUST realise my analysis had nothing to do with computer engineers or even facebook itself. actually it sounds like you didn't read my post at all and you're just showing the EXACT knee-jerk reaction i described.

and i'm not sure you know what a euphemism is.

Haha fuck you I have two semesters of a masters in linguistics I know what a euphemism is.

Cro: engineers [who did facebook?] are our renaissance men
Pas: you are giving Facebook too much importance!
Some other guy: oh Pas! You are so gentle, you should really say: "Are you out of your fuckng mind! It's just god damned facebook, it'll be forgotten as fast as it appeared ("myspacewho?")..."no! Facebook will never fade! It has enlightened humanity!" yikes! Or do you mean a renaissance man like some guy who's great in arts and science? Well okay i guess some cpu engineers are renaissance man?"

that's what you meant! I guess you were using a euphemism to not sound too harsh!






I know cron is far from stupid so he must have a weird reason to saythat but he can also be wrong/exagerate in his life.

then you probably meant "understatement".

and you shouldn't have said "you guys" cos you're just replying to crono's post and certainly nothing else that happened on the previous page.

I'm sure the movie will be great though.

Ps: no need to reply directly to me cron i'm off internet for the next two weeks.

Quote from: Pas on July 10, 2010, 11:06:30 PM
i'm off internet for the next two weeks.

be sure to print my posts (http://xixax.com/index.php?action=profile;u=102;sa=showPosts) before you leave so you can read them while you're away.

late to the party, but P you're making the film sound as important as the concept of social networking itself.  I think that's a pretty fucking tall order that you're gonna have to at least scale back.

agreed pete, you're just jumping the gun P. i'll be the first one to say you're right if in fact you are right but it just seems like you're promoting this as a cinematic cornerstone.  though i do agree with P's intent to show people how this in fact could be a very serious film, and not a facebook grab-bag.  in the end it might just be a very solid film, nothing more, nothing less.

HOLY SHIT. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaaGLogbrfY)

It doesn't look like the best movie ever.

Disappointed.

Looks great.

that trailer is pretty sweet, can't wait.

Quote from: Stefen on July 15, 2010, 01:27:51 PM
It doesn't look like the best movie ever.

Disappointed.

Yes it does.

Ugh.  This is what you call piggybacking.  Take something original, twist it just a bit for your own purposes, and it somehow elevates what you've created to a level that's a tad disingenuous (Tad Disingenuous, attorney at law).  Fact is, Facebook and Twitter are blights on society, much like cell phones were in the early 2000s (and still are, really).  Any emotion you felt in that trailer was stolen, which is apt considering the nature of the movie.

Quote from: ono on July 15, 2010, 05:03:58 PM
Ugh.  This is what you call piggybacking.  Take something original, twist it just a bit for your own purposes, and it somehow elevates what you've created to a level that's a tad disingenuous (Tad Disingenuous, attorney at law).  Fact is, Facebook and Twitter are blights on society, much like cell phones were in the early 2000s (and still are, really).  Any emotion you felt in that trailer was stolen, which is apt considering the nature of the movie.

I can't quite figure out where you're coming from with this, but I'm pretty sure it's a wrong place...

What's the right place?

I can't tell if you're railing against the movie or facebook itself.

The point was how he's misappropriated Creep to elevate his own material and give it a sense of importance that otherwise wouldn't be there.

I think for its appropriateness on the levels of theme, cultural/generational connotations, and specific presentation (an intensely personal song being sung by a chorus of many) its use in this trailer is spot on.

Quote from: children with angels on July 15, 2010, 06:07:34 PM
I think for its appropriateness on the levels of theme, cultural/generational connotations, and specific presentation (an intensely personal song being sung by a chorus of many) its use in this trailer is spot on.

Yes, this.  Also, it underscores the fact that Mark Zuckerberg is a creep.

Haha, touche, polka.  I still think it's amateurish and something a lesser/independent/neophyte filmmaker would be taken to task for.  Haven't read the script (which surprises myself 'cause hey, Sorkin wrote it, and I should be excited about it, right?).  We'll see.

I've been seeing a bit of that on this board recently - anytime a song someone recognizes is in a film or a trailer some posters get really mad. 

I don't think mad is the word.  The last hubbub I remember was over Where the Wild Things Are.  No comment there.  It also harkens back to an exchange godardian and I had a LONG time ago over manipulative scores.  This is similar.  Creep, for better or worse, is a touchstone song.  I think that's why anyone with an analytical mind would be suspicious.

I've started reading the script.  It's here (http://wiscreenwritersforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Social-Network-The-by-Aaron-Sorkin-May-28-2009.pdf) for anyone interested.

Also here:

Quote from: matt35mmYou can find the script at http://www.mediafire.com/kristyatmsp which is a great resource for scripts.

Quote from: ono on July 15, 2010, 08:09:14 PM
I think that's why anyone with an analytical mind would be suspicious.

I hate that I have to keep calling back to the hen house with this, but it's a trailer. I imagine the analytical mind would look at all the scenes and see it is unlikely the song will drown out all the scenes in the final movie. Trailers are meant for singular effects. Two minute advertised reels are pretty limited. Let's hold off comment.

Besides, sometimes a score can try to underscore a story to a fault and still not really ruin the movie. Flags of Our Fathers is pretty consistent with the same sappy piano drumbeat throughout the film, but the whole story is pretty revelatory compared to other World War II dramas of its kind. There is little diminishing so let's wait for the final film so we can make a context judgment.

there was a discussion like that in 500 days of summer, and suspicion was aroused over broken social scene in Half Nelson in the it's kinda funny thread.

Quote from: ono on July 15, 2010, 08:09:14 PMIt also harkens back to an exchange godardian and I had a LONG time ago over manipulative scores.  This is similar.  Creep, for better or worse, is a touchstone song.  I think that's why anyone with an analytical mind would be suspicious.

All scores and music in movies are manipulative.

Quote from: ©brad on July 15, 2010, 09:32:40 PM

All scores and music in movies are manipulative.

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fsnarkerati.com%2Fmovie-news%2Ffiles%2F2009%2F08%2Fsteven-spielberg.jpg&hash=bb540a3a83f240485d68ec6165e52a026fa93c87) Wait... what?!?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfEzHdWKOoQ

THIS IS A LINK TO A REALLY FUNNY PARODY OF THE SOCIAL NETWORK TRAILER MADE ABOUT YOUTUBE. THIS DESCRIPTION WILL ENCOURAGE YOU TO CLICK IT RATHER THAN BE ANNOYED BY A RANDOM LINK THAT DOESN'T INFORM YOU AT ALL ABOUT WHAT THE HELL THIS VIDEO MIGHT BE. THIS DESCRIPTION WILL GET MORE PEOPLE TO CLICK IT THAN JUST PEOPLE WHO HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING BETTER TO DO THAN CHECK OUT UNLABELLED LINKS. THANK YOU FOR WATCHING.


admin edit: added link description

Quote from: jtm on August 05, 2010, 02:19:40 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfEzHdWKOoQ

brilliant.

love the link description. probably wouldn't have watched without it.

Quote from: jtm on August 05, 2010, 02:19:40 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfEzHdWKOoQ

THIS IS A LINK TO A REALLY FUNNY PARODY OF THE SOCIAL NETWORK TRAILER MADE ABOUT YOUTUBE. THIS DESCRIPTION WILL ENCOURAGE YOU TO CLICK IT RATHER THAN BE ANNOYED BY A RANDOM LINK THAT DOESN'T INFORM YOU AT ALL ABOUT WHAT THE HELL THIS VIDEO MIGHT BE. THIS DESCRIPTION WILL GET MORE PEOPLE TO CLICK IT THAN JUST PEOPLE WHO HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING BETTER TO DO THAN CHECK OUT UNLABELLED LINKS. THANK YOU FOR WATCHING.


admin edit: added link description

I was going to watch the trailer but the description gave away the whole thing!  So now I probably won't bother.

Quote from: modage on August 05, 2010, 08:02:43 AM

Quote from: jtm on August 05, 2010, 02:19:40 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfEzHdWKOoQ

THIS IS A LINK TO A REALLY FUNNY PARODY OF THE SOCIAL NETWORK TRAILER MADE ABOUT YOUTUBE. THIS DESCRIPTION WILL ENCOURAGE YOU TO CLICK IT RATHER THAN BE ANNOYED BY A RANDOM LINK THAT DOESN'T INFORM YOU AT ALL ABOUT WHAT THE HELL THIS VIDEO MIGHT BE. THIS DESCRIPTION WILL GET MORE PEOPLE TO CLICK IT THAN JUST PEOPLE WHO HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING BETTER TO DO THAN CHECK OUT UNLABELLED LINKS. THANK YOU FOR WATCHING.


admin edit: added link description

I was going to watch the trailer but the description gave away the whole thing!  So now I probably won't bother.

Haha it's pretty great though

damn!

p totally just owned me!

but he's right... i just threw that link out there thinking it was good enough to stand on its own, but i really should have set it up first.

"David Fincher's Social Network is the 1st film I've given **** in 2010. It's the movie of the year that also brilliantly defines the decade" - Peter Travers, Rolling Stone (http://twitter.com/petertravers/status/21678306911)

First Full Review of the Film:
http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/2010/revenge-of-the-nerd

The internet says this is great too:

"9 out of 10" - CHUD (http://chud.com/articles/articles/25260/1/REVIEW-THE-SOCIAL-NETWORK-DEVIN039S-TAKE/Page1.html)

"Every now and then, a film comes along that perfectly taps into the zeitgeist.  "We blew it," in the 60s with Easy Rider, "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good," in the 80s with Wall Street, and today "I'm CEO, bitch" in David Fincher's latest masterpiece, The Social Network." - Collider (http://www.collider.com/2010/09/13/the-social-network-movie-review-video-blog/)

"The Social Network is Fincher's best film since Fight Club, which is saying a lot considering I LOVED Zodiac. It is also my favorite movie of the year (so far)." - SlashFilm  (http://www.slashfilm.com/2010/09/13/early-movie-review-david-finchers-the-social-network/)

"The Social Network will define a generation for a generation that couldn't care less about its generation, but it's as entertaining as anything you'll watch all year." - Cinematical (http://www.cinematical.com/2010/09/13/the-social-network-review/)

"I was blown away. I went in with high hopes and the movie was everything I wanted and more. Clocking it at just over 2 hours, the flick has zero fat on it. That was the biggest surprise for me. I love Zodiac to death, but there are times in that movie where it crawls. Nothing like that here." - AICN (http://www.aintitcool.com/node/46502)

David Fincher conducted email interviews with several movie sites.  Here they are.

Hitfix

Rooney Mara's role in the film is pivotal, although brief.  What experience on this film led to you bringing her back in for "Girl With The Dragon Tattoo"?  The moment where I felt like I saw a flash of Lisbeth was her final encounter with Mark when she destroys him quietly.  Did you have her in mind immediately, or was it a gradual realization?  

Fincher: We read her and, not surprisingly, loved all of the things about her that we'd initially loved for Erica.  She's smart and capable and works really hard.  She is ridiculously photogenic in a very interesting way -- she can be plain, or she can be exquisite in a matter of moments -- and she's a great listener.  Lisbeth is a very tough role to cast -- the audience needs to project into a mystery, so we needed a mystery for them to fill.

High praise, indeed, from this director.  The film has faced a bit of pre-release controversy, which I wanted him to address.  I wrote:  Mark Zuckerberg and the other people portrayed in the film have already started to assert that the film isn't "true," but on an emotional and dramatic level, the film has an authenticity that can't be denied.  How do you respond to Zuckerberg's claims, and ultimately, how important is an absolute adherence to every detail?  You're making a film, not a court transcript.

Fincher: You can adhere to every detail -- you cannot adhere to every single point of view, which is ultimately why people will disown it.  Our work was to be true to the time, the kind of people we were talking about, and the situation they ultimately found themselves in.  I think we were true to that.

I love the collision between Aaron Sorkin's sensibility and Fincher's chilly intellect, and I asked:  Aaron Sorkin's script is dense and wordy and features people sitting around dorm rooms or typing on computers or giving depositions.  It's not the most immediately visual read.  You've always been such a strong visual stylist, so my question is what did you respond to first, and how do approach the staging of a script like this to make it as dynamic as the final film turned out?

Fincher: I thought it was a great story.  I felt like I knew all of the people involved very personally.  I felt for each of them.  I know what it feels like to be left in the dust.  I know what it's like to tell someone an idea and feel like somehow it ended up being 'borrowed'.  I know what it's like to have to leave a friend or collaborator behind because you fundamentally disagree with where the collaboration is heading.  I loved the 'fraternity of the outsider' and I ulitmately loved the idea of 'graffiti artist' as CEO.

Your leads in the film are already being given bumps into even bigger roles, and Garfield was tapped for "Spider-Man" based on his work here, according to Sony.  One of your cast members, though, was already a superstar walking onto the set, but as a musician.  Whose idea was Justin Timberlake, and how was your experience working with him?  He's been good on film before, but never this good.  Did he model his performance after footage/research on the real Sean Parker, or did you push your actors to approach these as performances instead of impressions?

Fincher: Justin Timberlake was one of those 'do we dare?' kind of conversations -- he could easily have upset the apple cart in any number of ways... we put him through Hell shooting screentest after screentest to make sure we could walk the razor's edge of 'extremely famous person as spoke of an ensemble.'  But he's just so mercurial and fun to watch that it because an easy choice.  I needed someone who knew what it meant to seat two people at the same table and collect an annuity -- and that's a lot to ask from a twenty-something.  Justin is a record producer.  He knew exactly what I was talking about.

Slashfilm

On the surface level, many people were surprised when it was announced you would be directing a movie about the story about Facebook. Why were you attracted to this story? What about it fascinated you?

Fincher: The people, the story, the setting, and finally the notion of old world business ethics and morals (as represented by Harvard) in the information age.

How do you find a balance between honoring the true story and taking dramatic liberty with some of the events to create a compelling narrative, especially considering that little time has passed and the people still exist today?

Fincher: Well, I think you try to have a sense of who these people are to their world and to the world of the story, and you try to walk a line. I wouldn't have made the film if I didn't have great respect and admiration for the accomplishments of both Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Parker, and if I didn't feel for both the Winklevoss and Savarin camps. I don't know who said what to whom or when — for sure... But I've only ever been interested in arguments where everyone is convinced they're right.

The Social Network is in some ways about how technology is changing relationships. You seem to be a very technology-obsessed filmmaker....

Fincher: Not Obsessed, but considered.

I've seen you three times in person, and each time you've had an apple device in your hand. The other day you were carrying an iPad. You employ a lot of innovative technology and effects in your films, yet this is the first movie in your filmography that has a story delves into the field. Can you talk a bit about this and your relationship with tech?

Fincher: I think it's silly to not be using effective tools in a field that is ultimately about communication. I look at every way I can — to better be in three places at once. I think it only behooves me to have the best possible access to my collaborators.

The New York Times made claims that the screenplay and movie were both screened for Facebook, and some changes were made at their request. I was wondering if you could talk to us about how the film was altered?

Fincher: I have altered nothing for Facebook. But I have made considerable revisions for some of the requests by the MPAA.

I'm interested to hear your thoughts in the tilt/shift isolated focus you employed in the boating sequence. It is unlike anything I've ever seen on the big screen before and would love to learn what inspired it.

Fincher: We could only shoot 3 races at the Henley Royal Regatta; We had to shoot 4 days of boat inserts in Eton. The only way to make the date for release was to make the backgrounds as soft as humanly possible. I decided it might be more "subjective" if the world around the races fell away in focus, leaving the rowers to move into and out of planes of focus to accentuate their piston-like effort.

Collider

There has been a lot of talk about Facebook requesting certain changes being made to the movie. How much are you willing to listen to these requests versus trying to keep the movie as accurate as possible?

Fincher: I WAS DOWNSTREAM OF ALL THAT. YOU'LL HAVE TO ASK RUDIN.

How would you compare The Social Network to Zodiac in terms of facts versus fiction on screen?

Fincher: WELL, I DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH FACTS SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO GET IN THE WAY OF THE TRUTH.

Most of the actors that have worked with you talk about the amount of takes you do for every scene. I've always wanted to know why so many? Also, what's the lowest amount of takes you've done for a scene and been happy?

Fincher: I'VE DONE AS LITTLE AS 3, AND AS MANY AS 107. IT'S HORSES FOR COURSES...

You always seem to use new and innovative technology in your movies.  What was the most technologically challenging aspect of The Social Network and what are audiences going to be surprised to learn?

Fincher: THIS WAS PRETTY MEAT AND POTATOES — GET A GREAT SCRIPT, SOME AMAZING ACTORS, ENOUGH TIME, AND GET OUT OF THE WAY.

You shot the film using Sony 4K cameras. How much of a jump is the camera from previous digital cameras you've worked with?  Also, are you done using film or could you see using it for a certain type of project? Perhaps shooting certain scenes in IMAX like Nolan did on The Dark Knight.

Fincher: WE SHOT THIS FILM WITH THE RED ONE BUT WITH THE UPGRADED MX SENSORS. I DON'T LIKE BIG HEAVY CAMERAS. I USED TO WORK AT ILM AND I'VE LUGGED ENOUGH VISTAVISION FOR ONE LIFETIME...

I would love to know your thoughts on 3D and post converted 3D.  Is 3D here to stay or is it a fad?  Also, is a 3D movie in your future?

Fincher: I THINK 3D IS TO POST CONVERTED 3D AS JIM CAMERON IS TO MARK CANTON. I AM VERY MUCH LOOKING FORWARD TO MAKING A 3D FILM.

Finally....how in love are you with your iPad and what do you have on it?

Fincher: [He didn't send an answer]

Cinematical

Was there one thing that attracted you to this story right off the bat? If so, what was it?

Fincher: I wanted to make a 21st Century John Hughes film.

After spending so much time within this real-life story, how close do you feel the film is to what actually happened?

Fincher: No idea, so much has to be crushed to get anywhere near two hours ...

The marketing for this film has been a huge story so far with people loving each trailer that's been released. How much were you involved in choosing the music (ie: 'Creep' cover) and piecing these things together?

Fincher: I wanted "Creep" from the beginning, but I don't think I ever told Mark Woolen, who created the campaign. He just came up with that version on his own.

Is Mark Zuckerberg a hero or a villain?

Fincher: Antihero

A lot of people will talk about the fantastic editing in this film. Was there a method to the madness? It felt fast, as if you wanted to mimic the feeling of information traveling across the internet. Was that your intention?

Fincher: I had a 166 page script and a contract for final cut under 2 hours and 19 minutes.

If you had the chance to consult with Zuckerberg on the film, what would've been the first question you asked him? What most fascinated you about him?

Fincher: I truly identified with his anger, and his wanting to protect what was his, from the adults, from the venture capitalists, from the compromisers ...

Do you have a Facebook account?

Fincher: Shirley you jest ...

AICN

I have to start off asking about the casting. I think it was Altman who said that casting is 90% of a director's job and while I wouldn't take that literally when I see a movie like The Social Network I grasp what he's getting at. How important was it to you find this group and make sure they all worked with each other? Jesse and Andrew are fantastic together. Armie is amazing and even Timberlake knocks it out of the park. I know it's important that individually these guys need to bring it, but did you test them together before choosing them for their roles?

Fincher: WE CAST THEM VERY QUICKLY -- WE JUST WENT WITH THE BEST ACTOR'S INITIAL TAKE, KNOWING THAT WE WOULD BUILD A SCHEDULE THAT WOULD ALLOW FOR THE KIND OF "FRACTAL EXPLORATION" I WANTED TO DO WITH AARON'S TEXT. ARMIE WAS THE LAST BECAUSE WE NEEDED TO FIND ANOTHER ACTOR TO LEND HIS BODY TO THE FACE-REPLACEMENT TECHNIQUES WE EMPLOYED IN SOME OF THE TWINNING SHOTS, AND SO WE COULDN'T REALLY COMMIT TO ARMIE UNTIL WE HAD JOSH PENCE WHO WAS UTTERLY FANTASTIC AS THE "FROM THE CLAVICLES DOWN" TYLER WINKLEVOSS.

Did you get to work very closely with Aaron Sorkin on the adaptation of Ben Mezrich's book or was he off doing his own thing? If you did work closely with him, what was that collaboration like?

Fincher: THE SCRIPT WAS FINISHED WHEN I GOT IT, AND I PRETTY MUCH SHOT THE FIRST DRAFT -- MINUS A FEW TWEEKS HERE AND THERE FOR MY CYNICISM...

The trailers for The Social Network have been outstanding. I think there's a nearly lost art to the teaser trailer. We don't really get trailers like we used to... A Clockwork Orange, An American Werewolf in London and The Shining come immediately to mind. How important is a trailer to you and what are some of your favorite trailers?

Fincher: I LOVE WHAT MARK WOOLLEN DID FOR "SOCIAL NETWORK" AND I THINK HE'S AS GOOD AS THEY GET RIGHT NOW. I'VE ALWAYS THOUGHT THAT "ALIEN" HAD THE MOST ELEGANT AND PROVOCATIVE MATERIALS EVER.

I loved Trent Reznor's score! This is his first feature score, right?

Fincher: I THINK SO. IT WAS A TOTAL COOP TO GET HIM, AND HE HELPED IMMEDIATELY TO PUT THE FILM IN THE PROPER PERSPECTIVE FOR ME. HE SOLIDIFIED IT. I THOUGHT HE'D BE GREAT, BUT I NEVER DARED TO DREAM HE WOULD BE THIS GOOD...

Can you talk about how you came to bring him on board, what made you think he'd be the guy to score this film and what that collaboration was like?

Fincher: HE WAS VERY TIRED WHEN I CONTACTED HIM AND INITIALLY TURNED ME DOWN, BUT I AM NOTHING IF NOT KNOWN FOR MY DIFFICULTY WITH THE WORD "NO," SO I JUST STALKED HIM. EVENTUALLY HE RELENTED.

Hahaha, he was drunk when answering Collider.

So yeah, I'm pretty much vindicated.

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.stereogum.com%2Ffiles%2F2010%2F09%2FThe-Social-Network_-Five-Track-Sampler.jpg&hash=8ef6112c9259d1fbe9a105f8c79b9e6df283ffb5)

Listen to 5 album tracks here:
http://stereogum.com/514101/download-trent-reznor-emthe-social-networkem-film-score/mp3s/

The Vulture Transcript: An In-Depth Chat With David Fincher About The Social Network
Source: Vulture

David Fincher rarely gives interviews, but for the New York cover story on his new movie, The Social Network (which opens October 1), the director sat down with Mark Harris for a long, revealing chat. Only some of the conversation made it into the article, so we're presenting their entire, in-depth talk in full below. What better way to inaugurate our new recurring feature, the Vulture Transcript: extended, revealing, and virtually uncut interviews with fascinating cultural figures. Here, Fincher dishes on the enormous difficulty of speeding up Aaron Sorkin's motormouth text ("Faster. That was my only real direction."), his surprising "enormous amount of empathy" for Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and much much more.

I loved Aaron Sorkin's script, which was 162 pages, and when I went to see a screening of The Social Network, I asked how long the movie was and they said, 116 or 118 minutes, and I thought, Oh, no, they've cut all the stuff I loved. But it all seems to be there.
No, we just simply said, faster. That was my only real direction — take a minute out of that!

I don't believe that.
It's kinda true. The characters in the movie are people who need to get to the end of their thoughts before they can really focus on what it is they meant to say. And in describing it to them that way — I mean, Jesse [Eisenberg, who plays Mark Zuckerberg] actually talks like that, he can do it — but a lot of people would come in and read and say, "Wait, what is he talking about at this point?" And I'd say, "There are people who need to work their way through the kelp beds of their own thought processes on their way to the exact idea they've been trying to fucking find, to get to this word and that's the word that's he's actually been looking for." And once they got that, they took to it like ducks.

It was kind of shocking to hear Jesse Eisenberg doing Aaron Sorkin's dialogue, because you suddenly realize this is what he was born to do.
We looked and looked and looked. We read every young actor in Hollywood. And it had been rumored on blogs and stuff that we were talking to Jesse Eisenberg. And you know, I hate to be told what to do by blogs, so I was like, "Yeah, we should probably see him but I don't know if this is his thing ... " And he put himself on tape reading the first scene, and I remember getting this thing on my computer and opening this little QuickTime, and here's this kid doing Sorkin: the first person that we'd heard who could do Sorkin better than Sorkin.

But was that a language that everyone in the movie kind of had to learn?
The studio initially said, "We don't know what you're gonna cut, but you're gonna have to get it down to a reasonable time limit, you can't shoot ... " I think it was 166 pages. And Aaron and I went back to the office and I took out my little iPhone and set it down and put the little stopwatch on and said, "Start reading." And we went through it and he was done in an hour and 59 to two hours. And I called the studio and said, "No, we can do this, it's gonna be about a two-hour movie." They said, "You're crazy." And I said, "No, I think it can be done that way. If we do it the way that Aaron just spoke it, it'll be two hours. It's up to me to have dialogue that pre-laps scenes, and to be able to establish places as quickly as possible." And when I opened this little QuickTime of Jesse Eisenberg, it was the first time I said, "We're gonna be under two hours!" He can just flat-out fly. And you can see in his eyes that he is searching for the best way to articulate something in the middle of articulating two other things; he's processing where he's going.

Oftentimes, you'll say to an actor that, you know, the notion of being present is not to be thinking of the next thing you're going to say but to actually be listening. You know, a lot of people are trained to give you the "thoughtful" thing, but at the same time, they're trying to process their next line. And Jesse can be half a page ahead, and in the now. I remember turning to Aaron and saying, "Okay, have we ever seen anything this good?" He just said, "That's the guy." We brought him out to LA and he came into my office and I said, "Hey, it's a pleasure to meet you." And he said, "Great, what do you want me to read? I've prepared three scenes." And I said, "No, no, no. You got the job. We're just having you here because we wanted to meet you and say hello, but you're in the movie." That's the fun part — to be able to tell them you enjoy what they do.

The actors said the pace you set was really fast, but — and I know this isn't your favorite topic — you are known for doing a lot of takes. So how was a fast pace even possible?
No, you know, I will normally trade helicopters and cranes and the incumbent extra technicians it takes to have toys like that for more hours, more time, more days. For $39 or $40 million, whatever it ended up costing, normally you're going to get about 45 or 50 days of shooting. And we shot for 72 days, because we knew that was the kind of time it was going to take. You know, everybody had to know their lines, but we didn't necessarily know where exactly the scene was going to take place until we found the locations. There was a lot of negotiation going on with Harvard and different places in and around Cambridge that we wanted to use. And things would fall apart at the last minute, so something that was supposed to take place walking down the sidewalk would take place in a cab.

We rehearsed the notion of overlap — we rehearsed the idea of talking over one another very pointedly. The opening scene of the movie [an extended conversation in which Zuckerberg is dumped by his girlfriend], which is nine pages in under five minutes — we had two days to shoot that. And the studio said, "That's crazy." First they said, "It's one scene! You don't need two days for one scene!" Then they said, "It's nine pages! You can't do nine pages in two days!" We said, "Okay, make up your mind, which one is it?" We got through most of the scene in the first day, and then the second day was just going in to pick up certain things in close-ups. We shot 99 takes.

Of just that scene?
Yeah. We put two cameras on it so that they could interrupt and talk right over each other. So it took an enormous amount of time to stage the background, probably close to the first half of the first day. And then we just started shooting. And then I would just go in and encourage them and say, "Here's what you're talking about here." Or: "Try to talk about this." Or: "Just get angry a little later." And the two of them are such facile creatures, they would just play. I look at it this way: You're gonna bring all this equipment, you're gonna bring all these people, you're gonna fly them all in and put them up in hotels, you're gonna run all this cable, do all this stuff, hang these lights ... Then the actors have to have their time to fall face-first into it. Rather than say, "Okay, we'll do two, and let's move on," it seems like such a waste of talent to get somebody's second or third or even fifth or sixth thought at something. Especially with this kind of dialogue, it really needs to seem to fall out of their subconscious. Because a lot of what Sorkin does is think out loud. So it has to look like thought.

One of the actors told me —
[Laughs.] Which one?

Two of them said interesting things about your process. Andrew Garfield [who plays Eduardo Saverin] said that you had them keep in mind that in any scene, anyone who's talking always thinks he's right. And Armie Hammer [who plays Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss] said that he thought the multiple takes were really helpful in ridding them of all of the things that they'd worked out in their heads that they thought were going to be their big moments the night before.
So many Oscars are won in the tub! I'm not, like, trying to psychologically remake people, but look, it's an incredibly neurotic thing to want to do with one's life. It's incredibly hard to stand in front of a camera and be the focus of that attention and not be self-conscious. It makes you self-conscious, and to get beyond that self-consciousness, I absolutely want people to have their idea of what the scene is about, to have an idea of what their moment is. And then I want to take them through that process to a point where they've literally forgotten their own names. I want to take them past the point where they go, "But I had it all worked out." If it's still there but you're doing it a little bit later or doing it a little bit flustered. You know, it's an interesting thing: It happens very rarely, but invariably, when an actor's in the middle of a take and they go, "Uh, hang on a sec, sorry, my fault, can we start again?" always it's the best take. Always the best take before they cry uncle, before they go, "Wait a minute, I've lost my train of thought." And I can show them on the monitor: "Look at you here, that is you at your most present, when you're falling-down ill, like Dudley Moore in Arthur, ass-over-teakettle trying to remember where you were in the thing, that's when you are stunning and real and amazing." Little things happen. There's this moment at the beginning of the movie where Rooney [Mara, who plays Zuckerberg's girlfriend] interrupts him and says "Mark!" And Jesse did this thing where he leaned forward in a very prodding way and said "Erica!" Oddly condescending. She gets really pissed off — and he'd never done it before. It was kind of great. I went up to him and he said, "Do you want me to do it again?" And I said, "No, but I bet you it's going in the movie." That's the kind of stuff you want to find.

Let's go back to when you read the script. I feel like a lot of directors of your caliber, honestly, might have read it and said, "It's great, but there's not much for me to do here." I'm fascinated that you saw interesting directorial challenges in it.
I think telling a good story is always an interesting directorial challenge. I read it and thought, "Oh my God, this is how I feel about the notion of the Internet and communication, and so much about the loneliness that characterizes much of modern interpersonal communication." I also loved the idea of old-world business ethics put to the test by new-world ability to beta-test and iterate. I thought it was an amazing idea. Harvard is this 300-year-old institution built by people who understood business and innovation as: You find a place to cultivate a workforce and train them and create a factory or an assembly line, and you build a product and it comes out and everyone in this little village is rewarded by that. And that's innovation. Then there's this new world where somebody goes: If I've got DSL and enough Red Bull, I can prototype this thing! And then I can get it onto 650 desktops and then eight years later I can get in on 600 million desktops! That is a new paradigm.

The movie seems to put two different kinds of ruthlessness in competition with each other.
I don't know. You said ruthlessness? I don't know. I have an enormous amount of empathy for Zuckerberg. I felt like it was easy to do the Revenge of the Nerds version of this, but there was something more compelling about his wanting to do it his way. Because he was right. It shouldn't be done using an advertising model. The ultimate communication tool needed to be devised by someone who doesn't have the best communication skills. You see him with Lesley Stahl, you kind of go, "I'm not sure this guy should be speaking on his own behalf." But I thought it was amazing that this was the guy who figured out how hundreds of millions of people would want to connect with each other. I thought that was a great, ironic notion. It may indeed be dramatic license, but I thought Aaron did it beautifully.

Do you mean dramatic license in terms of Sorkin's decision to shape him as that kind of guy?
We know that Zuckerberg took out some of his vitriol on a woman in his blog, but I don't know that he continues to pine for her today. As a director, it doesn't seem to me that you should. There's a lot of directors out there who think, Oh, this'll be great, I'm gonna get to go to Rome. Or: This'll be fun, I've never shot the London subways. Or whatever. But I was just looking for a story and I thought, Well, it's not The Paper Chase and it's not Breaking Away and it's not Fight Club, but it's a little bit of a lot of these things, and in an interesting way.

Aaron Sorkin told me that on the set, you were more insistent on the accuracy of small details than he was, that when there was push and pull between you, you wanted to hew closer to the record.
Well, I don't know. I always think that if you have a bit of research, you can go, I think it'd be cooler if the person wore this. But if you have a photograph of him from that period of his life, you go, Really, a T-shirt over a dress shirt with a tie? That's such an odd thing, and yet there's something about that that speaks to who that person is. I feel like if you have something that in some way is real, it informs things in a different way. It's easy to make stuff look good or slick or cohesive, but I also think that if you're dealing with stuff that's real ... I mean, it broke my heart that we couldn't shoot at Harvard. And yet by the time we were done with all the bureaucracy, I was happy to go to Johns Hopkins. They were so helpful. They were so much easier to deal with that I didn't really care that it wasn't the real Kirkland because it was such a pain in the ass to deal with. And in those cases you just go, "Well, they shot a lot of interiors of The Paper Chase at USC, so screw it." But I do think reality informs things in a different way. Oftentimes it doesn't make things as clean in terms of storytelling, but it's almost always better in terms of character. Is [Sorkin] talking about the beer and stuff? [Indeed, there was a dispute over whether Zuckerberg should be drinking a beer or a screwdriver while he hacked into Harvard's databases.]

He was. Small stuff like that.
Yeah, originally, he'd written this thing about making a screwdriver, and I was like, "That's great, except we have a blog. And in the blog it says, 'Here I am and I'm drinking Beck's.'" It felt like, well, he's a Beck's guy. I liked what it said: A 19-year-old guy with a case of Beck's in his dorm room. It doesn't say the same thing as Smirnoff and OJ.

So were most of your disagreements on that scale rather than about, say, character?
We almost never disagreed about intent. Remember, Aaron comes from a world where he generates a kind of page count on a daily basis that I can't even imagine, and he accomplishes an enormous amount. In his previous discipline, television, Aaron is used to thinking fast and making bold decisions. He works with a meat ax. The words are the important thing because it's what you're getting paid for. In television, you don't have the time to pick gnat shit out of pepper. But in the movies, my whole thing is, everything that we put on the screen is going to be debated and scrutinized in some way. So it's not even that there's an opportunity here to do more. It's that it's incumbent upon us, if we're going to put a prop next to somebody's hand and they're going to do three pages of dialogue with it, that prop is going to get a lot more important than it would in a two-page scene on television. It's going to be seen and scrutinized more, so we need to make sure it's not saying something we don't want it to say or undercutting anything about the environment or where they are in their head space.

Do you feel comfortable with the idea that people will walk out at the end of this movie with differing opinions about whether Mark Zuckerberg is a good guy or a tragic hero or a bad guy? You've left a lot of room for people to disagree with the Rashida Jones character's assessment of Mark as someone who's not an asshole but is trying so hard to be. Some people will watch the movie and say, "No, actually, he's an asshole."
Look, it's not my intention to crucify Mark Zuckerberg. Mark Zuckerberg is a guy who accomplished an enormous amount at a very, very young age. And I, not in the same way, not in the same world, but I know what it's like to be 21 years old and trying to direct a $60 million movie and sitting in a room full of grown-ups who think you're just so cute, but they're not about to give you control of anything. It's just, "Great — look how passionate he is!" I know the anger that comes when you just want to be allowed to do the things that you know you can do. In order to accomplish what he's accomplished, you have to have not only a great deal of drive, you have to have an unshakable, freakish confidence. A lot of people will look at that and wonder what kind of hubris does it take to know what it is that you want at 21?

So I feel it would be irresponsible to say this is the story of a guy who betrayed his friends. I think Eduardo had a real failure of imagination, and I've been in those situations before. I've had companies where the partners were all in it for the right reasons at the beginning. And then four or five years down the line, when it's a commercial endeavor that's throwing off a lot of cash, you go, "I think you need to go in this direction." And other people say, "Everything's good just the way it is, let's just keep it here." You reach a point when you say, "We're working at cross-purposes, we're no longer aligned, you need to go do your thing and I need to go do my thing."

And I've been in situations where people say, "Look, it's best for everyone if this person is marginalized." Those things happen. So I have an enormous amount of empathy for everyone involved. I didn't want the Winklevosses to be the "Haves" who were surly and stupid. Cameron really has a strong sense of what it means to be a Harvardian. He's not joking. He was raised right.

The idea of being gentlemen is very meaningful to them.
Yeah! When we were shooting the phone call [to Cameron Winklevoss's father] I told him I wanted him to say, at the end of the call, "I love you, Dad." It's not in the script but that's the kind of kid this guy is. It should be surprising that this six-foot-five, 220-pound kid says that. And I don't know the Winklevi, but they'd somehow gotten a hold of the script because it was on the fucking Internet ...

You don't sound like you're much more of a fan of the Internet than Aaron Sorkin is.
I just resent the whole ... I hate the idea of pre-auditioning clay pigeons for people. I really resent the idea of people reading screenplays that have yet to be produced. In any case, the Winklevosses got to us and said, "You know, that's not my dad's name." Aaron had changed the name originally. That was the one note we got. Little things like that were important to me. We were just trying to make the world as realistic as we could. There were times Aaron Sorkin and I would turn to each other and say, "What are we doing here?" And I said, "It's the Citizen Kane of John Hughes movies." Sean Parker is half of Jedediah Leland, and Eduardo is the other half, the hurt half. It's not, "If I hadn't been so rich I might have been a truly great man." But: "If I'd known then what I know now, three years later ... "

Quote from: modage on September 22, 2010, 09:48:03 AM
No, you know, I will normally trade helicopters and cranes and the incumbent extra technicians it takes to have toys like that for more hours, more time, more days. For $39 or $40 million, whatever it ended up costing, normally you're going to get about 45 or 50 days of shooting. And we shot for 72 days, because we knew that was the kind of time it was going to take.

This is my favorite thing about fincher; Kubrick was the same way. they get flack for shooting many takes, but they never go over budget. simply put there is so much excess on a set, that if you're willing to whittle it down, you can be a feasible perfectionist.

I saw this last night.  Aaron Sorkin, Jesse Eisenberg, and Armie Hammer were there for a Q&A afterward.

There's no question that this is a great film.  It is an exploration of character and drive that reminds me more of Zodiac than, say, Fight Club.

The screenplay is VERY MUCH an Aaron Sorkin script.  From the opening scene, you immediately recognize the writing style.  This movie is Fincher taking a great screenplay and using his visual style to strengthen the script's voice rather than over-power it with his own.

There is very little action.  The characters are sitting down throughout almost the entire film yet somehow, Fincher manages to visually match the fast paced dialogue.  The editing is astounding. 

Fincher pulls back on this one enough to let it breathe, but not so much that you can't tell it's a Fincher movie (you just have to look a little harder).  There are two scenes that I can think of that have his prints all over them and he uses one actor to play twins so well that you might be mad at me for pointing out that it's just one actor.  Outside of that and the Trent Reznor soundtrack, I'd call this an amazingly executed Aaron Sorkin movie. (a result of Fincher being such a great director in this case).

I'm still taking this one in.  Sorry for the rambles.

Also, Eisenberg is really that nervous in real life.  He dresses like Zuckerberg
To be honest, I still liked Zodiac better, but this makes up for Button.

Seriously, how do I get in on screenings like this?

Quote from: matt35mm on September 22, 2010, 12:40:16 PM
Seriously, how do I get in on screenings like this?

As much as it pains me to say this, you should read Aint It Cool News if you live in Austin.
That and the alamo blog.

I lucked out with good timing.  I usually forget to check AICN.

side note: I just realized that I say "To be honest" way too often.  Why hasn't anyone ever told me?  I feel like I've been walking around with a really dumb shirt on and people are laughing behind my back.  Somebody Stop Me! (Jim Carey, The Mask)

I see.  Thanks.  I've only been checking the "Austin Alamo Drafthouse" and "Austin Film Society" pages on Facebook.  They do regularly post about free/advanced screenings, and some are even Facebook exclusive (uh, there's a free advanced screening of It's Kind of a Funny Story tonight, if anyone's interested), but I'll have to start looking at AICN as well.

Anyway, it's good to hear that you liked the film!

Can I just say how annoyed I am at the New York Film Festival for charging $40 for tickets and booking this as the "World Premiere" and then Sony having screenings for every critic weeks/months before that and screening it in Austin 3 days before.  Can I say how fucking annoying that is?  The ONLY movie I really want to see at this festival and they already showed it to everybody else.

FIRST!

Saved by the page.   :yabbse-cool:

Well, fuck everything.  Apparently there was a screening in Seattle last night and I only found out about it now.

And apparently there are (unconfirmed) rumors flying around that Mark Zuckerberg was in attendance.

A fantastic phenomol film about what could have been boring and tedius. Drove from LA to Vegas for it because i've been foaming at the mouth to see this. The editing is kinetic, fast and taut it seems to keep the young generation interested. This is my fav. movie of the year so far blowing out 'inception' by a long shot. Andrew Garfield is gonna be a huge star.

Spoiler Paraphrasing Quote:
'Why Can't We Just Beat The Shit Out Of Him....I'm 6'5 220 and there's two of me'

Edited by Admin to better hide spoiler of one of the funnier lines.

perhaps only to further enrage mod, but i will say that i saw it last night and give an almost-review: twas good, very cool and sleek, though prolly not worthy of the praise that will no doubt be bestowed upon it. but why do i feel the need to even make the distinction?! acting, music, visuals - all excellent, and the script's clever, no doubt.. still, i felt like i was eating popcorn or something; the must empty kind of full.

1 hour video interview with David Fincher:
http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/2010/nyff-video-hbo-films-directors-dialogue-with-david-fincher

(I went to this. Really interesting.)

Excellent stuff.  Thanks Mod!

from my blog (http://modage.tumblr.com/post/1199640910/nyff-the-social-network):

I don't think anybody was excited when they first heard there would be a "Facebook movie".  I know I wasn't.  Nor was I encouraged when Aaron Sorkin, who had never even been on Facebook, was hired to write it.  I was completely mystified when David Fincher signed on to direct.  But with the release of an iconic poster, brilliant trailer and glowing reviews that's all turned around.  Suddenly I got very excited at the possibilities of the film and I got to see it for myself on Friday as the Opening Night film of the New York Film Festival.

The Social Network is a very good film, probably one of the 3 best I've seen so far this year.  It moves very fast and packs a lot of information in a way that's completely entertaining, for a subject that could have easily been very boring.  The film looks great.  The script is unexpectedly funny and fast.  The score by Trent Reznor is propulsive and dramatic.  And the cast is great.  Because they weren't able to secure Mark Zuckerberg's participation in the film, rather than guess at what he was thinking at each moment, it's left for the audience to fill in the gaps.  Other than suggesting he may have created Facebook because it would make him cool, Jesse Eisenberg's Zuckerberg doesn't let you know why he does the things he does and the film is better for it.

While you're left to wonder for much of the film how much is "real", the only thing that really holds the film back from being great is the scope is too limited.  The film focuses on how Facebook was founded and doesn't give much attention to the ways in which it's changed how people communicate and the positives and negatives of that connectedness.  I got goosebumps watching the trailer, with the ordinary images of interacting on Facebook given a new depth by the haunted score.  Had the story included not just the people behind the founding of Facebook but further hinted at how the world has changed since it's inception, it might have truly been a classic.  But it'll have to settle for being one of the year's best.

Quote from: modage on September 27, 2010, 02:29:10 PM
how the world has changed since it's inception

I thought you were saying "how the world has changed since Inception" ha!

but I actually totally disagree with this, though I haven't seen the film:

Quote from: modage on September 27, 2010, 02:29:10 PM
the only thing that really holds the film back from being great is ... doesn't give much attention to the ways in which it's changed how people communicate and the positives and negatives of that connectedness.

That is exactly what I feared would be in there. Because then it would've been the damn stupid facebook movie nobody wanted to see. If that "look at how facebook changed the world" part isn't in there, then the story is about something else that might be interesting.

If they had made a "look at how myspace changed the world" movie in 2007 how would we laugh today. For all we know facebook might be dead in 5 years. Nobody can say this is impossible, especially since the new trend is more getting off facebook than in*. About half my friends did in the last year including me.

So yeah, this should be good then.

* Except for Grandmas and annoying aunts who never had children.

I guess what I was hoping for is a little more of what made the first minute of the trailer so chilling.

maybe on second viewing you'll have stopped judging it on what you hoped it would be and more on what it actually is, which is actually more than what you hoped it would be.

pas i think you misunderstood my huge post i made earlier because what you are hoping for in the film is exactly what i was talking about. the movie should have nothing to do with facebook as we experience it. i agree, who cares about the repercussions of a site? that definitely wasn't my point originally, tho that's what many took it for. nor was i strictly talking about the sociological effects of social networking in general as pete took it for. the last part of my post was trying to understand the mindset of ANYONE in position of power in the modern age.

the problem in talking about this film is that it makes everyone an expert because we are fooled into thinking that it's about something we know INTIMATELY and within a LIMITED perspective. how you feel about facebook has nothing to do with the THEMES of this film because as has been made clear from the promotional material (not just the first minute of a trailer but the idea behind the whole thing, music + characters + dialogue + poster tagline + title of the film + EVERYTHING) and interviews given by Fincher (which have since vindicated me completely) that it is about the experience of losing friends, growing up, and becoming your own person. it sounds stupid and not that interesting but why do yo think fincher has said he wanted to make a john hughes movie for this generation? it's not just a joke.. hughes' appeal in his time was the ability to capture a nostalgic feel for the fantasies and real experiences many teens had in the 80s. the reason his films strike home with most teens even today is that hidden beneath all the make-up and ridiculous fashion of the 80s (the FADS if you will) the emotional experiences of his characters are relatable at a basic level of what it feels like when we realise that we are growing up.

i don't want to repeat myself or keep saying things that no one will take seriously until i see have seen the film and can point out scenes/dialogue/shots that would allow me to spell it out for you conclusively, but all i want to establish is that this film has obviously been victim of the limits of ppl's imagination. and now that it is beginning to be seen it seems to CONTINUE to be limited by what anyone can possibly expect a film about facebook to be. the LIMITS of most ppl's expectation is made worse by the fact that it's about facebook, because ppl's inability to see past the literal content of a film is already a major problem in works of art in general.. just look at, well, ANY film that's worth a damn. whether it makes money or not doesn't change the value of something amazing, but to the general public and to most ppl who watch movies if it doesn't appeal to ALL OF THEM, it really doesn't matter whether it has any artistic integrity or thematic insight. the way most ppl watch movies is a one way selfish relationship of "give me what i WANT", as i said already in my huge post.

obviously i am aware that i too am prejudging the film on its fulfilment of my own expectations, but i am not treating it any different to any other film i've ever seen. i analyse themes, relate them to the context of the story, compare with what i know of a subject and insights that i may have, and most importantly absorb everything that i don't understand or didn't expect for use in future reflections with the hope that when i repeat the process there will be nothing left over. the question is whether you think you are smarter than a movie. you either think you are smarter and know better than every movie, or you think that you are smarter and know better than only SOME movies.. those films are nothing more than fun entertainment or trash depending on how stupid they take me for, and the ones that offer more than i expected and i am convinced are worth more of my time are all some kind of masterpiece.

I'll be very interested to see what you think of it.  I think for me, what it comes down to is 99 times out of 100, I will prefer a fictionalized movie to one based on real events.  So in trying to figure out why it might be missing something, the real answer is because it's beholden to the truth.

Quote from: modage on September 28, 2010, 10:11:11 AM
I'll be very interested to see what you think of it.  I think for me, what it comes down to is 99 times out of 100, I will prefer a fictionalized movie to one based on real events.  So in trying to figure out why it might be missing something, the real answer is because it's beholden to the truth.

the same arguement could be made for documentaries, and i agree with you.

though i am more interested in seeing it then i was. i just generally feel fincher goes for the obvious, which in turn dates his material.  I have hopes for this film however.

Quote from: modage on September 28, 2010, 10:11:11 AM
I think for me, what it comes down to is 99 times out of 100, I will prefer a fictionalized movie to one based on real events.  So in trying to figure out why it might be missing something, the real answer is because it's beholden to the truth.

At our screening, Sorkin actually said the movie would not have been as good if he had been allowed to fictionalize it.  He would have made it too hopeful and Capra-esque. 

I think having to stick to the facts helped make the movie as strong as it is... otherwise, it could have easily been your basic "birth of an empire" movie.

Trent Reznor wants to get closer to movies
Source: Los Angeles Times

Trent Reznor, the dark mastermind behind Nine Inch Nails, has long aspired to score a feature film. So when he got a call last fall from director David Fincher -- who had used NIN music in "Seven" -– the rock star naturally assumed the assignment would lead to some scary places.

He was right. Fincher was eager to use Reznor's unsettling soundscapes for "The Social Network," the Friday  release that is being met with mostly enthusiastic reviews. "In all honesty, when David mentioned it was a movie about the founding of Facebook, I was like, 'What the...,' " Reznor recalled with a chuckle. "I wondered how that could be interesting, but, knowing the level of excellence and integrity he brings to everything, I got the script from him. And then it became clear."

What Reznor saw was a vibrant tale of "the human condition and greed and entitlement." The film is now indeed moving to the center of the cultural conversation, and it's doing so with the backbeat of Reznor's music, which always demands attention but is especially intriguing in this new career context. Reznor worked with longtime collaborator Atticus Ross on the 19-track soundtrack, which was released in digital form Tuesday and will hit stores on CD, audio-only Blu-ray and vinyl in October.

In an unusual move for a studio film, the soundtrack album will be released through Reznor's own label, Null Corp., as opposed to a major label. The musician, who has a history of posting music for free on his website and criticizing labels for their pricing practices, even finds himself in partnership with Amazon, which is selling the digital version of the album for $2.99 for a limited time. On Tuesday, the soundtrack was No. 1 on the merchant site's bestselling album downloads. "As much as I hate the corporate partner idea, for this particular case it felt right," Reznor said. (The artist, incidentally, is getting more involved with Hollywood, as an HBO series based on his "Year Zero" multi-media concept moves forward.)

Reznor had worked with Fincher before -– the "Fight Club" filmmaker directed the Nine Inch Nails music video "Only" in 2005 – but he doubted this was the best time to reunite. "It is [Aaron] Sorkin's script,  so it's a lot of people talking in rooms and there is a lot of technical talk and after reading it I wasn't sure how it would become a watchable, entertaining film," Reznor said. "It wasn't the obvious type of film that you would imagine David Fincher would be attracted to."

So, last fall, Reznor, who had also gotten married recently and had promised his wife he would be stepping back from the mad crush of work, called Fincher back and declined. "And of course it gnawed away at me," Reznor says. "I got back in touch with him in late winter or early spring and apologized again and asked him to keep me in mind in the future [on other projects] and he said, 'No, what are you talking about, you're doing this one.' "

Reznor dropped by Fincher's edit bay and, in short order, took on the challenge. Reznor is candid about being a dictator of his own artistic path, but he says it was a rare respite to be in service of someone else's project. Fincher didn't want an orchestral score. He wanted something that would have the shimmer, shiver and thump of Reznor's electronic-anchored soundscapes. "David has a very clear vision of what he wants and then opens up that template to make it what you think is right," Reznor said. "At the first rough cut screening, it became clear to me what the film needed, which was to darken the mood a bit."

The music that Reznor and Ross compiled over a few weeks was quickly diced and draped across the film by Fincher, and the first scoring process of Reznor's career was startlingly fast and painless. "I was amazed by that. There was no meddling by the studio Darth Vader types. The experience has been exceptional and, I fear, not the usual experience. But I'm up for more."

Zuckerberg! The REAL Social Network Movie (http://landlinetv.com/zuckerberg-the-real-social-network-movie/)

Fuck I loved this. I expected to come in Xixax this morning to find 3 pages of love but nada. Oh well.

I will start with my only criticism:

I understand what Modage meant now about the scope of the movie being very limited, and even though I disagree completely that it should've talked about "the way people use thefacebook" it might have been more insightful on all the megalomania involved. It's there, obviously, but I would've liked it to be more prevalent. It's mostly a courtroom drama, in a sense. But anyway I haven't digested it all yet.

Positives:

- It expects the viewer to be smart. It's a rare thing these days. Not everything is spelled out. The viewer is left to decide a LOT of things. After seeing the movie it seems to me Mark really screwed the rowing twins. It sounds like it was their idea. People I saw the movie with disagree with that. I loved these twins, man that character that went on about the "Harvard Gentleman" was great. I wish my kids would go to Harvard. Oh well they won't so I shoudln't think too much about that. McGill would be good enough. I wish I went to a great school like McGill or all your american Ivy Leagues. Who doesn't. Ok back to the film.

- I just loved the soundtrack, Reznor did a great, great job.

- Another criticism after all: The breathing-in-the-cold CGI looked like absolute SHIT. I could barely listen to the dialogues outside in the winter because all I could see was the huge silly CGI fog.

- ANother criticism: Didn't like Rashida Jones in this. Not important.

- Jesse Eisenberg(is that his name?) is funny. You know who would've ruined this thing? His alter ego, Prancing Cera.

- Andrew Garfield will be a huge, huge star. Sky's the limit for this guy. He's got a young Tom Hanks quality, but with much much better films than his early days.

- The twins ftw really, great stuff. The race scene is awesome. Fincher really knocks this one out of the park.

ahhh forget it I'll go grab a beer and talk about it with people and come back later here when you guys have seen it.

I really thought this was a great movie, my only criticism is the fact that all the small characters seemed to have the same sarcastic delivery. like for example the dean of Harvard didn't need to deliver that "I'm devastated" line. i get why it's there, it keeps the humor up, it just got a little redundant.

Small gripe, everything else was amazing.

Will be in my top three best of 2010. Eisenberg is great as Zuckerberg, creating a character that, yes, is an asshole, but you end up liking and understanding him. But the performance wouldn't be at that level if not for the amazing script. It's taut and very intelligent. The dialogue is done almost in a His Girl Friday type pace that grabs your attention. It's almost as if Fincher knew this and distanced himself from giving us any of his usual visual flair (aside from a rowing race sequence). And that's fine because you feel his overall orchastration of finding the right actors, score, editing and script.

He's not the next Bill Gates at all though. Not by a long, loooonnnggg shot.

Bill Gates (and team, whatever the conspiracy theory is these days) invented something that was brand new and revolutionized the world forever. The easy personal computer. Zuckerberg did a better version of something that existed like 10 times already and revolutionized a couple years. It's the most grossly overvalued company in the world, making him the richest acai-berry-scam-ad-seller in the world.

Quote from: Reelist on October 03, 2010, 01:29:33 PM
How ungrateful is Zuckerberg for claiming that this movie is fiction and nothing like what really happened. We  know that dude, but can't you just revel for a moment in the fact that the you have the best team put together to pull it off entertainingly? Everyone is interested in the story behind what basically made him the next Bill Gates, but I guess us all having accounts at this point is gratifying enough for him.

on a scale of 1 to 10, please rate your anger on this topic.

Wow.  What a breakneck pace this movie keeps up.  I never knew a movie entirely about people sitting in chairs talking could be that exhilarating.   Great cast, great script, great direction, great movie.  Insightful review, I know.

My one complaint: how is it that technology has advanced to the point where we can have one actor playing two roles in the same scene together and make it so seamless that we wouldn't know if we hadn't been told, yet the ability to make fake snow or cold breath look real remains elusive to us?

Really great write-up in the New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/10/04/101004crat_atlarge_denby

It's long and mostly a review, but absolutely worth reading for those who've seen it. He completely nails it.

Quote from: polkablues on October 03, 2010, 08:42:48 PM
My one complaint: how is it that technology has advanced to the point where we can have one actor playing two roles in the same scene together and make it so seamless that we wouldn't know if we hadn't been told, yet the ability to make fake snow or cold breath look real remains elusive to us?

I was about to make the exact same comment.

The script I read was 160ish pages and there's nothing that I remember from the script that wasn't in this movie, except for a few more scenes with Sean Parker that show how he was still holding onto grudges from past business dealings (now it just exists as the short scene where Mark goes to a meeting in a robe as a fuck-you-from-Sean-Parker).  It was pretty damn close.  So it seems like through sheer speed that they packed 160 pages into 120 minutes.

The thing I like the most about the movie is the intelligence of the characters.  It's rare to see a movie that shows this kind of high-level intelligence in a believable way, and everyone did an excellent job at that.  And I could see the "It" that Rooney Mara and Andrew Garfield have, and why they're on the track to become big stars.

It is a wonderful movie, but a lot of the reviews are already delving into hyperbole.  It doesn't define a generation.  It isn't groundbreaking or revelatory, and you come out with the feeling that there is no way of knowing whether much of what we just saw was true.  It's not going to win Best Picture (not that I care, but I've been reading predictions of this).  It's a film that's largely about business relationships, and a little bit about personal relationships, and all the drama of that, which happens to revolve around Facebook, so if you come in with the expectation that it's going to be about huge ideas on life during the internet age, the film will feel slight.  That's not much of a criticism, though, because the film never purported to be about more than the business complications behind the founding of a website.

The better reason for saying that the film feels slight is that it covers so much so quickly, that as I look back on it, I realize that it didn't go very deeply into anything at all.  You get a strong sense of the KIND of people that these people are, but you don't really get to know any of them.  I also was not moved by any of it, probably because of what I just said.  I was greatly entertained, and that was all, but that's all I needed from this movie, so I'm happy with it.

i'm glad to hear ppl are appreciating this as a film, on the film's own terms.. unfortunately, reading around the place, there appears to still be a faction of ppl who simply cannot get over the idea that a movie that is ostensibly about facebook is not actually a documentary on the social implications or real life privacy concerns of social media and all that shit. specifically, the feeling modage has that it would have been better if it were ACTUALLY ABOUT FACEBOOK, is an unreasonable request that can never be satisfied (a film will never be exactly what you want it to be.. make your own if that's what you want to see). the problem as i've said too many times now is that people feel unduly ENTITLED about this film simply because the site is so entrenched in their daily experience.

on that note, here is a link to an article dealing with a perceived backlash based on this exact criticism (that the film is not really about facebook): 'Social Network' New Media Backlash: Hollywood Still Doesn't Get It (http://www.thewrap.com/movies/article/new-media-backlash-against-%E2%80%98social-network%E2%80%99-says-hollywood-still-doesn%E2%80%99t-get-it-21404). click the link to see the ridiculous article, written by none other than xixax favourite Sharon Waxman (not a xixax favourite) (http://xixax.com/index.php?topic=7177.msg172803#msg172803).

Jose Antonio Vargas (whoever that is) provides a better written critique of the film (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jose-antonio-vargas/the-social-network-hollyw_b_747233.html) but still under the same flawed assumptions. i would go on but i think i'll save my comments until after october 28th when the film is released here, so i can chime in with specific examples from the film to support my tired points.

this was really good, though i certainly didn't feel like it was some generation-defining masterpiece like some reviews are making it out to be. i was also slightly annoyed by all the characters talking in the same voice (doubt that slutty groupie is quite as quick-witted as the napster guy), but whatever.

I know I'll be fighting this one alone but I still feel like there was more interesting ground to be covered there.  But judging the film as it stands, its a good entertaining film that no one will think about too much in 5 or 10 years.  Not a towering masterpiece that will define any generation or be able to sit on the shelf next to There Will Be Blood.

Quote from: modage on October 04, 2010, 01:29:13 PM
or be able to sit on the shelf next to There Will Be Blood.

I guess that depends on how you alphabetize your collection....The Social Network or Social Network, The?

^lol.

I'm seeing this next weekend. Between the hyperbolic praise and now the backlash, I think my expectations are in the right place. I love when that happens.

^lol at your "^lol."

You've gotta have the record for starting new pages, probably even if we count the people who start the most threads!

lol yeah I don't even give a shit anymore.

Videogum says this.

"Perhaps the most surprising and innovative development in the Facebook generation is people's willingness to publicly share details of their personal lives that in ancient times (like the 1990s) they would have kept themselves. The movie didn't talk about that at all, and in that sense, it doesn't seem to actually capture the thing about the current zeitgeist that makes it so zeitgeist-y in the first place. I mean, there have been revolutionary business ideas in the past, and there have been cruel wunderkinds and bloody corpses trapped under the wheels of indifferent buses where their former friends threw them. None of that is actually that new (although the Facebook offices near the end of the movie DID look much more Razor Scooter friendly than the bedroom at the end of Citizen Kane.) It doesn't make it any less great and enjoyable and interesting and well written (I've never heard of this Aaron Sorkin guy and I think this is his first major project, but I think he's going to have a VERY bright future!). It's probably going to win lots of awards, and it should. I'm just pointing out that it might not actually be as NEW as some people would like it to be."

Does that help make my point any better than I was already not making it?

How They Did The Twin Stuff (http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/movie-talk-social-network-twins.html)

I assumed it was the same actor fully playing both roles, but there were two guys and they replaced just the face.  Really seamless stuff, though. 

I had actually read about that before seeing the film, and was trying to spot any telltale signs, but there simply are none.  It's witchcraft.

Quote from: modage on October 04, 2010, 03:04:32 PM
Videogum says this.

"Perhaps the most surprising and innovative development in the Facebook generation is people's willingness to publicly share details of their personal lives that in ancient times (like the 1990s) they would have kept themselves. The movie didn't talk about that at all, and in that sense, it doesn't seem to actually capture the thing about the current zeitgeist that makes it so zeitgeist-y in the first place. I mean, there have been revolutionary business ideas in the past, and there have been cruel wunderkinds and bloody corpses trapped under the wheels of indifferent buses where their former friends threw them. None of that is actually that new (although the Facebook offices near the end of the movie DID look much more Razor Scooter friendly than the bedroom at the end of Citizen Kane.) It doesn't make it any less great and enjoyable and interesting and well written (I've never heard of this Aaron Sorkin guy and I think this is his first major project, but I think he's going to have a VERY bright future!). It's probably going to win lots of awards, and it should. I'm just pointing out that it might not actually be as NEW as some people would like it to be."

Does that help make my point any better than I was already not making it?

it makes the point fine but i've highlighted the problem with the argument. it continues to assume that the film MUST be a zeitgeist film. it seems to brush off the universal themes that will make it rewatchable in the future as simply "been done before", and seems to be arguing against people who are praising the film for being "new". who is doing that? it's just clear that they wanted a different movie, one that cashed in more blatantly and gave more shout-outs to what everyone is saying about the site this week or the next, and worse, that it analysed every bit of it as if it IS something new (oversharing? that's just the INTERNET, man).

well I don't find the film to be all that universal, or moving, I guess.  I like that it's a complicated story told well, with a lot of salacious details and characterizations that either sound true or I want them to be true (who doesn't want sean parker to be a paranoid cokehead?), and I can go on and on about different things I appreciate about the film, still, it wasn't that it wasn't a great movie so much as it seemed like it didn't want to be a great movie.  it felt like Shattered Glass, or Breach - these very self-contained stories that got the most drama out of a real situation or a real story, but not stylized enough, as Herzog would say, to reach the "ecstatic truth."

I'm not sure if there's any checklist or criteria for great films or how to define a great film, but I can say that this film, after one viewing, isn't it.  I do, however, still enjoy a good story well-told.

Quote from: Pas on October 02, 2010, 02:42:11 PM
The race scene is awesome.

:yabbse-thumbup: Pozer likes this.

favorite photographed montage in some time.

Fincher made a really good entertaining film that ppl will still Facebook about in 5 or 10 years.

Comment . Like

http://www.chasingthefrog.com/reelfaces/thesocialnetwork.php

you guys have to admit, facebook is way awesomer than stupid xixax, xixax is way radical but come on.. you know what i mean, not kidding

I'm confused.  is xixax stupid or way radical?  and which part of your statement were you not kidding?

Quote from: Reelist on October 09, 2010, 01:52:55 PM
you guys have to admit, facebook is way awesomer than stupid xixax, xixax is way radical but come on.. you know what i man, not kidding

Reelist is daytime drunk posting on stupid way radical xixax and the awesomer facebook. heart.

Quote from: Pozer on October 09, 2010, 01:39:13 PM

Quote from: Pas on October 02, 2010, 02:42:11 PM
The race scene is awesome.

:yabbse-thumbup: Pozer likes this.

favorite photographed montage in some time.

Fincher made a really good entertaining film that ppl will still Facebook about in 5 or 10 years.

Comment . Like

haha.

I liked everything about this film. :yabbse-thumbup:

I enjoyed this, though I have enough reservations about it that I'm not close to wanting to call it great. These are mainly reservations about it as a film, rather than as a script, and about the fact that I don't think Sorkin and Fincher are a good match. Having only seen it once, and what with it being late, I can't go into detail about all the directorial choices that seemed off to me, but one really stands out and deserves to be mentioned because a number of people are singling it out for praise:

Can anyone give me a good reason for the boat-race scene being shot like it was (other than it looking cool)? Clearly this is a very accomplished bit of filmmaking in-and-of-itself, but why does it make sense in the context of the movie? Extreme stylistic departures like these require a really good reason, in my book, if a film is going to achieve the kind of coherence needed to make it great.

I saw this again last night. Definitely my favorite of the year. The dialogue, acting, directing and everything is perfect.

the boatrace - they said it was shot one of the last days of production and I forgot where I read it that said the turn-around time for the effects shots was short.  seemed like they stylized it because it was going to look phony and out of place anyhow.

Quote from: children with angels on October 17, 2010, 07:02:21 PM
Can anyone give me a good reason for the boat-race scene being shot like it was (other than it looking cool)? Clearly this is a very accomplished bit of filmmaking in-and-of-itself, but why does it make sense in the context of the movie? Extreme stylistic departures like these require a really good reason, in my book, if a film is going to achieve the kind of coherence needed to make it great.

The scene didn't stand out for me. It looked different, sure, but it matches the tonal pace of the rest of the film. The film rips of the corners out of all of its scenes and gives you a tough edged look at human encounters in flux. The whole film is a bit of musicality with how it amazingly edits between the scenes and all of the actions. If this film was more Bergman-esque and concerned about standstill tone, I would agree with you. But I'm not sure how a criticism of this scene clouds the rest of the film. What did you think about all the other scenes?




For me, to say this is just Fincher's best film feels like an understatement. It's a graduation film for him to new levels. In Fight Club, I can see how certain levels of the story are about more than their immediate gratification aspects, but Fincher directs this picture for it to perfectly tap into a character aspect of how people act. It's also a lot more than Zodiac. That was a historical coverage film of an era and a sequence of events. The filmmaking was pretty to look it, but it does not blend with its environment the way it does in this film. Fincher ratchets up the editing and composition level to make this film bleed with its characters.

Wonderfully, the movie is very superficial. Like the Dark Knight, it announces all of its major themes within the first scene. However, unlike the Dark Knight, it does not try to make the character revelations to be, well, revelations... For me, this movie does what Dr. Strangelove did for comedies. It takes a superficial element of a genre structure (here, the drama) and films it at a rapid level pace of editing, tonal fusion, and composition where you get into the nervous center of these characters. Dr. Strangelove is reflective of hostile moods in a chaotic atmosphere and show how personalities can be unhinged at fundamental levels. In The Social Network, I believe, you get the same type of mapping out of human emotions. The difference is that it's done at a dramatic level for dramatic purpose. Fincher creates a slide show aspect of looking through the actions of the scenes and getting the split hair information that is necessary in the scene to move it forward. In a normal film, the scenes build up tonally in standard fashions. A scene with Erica Albright when she finds out she has been slammed by her ex boyfriend on his blog would end with just the tear in her eye. That is standard, because it's a bookend scene to a series of events. However, all the scenes that build up to it are equally minimal with context as well. The film cycles through so many reactions, actions, things, at a time, that a tear by Erica Albright is actually a big deal.

I could go on, but Fincher directs the film to make it a constant reflex movie to the interests and emotions of the characters involved. Dimensions of who they are is not important because it really is a filmed drama. Most filmmakers just film coverage of Sorkin's writing because it generally just sounds nice to listen to (like a dance is to look at), but Sorkin adjusts the focal tone of his writing to make it geniuely much more reactive to the personalities of the characters here. Sure, some characters still go on about cultural topics in cute and funny ways, but Sorkin mostly plays the writing straight to the emotional needs of the characters. Having been a mild fan of his previous work, he hasn't been allowed the ability for this much of a dramatic challenge.

For me, Fincher and Sorkin make the best team. Sorkin got his best chance for an organic story and Fincher found the pulse in which to highlight the dramatics, but I would love to hear other ideas. All I want to do is talk about this movie.

Quote from: children with angels on October 17, 2010, 07:02:21 PMCan anyone give me a good reason for the boat-race scene being shot like it was (other than it looking cool)? Clearly this is a very accomplished bit of filmmaking in-and-of-itself, but why does it make sense in the context of the movie? Extreme stylistic departures like these require a really good reason, in my book, if a film is going to achieve the kind of coherence needed to make it great.

maybe because it visually represents one of the key themes of the film (it doesn't matter how close the race is, if you're 0.00001 seconds behind, you lose) ?

Quote from: children with angels on October 17, 2010, 07:02:21 PM
Can anyone give me a good reason for the boat-race scene being shot like it was (other than it looking cool)? Clearly this is a very accomplished bit of filmmaking in-and-of-itself, but why does it make sense in the context of the movie? Extreme stylistic departures like these require a really good reason, in my book, if a film is going to achieve the kind of coherence needed to make it great.

It might not have been CGI, actually. It's a tilt-shift effect, very easy to do in camera (search on YouTube for all sorts of examples). But as to why they did it - Fincher said it was because they only had one chance to shoot the actual race in the proper location, and so they filmed a handful of other races elsewhere but had to obscure where they were happening. Hence the effect.

I read one bit of criticism that pointed out that it was the only sequence that was in no way connected to Mark Zuckerberg, and was thusly justified. Not sure if I buy it, but I liked the sequence and felt that it fit in fine enough.

Quote from: picolas on October 17, 2010, 08:27:08 PM
maybe because it visually represents one of the key themes of the film (it doesn't matter how close the race is, if you're 0.00001 seconds behind, you lose) ?

I get the parallel with the main storyline, of course - the characters make the same point explicitly themselves. But I wasn't asking why the scene is in the film (the movie answers that question for you), I was asking why it was presented in the way it was.

Quote from: Gold Trumpet on October 17, 2010, 07:58:32 PM
The scene didn't stand out for me. It looked different, sure, but it matches the tonal pace of the rest of the film. The film rips of the corners out of all of its scenes and gives you a tough edged look at human encounters in flux. The whole film is a bit of musicality with how it amazingly edits between the scenes and all of the actions. If this film was more Bergman-esque and concerned about standstill tone, I would agree with you. But I'm not sure how a criticism of this scene clouds the rest of the film. What did you think about all the other scenes?

I don't see how it couldn't stand out - it is hugely different to everything that surrounds it, at least in plastic terms. I'd need to watch it again to talk about specifics, but it's pretty obvious that it's a stand-out sequence - and, I would say, also a stand-alone sequence. It feels almost like a short film unto itself, which doesn't belong in the context of the movie. This scene can colour the rest of the film because to be great I think a film needs to be coherent, which means not featuring elements that jar so completely with everything else - unless there's a good reason for it (say, the presentation of the shower scene in Psycho, which shatters stylistic expectations for a very obvious reason, whilst also building on motifs the movie has already established). Incidentally, I've always felt that almost all the stylistic quirks people object to in Fight Club can be justified by it being one of the most 'first-person' movies imaginable - that person being on the verge of mental collapse, indeed.

However, having said it's so unique, I did pick the scene out in particular because it seemed the most obvious representation of a clash I felt throughout the movie between the material and the way it was being presented. I wouldn't say the material demands Bergman-like stillness exactly, but I do think it demanded to be less capital-D Dramatic - or rather, if it is going to be dramatic, it could do with feeling like a drama that stems from real people rather than from the movie they're in (the amped-up score, pounding intercutting scenes of debauchery with Zuckerburg on the computer, some overly-stressed line readings). Though Fincher is less overtly stylized here than in some other films, he nonetheless still seems less interested in people and the intricacies of human interaction than is needed for a script like this, which I would say does require a more toned-down and character-centred approach like, say, Shattered Glass or Breach (since Pete made those parallels). Or in fact Seven, which I think may be his most convincing film in terms of believable human relationships (Pitt and Paltrow, Pitt and Freeman). Again, after only one viewing I can't get too detailed on this - it's just a sense I have.

It seems to me that, faced with a scene focused on physicality, Fincher just went all out stylistically simply because the ostensible subject matter of the scene meant that he COULD - and it feels like a tension going on in smaller ways throughout the film: an over-interest in pace, tone and posture rather than people, places, and rounded social interactions. Take the scarf-burning scene, for instance: with different emphasis in the direction and performances this could have convinced, but as it stands for me it just felt like an awkward and bewildering sequence, because we know nothing of what these people's relationship might actually be like. This to me felt like the outcome of a director having more interest in effects (what a crazy situation!) than in human action (what a complex relationship). You didn't necessarily need loads of new stuff in the script to make that feel real and more rounded - you just needed a director who could make a crazy situation feel (through mood, handling of performances, etc.) like it stems from a complex relationship.

Faced with a time-constraint like this:

Quote from: Ghostboy on October 17, 2010, 10:25:04 PM
Fincher said it was because they only had one chance to shoot the actual race in the proper location, and so they filmed a handful of other races elsewhere but had to obscure where they were happening. Hence the effect.

Fincher reverts to a kind of stylisation that excludes the human focus entirely, opting instead for a disjointed view of the physical effects, pace, and feel of a situation that could just as easily be about human emotion. Under similar conditions of pressed-time, another director might have made the sequence's focus purely on the feelings of the rowers (say, long-ish takes of them in the boat, their frustrations). Fincher is much less interested in that sort of thing, and this sequence just stands as a particularly extreme example of that lack of interest - which I felt was clear in more subtle ways throughout the film.

Anyway, these are ramblings. And I'll warn you GT (because I would guess it would only be GT who's tempted to respond in depth!) that I'm super pressed for time myself right now - phd thesis due in a matter of weeks! - so I may not be able to mount much more of a debate here, particularly after only one viewing. I just wanted to get some thoughts down.

I still haven't seen this. I'm surprised there hasn't really been much backlash. It's getting universal praise with no end in sight.

Movies I saw before seeing this -- Let me In (one of the best of the year), Never Let Me Go (not good), and, uh, Jackass 3D (storytelling was suspect).

I tend to see stuff based on how long it will be around and Social Network seems to be sticking around for awhile. Hopefully this weekend.

Quote from: Stefen on October 20, 2010, 04:16:54 PM
Jackass 3D (storytelling was suspect).

Haha,

About the Social Network, I expected Zodiac: Part II and that concept wasn't thrilling me at all. However, the film taps into the nerve base of its characters wonderfully. It's the best film I have seen in a long time. Whenever I write movies, I write stories that play musical chairs with the editing, dialogue, and composition the way this film does. This is how I create movies in my head and since most films don't even attempt to do this at all, I never feel spiteful. I always feel distant to the movies I criticize. However, I envied this film. It has a lot of things I would do as a filmmaker if I was in the position currently to do so.

Quote from: children with angels on October 20, 2010, 08:07:29 AM

Quote from: picolas on October 17, 2010, 08:27:08 PM
maybe because it visually represents one of the key themes of the film (it doesn't matter how close the race is, if you're 0.00001 seconds behind, you lose) ?

I get the parallel with the main storyline, of course - the characters make the same point explicitly themselves. But I wasn't asking why the scene is in the film (the movie answers that question for you), I was asking why it was presented in the way it was.

i know. i thought that was a pretty good reason.

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia.tumblr.com%2Ftumblr_lf3c1vsDCi1qzptin.jpg&hash=0a94f9f0da4aba045c98f0b5e8017c3d5c06b4f4)

The blu-ray for this is amazing!  I wrote this on my blog but that doesn't make it any less true.  The documentary is probably the best I've seen since That Moment and you can't watch it and the featurettes and not come away with a greater respect for the film.

And aesthetically it's probably the most beautiful packaging design (courtesy of Neil Kellerhouse) on any DVD or Blu-ray that I've ever seen.  (Sorry Criterion, it's time to step up your game.)  So much care has been put into every aspect of it's presentation from the menus to the packaging to the quality of the behind-the-scenes material that it makes me mad that other films don't care this much.

Yes, I love the packaging. Also the sound is something else. It may be the best sounding BD I have heard. Haven't touched the second disc yet but can't wait. Eveyone is raving about the documentary.

I'm kind of disappointed it doesn't have the trailers, especially the one with creep.

Interesting tidbit from the commentary: the mansion the Winklevii are in after the rowing match is the same one with the bowling alley from CMBB.

whhhhaaaaaaaaattttttttt??  :doh:

Quote from: Reelist on January 16, 2011, 09:30:36 AM
whhhhaaaaaaaaattttttttt??  :doh:

there is a mansion somewhere that rents out its rooms to movies sometimes.

Hm. Since the commentary was bleeped out on the DVD, does anyone know what the letter Mark got in class really said?  Obviously it wasn't supposed to be "U dick".

his face does one of the funniest things I've seen in a movie all year after he reads that, I wish there was a gif. of it

Quote from: Pwaybloe on January 24, 2011, 01:10:39 PM
Hm. Since the commentary was bleeped out on the DVD, does anyone know what the letter Mark got in class really said?  Obviously it wasn't supposed to be "U dick".

I'm guessing "cunt" but I'm not really sure.

The script I read said "asshole", but I guess they planned to spice it up at one point.

"asshole" would have made the most sense.  

judging from the length of the bleep, it's "shitty fart fart cunt-headed bitch."

Watch The Social Network "How Did They Ever Make a Movie of Facebook?" 93-Minute Behind the Scenes Documentary (http://www.slashfilm.com/watch-social-network-movie-facebook-93minute-scenes-documentary/#more-97045) on IMDb.

thanks!

would love to see them actually doing this:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2011/03/three_mini-posts_3_punching_th.html