The Social Network

[MacGuffin]

'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.

[Pubrick]

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.

[Pas]

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.

[Pubrick]

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.

[Pas]

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.

[Pubrick]

i'm off internet for the next two weeks.

be sure to print my posts before you leave so you can read them while you're away.

[pete]

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.

[socketlevel]

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.

[©brad]

[Stefen]

It doesn't look like the best movie ever.

Disappointed.

[modage]

Looks great.

[Fernando]

that trailer is pretty sweet, can't wait.

[Kal]

It doesn't look like the best movie ever.

Disappointed.

Yes it does.

[ono]

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.

[children with angels]

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...