The Social Network

[polkablues]

Zuckerberg! The REAL Social Network Movie

[Pas]

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.

[socketlevel]

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.

[MacGuffin]

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.

[Pas]

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.

[pete]

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.

[polkablues]

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?

[Gamblour.]

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.

[matt35mm]

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.

[Pubrick]

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. click the link to see the ridiculous article, written by none other than xixax favourite Sharon Waxman (not a xixax favourite).

Jose Antonio Vargas (whoever that is) provides a better written critique of the film 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.

[abuck1220]

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.

[modage]

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.

[squints]

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?

[Stefen]

^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.

[matt35mm]

^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!