The Social Network

Fast paced and interesting, this movie tries too hard to portray Zuckenberg in a better light than he deserves. He was not a good coder. He was much more exploitative than movie suggest, as his later love affair with CIA and selling personal data of facebook users for nefarious purposes proved. This guy is far less charismatic than portrayed (and he isn't portrayed as particularly charismatic to begin with) and far more calculating, menacing and Machiavelian than described. The only thing the movie did show worse than it was was Zuckenberg incel situation. Zuckenberg was dating a Chinese golddigger/smartdigger/Harvarddigger the whole time and they got married.

But despite being more positive towards its subject than they would warrant, the movie manages to capture part of the psychopathic nature of facebook and its founding. Artistic liberties were taken in order to humanize these monsters, to make us care and for plot not to be boring. In that it succeeded, but humanizing monsters like Zuckenberg or Hitttlerr is never a good idea in a movie. However, you at least get an idea about the depths of the cutthrooat depravity that was only confirmed by the fact that facebook abuses the trust of its sheeple all the time, and a movie is fun to watch, and deserves a praise even if it is an idealised/sanitized/overseksed version of the sorry reality this movie is based on, and as a movie is well worth a watch, but keep in mind the reality was much darker and more boring at the same time.

Maybe I'm too old. No, not maybe, I am. I saw this characters as aliens of sorts. I know they represent today's landscape, brrrrr. The film as a film is one of the best of David Fincher but the universe it explores gave the chills. A world approaching its end, fast. The youth of the characters made it even more sinister. I couldn't detect their soul or any evidence of its existence. In a way they represent the worst of the previous generations. Roman Emperors or Wall Street. Profit is the name of the game and the ideas come out of boredom of longings to get laid. Love and friendship, loyalty and/or honor as obsolete as good manners. Jesse Eisenberg is chillingly perfect as the humanoid that started it all - or did he? - Justin Timberlake keeps surprising me. Good, very good and Andrew Garfield, the most recognizable of the characters is a victim of sorts and he'll be destroyed no matter how much money he gets. How I wish this was merely a science-fiction film.

As Quentin Tarantino said.....this is one of the best movies of the 21st Century.

I believe that for the sole reason of the foundinh story and the captivating storytelling of the pioneers that forged a completely new age for the new generation.

I'd put off watching THE SOCIAL NETWORK for a time, suspecting it to be a dry and slow-moving film. After all, it was about the guy who founded Facebook, so how much fun could it be? I didn't much like the idea of watching a film based around people sitting on computers, so I was in no hurry to see it.

Now I've watched it, and things have changed. Because THE SOCIAL NETWORK turns out to be one of David Fincher's best films, and that's from a director whose filmography is littered with gems. This is a hugely entertaining and thoroughly gripping story of success, defeat, lies and deceit, and I was so caught up in the narrative that the two hour running time flew past.

The joy of THE SOCIAL NETWORK is that it focuses on the conflict between the various parties involved with the founding of one of the world's most popular websites. It's bam, bam, bam, with barely time to breathe, let alone get bored. Good performances are given across the board, particularly from Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield, two actors I'm normally disposed to dislike, both of whom are excellent. Technical values are, unsurprisingly, absolutely spectacular, and it's clear that Fincher is in his element, making a mini-masterpiece out of the premise. Splendid stuff.

Let's start with the script. It's great. Written by soon-to-be-best- adapted-screenplay-nominee/winner Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network's writing is intelligent and demanding on multiple levels: most obviously, the story is cleverly structured across dual lawsuits, but there's an equal amount of sophistication to Sorkin's character work--Zuckerberg is never quite capable of maintaining a dialog, Eduardo always stops just short of explicating his emotions.

Those two characters are wonderfully played by inevitable acting award nominees Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield--Eisenberg owns the brisk pace of the film while Garfield brings most of the humanity--who anchor a terrific ensemble--SAG best ensemble, perhaps? The film's score is a perfectly atmospheric concoction of electronica from edgy dark horse best original score nominees Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and it's all united under the name and vision of David Fincher, who did not win an Oscar for Fight Club or Zodiac or Benjamin Button.

All of this is to say two things: this is a really great movie from a phenomenal creative team, and also there are times when the film feels somewhat calculated for accolades--never in the repugnantly safe, crowd- pleasing, middle-brow Benjamin Button sense, but in the sweetly transparent sense of a kid who did all his chores and is suggesting that he might deserve a cookie.

You know what? Give David Fincher a cookie. The Social Network is thoroughly intelligent and engaging as a modern biopic and as an examination of evolving cultural currency, and it's also one of my favorite films this year. -TK 10/1/10