Anywho, I've just come back from seeing David Fincher's latest cinematic capsule known as "The Social Network", or to the snarky "Facebook: The Movie." I'll admit I being a Fincher fan and a general roamer of the internet when discovering this film thought, "Seriously? This has to be a joke." Then as time went by that dwindled up to the trailer's debut and it changed to, "Now I gotta see this movie." And I'm sure many people who still were iffy after that and saw it ate their own words, I can only hope so. For those who don't know of this project, it centers around the creators of the popular social network site (Get the title now?) Facebook and how success tore their friendship apart featuring Jesse Eisenberg (The Michael Cera that can act) as the founder and public wanker number one Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew Garfield as the CFO Eduardo Saverin who got screwed harder than a Thai hooker, and Justin Timberlake as huge blowhard Napster founder Sean Parker.
The movie opens up to where the site was created, at Harvard University. The first scene is at a bar where Zuckerberg is having a drink with his girlfriend Erica Albright (played by Rooney Mara) where he brags about wanting to get into a final club (an elite undergrad social club) in order to be approved by the elite and have a better life, all the while highlighting his obsessive behavior at success in any form and not really having a sense of if it really matters or if someone might get hurt emotionally in the process. Shortly after the conversation she breaks up with him and to retaliate he goes to his dorm drinking and blogging to create a site using female student's pictures to vote whether the two displayed is hotter than the other called Facesmash. After two hours the site had hopped around campus so much by e-mail that it had crashed the Harvard server. This attracted three members (Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra) of the Phoenix club who had an idea of a site that had a similar concept but only exclusive to Harvard students. Immediately after being contacted by them Zuckerberg signed up to help code their site, which he never did as he spent the next week designing and creating "The Facebook", which when it went live picked up just as much speed as the site he was infamous for taking his status from misogynistic blowhard to campus celebrity.
From here the three Phoenix members try every way possible to get the site shut down shy of a lawsuit, until when they discover the site not only goes outside Harvard and other colleges but overseas as well. All the while Napster founder Sean Parker discovering this site, realizing it's a goldmine, comes into the fold, much to Eduardo's comfort as he is highly skeptical of Parker's character, to get things set up to monetize it heavily in the ways Eduardo has been trying and failing. The movie jumps around with the chronology going back and forth between the linear time line, the hearing between Zuckerberg and the Winklevosses, and the hearing between Zuckerberg and Eduardo, learning more and more how everyone was basically trying to grab this whale of a website at the cost of burning down bridges.
Basically what happened between these people is the almost the same to what went on between Steve Jobbs, Bill Gates (who ironically makes a cameo part-way into the film) and Steve Wozniak when Apple and Microsoft were coming up; tricks and lies in order to try and come out the victor no matter the cost. The film I feel is reminiscent of one of those '70s psychological studies movies as each character you think you could study and read up on like a serial killer, as Eisenberg's portrayal of Zuckerberg is so intriguing you find yourself saying, "Okay, I'm fully aware he's a douche bag, now I wanna know why." And I think it's Fincher's helming of the project brought that out in the actors on screen. Against the backdrop of this drama is music by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and Atticus Ross who has been his programmer in the studio since "With Teeth
." Some may think that this is very random and left of center to hire Trent Reznor to do the score for this film however given how the movie is centered around the internet and how eclectic the pacing is in some parts it makes perfect sense. That and Trent Reznor is fucking amazing. (FACT.) Although I did find it interesting that there were a couple tracks there were pulled from NIN's previous album "Ghosts: I-IV", however I think there might've been a slight alteration of them. For those who don't know which tracks were used it was "25 Ghosts IV" (renamed "A Familiar Taste" for the soundtrack) and a remixed version of "14 Ghosts II" (titled "Magnetic".)
Great as this movie is though I have one bone to pick about it and it's not about the movie itself but more of the reception it's been getting saying how this is a movie that defines the current generation because in reality it doesn't. I won't deny that Facebook, let alone the internet as a whole, has been very much at the fore and integral of our present generation but to say this movie encapses it I think is a stretch. Because to say that means everyone in this current generation is riddled with back-stabbing sons of bitches who all want the big score. I mean if that was the case "Heat" would've probably been a better choice. Others would've thought "Scarface" but fuck that movie and he dies for a reason. That comment also perturbs me as I have a movie I'm trying to get off the ground that I feel is if anything very relevant to the current generation if not everyone who has ever gone through some shit and has felt helpless. In short - great movie, worth looking into. I myself will be waiting for the DVD release where one can only hope and assume this is something to what it might look like. (By the way, I made that. Criterion, please don't sue me, I'm a fan and buy your stuff.)
Basically what happened between these people is the almost the same to what went on between Steve Jobbs, Bill Gates (who ironically makes a cameo part-way into the film) and Steve Wozniak when Apple and Microsoft were coming up; tricks and lies in order to try and come out the victor no matter the cost. The film I feel is reminiscent of one of those '70s psychological studies movies as each character you think you could study and read up on like a serial killer, as Eisenberg's portrayal of Zuckerberg is so intriguing you find yourself saying, "Okay, I'm fully aware he's a douche bag, now I wanna know why." And I think it's Fincher's helming of the project brought that out in the actors on screen. Against the backdrop of this drama is music by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and Atticus Ross who has been his programmer in the studio since "With Teeth
." Some may think that this is very random and left of center to hire Trent Reznor to do the score for this film however given how the movie is centered around the internet and how eclectic the pacing is in some parts it makes perfect sense. That and Trent Reznor is fucking amazing. (FACT.) Although I did find it interesting that there were a couple tracks there were pulled from NIN's previous album "Ghosts: I-IV", however I think there might've been a slight alteration of them. For those who don't know which tracks were used it was "25 Ghosts IV" (renamed "A Familiar Taste" for the soundtrack) and a remixed version of "14 Ghosts II" (titled "Magnetic".)Great as this movie is though I have one bone to pick about it and it's not about the movie itself but more of the reception it's been getting saying how this is a movie that defines the current generation because in reality it doesn't. I won't deny that Facebook, let alone the internet as a whole, has been very much at the fore and integral of our present generation but to say this movie encapses it I think is a stretch. Because to say that means everyone in this current generation is riddled with back-stabbing sons of bitches who all want the big score. I mean if that was the case "Heat" would've probably been a better choice. Others would've thought "Scarface" but fuck that movie and he dies for a reason. That comment also perturbs me as I have a movie I'm trying to get off the ground that I feel is if anything very relevant to the current generation if not everyone who has ever gone through some shit and has felt helpless. In short - great movie, worth looking into. I myself will be waiting for the DVD release where one can only hope and assume this is something to what it might look like. (By the way, I made that. Criterion, please don't sue me, I'm a fan and buy your stuff.)
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