For those of you who subscribe to Starz, tonight is the premiere of “The Social Network”, the 2010 David Fincher film starring Jesse Eisenberg which tells the story of the founding of Facebook. Based on the 2009 book “The Accidental Billionaires”, by Ben Mezrich, this movie certainly can’t be accused on not being topical. LOL.
While the movie does show how everyone’s favorite social networking site got its start, it’s actually about the high price of success, money, and being smarter than everyone else you know.
I’m certainly not going to NOT recommend this film, it’s excellent. I love David Fincher, and this movie certainly isn’t a gap in his resume or anything. I would say that people should probably adjust their expectations going in. Thankfully, if you’ve waited til now to see it, you probably weren’t that psyched about it in the first place. When this movie came out last year, it caught so much hype that my expectations were higher than the film wound up delivering. The way people were talking, I thought it was going to be an instant classic. Now, that’s not the film’s fault, but it happens.
Basically Jesse Eisenberg is Jesse Eisenberg. I have a feeling he’s never going to be accused of having a lot of range. But he works really well in this role… I guess I can see why he got an Oscar nom. He’s very believable as a guy who’s smarter than everyone else.
Which is important, because that’s an enormous part of the film. Not only is Zuckerberg dealing with sudden success here, he’s also dealing with being smarter than your average college student. Even your average Harvard college student. You constantly get the feeling (probably because this is often overt) that not only does he not want people stealing any of his credit, he also has a mild contempt for their intellects. The dialogue comes fast and furious and everything that he says is quick-witted and razor-sharp. You have a feeling that he feels like he’s in a constant battle of wits, and everyone is an unarmed opponent.
It didn’t wind up winning the Oscar (did get nommed quite a bit though), but it’s going to be better than a lot of things you could pull off of the tube. Set your DVRs
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I love this movie… I was actually rooting for Social Network to win the Oscar…
And Andrew Garfield is a terrific actor here…
It’s a really good one. I have to abstain from talking about the Oscars this year til I see “The King’s Speech” though…
I just thought it was overhyped.
Kings Speech is a very good movie as well… and the story is more uplifting and inspiring rather than the brutal betrayals and backstabbing of Social Network!