The Social Network (2010)

I'll freely admit then when I first heard that they were going to make a "Facebook movie", I thought the idea sounded terrible. Then slowly, over time I warmed to the idea. David Fincher was attached to direct, and, to a lesser degree, Aaron Sorkin was attached to write. (He's a fine writer, but sometimes his writing really grates on me). Weird combination, maybe. But ultimately the result is really fascinating, and, I think a lot better than it had a right to be. I mean, its hard to pull something like this off, its harder to make a movie about people typing things compelling. But Fincher and Sorkin manage to pull it off. First off, it looks amazing, particularly the parts set at Harvard. Secondly, it's acted really well. Jesse Eisenberg in particular is great as Mark Zuckerberg. The film version of Mark Zuckerberg is really fascinating, who knows what he is actually like in real life. Even today in the kitchen at work people had various ideas of Mark Zuckerberg as a character and his motivations and what. To tell you the truth, I am still not sure. But, what makes sense to me is something I haven't researched but someone told me over lunch today: his second-in-copmmand (so to speak) the man who put up the money for the endeavor, Eduardo Saverin, played by Andrew Garfield, pitched the idea of the book The Accidental Billionaires  to Ben Mezrich. And thinking about the book and the movie, all somewhat, if not highly fictionalized, and coming from his, justifiably hurt, perspective makes a lot more sense coming from a very specific perspective. The movie is basically a dissection of all these characters, their relationships, and the creation of Facebook, being told through the various lawsuits that were eventually brought against Zuckerberg. I still don't know what exactly to make of Zuckerberg, I think Rashida Jones, playing one of his attorneys, says it best basically when she tells him, (and I am paraphrasing) that, he's not actually an asshole, he just likes to pretend he is. 

Two last things: it's weird because the beginning of this movie starts in Fall of 2003, that's really not that long ago. It's also interesting that originally Facebook (or The Facebook) was supposed to be about exclusivity, and now everyone and their mom is on it. I guess thats why its worth a billion dollars today.

And, lastly, the score done by none other than Trent Reznor is really really good.

-K

Oh, and it ended with this song. A Beatles song that is not only good but very apropos. (I know, I know, Matt, saying a Beatles song is good is just redundant.)