The theater was fairly packed when I got there and I managed to get a good seat. It was a young crowd, which I guess is to be expected for a Thursday midnight show, and they were very chatty. There were 3 trailers that had a similar theme of being the kind of movies you don't expect to be directed by the director who's directing them. Ron Howard, James L. Brooks and Ed Zwick are tossing their hat into the Young People RomCom ring -- although to be fair, I take back Ron Howard because I think the leads in his film The Dilemma are all late-30's/early 40's and the guy made Night Shift and Gung Ho and EdTV so I can see him making this one.
The opening scene of The Social Network hits the ground running, or maybe a more appropriate term should be "hit the air flapping", as in flapping one's lips because this film is letting you know from Frame One that TalkTalkTalk is the name of the game in this flick. Some people weren't so sure about David Fincher directing this one but I think it makes perfect sense; he can balance out all the talking with some great looking visuals and he's really good making movies about asshole people.
Aaron Sorkin wrote the screenplay, based on some book I probably won't ever read and his dialogue in this bitch is high-octane and fast and you better get adjusted to it because this movie will not wait for you. Someone's gonna ask the person next to them "What did he just say?" and that person won't be able to respond from fear of losing his or her place. Sorkin created The West Wing, which I understand consists of people briskly walking down hallways while talking and that's gonna be you while you watch this movie, hurriedly trying to keep up with the rapid-fire dialogue as if it was President Bartlet himself. The audience of texters and chatters I watched this with immediately shut the fuck up and put away their Blackberries upon realizing this during the opening scene and it was beautiful to experience. What a concept -- an audience giving its full attention to the on-screen events.
The Social Network is about the guy who created Facebook, and me, I couldn't give a shit about the behind-the-scenes of Internet social networking sites, so this was all news to me that the motherfucker more or less jacked the idea from a couple of twin golden-boy Chads while at Harvard and improved it, put some stank on it, changed the name, and that's how we now have Facebook. The guy's name is Mark Zuckerberg and like most nerds, he's a complete utter disgrace to the idea of Being Socially Well-Adjusted and yet he's got the balls to put down his chick in the opening scene. Motherfucker, you should not only be on your knees every morning thanking God, you should be on your knees five more times throughout the day thanking Allah because you have a cute girlfriend who is giving you the time of day.
But no, Mark Zuckerberg, you gotta fuck that shit up by making her feel like an asshole for a hundred stupid reasons, one of them being that she goes to Boston University and you go to fuckin' Harvard, therefore she's below you. You need a beating Zuckerberg, you need a motherfucker like me to take you outside and teach you some fuckin' manners, kid. Except that would prove your fuckin' point that a stupid guy like me can only defeat a smart guy like you by using violence, which I will accept and then demonstrate with a nice punch to the throat.
So, American Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is like Fuck This Shit and rightfully dumps Zombieland's ass and hits him with one of the best lines I ever heard in a movie because it's so fucking true about a lot of motherfuckers, both penis'd and non-penis'd -- something like "You're going to go through life thinking girls don't like you because you're a nerd, but that's not true. It'll be because you're an asshole" and I was like FUCK YEAH, TELL THAT MOTHERFUCKER WHAT'S UP. And I guess Zuckerberg decides not to prove her wrong by going on his blog and talking fucked-up shit about her. I would go on about what a cruel, cowardly thing this is to do, except I think I have like 100 examples of me doing the same shit on this blog, so in that case, rock on with your bad self, MZ.
Long story short, he does the Facebook thing (for a while it's known as "The Facebook", like some unhip older dude trying to reference it; "Oh yeah, I heard about The Facebook while I was on The Twitter, which I found on The Google") and we watch him as he displays some hardcore Asperger's symptoms towards his fellow man, even though I don't think he suffers from Asperger's. By the way, Asperger's is awesome because it allows you to get away with being an asshole, and you know what, from now on, that's my official reason for why I am the way I am: I've got the Aspergers. Me, Zuckerberg and Abed from Community -- we will rock the aloofness to da break of DAWN, baby!
Somehow, Zuckerberg has a friend, and because he's his only friend, that also makes him his best friend. His name is Eduardo Saverin, and because David Fincher hates the dirty ethnics (he also cast a white Brit to play an Indian dude and probably jizzed himself in the editing room every time those two super-Aryan Chads appeared on screen), he got the new Spider-Man to play him, some limey. Man, I gotta tell you, aside from American Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Saverin's the only other person I felt for in this movie. He comes off like a decent dude, but he's ultimately some kind of needy pussy with daddy issues and maybe that's why he takes Zuckerberg's shit and I think MZ knows it and takes advantage of it with the aforementioned shit-giving, not to mention making passive-aggressive remarks like "It's probably a diversity thing" after congratulating Saverin on getting accepted into one of those awful elitist college "final clubs".
There's a scene where they're having some beers in the dorm and if you pay attention to their actions, it kinda tells you everything about Zuckerberg's and Saverin's friendship. MZ is looking for something to open the beer with and Saverin tosses him a bottle opener, and a few seconds later, MZ forcefully throws the fuckin' bottle cap at Saverin, and you get the sense he's done that often, treating Saverin like a wastebasket. Why did he have to do that? What the fuck is your problem, Zuckerberg? How about just saying "thanks", you piece-of-shit? Argh! Jesse Eisenberg does such a great job being this guy, I seriously considered walking out of the movie about 10 minutes in, I couldn't stand this motherfucker. I've always found Eisenberg to be very likable in his other movies and here, holy shit, here he proves he can basically use the same delivery and body language and come off like the most unlikable guy in the room simply because of the lines given to him.
I didn't even know about or care about the real Mark Zuckerberg before this movie, but I kinda hope for the benefit of my fellow human beings (and for his own welfare) that he really isn't like his portrayal in the movie. MZ isn't a Revenge of the Nerds nerd, he's not a nice nerd (until it was time *not* to be nice, of course), this isn't a guy who tried killing other motherfuckers with kindness after being left out of the cool kids' reindeer games and/or being made fun of in school. This guy, I figure this guy decided somewhere along the way to justify his being ostracized by putting on the Fuck You For Not Being Me cape, as opposed to the far more acceptable Fuck You For Not Getting Me cape.
But you can only put on those I'm Not Impressed airs for so long before someone shows up to rock your world, and next thing you know, you're doing the last thing you'd expect to do, like fawning over a motherfucker. And that's what happens here, when Justin Timberlake shows up to bring sexy back and to play Napster Man, who smooth talks his way into MZ's life and convinces him that Facebook has the potential to make billions. Saverin doesn't care for the dude, sees him as a flashy all-talk paranoid douche who's in love with himself, not to mention kind of a sleaze (drugs and possibly underage trim). But because I guess this guy kinda represents what Zuckerberg wants to be like, MZ is drinking the Kool-Aid and going along with it.
It's interesting, though; with the help of Saverin's deep pockets, Zuckerberg eventually scores the house with the babes and the swimming pool and the music and the big-screen tv and the giant bongs, but he never partakes, choosing instead to spend his time working on his site. MZ appears to be less into scoring with the opposite sex and partying all night and
more into the idea of knowing that he could if he wanted to. I wondered if
this was yet another example of his narcissistic I'm Better Than You
attitude; later on during one of the depositions he casually mentions that he has enough money now to buy the house of the Chads final club and fuck it all up, that is, if he was into doing that sort of thing.
The filmmakers find a pretty cool way to tell the story; somewhere early on you find out that this is all
being told in retrospect during 2 different depositions. Sorkin and Fincher find the perfect balance of this, cutting between the past
events and the depositions, sometimes cutting from one deposition to
the other just to bridge sentences and statements together, or to get
another person's side of the story. The more I think about it, the more I gotta give Fincher and Sorkin major fuckin' props for making some really intriguing shit out of what basically amounts to
a film about people sitting around a table talking and talking and talking. It made me glad that SPOILER AY DIOS MIO
SPOILER they never go to trial because the
real-life motherfuckers saved us from watching yet another courtroom
drama.
The movie has this almost clinically objective point-of-view on the events; Kubrick could've made this movie. There is plenty of emotion in the film but it never leads you down the path as to what to feel, it really comes down to what the audience brings to it, the emotion is there to be found but it depends on what kind of person you are, really. It's almost Rorschach-test-like in the way it presents certain images to you; some of the people in the audience would laugh or applaud at something Zuckerberg would do, while others (like me) wouldn't give the motherfucker the time of day (in an audience reaction kinda way).
Maybe this is why there were just as many haters with Fight Club; Fincher never hit you over the head and said Ok Guys, Hope You Had Your Fun But Ultimately This Is Wrong, he left it up to you to come to that conclusion by yourself and that's why you got guys like Roger Ebert and Lisa Schwarzbaum frothing at the mouth that it condoned and encouraged that kind of behavior and mentality. With the exception of his Benjamin Button movie, all of his other flicks have had that same approach, and you can even argue that Button was his worst movie because Fincher isn't built for that kind of emotional manipulation. Kubrick had that same criticism, and I'm sure Fincher knows this since he seems to be going for that style of filmmaking, from thematic sensibility to shooting an insane number of takes. But both Kubrick and Fincher will never defeat the master of insane take-shooting -- muthafuckin' Jackie Chan, who shot a fuckin' badminton-type scene 2900 times for a movie called Dragon Lord. GodDAMN, Jackie Chan; for a guy who often declares "I don't want any TROU-ble!" you sure go around looking for it. But I digress.
I think some people will be on Zuckerberg's side, and that's OK, that's just how they are. I can certainly admire him from an entrepreneurial perspective; the guy busted his ass since he was a kid working on shit like this and you can't deny he is as brilliant and driven as they come. And there's a twisted kind of logic that I'm afraid to admit I kinda agree with, when he says the only reason the Chads are pissed at him isn't so much because he stole their idea but because for the first time in their privileged upper-class, final club member, row crew team 6'5, 220 lbs, 3.9 GPA lives, for the first time things didn't go their way.
Having said that, I can't totally give it up for him because he's such a disagreeable human being. When it comes down to it, he is no different from the Chads of the world, because while they might act all superior over you with their connections and their high status, Zuckerberg is gonna always look at you like some goddamn insect and your worth depends on what you can bring to the table. Some jock bully might beat you up and stuff you in a locker, but Zuckerberg would post blogs about what a cunt you are for everyone to read, and that my friends, is just as bad if not worse. He's not even an asshole like American Girl With The Dragon Tattoo said, he's a prick, that's even worse because I can still come out admiring a motherfucker simply because he's an asshole (aka the Daniel Plainview clause).
But even Zuckerberg can't maintain prick status, and by the end of the movie, he's managed -- well, the movie managed, not him -- to have you pity the motherfucker, but not the good kind of pity, I'm talking the even worse kind of pity, the Mr. T kind of pity, there is no bright side to this pity. I still wouldn't want to hang with the motherfucker, not unless he had some cash to give me. The final image of him in The Social Network is beautiful in how ultimately pathetic and sad he comes off, and the song that accompanies this is goddamn perfect. It's irony and sarcasm and pity and Fuck You all rolled into one. By the end of the movie, Zuckerberg has gone from being an asshole, to being a prick, and now he's just a fucking douche who needs to wake up and smell the coffee on the wall before it's too late. If I could mix drinks as well as I mix metaphors, I'd be Tom fuckin' Cruise in Cocktail, baby.
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