First Review - The Social Network

I'd like to welcome you all to my new form of reviews, a blog of them. I realize some of my die-hard fans(ha) probably have a problem with this, and I can understand that. I used to do video reviews, and while they weren't great, I enjoyed doing them, and my fans, all 4 of them, enjoyed watching them.

I have switched to a blog for two reasons. One, I have been meaning to start writing my reviews, and publishing them for quite a while now. Two, the true catalyst for this: the audio function on my main computer is broken, making it impossible for me to edit my videos at all. It costs too much for a 17 year old to fix. My only solutions were buy a new computer, or switch to writing. Yes, I could just edit on my other computer, for those of you who know me, but my camera has problems with this computer, making writing easier.

With that out of the way, let's get started with the first review: The Social Network.

The Social Network was released on October 1, 2010. It is directed by David Fincher, screenplay by Aaron Sorkin, and starring Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, and Armie Hammer.

The plot of the movie is a dramatized account of the creation and early years of facebook, the popular social networking site created by Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes. It was initially created for Harvard students, but soon expanded worldwide. Today, it is the most popular social networking site of all time, and Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire in the world. He is currently 26, and owns 24% of the company, with a net worth of roughly $6.9 billion.

Let me start off by saying this: in terms of cinema, 2010 is an interesting year for my generation. We have had 3 films released this year, just for our generation. Those films are Kick-Ass, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, and The Social Network. Kick-Ass was a tribute to comic books and the kids who read them, wanting to be superheroes. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World was a tribute to video games, particularily the early Nintendo consoles. And finally, The Social Network is a film about facebook, the website that we all use to get in touch with people. I think that was quite interesting, and I thank Matthew Vaughn, Edgar Wright, and David Fincher for making these movies. They might not have been thinking about us, but in the end, these films were for us.

Bold statement time. Jesse Eisenberg will win Best Actor at the Oscars this year. He was simply amazing in this role. Just think of it: a year ago, Zombieland was released, and Jesse Eisenberg's status as a comedic actor was solidfied. A year later, The Social Network is released, and his status as a dramatic actor is solidfied. He was simply brilliant as Zuckerberg, he added such dimension to the character. Despite being the protagonist of the story, he is often portrayed as a jerk, a bad guy, and possibly, a touch of Asperger's syndrome. He was amazing in the role, and so far, is my lead choice for Best Actor this year. I haven't been a big fan of him before this, but now, he's in the top of my list.

And now for the other actors. I have never seen Andrew Garfield act before, but have always heard great things about him. They were all true, he is also a terrific actor, on par with Eisenberg. He is a possibility for Best Supporting Actor this year, but I am not 100% sure of that, due to Joseph Gordon-Levitt's role in Inception. One of the reasons I went to see this was to see if Andrew Garfield could play Spiderman successfully, which was very hard for me to accept, because I love Tobey Maguire as Spiderman. However, I think Garfield could possibly be a replacement for him. Armie Hammer, who plays Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, the twins who sue Zuckerberg, was very good in his role, with some amazing special effects being applied to make it appear there were two of him in the room. There is one particular line which is just terrific delivered by Cameron Winklevoss, "I'm 6"5, 220, and there's two of me." I love that line so much. Justin Timberlake was also really impressive. I was actually surprised at him, cause I thought he was just some pop star. But no, he is a terrific actor, playing the playboy founder of Napster perfectly. I would also like to touch on Rooney Mara, an actress who I treated very similarily to Andrew Garfield, because I had never seen her act in anything. Despite having a small role in the film, appearing in only 3 scenes, if I remember correctly, she was quite impressive, to me at least. Also, like Andrew Garfield, in the future, she is playing a role that I wasn't sure if she could do: Lisbeth Salander, from the Millenium trilogy. I'm still not sure if she can pull it off, compared to Noomi Rapace, but she seems like she could at the very least, do a decent performance.

The direction by David Fincher was brilliant, as always is. I particularily like how he chose to have the film constantly switching between the lawsuits, and the early years of facebook, while not establishing which was the true timeline. The writing by Aaron Sorkin is brilliant, as always is. He is a terrific writer, expecially with dialogue. He wrote the film very satirical, and quite humorous. He truly is a skilled writer. One thing I would also like to mention is the score, composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. I am a big NIN fan, so I was extremely excited hearing that he was doing the score. The way that these two did the score was quite interesting, as if they played classical electronically. Quite brilliant. I especially loved the song during the rowing scene, "In the Hall of the Mountain King." It was done very similar to NIN, quite enjoyable.

Overall, I give this film a perfect score of 10/10. (This is my new scoring system, rather simple and self-explanatory.) The brilliant acting, writing, and directing all worked perfectly together, and I recommend this film as a definite a-must for anyone in my generation, born in the mid 80s-mid 90s. Go see it.

That's it for this review, leave comments letting me know which movie you would like me to review next. Until then, I'll see you in the next review. (Yes, I am keeping my catchphrase.)