The Social Network

[Rye]

I was fairly surprised by how decent this was. I was expecting it to be Harvard nerd triumphs allllll, but it was more of a commentary on society. It turned out to be fairly scathing of everyone involved, which I liked, because I'm a totally downer and I love depressing movies.

I'd say it's a good movie if you like movies that consist almost entirely of dialogue.

[Clo]

I absolutely loved this movie. I thought the writing was great, and I was so into it the entire time. I was also really into the characters. When my friends and I got hope we were searching around Facebook - we found Eduardo's profile. :)

[charliepanayi]

I really enjoyed it - Jesse Eisenberg is great as Mark Zuckerberg (and such a git it's hilarious) and Garfield/Timberlake are very good too. Best of all is the script, which flows brilliantly right from the off, it's very funny at times with Zuckerberg's sneering putdowns. The only flaw I would say is the film just seems to come to an abrupt halt and perhaps the second half isn't as good as the first, but it's definitely worth seeing. Fincher/Sorkin deliver!

[DMKA]

Something about the fact that a big budget production about Facebook has come into existence bugs the crap out of me. I mean it really shouldn't, but it just does. I'm sure I'll get over my irrational dislike of Facebook in time though and end up seeing this film.

[charliepanayi]

If it's any consolation, the film is less than flattering about the co-creator of Facebook =P - and your misgivings are daft anyway, the film isn't so much about Facebook as it is about ideas and how the world we live in can be changed, as well as how lonely it is at the top etc. Facebook and its creation is just a convenient backdrop to these things.

[Shlup]

It was a lame movie. I didn't even want to see it, but BJ did. I only agreed to go because we hotboxed the car before we went in, which made the movie watchable.

[Rye]

It was a lame movie. I didn't even want to see it, but BJ did. I only agreed to go because we hotboxed the car before we went in, which made the movie watchable.

XD

[Seraphic]

I thought it was an interesting depiction of how society connects and communicates in the digital age and the dialogue was pretty great.
Although I probably won't see it again, I feel like it's true that it kind of defines this generation.

[Breine]

I dig David Fincher. He's immensely talented, and ever since I heard he was making this movie I've been intrigued. Can't wait to see it.

[Miriel]

I thought it was good. But definitely not the best film of the year as some people are suggesting. I'm even surprised by how much Oscar buzz it has going for it. A really well made film but I just can't get into something that has SO many unlikable characters. And also the whole time I was watching the movie there was this nagging thought in the back of my head about how close or how far this film was from reality. I mean, I *knew* aspects of real life were changed for the film such as the fact that Zuckerburg had a long time girlfriend prior to creating facebook, who encouraged him throughout the development of facebook and who he is still with today. I know real life facts are fumbled around with for movies, but typically this happens looong after the actual events of real life.

It was a little weird watching a movie completely distort certain elements of a persons life when that person is quite capable of walking into a theater and seeing the distortion for themselves. Weird.

It's just something I couldn't really get out of my head when watching the movie.

[Shlup]

I agree, it is quite weird that this movie is about events within the last decade. The guy is our age for Christ's sake. Imagine there was a movie about stuff in your life in 2003. Such an odd thing to do.

[Hollycat]

I really want to see this movie alot!

[Del Murder]

It was ok. I was interested and entertained through it, but I don't see how it's generating Oscar buzz or getting a wide following.

[Peegee]

Announcer: Blood on the Blackboard! The Bart Simpson story!
Starring Richard Chamberlain as Principal Skinner, Joe Montegna
as Fat Tony, Jane Seymour as the woman he loved, and TV's Doogie
Howser, Neil Patrick Harris, as Bart Simpson!
`Tony': Bart, I'm scared. Let's get out of here.
`Bart': Shut up! Where do you want it, Skinner?
`Skinner': [spits on him]
`Bart': Not smart. [pumps him full of lead]
Bart: Cool!
Homer: Hey, when do we get the check for this?
Marge: Well, they said they changed it just enough so they don't have to
pay us.
Homer: Oh, you know who the <real> crooks are? Those sleazy Hollywood
producers!

[Del Murder]

The more I hear about how inaccurate this movie is, the less I like it. It really paints Zuckerberg in a much worse light than what actually went down. How is it legal to do this without his permission? I guess he doesn't gain much by bringing a lawsuit but it's kind of messed up that the movie people embellished this much on a story that happened 5 years ago.

[Miriel]

Ok, so I've been reading up on the actual events of what happened with Facebook and it just seems more and more wrong to me that they messed with so many of the facts.

~ In the summer that Zuckerberg moved out to CA, he repeatedly asked Eduardo to come out because he needed Eduardo to sign off on new investors. Facebook was in desperate need of cash investors and Eduardo was holding things up. At one point he emailed Eduardo offering him frequent flyer miles if that would get him out to CA, but Eduardo refused.

~ Eduardo put up unauthorized ads onto facebook, advertising a new startup jobs board that he was working on on his own. In an email from Zuckerberg to Eduardo:


You developed Joboozle knowing that at some point Facebook would probably want to do something with jobs. This was pretty surprising to us, because you basically made something on the side that will end up competing with Facebook and that's pretty bad by itself. But putting ads up on Facebook to advertise it, especially for free, is just mean.


~ Eduardo's shares were diluted down not from 30% to .003 or whatever it said in the movie, but from 24% to less than 10%. It was diluted sure, but not the crazy ass point zero zero something the movie dreamed up.

~ During the time when Eduardo was supposed to be getting investors, setting up the company, and making a business model, he did none of those things.

In an email, Zuckerberg wrote:


"Eduardo is refusing to co-operate at all…We basically now need to sign over our intellectual property to a new company and just take the lawsuit…I'm just going to cut him out and then settle with him. And he'll get something I'm sure, but he deserves something…He has to sign stuff for investments and he's lagging and I can't take the lag."

It basically looks like Eduardo deserved to get cut out of the company since he was legitimately putting the company in financial danger. The movie played it completely the other way.

I think it's totally wrong to mess with someone's reputation like that. Zuckerberg might actually be a dick in real life, who knows, but I think it's wrong for Hollywood to make fiction out of this life and play it off as fact.

[Clo]

But... but... the movie was so entertaining. :onoes:

[charliepanayi]

It's a film, not a documentary. It says it's adapted from a book (for which only Saverin was consulted), it doesn't say 'based on stuff that all actually really happened'. I enjoyed the film because I thought it was good and I liked the themes it explores, not because I thought it was the gospel truth of how Facebook was created.

[Madame Adequate]

It's a film, not a documentary. It says it's adapted from a book (for which only Saverin was consulted), it doesn't say 'based on stuff that all actually really happened'. I enjoyed the film because I thought it was good and I liked the themes it explores, not because I thought it was the gospel truth of how Facebook was created.

That's a hell of a copout. You can't make a movie about something that happened less than a decade ago, seriously distort the facts, and then say "Oh it's creative license :shobon:" This sort of thing could be seriously, seriously harmful to people's reputations.

[Miriel]

It's a film, not a documentary. It says it's adapted from a book (for which only Saverin was consulted), it doesn't say 'based on stuff that all actually really happened'. I enjoyed the film because I thought it was good and I liked the themes it explores, not because I thought it was the gospel truth of how Facebook was created.

I'm not saying that the film was a bad film. The performances, the editing, pacing, storytelling, it was all good. But there was a significant level of discomfort for me, WHILE watching the film, knowing that this film was completely distorting and potentially ruining the reputation of a guy who is only 26 years old. I mean, my god. Can you imagine? I'm only 2 years younger than him and I don't know how anyone would cope with something like this.

[Alive-Cat]

I don't wanna watch a movie that's not really that dramatic, the antagonist isn't actually that bad, the main character's shares don't actually decrease an insane amount, etc. :p To make a successful movie I guess they had to make it a bit more entertaining. It is a bit harsh portraying real people a certain way though, especially without their permission.
I haven't even seen it, but it sounds good, so I'll watch it at the nearest possible time.

[charliepanayi]

It's a film, not a documentary. It says it's adapted from a book (for which only Saverin was consulted), it doesn't say 'based on stuff that all actually really happened'. I enjoyed the film because I thought it was good and I liked the themes it explores, not because I thought it was the gospel truth of how Facebook was created.

That's a hell of a copout. You can't make a movie about something that happened less than a decade ago, seriously distort the facts, and then say "Oh it's creative license :shobon:" This sort of thing could be seriously, seriously harmful to people's reputations.

Come off it, 'seriously harmful to people's reputations'? The film makes out Zuckerberg to be an arrogant git at times but it doesn't demonise him (it certainly leaves the question of whether he stole the idea for Facebook open). All biopics or films based on real events are by nature biased in some direction.

[Shlup]

Sounds like the facts are pretty far off to me. I thought Eduardo already deserved to be fired just based off the movie, but the facts Miriel presented make Zuckerberg seem far more of a reasonable person.

If I had done the right thing for my company, and then my ex-friend went and had a book written about his perspective, and then they made a movie based on that book, making me look like a backstabbing asshole to millions of people... I would be pretty fucking unhappy about it.

A lot of people will think this way about this guy now, and that's totally unfair to him. All that millions of people know about Mark Zuckerberg, they learned from that movie. He's only 26, and this movie is going to follow him around forever. Put yourself in his shoes for a minute before you start telling people to "come off it." Don't even try to tell me you wouldn't be bothered if you were him.

[Rye]

Yeah, thinking about this has put a sour taste in my mouth over the movie.

[Pheesh]

It's a film, not a documentary. It says it's adapted from a book (for which only Saverin was consulted), it doesn't say 'based on stuff that all actually really happened'. I enjoyed the film because I thought it was good and I liked the themes it explores, not because I thought it was the gospel truth of how Facebook was created.

I'm not saying that the film was a bad film. The performances, the editing, pacing, storytelling, it was all good. But there was a significant level of discomfort for me, WHILE watching the film, knowing that this film was completely distorting and potentially ruining the reputation of a guy who is only 26 years old. I mean, my god. Can you imagine? I'm only 2 years younger than him and I don't know how anyone would cope with something like this.

I assume 1 billion dollars helps lots of people cope with a lot of things.

Seriously though people, I understand that some of you may have wanted to see a movie that was more factual or something, but the majority of movie goers want to be entertained; and that's what this movie accomplished. It was amazingly written, the acting was good and I agree with charlie in that the movie didn't really demonize Zuckerburg that much, and even if it did I doubt he's going to lose much sleep over it.

[charliepanayi]

Sounds like the facts are pretty far off to me. I thought Eduardo already deserved to be fired just based off the movie, but the facts Miriel presented make Zuckerberg seem far more of a reasonable person.

If I had done the right thing for my company, and then my ex-friend went and had a book written about his perspective, and then they made a movie based on that book, making me look like a backstabbing asshole to millions of people... I would be pretty smurfing unhappy about it.

A lot of people will think this way about this guy now, and that's totally unfair to him. All that millions of people know about Mark Zuckerberg, they learned from that movie. He's only 26, and this movie is going to follow him around forever. Put yourself in his shoes for a minute before you start telling people to "come off it." Don't even try to tell me you wouldn't be bothered if you were him.

If I were in Mark Zuckerberg's shoes I'd be a billionaire in my 20s and frankly the opinion of a few idiot filmgoers who accept everything they're told on a cinema screen would matter little to me in the long run. He's hardly going to become a pariah over this - and the film does have him stabbing his friend in the back but it still retains some sympathy for him, casting Sean Parker as a Svengali-like figure seducing Mark for instance. And as Rashida Jones' character says at the end, 'you're not an ***hole Mark, you're just trying so hard to be one'.

[Del Murder]

I'd be mad even if I was a billionare. Sure the billions would help but there are some things money can't buy. It's really silly to assume how much or how little this affects the real Mark. All we can do is think about how it would affect us. And I'd be smurfing pissed.

[Pheesh]

*shrug* Yeah, maybe. I don't know him, but if the movie was remotely accurate about his character it would seem like notoriety isn't exactly something that phases him, even when he isn't insanely rich.

[Del Murder]

That's true, but the whole point is that this may not be an accurate representation of his character (and it most certainly can't be in a lot of respects since he had nothing to do with the movie). But if it was in that regard, then yeah he probably doesn't give a smurf.

[Madame Adequate]

I wish I was rich. Not so that I had money, but because wealth magically means that I'm immune to personal attacks.

[Miriel]

If this kind of thing had happened on the front of tabloid papers or on random blogs or even if he were mocked on South Park or something, it would be something to shrug off. But this film is on its way to the Oscars and more than that it's the front runner for winning Best Picture (which is just bizarre to me. Inception and Toy Story 3 were both vastly superior imho). So here you have a film about your life that portrays you as a major asshole, backed by Hollywood heavyweights, watched by millions and millions of people around the globe, and has a good chance of becoming the Best Picture of the year and being cemented in cinematic history. That is not something even someone richer and more famous than Zuckerberg would be able to shrug off.

My cousin works at Facebook, I'm gonna ask her if anyone at work is talking about the movie or if it's totally not something they're discussing over there.

[Pheesh]

No matter how many people watch this movie, I guarentee there'd be more who use facebook.

Maybe it comes down to personal preference or something, but if someone gave me a choice of switching roles with Zuckerburg right now, meaning I got all the money in his account and all his shares and stocks and whatever else, but had to deal with all the 'personal attacks' this movie's made, there are not enough words to adequately describe how quickly I would say yes. I don't care if people thought I was ten times worse than how Zuckerberg appears in this film, that much money means that certain attacks just don't phase you, and if there's any that do then you can simply sue someone's ass...and win.

I doubt Bill Gates cares what the millions of Mac users think of him, I doubt every president ever cares how much hate and slander the opposing party and people who didn't get his vote direct at him, and I seriously doubt Zuckerberg cares that you guys think he was wronged. If the site starts to have the a decent chunk of the hundreds of millions of users stop logging on because of this film then maybe he'd start to care. But I doubt that's going to happen.

[charliepanayi]

Amusingly, one thing in the film which is (largely) accurate is the Facesmash which is how the whole thing got started. And that's probably the meanest thing Zuckerberg does in the whole film (along with his excruciating break up scene at the start). The film though does show his fierce intelligence and how driven he is, it's not a complete character assassination. Either way, I don't think he's going to lose too much sleep over this, Facebook hasn't collapsed since the film's release last I checked. If the film did pick up Best Picture (and I won't complain if it does, good scripts in cinema are like hen's teeth these days), it's probably just more evidence for how far Facebook has reached since it began.

And as for saying it 'leaves a sour taste in the mouth', please get off your high horse.

[Pheesh]

The film really doesn't deserve best picture in my opinion. Scott Pilgrim, Inception, Toy Story 3 and The Town were all better movies than this. Aaron Sorkin deserves some kind of a award though, in a movie that relied on dialogue he obviously delivered.

[Miriel]

Amusingly, one thing in the film which is (largely) accurate is the Facesmash which is how the whole thing got started. And that's probably the meanest thing Zuckerberg does in the whole film (along with his excruciating break up scene at the start). The film though does show his fierce intelligence and how driven he is, it's not a complete character assassination. Either way, I don't think he's going to lose too much sleep over this, Facebook hasn't collapsed since the film's release last I checked. If the film did pick up Best Picture (and I won't complain if it does, good scripts in cinema are like hen's teeth these days), it's probably just more evidence for how far Facebook has reached since it began.

And as for saying it 'leaves a sour taste in the mouth', please get off your high horse.

lmao at your "get off your high horse". I think you're totally missing the point. As if anyone said that this film is going to have any impact on Facebook's financial status? That has nothing to do with anything. The point is that watching a movie about events that took place only a few years ago and the facts of those events are completely and utterly misrepresented is bizarre, kinda creepy and totally took away from the enjoyment of the film. Your argument is basically:

It's ok to ruin a person's reputation and make an unauthorized pseudo biographical film about a person as long as they are A) Rich, B) Their richness isn't threatened by the film.

Zuckerberg cares enough about his reputation to make a 100 million dollar donation to the Newark School district just days before the release of the film. Just sayin'. :greenie:

I don't know if you're desensitized to assholes or something, but Zuckerberg in the film was an asshole of epic proportions in my opinion. Seriously just wanted to beat the crap out of him the whole time.

It wasn't even the big stuff like lying to his best friend, luring him into a trap, and stripping him of his shares despite the fact that his best friend had quit his internship and was pounding the streets everyday for the benefit of Facebook. But even the little stuff like:

"It probably was a diversity thing". Omg. What a smurfing asshole.

His smug bitchy little speech he made during one of the depositions was gag worthy too.

And I kept wondering if they were going to bring up in the film some sort of condition that Zuckerberg has to make him that way. Autistic? Aspergers? I just couldn't swallow this idea that the film presented (completely separate from anything to do with the real Zuckerberg) that this kind of guy exists and has friends and even landed a girlfriend despite the fact that he obviously has some sort of defect that makes him act without any decency toward anyone else in the room with him. The guy portrayed wasn't someone who was vaguely unlikeable or susceptible to instances of meanness. He was just a complete grade A douchebag.

[Del Murder]

Well, if there was anywhere someone would become desensitized to assholes, it would probably be on the internet.

[charliepanayi]

I don't see how his reputation is ruined in any way, Facebook continues to run, I don't see hate mobs forming against Mark Zuckerberg, and I am baffled how you find his portrayal in the film so completely negative - his sarcastic dialogue in the depositions is hilarious, it made me warm to his character a little actually. If anyone gets truly bashed in the film, it's Sean Parker.

Film about real events presents a biased slant on what happened? Stop the presses! The idea presented here that Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher have done a full-scale character assassination is as absurd as believing everything that a film tells you, which some people here think will happen to anyone who goes to see The Social Network.

[Shlup]

The actor who played him said he studied Aspergers to figure out how to play Zuck, even though Zuck is not a diagnosed aspie. I think that's pretty mean. In interviews, he does seem socially awkward, but not nearly as bad as in the film.

It's not a matter of Facebook continuing to run. It's a matter of Mark Zuckerberg, a human being, being portrayed in a movie without his consent or any particular interest in portraying his personality or the events surrounding him accurately. If people made a movie about your personal life, you would just shrug it off? Seriously?

Even if the movie made me out to be a saint, I would be quite bothered, let alone an autistic asshole.

[Rye]

Amusingly, one thing in the film which is (largely) accurate is the Facesmash which is how the whole thing got started. And that's probably the meanest thing Zuckerberg does in the whole film (along with his excruciating break up scene at the start). The film though does show his fierce intelligence and how driven he is, it's not a complete character assassination. Either way, I don't think he's going to lose too much sleep over this, Facebook hasn't collapsed since the film's release last I checked. If the film did pick up Best Picture (and I won't complain if it does, good scripts in cinema are like hen's teeth these days), it's probably just more evidence for how far Facebook has reached since it began.

And as for saying it 'leaves a sour taste in the mouth', please get off your high horse.

What?

[NorthernChaosGod]

This thread has gotten smurfing ridiculous. Everyone shut up. :colbert:

<b>EDIT: Uncalled for. Take your pearls of wisdom someplace else. Also I notice your avatar was over 80x80 so I went ahead and removed it. Happy Halloween! -Murder</b>

[Pheesh]

@Miriel; I want to point out that I originally said that I can understand viewing a movie that is based on real peoples lives but isn't completely factual could be uncomfortable. If you're the kind of person who has that in the back of your mind then that's fine, it's just the way you personally view those kind of movies and everyone has their own gripes like that (I still get annoyed at the end of 500 Days of Summer because I think she deserves to be miserable). But I think you're kidding yourself if you think this is going to affect Zuckerberg in any real way, the people who he actually cares about, who's opinion really matter to him, are going to know the real story because he trusts them (or maybe he flat out lied about it, I don't really know and I think it's beside the point) and that is what really matters. Also, he's really, REALLY rich; and no matter how many times you guys say no, I really can't get over the fact that being that rich really does make you impervious to a lot of stuff, and as I said in my last post, these kind of attacks are something celebrities and large financial figures have to deal with.

@Shlup; I don't know if Zuckerberg suffers from Aspergers, Eisenberg was trying to be a dick, or if he was simply answering a question about how he prepared for the movie truthfully; but the acting performance was better off for having done that research in my opinion. Not only does it seem believable but it makes the character very entertaining and suited that fast paced dialogue perfectly. I'm not saying it was necessarily right to say that in an interview, but I think he was probably just proud that his extra research made for a good character and wanted to tell people.

I think the major disconnect in this thread seems to be people who are focusing more on the entertainment aspect of the film and the people who are more concerned with the background behind it. I understand both, and it really does just come down to how you watch these kind of movies, but I'll remind you that there's no "true story" label at any point in this film.

[~*~Celes~*~]

I cound the movie to be pretty good, myself.

Then again, I watched it from a "I know this isn't accurate" point of view.

And I saw it for free :D

[Shiny]

I had no interest in seeing this film as I don't care about learning about the foundations of a website which will have little importance in approximately five years. I saw it because for some reason people think it has significance. It, like Myspace will eventually be just another website no one gives a :bou::bou::bou::bou: about, so why they felt a need to make a movie about it's founders is beyond me. I guess this time, is better since many people are using Facebook now and will be interested in seeing this movie than they would have been a few years ago when the site was just gaining notoriety among youth.

I don't really have anything particularly good to say about the film. The lead actor played the go-getting asshole genius very well, but it's not anything I haven't seen him do before. He will be forever typecast. If anything, it gave a good insight in to the minds of young entrepreneurs similarly to the film about a young Steve Jobs and Bill Gates vying to create the number one computer corporation in the world. All in all, I questioned where all the information for this film was coming from as it seemed very bias.

Also, it won't get Best Picture. It may get the nomination, but it won't win. There are still various other movies coming out i.e. Black Swan and that one by Sophia Coppola called Somewhere that may be heavy contenders. Well, yeah Black Swan will definitely be. In fact Natalie Portman will probably be getting an Oscar this year, but yeah. Side note...

[charliepanayi]

I think The Social Network has a better chance of winning Best Picture than Somewhere (which I really want to see but which has had a mixed response so far) and Black Swan (which I also want to see and will probably get Portman some awards attention but is far too bat***t insane to be winning Best Picture itself). The King's Speech is a more likely option to steal its thunder at the Oscars.

[Shiny]

I can see The Social Network winning Best Screenplay if anything. I don't get why people think Justin Timberlake's performed was the best in the movie. Granted, he did well, but the guy who played Eduardo was far more convincing.

[charliepanayi]

I think people were just more surprised to see Timberlake put in a good performance, but Andrew Garfield is great and is an actor on the rise certainly. And yeah Aaron Sorkin probably has Best Adapted Screenplay all sewn up.