Tuesday, February 22, 2011

The Social Network

The last Academy Award nominated film that I watched was True Grit and I wrote a review so I felt compelled to write one for The Social Network.

It seems like every review of TSN is very complimentary and many people are considering it the best film of year.  To be honest, I didn't really want to watch it but the wife rented it so I partook.

I am definitely in a minority here but I was not that impressed.  The movie was well made and the acting was good but nothing about it really stood out to me.  I never at any point while watching had a 'this is a great movie' moment.  I don't get the hype.  The story was obviously way over sensationalized, which the creators of the film have admitted, but some parts were down right ludacris.  In one night, they push out their CFO, get a million users, and Justin Timberlake gets busted for cocaine?  I understand that the story needed to move along but that was just dumb.  To make scenes more intense it was like the director told everyone to just try and talk as quickly as possible.  It was almost hard to understand what some of the characters were saying at times.  Thats just nitpicking but it got annoying.  Maybe I just don't speak nerd.

Jesse Eisenberg did put out a good performance but Oscar worthy? I think not.  I actually thought he reminded me quite a bit of Abed from the show Community.





Ok I will confess that I couldn't find a good example of Abed but if you watch the show at all then you should understand what I'm talking about.

I was surprised with the acting job of Justin Timberlake.  He did a pretty good job of playing a quick talking entrepreneur.  All of the acting was well done, even if reminiscent of a certain Community character.  I was also surprised with Andrew Garfield's performance.  He could turn out to be a good Spider- Man.

This last paragraph is kind of a spoiler so if you care to see the film don't watch it or whatever...

One major thing about the film that bothered me was the cliche line of having money and fame but if you don't have any love then it is all for nothing.  Throughout the movie he is motivated by his feeling of guilt towards his ex-girlfriend and his inability to get over her.  At the end of the film when he sends her a friend invite and is sitting there refreshing the page over and over again waiting for her to respond it was ridiculous.  That sort of thing has been done so many times and it immediately made me think of this as an example.  Maybe I have just proved myself wrong in stating that TSN is not a great movie yet at the same using an example from one of the highest critically acclaimed films of all time.  Oh well, it's just like, my opinion maaaaan.  I think it would have been cooler if it ended something like this...



To summarize, it is a decent movie that I do not need to see again but it definitely should not be nominated for any Academy Awards.  I know that I am in the minority on this.

Thank you Tanner, I forgot to mention this...The Winklevoss Twins.


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