Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Reel Reviews The Social Network

Reel Reviews 


Title: The Social Network IMDb
DVD Release Date: January 11, 2011
Rated: PG-13 for some language, sexual reference and drug/alcohol use.
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Rooney Mara, Armie Hammer (who I only knew who he was because he was on Chelsea Lately recently), Brenda Song (if you have kids you might recognize her from Suite Life of Zack and Cody, she played the ditzy heiress London Tipton), Justin Timberlake.
Favorite Quote: "I want to hire the Sopranos to kick his ass." "If I wanted to kick his ass I'd do it myself. I'm six-one, two twenty, and there are two of me". "You're going to hand them a business card that says I'm CEO, bitch."

Storyline:
     Ah, the beginnings of Facebook. The movie follows Mark Zuckerberg as he faces two trials, both of which he's the defendant. One lawsuit is former best friend and CFO of Facebook and the second is three students from Harvard in which they are suing him for intellectual property rights. The movie flip flops between the hearings and as Mark is questioned, the movie flashbacks to the answers.
     Mark's first attempt at a social program is of course brought on by a girl. While hate blogging, he comes up with an idea of uploading pictures of Harvard's female students and users being able to choose which of them is hotter, with two girls going head to head. After he's questioned by the school, he annouces he should be recognized for being able to breach their security and bringing it to their attention.
     He's then approached by three students (those that eventually sue) to work with them on a project that would exclusively allow Harvard students to have their own page to interact with each other. He has a better idea and begins implementing it with help from his roomates and a friend.
    Facebook takes off from there, attracting the attention of Sean Parker of Napster fame. The movie obviously ends with the outcome of each of the lawsuits.


    
Billie's Views:
     All in the all the movie was decent. I had little desire to know how Facebook started until I heard about this movie coming out. Years ago my sister kept telling me to make a Facebook page so finally I made one just to shut her up. And now? I'm on Facebook pretty much constantly. I like the games, but it's also an easy way to connect with others and stay in contact with friends and family. From the movie, my take on Mark is that he's obviously extremely smart, but thinks with his head only and was often led astray by people that might have had interests in things other than his well being. I felt bad for Eduardo Savarin, the CFO that sued him for 500 million or some such ghastly amount. He pretty much got screwed over in the whole deal.

Riddle Me This: (could possibly contain spoilers, read at own risk)
     No riddles in this one, the movie was pretty straightforward with no mystery.
    
Score
     I give it a 3 out of 5 stars. The acting was good, Jesse Eisenberg plays a great genius, almost cold though. No reason to watch it again, unless someone I was hanging out with wanted to watch it.

2 comments:

  1. I am looking forward to seeing this. I really like Jesse Eisenberg. I think the whole story behind facebook is interesting, too.

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  2. My sister and I were watching Zombieland yesterday. We were trying to decide if we like Michael Cera or Jesse Eisenberg better, still a tie on that.

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