Wednesday, February 16, 2011

My review of The Social Network

Finally saw this. I'm sorry that this is the 500 millionth review of this you have been sent (see what I did with the tagline there? 500 million friends 500 million reviews huh? good one right? Okay moving on)

Acting/Characters: I too am utterly surprised that Andrew Garfield did not get a nomination for this one. He totally deserved one and (thought I have not seen the fighter) He might deserve the win. as for Eisenberg, He did an excellent job and he deserves his best Actor nomination. He just wont win. More than likely. I expected this to be a movie where you rooted for Zuckerberg but that was not the case. Eisenberg played the role perfectly as a guy who wants to be powerful and I feel kinda unintentionally steps on everyone (mainly his best friend) to get there. great performances all around. This film should have had more acting nominations. 10/10

Plot: This part was interesting. I knew nothing of the story going into it but I assumed you would be rooting for Zuckerburg. The structure of the film was really well done. It was really interesting to too how it all got started. Or at least, how the movie said it got started. I know that a lot of the real life people said that what was portrayed in the film wasn't very accurate. However the writer says it was very accurate so I don't know. It was interesting all the same. 9/10

Screenplay: This was my favorite part. Eisenberg's lines came out like a machine gun and he delivered them very well. It was really brilliant. I think that it will more than likely win the screenplay award. I don't see what else could win (although it would be interesting if TS3 won...well, that isn't going to happen) It was incredibly well done and it easily deserves the win. 10/10

Likableness: I really enjoyed this movie. But I can't help but wonder how popular this movie would be if it wasn't about Facebook. If it does win Best Picture, I'm not sure how well it will age. It will be a popular movie as long as Facebook remains the most popular Social Networking site in existence. Who knows how long that will be? But for now, I liked this film a lot. 9/10

Final score: 38/40 95% (N)


TRIVIA TIME: 1. The ad executive that Mark Zuckerburg and Eduardo Saverin meet in New York is played (in a credited appearance) by Sorkin, the screenwriter for this film.

2. Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield became good friends during filming. According to Eisenberg, the dramatic rivalry between their characters was hard for the two because it affected them emotionally.

3. Justin Timberlake was the only actor who met his real-life character (Sean Parker) before the founding of Facebook and this film. Armie Hammer and Josh Pence met their real-life characters, the Winklevoss twins after filming. The twins enjoyed Hammer and Pence's performance so much they attended a couple screenings of the film.

4. Jesse Eisenberg's cousin works for Facebook, apparently near the real Mark Zuckerberg.

5. The Winklevoss twins were both played by actor Armie Hammer. However, Ralph Lauren model Josh Pence played one of them strictly from the neck down. His face was digitally replaced with Hammer's to make them appear identical, as the two men are unrelated and look nothing alike. The two spent 10 months in twin boot camp to match one another's subtle movements and rapport.

6. Mark Zuckerberg originally planned never to see the movie. He ended up taking several of his employees to see it. He later remarked that, despite some of the film's inaccuracies, they got his clothing right.

7. The notepad that Mark carries in the deposition scenes was Jesse Eisenberg's own idea, as part of his way of assessing his own performances after each take.

8. During one of the depositions, it is mentioned that the invention of Facebook made Mark Zuckerburg "the biggest thing on a campus that included nineteen Nobel Laureates, fifteen Pulitzer Prize winners, two future Olympians, and a movie star." One of the lawyers then asks, "Who was the movie star?" and the response is, "Does it matter?" This movie star was, in fact, Natalie Portman, who was enrolled at Harvard from 1999 to 2003 and helped screenwriter Aaron Sorkin by providing him insider information about goings-on at Harvard at the time Facebook first appeared there.

3 comments:

  1. You've got some interesting trivia right there. Most of them I know but totally had no idea about the twin boot camp!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks! yeah, I add trivia to all of my reviews.

    ReplyDelete