Nightmare Alley (3/5 Stars)

“Nightmare Alley” was directed by Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, The Shape of Water) and adapted from a novel that had earlier been made into a movie in the 1940s (I haven’t seen it). Ostensibly it is a horror film, but it felt more like the devolving efforts of Tim Burton, that is, much competent and loving attention is paid to the macabre look of the film, the creepiness of carnivals, the moodiness of 1930s-1940s noir style and fashion, but not so much to the underlying emotional landscape. In other words, Nightmare Alley looks like it might be scary, but it isn’t.

The movie looks very good on paper. It has a large talented cast including Bradley Cooper and Rooney Mara in romantic leads, Cate Blanchett as a psychiatrist/femme fatale, Willem Dafoe as an unscrupulous carnival operator. In supporting roles are Toni Collette, Richard Jenkins, Ron Perlman, and David Strathairn. It has great production design and costumes and in general, looks really good. The writing is at its most interesting when carnival techniques are explored. In particular, the David Strathairn character is a mentalist, that is a person who can read other people’s minds (and perhaps communicate with ghosts). Mentalists cannot actually read minds, but like magic in general, sometimes the technique and artistry of how they appear to do so is just as interesting or even more so than the act demanded to be believed. Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) shows up to the carnival as a no-name drifter. He does odd jobs until he becomes involved with Pete (David Strathairn) and his wife Zeena the Seer (Toni Collette). Soon they begin to teach him the art of mentalism. These details, and later scenes in which Stanton Carlisle performs a mentalist show in front of a well-heeled audience in Chicago, are the best in the movie.

What seems to be the problem is that the movie has no hook. As such, the plot progresses without anticipation and/or suspense. We are presented with Stanton Carlisle, a man with no background, and must take him as he is. As he is a poor drifter, my first inclination is to want him to gain a living. Stanton Carlisle starts learning and performing mentalism, first in an emergency situation and then as real bona fide act. The movie appears to frown upon this, with a character or two making vague suggestions that he don’t get into the ghost part of the business. My first inclination is that I support him in his new venture. Stanton woos a fellow circus performer Molly Cahill (Rooney Mara) and proposes that they ditch the carnival and move their mentalism show to Chicago where they will make lots more money and live in a nice hotel. The movie appears to frown upon this. Bruno, the strongman in the carnival, (Ron Perlman), tells Stanton to stop being so friendly with the girl and that he is watching him. My first inclination is that Molly works for a carnival. She should take this opportunity to make more money with Bradley Cooper, who is nice enough, good-looking and ambitious.

It is hard to say, but I’m not sure the movie was aiming at my first inclinations. I think Guillermo del Toro wanted instead some sense of growing dread that the whole thing wouldn’t turn out so good. If this is the case, I think he miscast Bradley Cooper, who wasn’t giving off “bad guy” vibes at all. Moreover, when things do go wrong, they don’t quite seem to have the proper motivation. Like, I don’t understand what Dr. Lillith Rader’s (Cate Blanchett) motivations are, or why Stanton, if he is assuming she is untrustworthy, would trust her so blindly. I also didn’t get why Stanton starts drinking whiskey after swearing that he never touches the stuff, or after all the inevitable bad things happen, why Stanton doesn’t just start over. I mean, isn’t he at the end of the movie exactly where he was at the beginning. Why are there no options? Why doesn’t he just move his mentalist act to Canada? Perhaps there are explanations but I did not pick up on them.

The movie seems to want to say something about a certain set piece of a carnival show: the geek. This is a guy that goes in front of everyone and bites the heads off of chickens. The geek we see is unkempt, dirty, and wild. I thought for certain he may have a mental disability. Instead, it is explained that he is an alcoholic that Clem Hoatley (Willem Dafoe) surreptiously got hooked on heroine. (If this is the case though, why can’t the geek speak a language. Here his ability to communicate is limited to grunts and screams.) In this way, the movie appears to be saying that even Stanton Carlisle. who once successfully swore off drink, worked hard, wooed a beautiful girl, and performed as a perfectly fine mentalist, could subsequently become so degraded by life as to become a carnival geek. I’m sorry, I don’t buy that, which ultimately means, that I didn’t get the whole point of this movie. Oh well, they can’t all be winners.

Carol (4/5 Stars)

I suddenly have this strong urge to smoke cigarettes and drink martinis with my girlfriend in some fancy Manhattan restaurant.  

“Carol,” directed by Todd Haynes is based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel, “The Price of Salt.” It stars Cate Blanchett as the titular character and Rooney Mara as her significant other Terese Belivet.

They meet in a Manhattan department store. Terese works at the doll store counter. Carol, Christmas shopping for her daughter, asks Terese about what dolls young girls like. Terese says she doesn’t know. As a child she liked trains. Carol orders a train instead. She leaves, “forgetting” her gloves on the counter.

If that sounds like nothing on paper, it is because it is nothing on paper. “Carol” is a movie that lies between the lines. It is a study of glances and body language, costumes, set design, and score. I can only guess that the screenplay by Phyllis Nagy either makes no sense at all or has an absurd amount of writing in parantheticals. And it works the main reason being that the actors are so wonderful to stare at.

First is Cate the Great a case study in Screen Presence. Look at the way she smokes those cigarettes. A certain captivating elegance, grace shall we say, comes to mind. Second is Rooney Mara, whom I’ve described critically before (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) but now with much appreciation as soft all over. Innocence, thoughtfully composed, are some appropriate words. They are wonderful together.

The movie excels in all ways visual. It is aided in that quest by being set in the most glamorous part of the 1950s: Christmas in New York. The costumes are wonderful, the makeup is great, and the art direction is as good as it can be. Director Todd Haynes, like in his earlier great movie Far From Heaven, takes direct inspiration from 1950s melodramas and tries to get the colors and music as close as possible. It is a worthwhile ambition.

The conflict in the story is that they are a homosexual couple in the 1950s. Carol is already married with a child and Terese has a fiancé. Some humor is found when their respective men are confused by their company but not necessarily jealous because they do not understand that they could receive competition via another woman. This subject is hardly risqué at the present time (as opposed to say when Far From Heaven came out in 2002) but it should be noted that this does not hurt the story’s overall impact. It is good enough to the point where it does not need help from political expediency. Perhaps our changing times have even changed the ending. I remember Far From Heaven ending rather tragically. This movie ends with Cate Blanchett’s knowing smile. The movie is comfort food for all lovers.

Footnote: Does one’s sexual identity affect the way an audience member connects with a movie romance? I would submit it does. And for a heterosexual man it may be the case that a lesbian romance can be more affecting than a regular romance between a man and a woman. After all, the man can intuitively grasp why each person would fall in love with the other person. I saw this movie with my girlfriend and I have a feeling I had the advantage in enjoying it. Afterwards she commented on how the score was really loud and obvious. I did not notice the score so much and have little to say about it except to praise the choice of a certain song, “You Belong to Me.”

Her (4/5 Stars)

Nora Ephron once noted that most love stories can be divided into two categories: Christian and Jewish. A Christian Romance involves two people who would be happy but for some third person or outside conflict that keeps them apart. Think of the feuding families in “Romeo and Juliet,” the class barriers in “The Notebook,” or the sinking of the Titanic in “Titanic.” The Jewish Romance involves two people who would be happy if it weren't for the flawed personalities of the characters. Nora would say that Woody Allen is the great writer of this type of story, and movies such as “Annie Hall,” “Manhattan,” and “Hannah and Her Sisters,” are good examples. I think "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," would be the epitome of that type.

Now consider the movie “Her” from writer/director Spike Jonze. Ask yourself as you watch it, which category would it belong in? Are the conflicts born from the characters or from the society in which they live? And if it is a conflict born from the characters, what does that say about people especially given the society that is present in this movie. Is Spike Jonze saying outside conflict helps to provoke romance?

This might be the first movie I have ever seen that portrays the future as a Utopia and not a Dystopia. “Her” takes place in the near future of Los Angeles. The streets are calm and safe. Plentiful skyscrapers adorn the skyscape as beautiful landmarks not haunting towers. There is no smog and the public parks and beaches are clean. Everything is bathed in a warm comfortable glow. The story concerns Theodore Twombly (played by Joaquin Phoenix) an employee at BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com. Theodore composes other people’s letters to their loved ones. It is a sensitive if otherworldy job and Theodore takes joy in it. He has nice coworkers. There is Amy, played by Amy Adams, who is kind and funny and sweet. His boss, played by Chris Pratt, is a funny goofy nice guy too. The job must pay well because Theodore’s apartment is plenty nice, clean, and spacious. He has all the latest technological gadgets in handheld devices and role-playing computer games. It is a nice safe life and Theodore is a nice safe guy.

So, given that, why is Theodore recently divorced from Catherine, played by Rooney Mara, and why has he not been actively social in awhile. Everything is perfect or is that the problem, that everything is perfect. And is that the reason why Theodore strikes up a relationship with the latest gadget around, a personalized OSS (operating system) named Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johannson). This new OSS has the ability to intuit and learn, so it is a kind of artificial intelligence with a real intellectual curiousity and love of life. She’s charming and smart (hooked up with an internet connection she immediately reads the entirety of Wikipedia) and her newness has the sort of endearing innocence absent in experienced humans. This is an impossible relationship of course, but is that what makes it exciting to Theodore? Are we prone to look for conflict and grow restless when it can’t be found? Do relationships work the best when the two people in it are united in fighting a third party? If there is no outside conflict do people automatically turn on each other? The meanest thing said in the movie comes from the ex-wife Rooney Mara. It is only two sentences but it makes clear that she knows Theodore well enough to only need two sentences to strike him where it hurts most.

Samantha on the other hand is much easier to talk to. I expect this is because she does not give off the impression of being able to hurt Theodore. She if after all just a machine and the way Theodore talks to her resembles more of a conversation with one’s diary than a conversation with another person. These are quietly stunning, sensitive, and articulate discussions between two characters that have no reason to guard how they speak to each other. And so they don’t. In fact, I kept thinking of the last entry in ‘Anne Frank’s Diary,’ in which she explores how the presence of other people changes her character. She says that she is a different worse version of herself with other people than she is all by herself. If only there were no other people in the world, expresses Anne. Theodore could probably say the same thing, and here he can and does because he’s talking to a machine, not a woman. Spike Jonze has been nominated for a Best Original Screenplay and deserves it.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about this quiet sensitive movie is the production design, art direction, and costume design. The credit for this belongs to K.K. Barrett, Gene Sardena, Austin Gorg, and Casey Storm respectively who have convincingly created a world that is simultaneously familiar and strange enough to resemble the future. K.K. Barrett has worked on all of Spike Jonze previous movies (Where the Wild Things Are, Adaptation, Being John Malkovich) and interestingly many of Jonze’s ex-wife’s movies Sophia Coppola (Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette). Now that I think of it, Rooney Mara looks a lot like Sophia Coppola. I think that’s all I’m going to say about that.

Amy Adams is as charming as always and looks great with that strange curly hairstyle, you know like always.

Oh and Karen O is a lock for an Oscar for Best Original Song. “The Moon Song” she wrote is good which is almost always good enough to win in that strikingly shallow category. 

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (3/5 Stars)

Rooney Mara does not look like Lisbeth Salander. Lisbeth is small, skinny, and sharp. Rooney is of average height, healthy, and round all over. She lost weight for this role and somehow managed to pinch in her cheeks a little but it is not enough. Rooney is a doe-eyed babyface. Lisbeth is not. There is no getting around it.

It is hard to say why this matters so much. For some reason I am thinking of something obscure that I saw in the special features of a completely different movie. It was in “Three Kings” a movie about the first Iraq War. One of the Iraqis (Said Taghmaoui, I just looked up his name on IMDb) that played a bad guy was speaking of meeting the actor Ice Cube for the first time and how he could tell that he came from a rough neighborhood (Compton to be exact). He said he could tell by the eyes. People who have grown up in a rough neighborhood have it ingrained around their eyes. He knew that because he grew up in a rough neighborhood in Iraq. And then he said Ice Cube knew that simply by looking at him as well. Ever since I heard that I became much more interested in eyes. Does being witness to rough things over a period of time really leave its mark on the eyes? I don’t know honestly, but as a person who watches many movies I will say that there is something about the eyes that can create a certain seriousness or desperation in a character, which incidentally can convey a history of seeing rough things. Good examples are Viggo Mortenson in “Eastern Promises,” and Charlize Theron in “Monster.” And perhaps the best example is Noomi Rapace’s take on Lisbeth Salander in the original Swedish version of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” Those eyes were piercing. Rooney Mara’s are not. The role has been miscast. Rooney would make more sense as a Disney princess.

This is a pity because this movie is technically better than the Swedish version. We have none other than David Fincher, one of the best American directors, at the helm here. Fincher has excelled at serial killers (Seven) and has excelled at complex subjects (The Social Network), sometimes both at the same time (Zodiac). The convoluted 40-year-old murder mystery that is the centerpiece of “The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo,” is a ready made plot for the likes of Fincher. If you have a story that requires a journalist to do a realistic investigation (i.e. painstakingly go over evidence, hit the books at the library), Fincher is the guy who can make it interesting, lend it humor, and give it momentum. Here the disgraced journalist Michael Blomvist (played by Daniel Craig) is hired to solve a family mystery that involves a close-knit family with Nazi connections. The mystery is intricate to the highest degree but Fincher’s clear direction shines through it. In fact, for the first half of the movie where the mystery plotline runs parallel and separate to the introduction of Lisbeth Salander, it is the more interesting plot to watch unfold. In the Swedish version it was the other way around. Now if only we could insert Noomi Rapace into the American version.

Not that all of Fincher’s choices seem to be entirely correct. There was something wrong with this movie that was hard to put my finger on while I was watching it. So I went back and rewatched several scenes from the original version. The plot is exactly the same of course. What is different may be as little as tweaked dialogue, different camera angles, or simply physical gestures. But it is unmistakable how the movies have different impacts precisely where it is most important: how it regards Lisbeth Salander. This is touchy subject because there are two scenes of sexual assault in the story, one being a rape. Now I suppose I could be like the MPAA and basically judge the difference between the two versions by how many seconds of nakedness were shown in each. (There is far more in the American version. It actually surprised me upon a second viewing how little is actually shown in the Swedish version. Only about a half-second. The rest is all inferred. Both distort and mute the screaming after awhile, a rather merciful thing to do for an audience.) But the more important differences take place before and after the rape.  The rapist is Lisbeth’s legal guardian, newly appointed after her old guardian had a stroke. The sexual assaults start as a form of extortion. Lisbeth won’t have access to her own money until complying. Now, in the Swedish version it only takes one meeting before the first sexual assault. In the American version, it takes a back-story and two meetings to get around to it. It seems as though the American version is trying to ease us into the sexual assault. A pointless exercise in futility it would seem to me. The biggest difference though is that the American version also adds scenes right after the assaults where Lisbeth dresses herself, goes into the next room where the rapist is waiting to give her check, takes it and leaves. The Swedish version simply cut from the assault to Lisbeth washing out her mouth and painfully walking home respectively. What is the point of these extra scenes? At my least cynical moment I will assume that the makers were attempting to make the rapist look pathetic (in the movie he seems a bit frightened and apologetic after the assault). But even so, who gives a shit? What does it matter how the rapist feels about what he has done? It is enough that the actions exist as they do in the world. Time to move onto the next scene. 

There are some styles and genres of movies where it is okay to objectify women (or rather people in general). I wrote about this in some length when I defended “Sucker Punch,” a comic book movie that came out earlier this year. But when the original title of the book the movie is from is called, “Men who Hate Women,” I think we have entered territory where any objectification at all should be barred entirely. Take a look at the movie poster above, which shows a topless Lisbeth Salandar. Is it really appropriate for the marketers of a movie about one of the most powerful symbols of sexual violence to sell their movie with the promise of sex? (You may also ask what exactly the poster means by “Evil shall with evil be expelled.” Are they insinuating that Blomvist and Salandar are evil or using evil? How so?) The Swedish version at least seemed to understand that sexual abuse is not such an easy thing to get over. The way Noomi Rapace played the character in the consensual sex scenes, and there a couple of those, was for lack of a better word, tragic. She could go through the motions but was incapable of intimacy. That makes sense considering the character’s history. The way Rooney Mara interacts with Daniel Craig in the American version would work much better in a James Bond flick. Rooney Mara would not make a bad Bond girl.

For the record, I still don’t fully understand how the epilogue heist worked in either version of this movie. Perhaps if I read the book.

The Social Network (5/5 Stars) October 6, 2010

I’ll be your friend, Mark Zuckerberg.
Well, here we are with what we call a paradox. I have given this movie five stars and I will swear that it is a “must see” movie. But at the same time, I have completely failed to come away with the impression Aaron Sorkin the writer and David Fincher the director, surely wanted to make. I didn’t know anything about Mark Zuckerberg before I watched this movie (I love Facebook, but that’s about it), but I left it with admiration and sympathy for him. Zuckerberg is my type of guy. I would love to have a beer with him any day. 

That’s a paradox because this movie wants to make Zuckerberg out to be an asshole. That’s how it starts and that’s how it ends. And although it does an incredibly good job of describing how and why Facebook works (and why it is arguably a work of genius), it is also very preoccupied with the several lawsuits that Zuckerberg withstood in the early years of his great success. One of the best things about this movie is that it dramatizes the depositions of such lawsuits. Since depositions are recorded and everything occurs under Oath there is no reason to believe that any of the dialogue in them is made up. That means Mark and everybody else actually said everything that he says in this movie. It must have been an event to be in those rooms. No doubt, Aaron Sorkin, a master of smart sharp dialogue (The American President, The West Wing) was inspired to write this movie after seeing them.

Mark Zuckerberg (portrayed here by Jesse Eisengard in a way that reminded me of Robert Downey Jr.’s take on Sherlock Holmes) is a Harvard student with great intellectual potential. He also happens to be young and stupid. One thing he is exceptionally good at is programming code for computers. One thing he is exceptionally poor at is communicating with other people. He may start off discussing a great idea but he either talks too fast, assumes to much, or is oblivious to the notion that the subject may not be interesting to the other person (like say the amount of geniuses in China). The other person gets annoyed. Zuckerberg gets frustrated. The other person becomes dismissive and Zuckerberg gets defensive. He may even say something that is mean. Not just mean but mean and effective in the way only intelligent insults can be. The girl, played by Rooney Mara walks out because he is an asshole. And he is in a way, but only in that innocent way the highly intelligent but socially ignorant can be when they know enough to be sure that they are smarter than most people (at one or several particular things) but are still ignorant of how other people will logically react when that fact is brought up. Zuckerberg doesn’t think the girl is stupid, he thinks she’s being stupid. If he can understand what he means why on earth can’t she? And why does she get so mad when he corrects her? He’s only doing it because she’s so insistent on being wrong all the time! Why, it’s enough to make one run home, get drunk, and blog about how much of a bitch she is. Which, by the way, is exactly how this movie starts. The date is completely fictional by the way but the makers are out to make a big ironic point about Mark Zuckerberg right from the start. That this guy, the creator of Facebook, the biggest social network in the world, was incapable of making friends. Oh well, neither was Michelangelo when he was painting the Sistine Chapel. 

So, what exactly are the crimes of Mark Zuckerberg that would make people want to hate him so. Well first of all there is FaceMash, a program devised by Zuckerberg that allowed the students at Harvard to compare the female students at the university to each other. Using an algorithm, the women are given a hotness rating. It’s invasive (he hacked into several houses on campus and stole the pictures), misogynistic (no men are compared), and wildly popular (It gets about 22,000 hits before it crashes the Harvard servers). In defense of Mark Zuckerberg I make three points. One, the website didn’t start anything mean that was new. We all compare people all the time whether in private just thinking about it or in public while gossiping with our friends. What Zuckerberg did was just make it much more convenient. Two, assuming arguendo that it is a misogynistic thing to compare women to each other, than Zuckerberg is guilty. But guys in general have done far worse than that before and always seem to find women who can conveniently forgive them of it. The difference is that Mark is a brilliant programmer, so when he enacted his immature revenge quite a lot of people saw it. The amount of people, not what he did, is what made it so bad. Third, although the movie doesn’t show it, I really doubt that it was only guys using Facemash. You don’t get 22,000 hits solely from dudes. Women were using it to. Don’t tell me they don’t compare as much as everybody else does. 

The second crime is the alleged stealing of the “idea” of Facebook. Now this lawsuit was complete bullshit. Mark was originally approached by a trio of well-connected Harvard students. They wanted Mark to be the programmer of their dating website, The Harvard Connection. In other words, they wanted Mark to do all of the work. It was never made clear in the movie just what these others kids would do for the site. When Mark went ahead and made his own site, they didn’t take their great idea and make a site of their own (even though they had the idea months before Mark had it), all they wanted to do was sue him. If I can make an analogy, lets say that somebody had the idea to sculpt a large statute of the biblical David, but didn't have the skill or drive to do it. So they enlist Michelangelo to do it for them. Then Michelangelo actually sculpts the damn thing, but at the end refuses to say he had any help. This somebody then claims credit saying that the idea was stolen. This is bullshit because it completely ignores the fact that the trio were incapable of ever manifesting their idea into an actual website. How infuriating. During the depositions, Mark makes a big deal of pointing out that Facebook contains completely original coding (Presumably because if Mark thought the other website was worth a damn, he wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of inventing his own.) At another point he stops in the middle of the deposition and comments that it is raining outside. The high price lawyer of his adversaries asks Mark whether he deserves his full attention. Mark responds:
“You have a part of my attention – the minimum amount needed. The rest of my attention is back at the offices of Facebook where my employees and I are doing things no one in this room, including and especially your clients, are intellectually and creatively capable of doing. Did I adequately answer your condescending question?” (Did I mention how much I like this guy?)
Unfortunately as it is pointed out to him at the end of the movie, the average jury knows nothing about computer programming and coding or what actually goes into creating a website. But they do know an arrogant prick when they see one. An associate played by Rashida Jones explains to Mark that she can get a jury to hate him within 10 minutes. The crew cut douchebags walk away with a 65 million dollar settlement. 

The third crime and most serious crime is Mark’s falling out with his best friend and co-founder of Facebook, Eduardo Saverin. Eduardo was Mark’s roommate and the original CFO of the company. Well, sort of. He donated $1,000 of his own money and was given the job of being the business end of the entire affair. Unfortunately, although he had the best of intentions, he didn’t really seem to know what he was doing. So when Sean Parker, the mogul behind Napster played by Justin Timberlake, shows up to impart the wisdom he had already learned from the big things he had done, Mark agrees with basically everything he says. I kept thinking of the old Henry Adams saying, “A friend in power, is a friend lost.” Eduardo, because he fails to grasp exactly what facebook means and what it can mean, (let’s also not forget that he doesn’t know anything about computers or programming) is left behind and eventually forced out of the company (It is unclear exactly how involved Zuckerberg was in this). Some of the best scenes in the movie again take place in the deposition room, where the feuding best friends trade barbs that are more tinged with heartbreak than they are with anger. It is said that this settlement was for an undisclosed amount. Perhaps it was settled amicably. 

Is it fair to make a “warts-and-all” biopic about somebody who is only twenty-six years old? I can remember a time when Bill Gates was considered part devil. Now he is regarded as a saint. Who knows what we will think of Zuckerberg ten years from now. After all, he did just give 100 million dollars to charity. I have always found people like Mark Zuckerberg fascinating. They rise and fall on a trait that allows them to excel in one area and at the same time limits them in others. Jesse Eisenberg’s performance suggests a hint of Asperger’s in Zuckerberg. He is a man of intense focus and work ethic. This is great for his art and business, but when he uses that type of energy in a social relationship it becomes exhausting to talk to him. But having said that, here’s a good question to ask as you watch this movie: Which one of these characters should a guy like Mark have “connected” with? The movie shows quite a lot of elite parties. Most characters do sex and stimulants and not much else. Elite Clubs put prospective members through weird and arbitrary hazings. A kid at a lecture doesn’t realize it was Bill Gates leading it. Is it really Mark’s problem that he can’t connect with these people? This is a particularly good question concerning the women who inhabit this picture. They exist mainly in groupie form. They inhabit the background of shots mainly getting drunk or high while the programmers (almost exclusively men) work in the foreground. They bring guys into public bathrooms for blowjobs on the first date. There’s a particularly telling scene when Mark is laying out a strategy for expanding facebook and the two women in the room ask if they can help. Mark flatly tells them “No” presumably because they know absolutely nothing about computers. Contrast all of the above people to Mark who spends his time being creative, working his ass off, and building his business. Sure he has a friend in Sean Parker who is a partier, but when Sean is arrested with cocaine and underage women, do you know where Mark is? He’s still in the office working his ass off. Perhaps we should stop focusing on what’s wrong with Mark. He just needs to meet somebody as cool as him. Someone like Melinda Gates for instance. In the meantime, he can definitely hang out with me. 

The Social Network is one of the year’s best films. It is a movie made by geniuses (Fincher and Sorkin) about a genius. It should definitely get Oscar nods for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Writing, and perhaps acting nods for Jesse Eisenberg and Justin Timberlake depending on how thick the field is. It is exceedingly interesting to watch. At times I couldn’t help but lean forward in my seat to be further engrossed in the story. At other times I was laughing and applauding while everyone else in the theater was completely silent. Above all it is the best-edited movie of the year. It moves seamlessly across several storylines with minimal confusion and great dramatic effect. It is the best David Fincher movie since “Fight Club” and the first time I enjoyed a Jesse Eisenberg performance. As for Justin Timberlake, I think it is fair to say that he has officially graduated from being a commodity crafted by marketers and sold to unsuspecting teens. He has become a legitimate actor and is evident by his willingness to take small parts in interesting movies as opposed to large parts in really dumb ones. One more thing, remember that girl in the first scene. That’s Rooney Mara and she has been cast as the next Lisbeth Salandar in Fincher’s upcoming version of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” I can sort of see that. Knock on Wood.