What aunt_zelda Thinks: The Social Network
Feb. 1st, 2011 11:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aunt_zelda ... huh.
This was not a good movie.
Well, actually it was a good movie. A very good movie.
No, it wasn't a good movie.
...
(Let's start over, shall we?)
This movie is a darkly-lit, speedily-spoken, quickly shot, fast-paced, LONG, ultimately abrupt feature populated by assholes and woobies and jerkass woobies.
It's also laden with symbolism, HoYay, snark, and made me want to pause the movie to start taking notes. That's not necessarily the mark of a good or bad movie, but it is the mark of an interesting movie. I mean, apparently I'm impossible to watch movies with anymore, because I critique and point out tropes and analyze and snark. I've become too Genre Savvy for my own good, or at least the people I watch movies with's good. (The exception being my boyperson, because he talks even more through movies than I do. And I just remembered he's on livejournal now ... hi, honey! *waves*)
Justin Timberlake did a fantastic job as a sleezy, amusing, paranoid freak. I don't know how or why he decided to go for this part, but he did a really good job with it.
I also enjoyed Andrew Garfield, the guy who played Eduardo. That scene where he realizes how badly he's been screwed with the investments and everything, flings the laptop, and yells and fakes-out Sean was FANTASTICand, dare I say it ... kinda sexy. Looking the actor up, I realize that I've seen him before: as Anton in The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, a thoroughly confuzzling and magical-realism-cock-tease of a movie, and Frank from those two episodes from Doctor Who S3 that everyone wants to forget about, where people turned into pigs and a Dalek ate a guy. And apparently he's gonna play Peter Parker soon. Good for him! He's hot, British, and a talented actor: me likey!
It took me a while to figure out what was going on in the movie. The double legal battles coupled with the chronological flashbacks took some getting used to and were not, perhaps, paced as well as they could have been. Still, about mid-way through the thing I wasn't irked by it anymore, so there's that.
Why is it that so many male characters (in any medium) are driven by that One Girl? You know, the One Girl who dumped them or ran off with Some Rich Dude, and then that defines the male character and his love-life from then on out? WHY? There are so many people out there, why does ONE girl suddenly matter so damn much to so many characters?
Also, while I appreciate the movie trying to make it so that almost everything was ambiguous, it was hard to hate Mark unconditionally when he came off as downright autistic so dang much in this movie. I mean, my god, that first scene with Erica! It was uncomfortable on so many levels. It was difficult for me to tell (if at all) how much of Mark's actions in the movie were due to him choosing to be a jerk or him just not understanding how to interact with people without ticking them off. If it's the later, it seems wrong to hate him as much as the movie is pushing us to hate him. (Ok, not hate him per se, but recognize that he's both the protagonist and the antagonist and a total asshole with no friends and no care and/or concept of social boundaries.) What am I even saying anymore? I DON'T KNOW! HELP ME!
Speaking of ambiguous: Eduardo and Mark. Mark and Sean. Sean and Eduardo. Eduardo and Mark and Sean. I SHIP IT. ALL OF IT. HELL YES! Get me some of that slobby corporate hatesex please!
On the technical side of things, lighting and music were used very well in this movie. Yes, it was darker than a medieval pub most of the time, but as the movie went on the lighting got better, in a complete reverse of what you'd expect. Relationships between the characters got worse as the lighting got better. SYMBOLISM!!!!!!!!!
Music was ... unmemorable, but for the scenes it worked very well, except when it was so loud I had trouble hearing the already-difficult-to-understand-because-they-were-talking-so-fast actors. Mostly it accentuated, rather than set, the mood, which worked to the film's advantage.
So ... good? Bad? Both? Yes.
P.S. I still hate Facebook. The only good things it's done for me thus far are 1) shown me three pictures from the Halloween Party and 2) gotten me an Echo Bazaar account. Woot. I fracking HATE Facebook.
This was not a good movie.
Well, actually it was a good movie. A very good movie.
No, it wasn't a good movie.
...
(Let's start over, shall we?)
This movie is a darkly-lit, speedily-spoken, quickly shot, fast-paced, LONG, ultimately abrupt feature populated by assholes and woobies and jerkass woobies.
It's also laden with symbolism, HoYay, snark, and made me want to pause the movie to start taking notes. That's not necessarily the mark of a good or bad movie, but it is the mark of an interesting movie. I mean, apparently I'm impossible to watch movies with anymore, because I critique and point out tropes and analyze and snark. I've become too Genre Savvy for my own good, or at least the people I watch movies with's good. (The exception being my boyperson, because he talks even more through movies than I do. And I just remembered he's on livejournal now ... hi, honey! *waves*)
Justin Timberlake did a fantastic job as a sleezy, amusing, paranoid freak. I don't know how or why he decided to go for this part, but he did a really good job with it.
I also enjoyed Andrew Garfield, the guy who played Eduardo. That scene where he realizes how badly he's been screwed with the investments and everything, flings the laptop, and yells and fakes-out Sean was FANTASTIC
It took me a while to figure out what was going on in the movie. The double legal battles coupled with the chronological flashbacks took some getting used to and were not, perhaps, paced as well as they could have been. Still, about mid-way through the thing I wasn't irked by it anymore, so there's that.
Why is it that so many male characters (in any medium) are driven by that One Girl? You know, the One Girl who dumped them or ran off with Some Rich Dude, and then that defines the male character and his love-life from then on out? WHY? There are so many people out there, why does ONE girl suddenly matter so damn much to so many characters?
Also, while I appreciate the movie trying to make it so that almost everything was ambiguous, it was hard to hate Mark unconditionally when he came off as downright autistic so dang much in this movie. I mean, my god, that first scene with Erica! It was uncomfortable on so many levels. It was difficult for me to tell (if at all) how much of Mark's actions in the movie were due to him choosing to be a jerk or him just not understanding how to interact with people without ticking them off. If it's the later, it seems wrong to hate him as much as the movie is pushing us to hate him. (Ok, not hate him per se, but recognize that he's both the protagonist and the antagonist and a total asshole with no friends and no care and/or concept of social boundaries.) What am I even saying anymore? I DON'T KNOW! HELP ME!
Speaking of ambiguous: Eduardo and Mark. Mark and Sean. Sean and Eduardo. Eduardo and Mark and Sean. I SHIP IT. ALL OF IT. HELL YES! Get me some of that slobby corporate hatesex please!
On the technical side of things, lighting and music were used very well in this movie. Yes, it was darker than a medieval pub most of the time, but as the movie went on the lighting got better, in a complete reverse of what you'd expect. Relationships between the characters got worse as the lighting got better. SYMBOLISM!!!!!!!!!
Music was ... unmemorable, but for the scenes it worked very well, except when it was so loud I had trouble hearing the already-difficult-to-understand-because-they-were-talking-so-fast actors. Mostly it accentuated, rather than set, the mood, which worked to the film's advantage.
So ... good? Bad? Both? Yes.
P.S. I still hate Facebook. The only good things it's done for me thus far are 1) shown me three pictures from the Halloween Party and 2) gotten me an Echo Bazaar account. Woot. I fracking HATE Facebook.
