(I did a search for discussion about the film but I guess we never had a thread just for the movie.)
Finally got around to seeing this. An entertaining film that pushes all the right cliched buttons with the audience, but Best Picture? C’mon, this thing is far from being anything original.
It takes the overly worn formula Hollywood formula of rebel/underdog/nobody to whom fame/money come too fast where we watch their inevitable rise, friends/partners/family abandon them, yada-yada-yada, ending scenes where we get the text overs of where they are today.
Again, it was effective, fun, but nothing I haven’t seen before. They just inserted Facebook to build the trope around.
We even got all the expected scenes:
-Pretty shots of an Ivy league school while the main character travels across campus.
-The Ivy league campus bar where the college kids banter back and forth with rapid fire witty dialog straight out of the Gilmore Girls.
-The “OMG, this thing is growing so fast!” rise.
-Witty one-liners to put down lawyers.
-The “wild parties” during the rise.
I liked the movie, I’d recommend the movie, but let’s be real, this thing is not Oscar worthy in any form.
Agree. But I think some critics/audiences get a hard-on for Aaron Sorkin making his characters verbose and fast-paced conversationists. The man got a pass from many for “Studio 60” - at least this was actually good.
C’mon! My wife noted that this film is the first she’s seen (or can remember) where the preps were the good guys. She even gave the film credit for not even having a quick scene where the Vandermoss(?) twins are being criminal/racist/sexist… it’s like Revenge of the Nerds without the humor and the good guy/bad guy roles reversed.
And if that doesn’t deserve an Oscar, then nothing does.
They need 10 movies to fill out the Best Pic category, and this was one of the 10 best I saw last year. It’s still not as good as “The King’s Speech”, which is the one to beat in my opinion.
Let’s say I have an idea for a movie, about a business. Someone thinks it up, but a techie hired to implement it, steals it instead, and the whole movie is about the lawsuit trying to clear up whose idea it was in the first place. To add to this excitement, the originators (identical twins! and born filthy rich!) are unlikeable jerks, as is the techie who steals the idea–he’s totally inept socially, has problems getting girls even after he makes his first few million, and he alienates everyone he knows, even the people who helped him steal the business idea. The whole thing is told in flashback from the depositions.
Is this a good plot? No? How about if it’s about --facebook!!!
Not so much ‘good’ guys as decently developed antagonists (ditto Wardo) . None of them were evil moustache twirlers, and the disputes between them and MZ were portrayed as reasonable reactions and character consistent. Sean only came across as half douche, not 100%. But this is enough for a decent movie to climb above the dreck and be considered an oscar front runner. (See also: Slumdog Millionaire)
127 Hours is it for me. I know it doesn’t have a chance for winning Best Picture, but it really resonated with me, and I loved its refreshing take on the “survival” story. I’d give the Oscar to Franco too. And I say that as a huge Fincher fan (not to mention Aronofsky and Nolan).
Also, I think it a crime that Tron: Legacy didn’t get nominated for Best VFX. Sure, the movie on the whole was blah, but the VFX was gorgeous. Otherwise, give that Oscar to Inception.
There was, but I didn’t participate so I never paid much attention to it. I guess I figured most people would be like most of the people in this thread who don’t see the brilliance of it, and didn’t want to bother. I thought it was one of the best movies not just of last year, but of the last decade. I’ve seen it 3 times and I hope to see it again before it leaves the theaters. Not only does it deserves all the nominations it’s up for, it deserves to sweep everything. It won’t, but it will deserve to.
And I say that even though it’s not even in my Top 5 favorite movies of the year. And I’m not much of a Facebook person (as in, I’ve made around 10 Status Updates in the last 6 months). I’m not a geek or a nerd or very technologically-minded at all. I’ve only ever seen one other thing Aaron Sorkin has done, Charlie Wilson’s War (which I also thought was pretty great), so it has nothing to do with being a Sorkin fan. I say that even though Inception is more of a favorite and I think IT deserves to be getting far more awards attention than it has been getting (no Nolan for Best Director, and no Editing nomination?? outrage).
It’s not going to win Best Picture. For a while there I was sure it would, but I don’t think that anymore. The King’s Speech will win, and thank god for it. Not only do I really like it, I won’t have to spend the next several years hearing people bitch about The Social Network winning over a more conventional movie. On the other hand, I’ll feel bad for The King’s Speech because as I said in that movie’s thread, it’s going to be unfairly railed against. To self-indugently quote myself:
I’ve seen The Social Network twice in just over a week. I’ll admit I watched it the first time because it was about Facebook. I watched it the second time because I thought it was a really good movie. Now I haven’t seen any of the other nominated movies other than Inception, so I won’t try to argue the merits of it compared to them. But just glancing at Rotten Tomatoes I can see that it’s 2nd in average ratings of all the movies (King’s Speech is first), so it’s not really surprising it was nominated.
Ditto - for fans of The West Wing, this was a chance to fill up on that familiar soup. I can see how someone who was never into that show found the verbal fireworks in the movie to be a revelation.
He’s definitely an asshole and yes, it’s kinda the point. How many great protagonists are jerks? I’m going to be a real lazy ass and quote myself again, from The King’s Speech thread.
If people don’t like it, fine. I don’t care. But to complain that it’s one of 10 nominees when, as enalzi points out, the movie is 97% at Rotten Tomatoes and has been nominated for, and won tons of awards all over the world, and really, I doubt the BAFTA folks are slavering Aaron Sorkin fans, is kinda bizarre to me. It’s made almost $100 million at the box office, which doesn’t mean anything at all, but I love seeing that it did well because it’s a most unlikely movie to do so well. Critics and movie-goers think there’s worth in the movie, and it’s liked by people who both hate Facebook, and people who love Facebook, as well as those who don’t give a damn either way.
This is off-topic, so I put it in spoiler tags.[spoiler]
Thank you but I’m way too lazy and I couldn’t make it be worth anyone’s time, especially on a regular basis. There are hundreds, thousands of bloggers who write about movies better than I do vying for eyes. I couldn’t compete and probably more importantly, couldn’t keep up. I have started keeping track of what movies I see on Twitter and that’s fun but iffy. I record them in order and I’m determined not to fall behind, but no guarantees. I didn’t even keep up with the thread I started here. I do love movies, but I unfortunately lack the capacity to make that very interesting or useful.[/spoiler]
I saw it yesterday and I enjoyed it very much. Was it one of the best pictures of last year? I only saw a handful of movies last year so I can’t answer that question. It was fun. The dialogue was engaging and the storyline touches on an important part of the web. The other day I was actually debating whether or not to set up a Facebook account. On one hand the networking idea is nice. On the other I fear the net is already eroding our sense of privacy. I don’t think the whole world needs to know every single detail about my life.
I have no idea if Mark Zuckerberg is an asshole. If he is an asshole, well he’s not even 30 yet. He was nineteen at the time and many if not most people are assholes at nineteen.
After a bit of reading I think the true assholes here are the Winklevosses. They got millions out of an idea they essentially abandoned because they were too busy concentrating on rowing. They are incredibly good looking, highly wealthy, very smart, in prime health and what do they do with their lives? They’re suing Facebook because a $140 million dollar settlement wasn’t enough for them. I find them disgusting on about sixteen different levels. They’re spoiled, whiny pricks and I hope they lose as much money as possible. Their overwhelming sense of ludicrous entitlement and inability to understand what is true tragedy sort of sickens me, especially after I spent part of yesterday visiting a friend who will probably be dead of breast cancer soon. Her young son is in my daughter’s second grade class. He turns eight next month.
The Winklevii strike me as far bigger jackasses than Zuckerberg.
