"The Social Network" - Oscar Watch 2011

I went into The Social Network begrudgingly. One, I don't like being told by the masses what I will like - I kind of like to decide that on my own. The raves around this movie have persisted for months even though the premise as I understood it did nothing to turn me on.

Two, I just really didn't care.

So I went into this viewing with the idea if they can make me NOT hate it, then they'll have accomplished something.

The good news is I didn't hate it.

The bad news is I didn't love it.

Apparently I'm one of the 11% of folks out there that just didn't get why this script about such an unlikable character that may or may not have been fact is attracting all this Oscar heat.

The Social Network is basically the genesis around the phenomenon of Facebook. It was based on a book, which means the screenplay earns a spot in the Oscar Noms under Best Adapted.

That much we know is true. We have the players in place and a few facts in order, but when it comes to the execution that's where it gets a little hazy. Apparently screenwriter Aaron Sorkin decided to play fast and loose with "the truth" by creating a character that may very well be an unkind caricature of a factual person.

He did this enthusiastically. Gleefully, even. And certainly without apology - at least until he won a Golden Globe.

Granted, as one of the youngest billionaires in the world, Mark Zuckerberg is a wunderkind who attracts this kind of attention like a lightning rod.

The problem wasn't necessarily that they made this character unlikable or hard to root for.

Oscar winning American Beauty, which starred The Social Network's producer Kevin Spacey, had a lead character that made us uncomfortable in our skin due to his obsessing over a teenaged girl. The reason it worked was because a.) Kevin Spacey is genius, and compelling even when he's completely unlikable (this is key - see Sir Anthony Hopkins and Silence of the Lambs.) B.) the dark road down Ick territory actually did have a moment of redemption (albeit a brief one.)

The Mark Zuckerburg that Aaron penned had no such moment. Many times through the movie I hated him so much I contemplated deleting my own Facebook account. He was a douche bag in the HIGHEST order, and played relatively cruelly by the normally likable Jesse Eisenburg.

His motivations were questionable, his actions deplorable and ultimately he learned absolutely nothing. There was no growth, no arc, no karmic justice. The two things his behavior cost him didn't have any real value to him anyway, at least if we go by the script.

So what if he had to pay out millions? He didn't care about money.

So what if he screwed over the people who trusted him? He seemed far more enamored by people who were a lot more slimy than he was. (Kudos to Justin Timberlake for his equally despicable portrayal of Napster founder Sean Parker.)

In that way, the acting was spot on. If these were the characters as they were written on the page, the actors nailed em. I may not have liked them, but I wasn't indifferent.

Which, I suppose, means the script did its job as well to create emotion out of nothing. I went from not caring about what brought about Facebook to being really pissed off by this fictional rendition of its genesis. For that, I give it credit.

If Oscar wants to reward unconventional storytelling, then I can understand the nominations. We have a protagonist who is actually a raging asshole with motivations we can't really get behind, and all the people whom he spurned were the ones with our sympathy.

In this way, Mark Zuckerberg played the antagonist in his own story. Not uncommon, but certain things must happen if we're going to invest that much of our energy into the story of people we don't like.

After a while of general disinterest and disgust, I hung in there just to see him get his due.

It was a while that most movies can't afford to lose their viewer. By 30 minutes in I still wasn't sold on the concept and really could have turned it off and never bothered to revisit it and felt like I missed nothing.

The opening scene was pretentious and annoying, and immediately put me off of what I presumed would be the main character. On IMDb the trivia states this opening scene of dialogue stretched over 9 pages and took 99 takes, which should definitely knock it out of any efficiency filmmaking awards.

Eventually I got interested to see how karma would surely turn things around for this character who so badly needed to redeem himself, or at least pay off for the poor schmucks whom he carelessly spurned.

And eventually I realized not only did he skate by without any kind of arc WHATsoever BUT he ultimately profited out of behavior many people in society would agree is deplorable.

I kept thinking that they should have called it "The Anti-Social Network."

And yet... 89% of the Rotten Tomatoes audience loved this movie. Apparently I forgot to drop a tab of acid or take the little blue pill that would put me in an alternate universe where this kind of movie makes sense.

I guess I'm a little old fashioned in that I need that from a movie. Even my (in real life AND Facebook) BFF Jeff agreed. We watched it together courtesy of the greatness of the Internet, enabling us to chat as we simultaneously watched different video. To understand how momentous it is that we actually agreed on a movie critique I should explain he's the kind of person who could get through Vanilla Sky without breaking a sweat OR popping a vein.

So what was the plot? More importantly, what was the theme? Was it a friendship tested by success and ultimately fractured by betrayal? Was it a story of revenge, where the socially handicapped geek ends up creating the most social of all social networks and the envy of all those who may have rejected him? Is it a statement on our current disenfranchised social state, separated and connected by the very same force where humanity comes in dead last?

It depends on who you ask. This can either be a good thing or a bad thing. Storytelling that leaves stuff like "theme" up for individual perception can be a tricky endeavor.

I don't know if I want to live in a world where any of those could be the underlying theme of a betrayal story being so richly rewarded by mind-boggling success.

I personally felt a little manipulated by Sorkin, who has gone on record saying, "What is the big deal about accuracy purely for accuracy's sake, and can we not have the true be the enemy of the good?"

My question is why opt to tell a "true story" without finding the true parts compelling enough to the story so THAT you don't have to take such liberties with accuracy?

Apparently, according to the author of the book from which this screenplay is adapted, Sorkin took a lot of creative license with that truth. And it's going to take me a while to understand what was to be gained by it.

We could have had the "real" story and found it fascinating or we could have created a completely fictional tale where pesky things like fact don't matter. This weird hybrid feels more like a laboratory experiment gone horribly awry.

Like a two-headed rabbit.

I adore Kevin Spacey and I have been known to kick it down on Trigger Street, but for me this movie missed the mark by a mile.

I didn't hate it... so good job there.

But I'm sad to say it wins few Oscar endorsements from my end of the desk.

Not that it needs it, really. With all the buzz I wouldn't be entirely surprised if it had a big night come February 27.

And I'll be scratching my head and wondering why the entire night.

(And FWIW I'm not going to delete my Facebook - because I think that making Mark Zuckerberg out to be so shitty for shitty's sake was just plain shitty.)

Acting: 4
Writing: 3.5
Directing: 4
Score: 4
Overall: 3.78

Nominations:

Best Picture: Eh.
Best Actor/Lead: I bought Jesse as a total raging asshole, so possible.
Cinematography:
Best Director: Eh.
Film Editing:
Best Original Score: Eh.
Sound Mixing:
Writing (Adapted): (I don't know, as a novelist, how much credit I want to give to a screenwriter for only keeping 40% of the original content - read: truth - intact.) (so no.)

"Inception" - Oscar Watch 2011

"In a world where technology exists to enter the human mind through dream invasion, a highly skilled thief is given a final chance at redemption which involves executing his toughest job to date: Inception." - IMDb

Christopher Nolan wrote and directed this mind-bending masterpiece that this humble reviewer almost needed Cliffs Notes to follow properly. Almost like the entire series of Lost: The Complete Collection, I was happiest when I just let go of the idea that I would understand it completely before the end... if ever.

Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Cobb, an architect of the new frontier of corporate espionage, where thieves are able to infiltrate and manipulate dreams to steal information. His unique ability and an ambiguous past make him a wanted man, literally... and he is presented with the bargain if he "plants" an idea rather than steal it, he could have his life, and his children, back.

He is joined on this impossible sounding mission by his right hand guy Arthur, played quite enthusiastically by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, newcomer Ariadne (Ellen Page,) thief and master forger Eames (Tom Hardy,) chemist Yusuf (Dileep Rao) and the grand mastermind of this intellectual heist, Saito (Ken Watanabe.)

Their target is Cillian Murphy's character, Robert Fischer, and the idea that they want to plant in his head sort of works as the secondary plot rather than the main throughline. Technically the protagonist and the antagonist were both Cobb - because his true objective is to overcome vindictive projections of his own mind... which are allowed to run through in the realm of the dream - no matter who was dreaming it.

Certain rules introduced at the beginning of the movie sort of get thwarted mid-way through, but instead of it being distracting we just accept this new set of guidelines. This is a testament of the seamless writing of a brilliant script that may have had some plot holes but kept me so confused I couldn't really tell.

The rules were indeed as complex as the human mind itself, where time and dimension were shifted on their axis and we were all kind of along for the ride.

It was surprisingly a very tense and action-filled movie that reveled in its unapologetic ambiguity. The graphics were stunning, and explain why of Inception's eight nominations, five were technical. This included Cinematography, Art Direction and Visual Effects.

It was like literally losing yourself in a moving M.C. Escher painting, except it pushed the envelope of that concept with choreographed fight scenes in spinning rooms and zero gravity. Landscapes could collapse upon themselves and perception deception will play a few games with what you think you see.

The long and short of it is that Inception works very much like a complicated and undefined work of art that you can't quite figure out but you can't quite look away from either.

I didn't always know what was going on, but I enjoyed the ride.

Kinda like Space Mountain.

I also liked the ending, which will surprise my best friend Jeff to no end. I just really don't think it could have ended any other way and had the same impact.

Just don't ask me to explain it. Because I don't think I can. And really, I think that's part of what makes it so great.

Acting: 4
Writing: 5
Directing: 5
Cinematography: 5
Overall: 4.75

Nominations:

Art Direction: Contender
Cinematography: Contender
Music:
Best Picture:
Sound Editing:
Sound Mixing:
Visual Effects: Contender
Writing (Original): Contender