The Social Network

The Social Network

Ok, so I have to say that I have gotten behind on my movie review for this week, which turned out to be The Social Network, which stars Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, and Justin Timberlake to name just a few.  David Fincher took the director’s helm in order to help bring Mark Zuckerberg’s meteoric rise to fame via Facebook to life.  If I’m being totally honest, I was pretty sure that I was going to sleep through this movie.  Really, how interesting could it be?

The Social Network begins right away with Mark (Eisenberg) speaking to his current girlfriend at the time.  As their conversation develops, we quickly realize that Mark is somewhat socially inept from the standpoint that he conveys the truth in a matter-of-fact type of attitude.  I could only deduce as he made snide remarks about his girlfriend’s social status that he was being rude, but then realized that it was just his way of communicating.  As he imparts his last bits of wisdom to her, she reacts by telling him to get lost and that she no longer wanted to see him.  Somewhat crestfallen, he returns to his Harvard dorm and proceeds to get totally smashed and then begins to blog about his previous love in a not-so loving manner.

In the process of his blogging conundrum, he decides to hack several Harvard websites to steal the pictures of every girl he can find.  The end result is a manufactured website, which allows an individual to rate one girl against another in comparison to beauty.  The website becomes wildly popular and ends up crashing the Harvard computer system.  Of course, Mark’s popularity rises as everyone realizes that he is the one who created the website.  Hearing of his prowess for everything computers, the Winklevoss brothers (Hammer and Pence) attempt to forge a business relationship with Zuckerberg.  They discuss the idea of an all Harvard website where alums and current students could get together and chat and share information.  Initially, Mark agrees to help with the development of the website; however, as he begins to think of the process, Zuckerberg decides against the partnership with the Winklevoss brothers, which leads to serious legal ramifications.

As Mark comes up with the idea for “The Facebook” he enlists the help of his best and only friend Eduardo (Garfield).  Eduardo has access to funds to help get this project off the ground and by all accounts seems to be a very loyal and level headed friend to Zuckerberg.  However, as the phenomena that is Facebook grows, Mark and Eduardo’s relationship becomes severed.  Enter Sean Parker (Timberlake), Napster founder, which ultimately puts an end to Zuckerberg and Saverin’s friendship.  Parker snakes his way into Mark’s life by living the big life and allowing him to rub elbows with some of the biggest investors the country has to offer.

As mentioned, serious legal implications develop as Mark decided not to help the Winklevoss brothers and somewhat deceptively cheated his friend, Eduardo, out of shares in the company.  The theme of the lawsuit is used to tell the entire story.  Flashbacks are common and it allows us to catch a glimpse of how Mark processes information as well as how he is able to manipulate people into helping to better his position.  Does he settle the lawsuits and did he ever reunite with his previous best friend?  The answer to one is answered at the end of the movie; however, the other was left up in the air a bit.

This film was marvelously directed and acted throughout.  He didn’t win; however, Jesse Eisenberg should have won an Academy Award for his part in this film.  He was funny, slightly evil, socially unavailable, and likeable all at the same time.  I found it amazing that an individual who had such a difficult time relating to people would be able to establish a social network.  This to me was just counterintuitive at best, yet Mark Zuckerberg has become the toast of the world as many of us are addicted to our Facebook accounts.  I give The Social Network four and a half stars.  This may have been the only movie so far to give The King’s Speech a run for its money.  I would highly suggest putting this movie on your social calendar, it is certainly worth it!

That’s How Matt Sees It!

The Social Network

When you look at The Social Network’s premise, the development of Facebook, you might think it would be a snooze. You would be wrong. Somehow this movie keeps you riveted from beginning to end even though there is very limited action.

The Social Network begins with a glimpse of Mark Zuckerburg (Jessie Eisenberg) while in his dorm room in Harvard. Most men would not be surprised to find the beginnings of Facebook, the social media behemoth, began with one man’s lust for a girl. We notice that Zuckerburg is unusually driven and serious for such a young man, as he dives headlong into the process of forming a social network where Harvard students can track other students by their pictures and relationship statuses.

Along the way, Zuckerburg meets and partners with several people including the Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler (both played to creepy perfection by Armie Hammer). As the movie progresses, we discover that Zuckerburg’s quirkiness is far past that of the average, Ivy League, genius (oxymoron?). It’s ironic that a man with limited social skills should be the architect of a site based purely on social interaction.

As Zuckerburg tinkers with the program, Facebook expands and morphs into a new entity. This change leads Zuckerburg to cut the twins out of the deal. The twins don’t take this news well and use the full resources/connections afforded them by privilege to sue Zuckerburg.

Adding insult to injury, Zuckerburg is courted by Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), the biggest hotshot on the internet. Parker allows Zuckerburg the freedom and money to complete his vision without limits. In the end, Zuckerburg’s freaky attention to detail and analytical thought patterns help him prevail against the strange Winklevoss twins. However, he ends up a bit bloodied from the battle.

The Social Network earns a solid five stars. I was shocked I got so into the minutia of Facebook, but the acting, writing and direction were so solid you couldn’t look away. The story of Facebook is a morality play for the digital age.

Michelle D. Kieffaber

The Kids Are All Right

I didn’t procrastinate this week … I swear. This week I forgot (sorry Matt, feel free to dock my pay) I needed to write my blog post because the week has been hellish. Please don’t take my tardiness as a rebuke of this week’s movie, The Kids Are All Right. The opposite is true; I love this movie.

The Kids Are All Right begins with a birthday celebration in a non-traditional family. The daughter of a lesbian couple, Jules (Julianne Moore) and Nic (Annette Benning), has just turned 18 and is being pressure by her younger brother to get information about the sperm donor who fathered them both. The daughter is unsure, but eventually gives the information to her brother.

It’s not that the kids are unhappy, they love their mothers, but they have a desire to know their roots. Their mothers wouldn’t understand, so the kids keep the information from them. Their mothers are a study in opposites, Jules is a free spirit who floats from job to job and Nic is a high powered doctor who craves control over her family.

Eventually, Jules and Nic find out what the kids have done and demand to meet the sperm donor, Paul (Mark Ruffalo). Paul is a bit of an overgrown child who runs his own organic restaurant. He is thrilled to jump into the role of father even though he is ill prepared for all the work involved. It’s no surprise that Jules feels a connection to Paul, but Nic finds him irresponsible and sees him as a major threat to her family.

The bond between Jules and Paul grows when he hires her to landscape his lawn. Unfortunately, Jules falls for Paul’s charms and falls into his bed. But wait, she’s a lesbian, right? Nothing is black and white with Jules, but everything is black and white with Nic and when she discovers the affair she goes ballistic.

This movie is great. The acting is superb and you can see that no matter how a family is configured, all families face the same joys and challenges. I give The Kids Are All Right four and a half stars. The writing is great and the movie is nicely paced. I encourage you to see The Kids Are All Right. It’s well worth your time.

Michelle D. Kieffaber

The Kids Are All Right

The Kids Are All Right

A comedy directed by Lisa Choladenko attempts to connect the dots of family life within a not-so traditional household.  In order to pull off this film, Choladenko had to capitalize on the talents of her all-star cast:  Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Josh Hutcherson, and Mia Wasikowska.  Although nominated for several Academy Awards (including best picture), the film was woefully unable to eke out a victory in any category.

As the movie begins, the characters and domestic unit is quickly identified as your not-so-typical family.  The two children, Joni (Wasikowska) and Laser (Hutcherson), are being raised by a lesbian couple in what seems to be an upscale middle class neighborhood.  At first blush, it appears that the two adolescents are well adjusted and dealing with typical teenage issues.  That is until Joni turns eighteen and her brother, Laser, asks her to locate their father, who was an anonymous sperm donor. 

The two youths have little difficulty finding their biological father, Paul (Ruffalo), as he is all too willing to meet with them and become part of their lives.  The problems arise when the two mothers, Nic (Bening) and Jules (Moore), find out that the kids have contacted and met Paul without their knowledge or consent.  Nic, the controlling parent, is upset and voices her displeasure with the situation.  While Jules, the free spirit, suggests that meeting Paul would have been a perfectly natural curiosity for the two youngsters.  However, both moms do initially seem shocked as the kids indicate that they would like to continue to develop a relationship with Paul.

As Paul’s relationship with the family grows, Nic becomes more and more unable to handle his interloper status.  She sees him as a threat to her family unit and rightfully so.  As Paul begins to infiltrate the family, Nic’s world becomes less stable and the not-so-typical family struggles to remain intact.

This film was difficult for me to review.  The movie had the potential to be great and then the director lost focus with all of the sexual overtones and intermittent character development.  This production could have been taken in so many wonderful directions; instead we are left with an ending that was really not very fulfilling.  I give The Kids Are All Right three out of five stars.  This is a classic example of the director letting the cast down, as I felt the acting was superb.  The actors single handedly carried this film and had the director and writers gotten the ending or even the middle right, perhaps they would have garnered some Academy hardware.  If you haven't had the chance to watch this film, I wouldn't put it on your must see list.

That’s How Matt Sees It!

Inception

I feel like a complete hypocrite. I always tell my students not to procrastinate, but I’ve been putting off writing about this movie for days. It isn’t because I didn’t like the movie; I did. I just have no idea how to explain it because I’m not 100% sure I understood it all. I’m no slouch in the brains department, so that should give you an idea how convoluted Inception is.

Inception begins with us meeting Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio). Cobb is a master thief and his skilled are utilized by corporations around the globe. However, he doesn’t steal like the average thief. He enters the minds of his marks and manipulates their dreams. Once they dream about the information he needs (passwords, combinations, hiding places, etc.) he delivers the information to his clients.

This line of work is called “extraction,” and it’s lucrative, but in the process of developing his craft, Cobb has become a fugitive. He is not allowed to return home and longs to see his children. He is given the opportunity to start over if he can accomplish a task that is thought to be impossible: inception. Extraction merely removes information from a person’s mind; inception implants ideas the person never had.

This work involves constructing the dream from the bottom up, making it realistic so it can be familiar to the subject, but with new elements inserted from the thieves. Cobb enlists the help of a young woman played by Ellen Page. She has a talent for constructing the dream architecture, but it seems the “enemy” is always one step ahead, distracting Cobb with visions of his dead (?) wife. As if this weren’t enough, achieving inception requires the team to use increasing amounts of sedatives to produce a deep sleep. Taking too many drugs may mean plunging into a coma

I give Inception four solid stars. During the movie you have no idea if things are real; if it is a dream or reality. It’s visually stunning and I loved every minute of it. The acting is superb and the writing and pace keep you on the edge of your seat. So why only four stars? Because I have no idea if I actually GOT IT. I think Inception is a movie you could watch over and over and have a different experience each time. It kept me off kilter and I could learn to like that.

Michelle D. Kieffaber

Inception

Inception

Writer and director, Christopher Nolan, creates a sci-fi brain child unlike any of his previous work, which includes Memento, Insomnia, and Dark Knight.  Nolan features Leonardo DiCaprio along with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Ken Watanabe, and Marion Cotillard to bring this mind-bending motion picture to life.  Apparently Nolan did a remarkable job of planting the seed in the subconscious of the nominating committee, because Inception was able to walk away with four Oscars and eight nominations.  I’m sure it was only something he could have dreamed of when the idea first came to mind.

Inception begins with Dom Cobb (DiCaprio) speaking to an elderly foreign man named Saito (Ken Watanabe).  In a blink of an eye, the film shifts gears and Saito is 40 years younger and speaking to Cobb and Arthur (Levitt) regarding the intricacies of dream extraction.  At the time, Saito is unaware that he is currently the focus of another company’s attempt to excerpt information via his present state of rest.  The dream goes wrong and Cobb and his crew are pulled back to reality just in time or so we are lead to believe.

After his experience with Cobb, Saito attempts to hire him to go from extraction of information to planting an idea or inception.  Saito needs to convince a rival’s son to sell his father’s company when he dies in order for Saito’s organization to survive.   He promises to help Cobb return home to his children whom he had to leave because of a pending legal issue, if he can only complete this task.  With the thought of being able to return home to his family, Cobb agrees to this one final mission, which will be more difficult than any extraction performed in the past.

Cobb has to enlist additional help in order to complete his mission.  He begins by recruiting Ariadne (Page) who is an up and coming architect and comes highly recommended.  Cobb quickly realizes her potential and ability to recognize fantasy and reality, which he seems to have lost.  He also recruits two other individuals who specialize in deception and chemistry.  With his group complete and trained, Cobb locates and details his plan on how to enter the dream of their target.

Because planting an idea is extremely difficult, the team must set up a dream within a dream within a dream.  Sound complicated?  It was for me as well.  The purpose of going so deep into a dream state is so that they can plant the idea in the subconscious mind of the targeted individual.  This allows the person to believe that he generated the idea on his own and was not influenced by an outside source.  Everything should go just as planned, unless a sleeping foe awakes to turn this tiered dream into an unending nightmare.

So, did I like the movie?  Yes, I did like the movie although I didn’t really love it.  I enjoyed the special effects, but the acting wasn’t all that great.  In fact, there were times where I felt like it was way over acted…almost not believable.  I did enjoy the movie and found the idea intriguing, but a musical score, special effects and sound editing really can’t make up for so-so acting.  Also, the ending perplexed me a bit.  I wish they would have made it a little clearer.  With that said, I give this film 3.5 stars for a creative idea and would suggest everyone give it a spin.  

That’s How Matt Sees It!

The Fighter

In our continuing effort to review all the movies nominated for a Best Picture Oscar in 2011, Matt and I are tackling The Fighter. I was so excited to see this movie that I got it as soon as it came out on DVD. Watching this movie makes you wonder when Mark Wahlberg morphed from Marky Mark to one of the most talented actors of his generation.

In The Fighter we are introduced to two boxing brothers, Dicky (Christian Bale) and Micky (Mark Wahlberg). Originally, Dicky had shown lots of promise as a fighter and had made his way into some very notable fights, but over the years he has slid into the world of drug abuse. He coaches his brother who is an adequate boxer, but certainly not the star Dicky was. Unfortunately, Dicky spends more time getting high than he does helping his brother and a strain develops between the two of them.

Micky is managed by his mother (Melissa Leo) who is a crass and hard woman. Often times she fails to look out for her son’s best interests while she attempts to support the family from the purses he wins in the ring. Most of Micky’s adult siblings still live at home and it is unclear if they have jobs of their own. It appears that Micky carries the weight of his entire family on his shoulders.

Micky’s whole world changes when he falls in love with Charlene (Amy Adams). Charlene convinces Micky to think about himself for the first time in his life. He hires new trainers and management and his career begins to take off. However, his family doesn’t celebrate his success; his new independence throws this dysfunctional family into turmoil. In the end, Micky is about to take care of himself and still be close to his family.

The Fighter gets a solid four and a half stars. The acting is impeccable, Christian Bale and Melissa Leo both won Best Supporting Actor/Actress awards for their roles and Amy Adams was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. Mark Wahlberg should have been nominated because his performance was great. In addition to the acting, the script is well done and the pace is sharp and focused. The Fighter is a great movie and well worth watching.

Michelle D. Kieffaber