The Social Network Movie Review: How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

The story of the founding of the most popular and successful social networking site, Facebook, is the foundation for The Social Network, but it’s hardly the meat and potatoes of the story. It’s directed by David Fincher from a dazzling screenplay by Aaron Sorkin, who adapted it from Ben Mezrich’s non-fiction book The Accidental Billionaires.

Fincher got his start in feature films as a studio director-for-hire who always brought a unique vision to such films as Alien 3, Se7en and Fight Club. He strayed a little off the map by opting for more commercial fare with the recent Hollywood favorite The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Although The Social Network is a big commercial enterprise, Fincher gets himself back on track as an auteur. He demands that we take sides with a severely flawed hero – Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) who sold out his best friend and may have partially ripped off the idea from fellow Harvard classmates Divya Marendra (Max Minghella) and Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss (Armie Hammer).

Classic Movie Review: Billy Wilder's Sunset Blvd.

Sunset Blvd. is probably director Billy Wilder’s best film, but when you’re talking about a man who made Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, The Lost Weekend, Stalag 17 and Double Indemnity, you’re really just splitting hairs with a statement like that. As with most of the best films throughout history, it is great not only because every element is part of a unified vision that coalesces into a finished product, but also because it employs several groundbreaking techniques to achieve its goal. There’s a reason why it’s ranked 32 (at the time of writing) on the IMDb’s Top 250 and has made the top 20 American films on lists prepared by the AFI. It’s also had two lines consistently singled out as among the most memorable in film history: “I am big. It’s the pictures that got small;” “All right, Mr. DeMille. I’m ready for my closeup.”

Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona Movie Review

Over the decades Woody Allen has continually returned to the same themes again and again, revisiting them with different characters and settings, always closing his films with a satisfactory resolution, but continuing the ambiguity in his next outing. Chief among these themes has been love, passion and fidelity.

His 2008 film Vicky Cristina Barcelona looks at two sides of the same coin in Vicky (Rebecca Hall), the pragmatist looking for a stable dependable love which she has in her fiancé, Doug, and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson), the impetuous free spirit open to new experiences and more willing to find love in whoever comes along. The two are best friends recently arrived in Barcelona – Vicky studying Catalan identity and Cristina tagging along for adventure. Luckily for them and for the audience Vicky has a family connection to Mark and Judy (Kevin Dunn and Patricia Clarkson), who give them a place to stay in their picturesque villa.

Greenberg Movie Review

If writer/director Noah Baumbach’s latest feature, Greenberg, feels a bit directionless, that’s probably because the title character, Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller), has lost focus after a breakdown and brief stay in a psychiatric ward. Come to think of it, Baumbach sort of specializes in directionless characters beginning with his first film, Kicking and Screaming, about four recent college graduates unwilling to go forth and take their places in the world. Roger Greenberg could be any one of those characters fifteen years later.

Universal Pulls Trailer for Vince Vaughan Comedy The Dilemma

Universal recently decided to pull its trailer for the upcoming Vince Vaughan comedy Dilemma because of its inappropriate and offensive (to some) use of the word "gay" in its opening. While I must admit I personally find the line funny as delivered by Vaughan I understand and agree with the sentiment that led Universal to pull the trailer.

(sorry, the original trailer is no longer available on YouTube)

I realize it's difficult for most people to understand why this particular use of the word "gay" is offensive to homosexuals, but I'll try. The problem with this is that "gay" has long been accepted by society as the common term for homosexuals, but it has also been appropriated as slang to denote something bad, something undesirable, something worthy of being the target of derision. I, too, am guilty of using the word this way. And while we should all make an effort to stop using the word that way, there is a difference between my using it with friends and Universal advertising their film to millions and potentially alienating a large part of their audience.

Still, the most offensive part of this trailer is its complete lack of a single funny moment. Dilemma looks absolutely awful (no surprise for a January release). And what a crap premise for a movie - this is what passes muster with studio heads nowadays? How can they stretch this "problem" out to feature length? I dread to find out. I absolutely can not believe Ron Howard has gone slumming so deep to make such garbage.

Trailer for Julie Taymor's The Tempest

Julie Taymor, who directed the visually splendid Titus, Frida and Across the Universe is back with a new film, an adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest. Here's the trailer:



I will reserve full judgment until I see the film, but I sincerely hope it doesn't turn out as bad as this trailer makes it look. I thought her Titus, an adaptation of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus was fantastic, but it looks like she may have lost the plot a bit on this one, relying heavily on CGI and turning his late great work into an action spectacular to attract the Clash of the Titans crowd.

25 Years Ago This Month: October 1985

Incredibly, October 1985 didn't see the release of a single truly noteworthy film. Sure there was the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle Commando and the Jeff Bridges thriller Jagged Edge, which was the box office winner for the month, but everything else falls into the long or mostly forgotten list.

Of course there was the cult classic Re-Animator - a pretty amusing updating of the Frankenstein story. Also on the cult classic list (albeit on a much smaller scale) was Remo Williams - The Adventure Begins starring Fred Ward as cop turned government assassin.