THE SOCIAL NETWORK

For all its flaws, THE SOCIAL NETWORK is a movie that is hard to turn away from. It is a very good movie, but not a great one. They almost bend over backwards to give you things to NOT like about this movie, most notably the choice of characters, who are not in any way sympathetic. I also usually don't like movies that are all talk and no action, but this one, written by Aaron Sorkin and lifted mostly from testimony of two lawsuits about the founding of Facebook, flies by so quickly that there is no time to stop to think about anything. I think that's a good thing, because there is not really that much substance to the movie, other than to point out that arrogant people are annoying. I kinda knew that already.

I also know plenty of people like the characters in this movie, so it wasn't really that surprising. Maybe I'm too close because of my relationship with MIT, my love for technology, or my addiction to Facebook. In fact it may be my remembrances of similar people that I have met that make the movie less interesting to me.

Also, the movie did not at all change my opinion of Facebook in any way. Much like the movie, I still love Facebook, despite all its flaws.

There is a lot that's very good about the movie. It will be interesting to see how much the film stands up at awards time. A lot of the technical work was exceptional, and the acting was very, very good. I suspect it will still do well.