Whether you use Facebook everyday, once a week, or stopped months ago (I put myself in the last category), you will still be hooked on the true story of how Mark Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Eisenberg in his most natural role so far) created one of the most successful companies in history.
Yet The Social Network, is not so much about how Zuckerberg started Facebook but if he started Facebook.
The case made by former/fellow-Harvard students, the Winkelvoss twins (both roles played by Armie Hammer) is presented fairly enough to create some doubt about how just a 20-year-old could have achieved what only 1,010 other people currently living on this planet have done.
In many ways Zuckerberg is deliberately set up as a straw man. His savant-like lack of social skills, the notable absence of a girlfriend, or any friend seem designed to instill a dislike or even fear of what Facebook represents. Like a surgeon sees a body on an operating table as just another object, Zuckerberg sees friends as a thing to connect with one another.
While the pros and cons of social networking websites are not the focus of the movie, you do go away with a definite sense that the person who came up with the idea of Facebook is not someone you would necessarily want to be friends with.
*** 3 stars out of 5
Tuesday, 11 January 2011
Wednesday, 29 December 2010
Somewhere (2010)
A good movie should take you on a journey somewhere, to places you wouldn't normally go. Somewhere does satisfy this basic requirement, offering you a stay at famous hotels in Los Angeles, Milan and Las Vegas. The women are all gorgeous and nobody can stop smiling and getting undressed.
Except Johnny Marco (played by Stephen Dorff), who plays an A-list Hollywood movie star (note to producers: next time, make him a B-list celebrity and cut your budget in half! Renting a helicopter doesn't come cheap!). With his broken marriage, permanent depression and insatiable appetite for sex, there's just enough material to connect with at least a significant minority of the world's population.
The writer/director, Sofia Coppola, certainly knows where to go looking for a storyline with enough mileage to get away with scenes that go on a minute longer than they should.
Somewhere does take you on a journey but what you do when you get there is also part of the adventure and this is what the movie is missing the most. A plot, if you will. There is definitely Something out there better than this.
* 1 star out of 5.
Except Johnny Marco (played by Stephen Dorff), who plays an A-list Hollywood movie star (note to producers: next time, make him a B-list celebrity and cut your budget in half! Renting a helicopter doesn't come cheap!). With his broken marriage, permanent depression and insatiable appetite for sex, there's just enough material to connect with at least a significant minority of the world's population.
The writer/director, Sofia Coppola, certainly knows where to go looking for a storyline with enough mileage to get away with scenes that go on a minute longer than they should.
Somewhere does take you on a journey but what you do when you get there is also part of the adventure and this is what the movie is missing the most. A plot, if you will. There is definitely Something out there better than this.
* 1 star out of 5.
Sunday, 26 December 2010
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)
"What's your number?", the impetuous Jake Moore (played by Shia LeBeouf) pointedly asks of the surprisingly accessible CEO of investment bank Churchill Schwartz, Bretton James (played by Josh Brolin); "the amount of money you would need to just walk away from it and live."
Halfway through Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, a 133-minute attempt at reinventing a 1987 classic, my answer to this question would be: I'll just cut my losses, thanks. Waiting a minute longer for something worthwhile, or even comprehensible to anyone without at least 6 months experience working in the New York Stock Exchange, would not be time well spent.
In contrast to the original Wall Street, this installment feels as though it carries with it the need to explain to everyone who hadn't read a newspaper in the past 2 years, everything they needed to know about the global financial crisis but were afraid to ask.
There is an attempt to put a human face on all the goings on, in the form of Louis Zabel, (played by Frank Langella), the head of investment bank Keller Zabel Investments (If they were trying to come up with a firm that mimicks Lehman Brothers they might have tried a fancy anagram. It only took me a few minutes to discover "Shalom Brethren". Classic!). This tragic figure is a father-figure to young Jake and the only person on Wall Street, it seems, with any morals. Everyone else is just in it for the money.
Of course there is one person who knows all too well about the dangers of putting money before those who really matter: the released, reformed and reinvigorated Gordon Gekko is back and this time he's asking the question "Is Greed Good?". The 1987 GG would have a short answer for this, but it's 2008 now and people don't know anything, they just ask questions assuming that someone else knows the answer. Presumably there is an expert on Wall Street who knows. Maybe it's Gekko, maybe it's Jake, maybe it's Gekko's estranged daughter, Winnie (played by Carey Mulligan). Who knows.
In the end, it's not a question of greed in Money Never Sleeps, it's not even about the money. As Gekko in one of his many lectures to Jake explains, it's about "the game between people". Everyone has something to trade. Personally, if I could have my 133 minutes back I would look for something on which to spend my time more wisely. And for that you need look no further!
* (1 out of 5)
Halfway through Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, a 133-minute attempt at reinventing a 1987 classic, my answer to this question would be: I'll just cut my losses, thanks. Waiting a minute longer for something worthwhile, or even comprehensible to anyone without at least 6 months experience working in the New York Stock Exchange, would not be time well spent.
In contrast to the original Wall Street, this installment feels as though it carries with it the need to explain to everyone who hadn't read a newspaper in the past 2 years, everything they needed to know about the global financial crisis but were afraid to ask.
There is an attempt to put a human face on all the goings on, in the form of Louis Zabel, (played by Frank Langella), the head of investment bank Keller Zabel Investments (If they were trying to come up with a firm that mimicks Lehman Brothers they might have tried a fancy anagram. It only took me a few minutes to discover "Shalom Brethren". Classic!). This tragic figure is a father-figure to young Jake and the only person on Wall Street, it seems, with any morals. Everyone else is just in it for the money.
Of course there is one person who knows all too well about the dangers of putting money before those who really matter: the released, reformed and reinvigorated Gordon Gekko is back and this time he's asking the question "Is Greed Good?". The 1987 GG would have a short answer for this, but it's 2008 now and people don't know anything, they just ask questions assuming that someone else knows the answer. Presumably there is an expert on Wall Street who knows. Maybe it's Gekko, maybe it's Jake, maybe it's Gekko's estranged daughter, Winnie (played by Carey Mulligan). Who knows.
In the end, it's not a question of greed in Money Never Sleeps, it's not even about the money. As Gekko in one of his many lectures to Jake explains, it's about "the game between people". Everyone has something to trade. Personally, if I could have my 133 minutes back I would look for something on which to spend my time more wisely. And for that you need look no further!
* (1 out of 5)
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