Since my earlier review of The Social Network was as much a review of the music as the movie, it was a little tighter than my long, rambly, everything-and-the-kitchen-sink movie reviews tend to be. Here are some other thoughts I had that ended up on the cutting room floor.
* The one-liner summation of the movie is that social networking was invented by a sociopath.
* Like Frodo Baggins leaving the Shire, Jesse Eisenberg has forever left Summer Stock Michael Cera behind. Good for him.
* Justin Timberlake is a scream in this movie. He’s sort of playing himself as much as anyone else, especially in that sequence in the restaurant where he wows Mark but pisses Eduardo off, with all those quick cuts and cool poses and smooth moves sort of making mock of the idea that this guy is the coolest motherfucker in the room–the Tyler Durden to Mark’s Jack. Good for Timberlake for having a sense of humor about this aspect of being Justin Timberlake (which fact pisses some folks off even more, I know). He was also quite convincing as a person so convinced of his own awesomeness and brilliance that all of his failures and all of his detractors were part of some grand conspiracy. What else could they be?
* I had a whole thing I wanted to say about how good the twin actors playing the Winklevoss twins were, really how good those parts were. With their looks and intelligence and background they probably had had everything in life handed to them, but they came across as self-aware about this, and decent about it too–always talking each other down from beating Mark up or suing him, realizing they’re the Johnny character in the Karate Kid story their lives had become, trying to go about everything by the book. Perhaps that’s because the book had never done them wrong, but still. And there was something genuinely sad and frustrating about watching them do everything right and still get screwed over–obliviously made to feel shitty by royalty, actively insulted by once and future Chief Swinging Dick of the American economy Larry Summers, and of course ripped off by Zuckerberg.
* But then I found out the twins were digitally created! Whoa whoa whoa! It’s all Armie Hammer, with his face superimposed over actor Josh Pence half the time. I 100% did not notice this at all. Damn!
* How do we feel about Max Minghella in brownface? I’m alright with it–I mean, I’ve got that luxury, I suppose, but yeah–and here’s why, and it redounds to the Winklevii: In his circle of friends, he’s never condescended to the way Mark condescends to Eduardo by shrugging off his entree into high society as a diversity move. They’re three pees in a pod.
* A.O. Scott’s review contains a line he uses to describe the tone of the movie that’s actually perfect for describing the Reznor/Ross score: “ambient tremors of unease.”
* I think Matt Zoller Seitz takes things too far when he argues that this is a horror movie–and I say this as someone who lists Barton Fink, Lost Highway, Eyes Wide Shut, Deliverance, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Mulholland Drive, Taxi Driver, A Clockwork Orange, Shutter Island, and Heavenly Creatures among his favorite horror films. I’m uncomfortable simply classifying any art that’s about something awful as horror. It seems to me that an element of genuine physical danger, preferably of a sort that threatens sanity/soul, is key. But I think it’s Reznor/Ross’s score that pushes it in that direction.
* I liked Jason Adams’s review. And here’s the Jezebel piece by Irin Carmon I mentioned but forgot to link to. I didn’t like it.