Wednesday, August 18, 2010

The Social Network.

I've been reading a lot on The Social Network. Comparisons have been made to The Godfather and Citizen Kane, and it debuts at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Of course, when I first heard of a movie based on Facebook, I didn't know whether it'd be about a fictional story about Facebook and its impact on people or if it was about the inception of Facebook. Turns out, it's about Mark Zuckerberg and the other founders.

Still it was hard to overcome that initial hump to take it seriously. In the back of my mind, I kept thinking of the huge cash cow this story must have, and an opportunity that's just ripe for cashing in on it.

I've changed my mind after reading the critics' reviews. It seems like The Social Network is an attempt to talk about one man's shortcomings with social interaction, and making it into a strength where everyone can benefit with the continued access to people all over the world in real time. I think it tries to capture what everyone on Facebook has felt, in an honest way, despite having to fill in the blanks since Zuckerberg and other co-founders did not give their input for the making of this movie. Starting from the time I saw the trailer of The Social Network. Scala & Kolacny Brothers' cover of Radiohead's Creep was so haunting and it really defines the social netowrking experience.

Also the character of Mark Zuckerberg is fascinating to me. He's a prodigy, to put it simply. Perfect SATs, offered a position with Microsoft at 18 and turned it down, Harvard dropout, and now youngest billionaire and CEO of Facebook. Impressive. But what's more is the inherent social deficiencies that made him see and become successful in creating and coding Facebook. Despite all of his successes, it came from a weakness he's been able to turn into a significant strength. And surprisingly, despite some of the back-stabbing that probably occurred, he's a very sympathetic character.

I'm excited to see the movie that defines the decade. The decade of Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and other social networking phenomenons that people decades ago couldn't fathom.

Here's the link to Scala and Kolacny Brothers' Creep.

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