"Pre-review? Don't you mean preview?", you ask. No, I am very deliberate in my choice of words whenever I write, and even more so when I choose words that aren't really words. By pre-review, I mean that I will review the upcoming Facebook movie, "The Social Network", before it comes out. To answer your question... no, I haven't seen a pre-release copy. Nor have I read the script. What am I, Creskin the Time-Travelling Magician? Not exactly. Although I like to think of myself as "often prescient", I'm not even relying on those skills for this review. Pure logic will suffice.
Before you get too irritated with my banter, I suppose an explanation is in order. In regards to "The Social Network", I have no more direct knowledge than any of you readers have at the time of this posting, which amounts to having viewed the movie trailer. From that trailer, however, it is pretty clear that "The Social Network" follows closely to the book, "The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook". And that is where my pre-review is coming from... sorta.
I listened to the audiobook version of "The Accidental Billionaires" about a year ago, and watching the trailer for the new movie incited flashbacks to listening to the book. If you are starting to think it sounds interesting to read a book about how Facebook was founded, let me assure you that doing so would be one of the worst mistakes you would ever make. Perhaps you think that sounds a little exaggerated, but it is rather difficult for me to put into words the pain, sorrow, and misery you will feel while reading (or listening). The thing is, though, these are not feelings that will be created in you by a gripping tale that makes you identify with characters who are experiencing sadness or loss. Nor will these feelings be created by entering in to the events of a great modern tragedy. No, these feelings will be created by what must be the most sophomoric writing I have ever had the displeasure to experience.
I literally hated this book. There were times when I actually yelled out loud in my car at the author for his pathetic attempt to describe scenes that "might have happened". The level of writing made me feel as if I were grading papers for a 9th grade English class and stumbled through the manuscript of a teenage boy who has just "discovered" that his calling in life is to become the next great author. Ugggggggh. The dialog was often ridiculous. His filling in the gaps in the story by pondering what "might have happened" as Mark went from one screw-up to the next annoyed me so badly that I wanted to throw the iPod out the window of my car and drive back and forth over it to make sure those bits would never be transferred to another storage device again. The over-abundance of adjectives and needless words drug the story out at least an additional hour or two in total. The whole experience was almost as pleasant as being kicked repeatedly between the legs by a giant, red, Bozo the Clown shoe. Incidentally, the last time I felt that my intelligence was so insulted was probably the last time I watched Bozo the Clown on cable tv in the eighties.
"So why did you listen?", you ask. Believe me, I asked myself that same question every time I pressed play. I felt I needed to know the story, though, so that I could better understand the motives behind the constant abuses of private information being added to Facebook as "features". I was pretty sure I already knew the reasons, and this would be a good way for me to confirm or deny my suspicions. In the end, it did confirm for me what I believed... that Mark Zuckerberg has no concept of the rights or concerns of others... that he is either autistic or has narcissistic disorder (or even a little of both). The story clearly showed this to be a fairly accurate read. It was good for me to know this so that I would be reminded to be very judicious about what personal info I let out into Facebook, even through such features as the supposedly-private messages.
I have heard a lot of comments about this book and it appears to be the general consensus that it is roughly historically accurate. By extension, I will assume that the movie will be as well. The trailer seemed to connect with a lot of the scenes from the book.
After watching the trailer, it is pretty clear to me that watching this movie will be every bit as painful as reading (or listening to) the book. The dialog will be terrible. The acting will be laughable. The script will be disjunct and fail to tell a deeper story beyond simply retelling what happened on a surface level. On top of that, people with moral sensibilities will be routinely scandalized by the events and their portrayal. There will be almost nothing redeemable about this movie... with one exception. Like the book, it will probably at least give you a poorly rendered portrait of Mark Zuckerberg, the self-centered social misfit who is dealing in the private info of millions of average people.
For that alone, I will recommend that everyone who uses Facebook see this movie. Yes, I know I just trashed the movie and assured you that it will be the most painful experience of movie-going you are likely to ever experience. However, if you want to continue to use Facebook, you should know who you are trusting your info to. I would like to hope that you will walk out of the theatre a little scared, even.
If you would rather not spend $9 at the theatre to see this atrocity to mankind, just wait for it to hit DVD. I am pretty sure that, within a month or two of its release, it will be in the $1.99 bin of your local Wal Mart. You can buy a copy, watch it, then smash it into tiny pieces and throw it away. At least that way, you can feel like your participation in this travesty brought some good to humanity by reducing the watchable copies in existence. Or, just watch it on hulu.com for free when the studio gives up on trying to market it and just settles for the advertising money.
Though your time will have been wasted whichever route you take, at least you will have reason to think twice about every click you make on Facebook from that point on... and that can only make the world a better place.
Todd Russell
August 26, 2010
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