Tag Archives: Jesse Eisenberg

4 Late Quickies With Lisa Marie: Bully, For Greater Glory, Sound of My Voice, To Rome With Love

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

While I try to review just about every film I see, there are times when I don’t get to review a film as soon as I would like.  Fortunately, in this age of Netflix, DVDs, and Blu-ray, it’s never too late to review a film!  I saw the following four films earlier this year.  These reviews are a little late but here they are.

1) Bully (directed by Lee Hirsch)

This documentary, which follows and tells the story of several bullied teenagers over the course of one year, has the best of intentions and it’s definitely effective as far as making you dislike bullies and feel sorry for their victims.  That said, did anyone really like bullies before this film was released? 

Bully got a lot of attention when it was released earlier this year and a lot of people (who should have known better) said that the film itself was a solution to the problem of bullying.  I doubt that this film (or anything else, for that matter) will solve the issue of bullying but it is a well-made look at what kids do whenever adults aren’t watching (and, sad to say, sometimes when they are). 

One problem I did have with this film is that it chooses to limit itself to schools in small towns and rural communities, which gives the whole enterprise something of an elitist feel.  Are there no bullies up north? 

2) For Greater Glory (directed by Dean Wright)

For Greater Glory is a dramatization of the bizarrely obscure period of Mexican history known as the Cristero War.  In 1920s, Mexican President Plutarco Elias Calles (played in this film by Ruben Blades) started a violent and relentless crackdown on the country’s Catholic faithful.  Churches were burned, priests and nuns were murdered by supporters of the government, and eventually Catholic peasants rose up in violent rebellion.  The Cristero War lasted from 1926 until 1929, eventually ending with a truce that was brokered by the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Dwight Morrow (played by Bruce Greenwood).

For Greater Glory set box office records in Mexico but it received some pretty negative reviews from American film critics.  To a certain extent, the negative reviews are not surprising.  The film is long, frequently heavy-handed and melodramatic and it’s also unapologetically pro-Catholic in its storytelling.  (Roger Ebert, who never seems to get tired of apologizing for having been born into a Catholic family, was especially critical of that aspect of the film.) 

With all that in mind, I still enjoyed For Greater Glory.  It’s a well-made and ultimately rather moving film (though I imagine some parts of the film might be a bit confusing if you don’t have at least a little bit of a Catholic background) and it features excellent performances from Andy Garcia and Oscar Isaac as two of the rebel leaders.  In many ways, For Greater Glory feels like a throwback to the epic films of the past and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

3) Sound of My Voice (directed by Zat Batmanglij)

Like last year’s Another Earth, Sound of My Voice is a science fiction film that stars and was co-written by Brit Marling.  The difference between the two is that Another Earth was a pretentious mess while Sound of My Voice is an effectively creepy little film that puts story and atmosphere above trite pronouncements about the state of existence.

Brit Marling plays a mysterious woman who claims to have been sent from the future.  She has a devoted cult of followers who spend their nights sitting on the floor around her, listening to her talk about the horrors waiting for them in the future.  Two journalists go undercover and infiltrate her cult, hoping to expose her as a fraud.  

Sound Of My Voice keeps the viewer guessing as to whether or not Marling is who she says she is and the film’s ending, while not a total surprise, is still effective enough to inspire debate after the end credits roll.  As opposed to Another Earth, Marling gives an actual performance here and is both creepy and sympathetic at the same time.

4) To Rome With Love (directed by Woody Allen)

Woody Allen’s follow-up to Midnight in Paris, To Rome With Love tells four separate stories that all take place in Rome.  Despite the fact that the cast features everyone from Alec Baldwin to Roberto Begnini to Penelope Cruz to Ellen Page, the true star of the film is the city of Rome.  I spent the summer after I graduated high school in Italy and this film brought back a lot of good memories.

Unfortunately, the film’s four stories are pretty uneven and the film’s frequent transitions from story to story are pretty awkward.  The worst story features Alec Baldwin meeting his younger self (played by Jesse Eisenberg) and trying to prevent him from falling in love with a neurotic actress (Ellen Page).  The film’s best story is a satiric fable about an ordinary man (played, in an excellent performance, by Roberto Begnini) who wakes up one day to discover that he’s the most famous man in Italy. 

The film doesn’t really work but I still loved to getting to see Rome once again.

A Quickie Review: 30 Minutes or Less (dir. by Ruben Fleischer)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Earlier tonight, I went and saw the new comedy 30 Minutes or Less.  The film has, so far, gotten mixed reviews and the theater we saw it in was half-deserted.  The audience laughed quite a bit during the 1st half of the movie and a little less so during the second.  As soon as the credits started, everyone stood up and left.  This is not the type of film that inspires you to sit around and wait to see if there’s any extras at the end.  Still, despite that, it’s an enjoyable comedy that has enough laughs in it to justify the 83 minutes it takes to watch the entire film.

Danny McBride plays an aimless loser who, despite being in his mid-3os, still lives at home with his wealthy but hateful father (well-played by Fred Ward).  McBride spends his time blowing stuff up with his well-meaning but stupid best friend (Nick Swardson) and fantasizing about the day that his father will die and leave him his inheritance.  However, then McBride finds out about a hitman (Michael Pena) who is willing to kill Ward as long as McBride can pay him several thousand dollars.  So, McBride and Swardson kidnap a pizza deliveryman (Jesse Eisenberg) and strap a bomb to his chest.  They tell him that is he doesn’t rob a bank in the next 10 hours, the bomb will go off.  With the help of his best friend (Aziz Ansari), Eisenberg attempts to do just that.

The film’s humor comes not from the plot (which is based very loosely on a true story — more about that in a minute) but instead from the way these very ordinary characters attempt to deal with the situation they find themselves in.  All four of the major characters have little grasp on reality beyond what they’ve seen in other movies.  When Eisenberg and Aziz plot their bank robbery, it has less to do with logistics and everything to do with Point Break.  The film is perfectly cast and all of the actors have a real chemistry with each other.  You believe that McBride and Swardson are lifelong friends just as you buy that Aziz would go out of his way to help out Eisenberg. 

Much as he did with Zombieland, director Fleischer manages to maintain a nice balance between the comedic and the grotesque.  Unfortunately, also much like Zombieland, the film starts to run out of steam during the second half as the storyline becomes more centered on action than on comedy.  These characters who were previously only talking about being in an action film are suddenly thrust into an action film and everything starts to seem a little bit too familiar.  Still, 30 Minutes or Less is an enjoyable enough movie.  I just wish the end result had been a little less uneven.

Now, 30 Minutes or Less is based on a true story and this story wasn’t a comedy.  In 2003, a pizza deliveryman named Brian Douglas Wells robbed a bank in Erie, Pennsylvania.  He had a bomb around his neck.  Unlike the characters in this film, Wells was killed when the bomb went off and blew a softball-sized hole in his chest.  The police — who, in the moments before the fatal blast, basically just stood around with their tasers drawn while Wells begged for help — later accused Wells of being a part of the whole plot.  Which makes absolutely no sense but who am I to question Big Brother? 

Regardless of whether Wells was a victim or participant, that doesn’t change the fact that pizza delivery men are easy targets.  Just last year in Dallas, two kids with guns ordered a pizza and gave the address of a deserted warehouse.  They had to call many different pizza places before they found someone willing to deliver to that area of town.  When the pizza arrived, the kids gunned down the deliveryman.  When they were arrested, they said they had simply wanted to kill someone and they knew a pizza deliveryman was the only potential victim they’d be able to lure out to the middle of nowhere.  That’s hardly an isolated incident. 

Also, as is mentioned in this movie, whenever the pizza person takes 34 minutes to get to your house and then you go, “Duuuuuuude, the pizza’s free!” that means that the cost of your pizza is going to be taken out of the paycheck of a man who puts his life in danger every time he goes to work. 

So, what am I saying?  I’m saying don’t be an asshole and pay for your damn pizza!

And leave a good tip.

Lisa Marie Goes To Rio (dir. by Carlos Saldahna)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Rio is one of those films that I missed when it had it’s initial run at the theaters.  However, last week, I finally got a chance to see it at the “dollar” theater.  Now, I have to admit that I consider the dollar theater to be something like the sixth ring of Hell and, before the movie started, I posted the following to twitter: “Wow, there’s a lot of ugly and obese children in this theater.”  And indeed, that was the case.  What I forgot to mention is that a lot of them were there with equally ugly and obese parents, the types who talked loudly through the film in accents that carried the dual twang of ignorance and stagnation.  Despite the surroundings though, I found Rio to be a perfectly pleasant little animated film.

Rio is the story of Blu (voice by Jesse Eisenberg), a blue macaw who, though originally from Brazil, has grown up in Minnesota and, as a result, has never learned how to fly.  Blu returns to Brazil with his owner (Lesley Mann) so that he can mate with another macaw, Jewel (Ann Hathaway) and keep the species from dying out.  However, things don’t go exactly as planned as 1) Jewel is more interested in escaping captivity than in mating and 2) both Rio and Jewel are abducted by a psychotic Cockatoo named Nigel (Jermaine Clement).  Nigel works for a bunch of poachers and soon Jewel and the flightless Blu find themselves on the run, looking for their owner while the Rio Carnaval goes on all around them. 

As one of my old theater teachers one said about me, Rio ”is not without a certain fun charm.”  The film’s storyline of neurotic animals getting lost in an exotic locale and eventually finding the strength to believe in themselves is pretty much standard animation fare but the action moves along quickly and the movie takes full advantage of the whole Rio mystique.  The film’s animators create the Rio de Janeiro that everyone hopes they’ll discover if they ever make it down to Brazil.  Perhaps most importantly, Rio is child-appropraite without ever being so childish as to inspire adults to start drinking while the little ones laugh.

The voice actors all do a pretty good job distinguishing their individual characters.  Jesse Eisenberg is perfectly neurotic as Blu while Anne Hathway’s vocals are properly headstrong as Jewel.   The real stand-out here is Jermaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords. Clement, with his deep, wonderfully dramatic voice, brings a lot of flair to the villainous Nigel and, despite being a psycho Cockatoo, quickly became an audience favorite.  Though the human bird owners don’t get much to do, Leslie Mann and Rodrigo Santoro are so endearing that you actually wish they had more screen time.  On the other hand, if, like me, you found George Lopez to be grating before seeing Rio, this film isn’t going to do much to change your mind.  (Lopez, not surprisingly, plays the know-it-all bird who helps Blu and Jewel make their way through Rio.)

As I watched Rio, I realized just how spoiled we all got last year as far as animated films were concerned.  Last year, I got a chance to see Toy Story 3, How To Train Your Dragon, Shrek Forever After, A Town Called Panic, The Illusionist, Megamind, and Despicable Me.  It was, in many ways, a banner year for cinematic animation.  With the exception of Rango, there haven’t been any animated films so far that can really compare with what we were given last year.  As a result, it’s easy to be dismissive of a straight-forward, relatively simple family film like Rio.  That’s unfortunate because, taken on its own terms, Rio is a perfectly enjoyable way to spend 90 minutes.  Just don’t go into it expecting to see Toy Story 3 and you’ll be fine.

Hey SAG! Where’s Jacki?

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Is there any organization out there right now that isn’t handing out either awards or nominations?  Earlier today, The members of the Screen Actors Guild became the latest organization to join in the fun when they announced their nominations for the best film performances of 2010.

Here’s the nominees.  I apologize, in advance, for the lack of sarcastic commentary but I have a headache and, as a result, my wit is sleeping on the couch for now.

Ensemble:
Black Swan
The Fighter
The Kids Are All Right
The King’s Speech
The Social Network

Actress, Lead:
Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right
Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone
Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Hilary Swank, Conviction

Actor, Motion Picture
Jeff Bridges, True Grit
Robert Duvall, Get Low
Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
Colin Firth, The King’s Speech
James Franco, 127 Hours

Supporting Actor
Christian Bale, The Fighter
John Hawkes, Winter’s Bone
Jeremy Renner, The Town
Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right
Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech

Actress, Supporting
Amy Adams, The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter, The King’s Speech
Mila Kunis, Black Swan
Melissa Leo, The Fighter
Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit

Well, okay, maybe I’ll make a few comments along the lines of “Yay for the love shown to Natalie Portman, John Hawkes, James Franco, Jennifer Lawrence, and Mila Kunis!”

But seriously, SAG, where’s Animal Kingdom’s Jacki Weaver?  I mean, I can understand why Noomi Rapace was snubbed.  The Mainstream doesn’t want to remind people that there was a perfect Lisbeth Salander before Rooney Mara.  That’s how the game is played.  That’s why the people over at awardsdaily.com are already trying to claim David Fincher’s remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo as the film to beat for best picture next year.

But nobody’s remaking Animal Kingdom.  There’s nothing wrong with admitting that, in a year of excellent female performances, few were as a note perfect and unexpected as Jacki Weaver’s.

Who the Hell Are These People?

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

With the Golden Globe nominations set to be announced on Tuesday, I figured now would be a good time to recap which films and performances have already been honored by the various critics groups. 

One thing that I discovered as I researched this is that there are a lot of critics groups out there!   I don’t know who half these people are and most of them probably won’t have any bearing at all on who is actually nominated come Oscar time.  But since I’m a lover of trivia and lists, there you go.

The following films and performances were honored by either The National Board of Review, the D.C. Film Critics, the Boston Society of Film Critics, The New York Film Critics Online,The Los Angeles Film Critics, The Indiana Film Journalists, The Southeastern Film Critics, The New York Film Critics Circle, or the San Francisco Film Critics.

Best Picture:

The Social Network (All.  That’s right, it’s a clean sweep for an above average film.)

Best Director:

Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan (S.F)

Olivier Assayas for Carlos (LAFC)

David Fincher for The Social Network (BSFC, DC, NBR, NYFCC, NYFCO, SEFC, S.F.)

Christopher Nolan for Inception (IFJ)

Best Actor:

Jesse Eisenberg (BSFC, NBR)

Colin Firth for The King’s Speech (DC, LAFC, NYFCC, SEFC, S.F.)

James Franco for 127 Hours (IFJ, NYFCO)

Best Actress:

Annette Bening for The Kids Are All Right (NYFCC)

Kim Hye-ja for Mother (LAFC)

Jennifer Lawrence for Winter’s Bone (DC)

Lesley Manville for Another Year (NBR)

Natalie Portman for Black Swan (BSFC, IFJ, NYFCO, SEFC)

Michelle Williams for Blue Valentine (S.F.)

Best Supporting Actor:

Niels Arestrup for A Prophet (LAFC)

Christian Bale for The Fighter (BSFC, DC, IFJ, NBR, NYFCO)

John Hawkes for Winter’s Bone (S.F.)

Mark Ruffalo for The Kids Are All Right (NYFCC)

Geoffrey Rush for The King’s Speech (SEFC)

Best Supporting Actress:

Melissa Leo for The Fighter (DC, NYFCC, NYFCO)

Juliette Lewis for Conviction (BSFC)

Hailee Steinfeld for True Grit (IFJ, SEFC)

Jacki Weaver for Animal Kingdom (LAFC, NBR, S.F.)

Best Documentary:

Exit Through The Gift Shop (DC, IFJ, NYFCO)

The Inside Job (NYFCC, SEFC)

Last Train Home (LAFC)

Marwencol (BSFC)

The Tillman Story (S.F.)

Waiting For Superman (NBR)

Best Animated Feature:

How To Train Your Dragon (IFJ)

The Illusionist (NYFCC)

Toy Story 3 (BSFC, DC, LAFC, NBR, NYFCO, SEFC, S.F.)

Best Adapted Screenplay:

The Social Network (BSFC, DC, IFJ, LAFC, NYFCO, SEFC, S.F.)

Best Original Screenplay:

Inception (DC)

The Kids Are All Right (NYFCC)

The Kings Speech (SEFC, S.F.)

  

The National Board Of Review: I Give Up!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The rather enigmatic National Board of Review announced their selections for the best films of 2010 today.  The NBR is traditionally considered to be the first precursor to how the actual Oscar race will shape up.  Typically, those honored by the NBR are, at the very least, nominated by the Academy.  Strangely, nobody seems to be sure just who exactly makes up the membership of the NBR.  As far as I can tell, it appears to be a collection of film professors and cable tv executives.  It wouldn’t surprise me to discover that the NBR is actually some sort of Illuminati conspiracy or MK-Ultra experiment designed to keep American filmgoers from thinking for themselves.

Anyway, as I look over this year’s award winners, all I can say is that I give up.  If my reaction to Avatar indicated to me that I’m totally out-of-step with mainstream opinion, then the current Pavlovian acclaim of the Social Network proves it.  I will never be a part of the mainstream and it’s not by choice.  It’s just I am apparently thoroughly incapable of understanding how the mainstream brain works. 

So, that’s what the National Board of Review taught me today.  I am destined to always be alone, railing against the dying of the light.  Thank you for the insight, assholes.

Anyway, here’s this year’s award winners:

Best Picture: The Social Network (Don’t get me wrong, the Social Network is a good movie.  It’s just not that good.) 

Best Director: David Fincher, The Social Network

Best Actor: Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network (I am so sick of hearing that this is Jesse’s “breakthrough” role.  Jesse’s breakthrough was in Adventureland, long before the mainstream ever decided to embrace him.)

Best Actress: Lesley Manville, Another Year (Haven’t seen it yet)

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, The Fighter (Another movie that I will see when it opens later this month.  Still, Bale should have been nominated for American Psycho back in the day.)

Best Supporting Actress: Jacki Weaver for Animal Kingdom (Yay!  This award gives me hope.)

Best Animated Feature: Toy Story 3 (yay!)

Best Documentary: Waiting For Superman (Yes, my favorite movie of the year –Exit Through The Gift Shop – was totally ignored.)

Best Ensemble Cast: The Town (Bleh.  So I guess that would include Jon Hamm, who gave such an amazingly bad performance in this film?)

Breakthrough Performance: Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone (Another yay but you know all the mainstream is going to offer her is a role in a Twilight rip-off and maybe a Maxim cover shoot.)

Best Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin for The Social Network (Fuck Aaron Sorkin and his elitist, sexist, technophobic script.)

Best Original Screenplay: Chris Sparling for Buried (which I didn’t see, mostly because I’m claustrophobic and the movie is called Buried.)

Ten Best Films Of The Year (in alphabetical order):

Another Year

The Fighter

Hereafter (which sucked!)

Inception (yay!)

The King’s Speech (I’m actually really looking forward to seeing this)

Shutter Island (kinda bleh but enjoyable)

The Town

Toy Story 3

True Grit (another one I can’t wait to see)

Winter’s Bone (yay!)

Yep, you read that right.  No awards for such presumed favorites as James Franco and 127 Hours, Black Swan, or The Kids Are All Right.  But you better believe they found room to honor a shallow, pandering film like Hereafter.

Finally, here are the Top Ten Independent Films of 2010, according to the toadsuckers at the National Board of Review:

Animal Kingdom (yay!)

Buried (Now I guess I have to see it)

Fish Tank (yay!)

The Ghost Writer (yay — kinda)

Greenberg (bleh)

Let Me In (another kinda yay)

Monsters (shrug)

Please Give (yay!)

Somewhere (going to see it when it opens down here, Sofia Coppola is my role model)

Youth in Revolt (shrug, it’s neither bleh nor yay)

You can read the full list of winners at The Wrap.

Anyway, in order to show just how exactly I feel when confronted with mainstream thought and opinion, here’s an old picture of me with a tampon stuck up my nose.

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: The Social Network (dir. by David Fincher)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Let’s keep this short.

The Social Network is not, as I originally feared, a terrible film.

At the same time, it’s not, as so many are rabidly insisting, a great film either.

It’s a good film that takes a lot of liberty with the truth and, in the process of telling the “story” about the founding of Facebook, reveals that screenwriter Aaron Sorkin doesn’t really get the whole Internet thing.

David Fincher directs like a man who still can’t believe he didn’t get an Oscar for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.  In other words, he doesn’t do anything that might be too far out of the mainstream.  Face it, folks.  The man who directed Fight Club has grown up.  And, as they say, when you grow up, your heart dies.

The main problem with The Social Network is that it is essentially a very mainstream movie being made about a grindhouse topic.  Hackers, like the best grindhouse directors, do what they do because 1) they can and 2) it’s a way of telling the rest of the mainstream world to fuck off.  Unfortunately, both Sorkin and Fincher are members of that mainstream world so instead of celebrating Facebook and the Internet as a revolution, they instead try to convince us that the only reason Facebook exists is because the founder’s heart was broken by his ex-girlfriend.

That ex-girlfriend is portrayed by Rooney Mara, who will be playing Fincher’s version of the girl with the dragon tattoo.  The film presents her as being a shallow bitch but then again, the film presents every woman in the world as being a shallow bitch.  Then again, this is a mainstream movie and the mainstream hates women who actually think for themselves.  Certainly, that’s been the case with everything else that Aaron Sorkin has ever written.

Still, Mara is presented as just being insensitive and not evil or crazy.  If the movie has a villain, it’s Sean Parker (played by Justin Timberlake) who is presented as being the evil Iago-like figure who ruined Facebook.  If anything, the film mostly seems to hate him because Parker co-founded Napster and therefore cost the mainstream media a good deal of money.

Admittedly, it’s a well-acted movie.  Both Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield are excellent as the soon to be estranged founders of Facebook.  Armie Hammer actually plays two characters — twin brothers — and he creates two unforgettable and unique characters.  Justin Timberlake is a bit less convincing as Sean Parker but then again, by the film’s logic, Parker is less a human being and more a demon sent from Hell to keep David Geffen from getting another few thousand.  Finally, Rooney Mara does what she can with a demeaning and insulting role.  I didn’t see any signs of Lisbeth Salander in her performance but then again, this isn’t a film about strong women.  It’s a movie about weak little boys.

Anyway, to return to my original point, the Social Network is a good film.  It’s well-acted, it looks pretty, the story moves quickly, and Trent Reznor’s score is excellent.  Unfortunately, the movie’s being presented to us as a great film and anyone who disagrees is running the risk of being lynched by the same obnoxious fascists who, last year, demanded that everyone bathe in their own cum while watching Avatar.  The main reason these people are so over-the-moon about this movie is that it’s the epitome of the type of film that pats the viewer on the back for being so smart without actually requiring that viewer to prove it. 

So, if you watch this movie, realize that you keep your mind open at your own risk.

Good luck.

A Few Thoughts Before Actually Seeing The Social Network

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi there.  Lisa Marie here.  I know that usually when I show up on this site, it’s too either toss up 6 more exploitation trailers or to present a review of a film that’s been unfairly dismissed (or foolishly overpraised) by the mainstream media.  It’s what I love doing and I hope everyone gets at least a little occasional pleasure out of it.  (If you don’t — well, please don’t tell me.  I’m surprisingly sensitive.)

Last week, I expected that, at this time, I would have posted a review (probably negative) of the mainstream’s latest attempt to make an art film — David Fincher’s The Social Network.

Unfortunately, life in general — and my body in specific — had other plans.  I’ve been sick since Wednesday and, for the first time in over a year, I did not spend my weekend at the movies.  It’s enough to make a girl cry.

(That said, I did spend most of the weekend lounging about in various states of undress so maybe concentrating on that image will help to lessen the sting of no Social Network review…)

However, while I may not be able to give you my Social Network review, I do feel that I can give you my Social Network pre-viewing review.

Just based on the evidence presented to me so far, the Social Network sucks.

Consider the evidence:

1) Peter Travers of Rolling Stone says that the Social Network will make me “believe in film again.”  Excuse me?  Francios Truffaut coming back from the dead — or at least Jean-Luc Godard making one more vaguely entertaining movie before dying– will make me believe in film again.  I refuse to join a religion based on a movie about fucking Facebook.  Sorry, Mr. Travers.

2) Andrew O’Heir at Salon.com has compared The Social Network to — wait for it — Citizen Kane.  Hopefully, when the zombie apocalypse comes, Zombie Orson Welles will eat Andrew O’Heir first.

3) According to Rotten Tomatoes — the web’s greatest resource of Mainstream Opinion — The Social Network is the best-reviewed film of 2010 so far.  For a film to be that loved, it must be really needy.  And what do needy things do?  They manipulate, they lie, and they go out of their way to beg you to like them.  A great film doesn’t give a fuck what you think.

4) The movie stars Jesse Eisenberg who has already been in 3 great movies — The Squid and the Whale, Adventureland, and Zombieland.  Sorry, Jesse but only Giovanni Lombardo Radice is allowed to appear in four great films in just four years.

5) The movie is written by Aaron Sorkin.  This movie is being advertised as the “defining” movie as my generation.  Sorry, but the defining movie of my generation isn’t going to be written by some smug, 50 year-old, male, sexist, crackhead.

6) The movie is directed by David Fincher which normally would be a good sign except all the reviews are concentrating on Aaron Sorkin.  So, is our Mr. Fincher so needy for an Oscar that he’s basically abandoned his own vision in the service of some smug, 50 year-old, male, sexist, crackhead?

7) Apparently, this movie celebrates rich kids getting richer.  Just what America needs right now.  Yes, let’s celebrate the dumbfug toadsuckers of the world while the guy flipping your burger over at McDonald’s loses his health insurance.

8 ) The Social Network is apparently number one at the box office after this weekend and apparently has gotten great word of mouth.  You know who else got great word of mouth at one time?  Adolf Hitler, that’s who.  Up until it was no longer socially acceptable, the mainstream loved him too.

9) The Social Network has a really crappy, first draft title.  Seriously, that’s the name of the movie? 

10) Sasha Stone, over at Awardsdaily.com, loves this fucking movie and to me, that’s reason enough to assume it’s going to be an overrated piece of foolishness.  Seriously, Awardsdaily.com is a great site if you want to keep up with all the Oscar buzz but — when it comes to reviews — Sasha Stone, Ryan Adams, and the rest of the site are all so middle class and predictable.  (Of course, what do you expect from a site that regularly quotes William Goldman?)

So, that’s my pre-viewing review of The Social Network.  Hopefully, I’ll see it next weekend and be able to post an actual review.  Then we’ll be able to see if the film simply conformed to my own biases or if it truly is worthy of all the hype.

Until then, I’d love to hear your thoughts on The Social Network and the growing chorus of mainstreamers who insist that this is the greatest film of all time.  Am I being too hard on it or is this yet another example of the mainstream emperor wearing no clothes?