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25 Jan 2011 10:20

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Culture: A quick, ten-second overview of this year’s Oscar nominations

  • 12 totally expected nominations for “The King’s Speech”
  • 10 nominations for the Coen Bros’ “True Grit” remake
  • eight nominations (far too few) for “The Social Network”
  • eight nominations (also far too few) for “Inception”
  • surprises Who decided to nominate Javier Bardem for Best Actor for a movie that absolutely nobody saw (“Biutiful”)? How many people even knew what this movie was before this morning? Raise your hand.
  • disses Among others: Mila Kunis in “Black Swan.” Andrew Garfield in “The Social Network.” Ryan Gosling in “Blue Valentine.” No best documentary nod for “Waiting for Superman.” Criminal! source
  • » And the ultimate diss: “Inception” got eight nominations, don’t get us wrong. The movie totally deserved all of them. But the one it was most deserving of which it did not get? Christopher Nolan didn’t get a best director nod for “Inception.” The category was stacked, admittedly, but the Coen Brothers may have been the weak men this year. On a side note, there could be one even bigger diss this year – if “Toy Story 3” doesn’t win an award outside of its animation comfort zone.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

12 Oct 2010 11:00

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Culture: Aaron Sorkin explains the women of “The Social Network”

  • I wish I could go door to door and make this explanation/apology to any woman offended by the things you’ve pointed out but obviously that’s unrealistic so I thought the least I could do was speak directly to you.
  • Aaron Sorkin • In a response to a blog commenter critical of the way “The Social Network” portrayed women throughout the film. His explanation? “I was writing about a very angry and deeply misogynistic group of people. These aren’t the cuddly nerds we made movies about in the 80’s.” He also notes that the misogynistic attitudes extend to the not-so-nerdy finals clubs near the beginning of the film. And he claims, out of respect for the more private people involved – Mark Zuckerberg’s putdown queen ex-girlfriend, Eduardo Saverin’s psycho ex – he didn’t use their real names. Good explanation, but will it appease everyone? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 Oct 2010 11:08

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Tech: “Social Network” criticism: Here comes the Facebook movie backlash

  • As one of the few journalists who’s interviewed Zuckerberg numerous times and is familiar with the history of Facebook’s early founding and continued growth, seeing the movie is a jarring, disorienting experience… The real Zuckerberg… has a much more varied personality.
  • Huffington Post reporter Jose Antonio Vargas • Regarding “The Social Network.” Well, no crap, buddy. Have you not been listening to Aaron Sorkin? He’s basically been saying that he made most of it up for weeks. And it’s fairly possible that you might have some bias anyway, due to the fact that you have exclusive access to Facebook. But we digress. He’s not the only reporter to say something to this effect: “The Facebook Effect” scribe David Kirkpatrick had this to say about the whole thing: “Even before Hollywood got involved… Facebook was the subject of quite a bit of lore — not all of it true,” he said. Which is pretty much how we feel about the matter. Sorkin wrote the Facebook tall tale, and it doesn’t matter whether or not it’s real. That tall tale, by the way, scored $23 million at the box office, and it’s also awards bait, so it may be with us for a while. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Oct 2010 15:00

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Culture: “The Social Network” on track to top box office this weekend

  • $8 million made by the Facebook movie in its first day alone source
  • » So how real is it, anyway? Not particularly. Writer Aaron Sorkin took artistic license with the idea of the film. While many of the plot points are true (Sean Parker did leave the company after a cocaine arrest, for example), the tone of many of the characters, as well as the school itself, didn’t match those of the Harvard students who saw the film. And cyberlaw expert Lawrence Lessig, while praising the film itself, took issue with the lessons that Sorkin took from the storyline, both with its characters (“I know Parker. This is not him.”) and with its feel of what makes the Web tick (“Sorkin boasts about his ignorance of the Internet. That ignorance shows.”). The movie is very good and one of the year’s best, but don’t let the wool get pulled over your eyes. It’s fiction based on fact.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

29 Sep 2010 21:06

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Culture: Reviews: “The Social Network” receives epic amount of praise

  • » What Roger Ebert says: If you only trust Roger Ebert like us, you can feel free to know that this is in fact the movie of the century: “David Fincher’s film has the rare quality of being not only as smart as its brilliant hero, but in the same way. It is cocksure, impatient, cold, exciting and instinctively perceptive.” So yeah, we’ll be at the theater on Friday wearing a “Free Zuckerberg” shirt.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

24 Sep 2010 09:09

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Culture: “The Social Network” early reviews are in! Here’s a sample

  • one “Despite its insistently unsexy moving parts (software, algorithms), the movie is paced like a thriller, if one in which ideas, words and bank books blow up rather than cars.”
  • two “Thanks to lightning-fast line readings by Eisenberg and other actors, there is probably more dialogue in “The Social Network” than all of [David] Fincher’s other movies put together.”
  • three“[Fincher’s] portrait of campus life among America’s elite is pitch-perfect, every bit as much as the drug-and-party excesses of Silicon Valley and the war rooms of corporate attorneys.”
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Sep 2010 10:25

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Culture: Facebook movie trip report: Zuckerberg’s a jerk in the film

  • It’s just as rough on the Facebook CEO as his people feared it would be. Not because of scandalous scenes involving sex and drugs–there aren’t many of those, and they’re quite tame. It’s because the film portrays him as an insecure jerk who screws over people and becomes a much-richer insecure jerk.
  • Wall Street Journal reporter Peter Kafka • Offering an early assessment of the most anticipated film of the season, “The Social Network.” While Kafka notes the rumored coke-and-boobs scene is fairly tame (no boobs anymore, sorry), he notes that the film may not be totally accurate. But it’s still a harsh image. “At the end of the movie,” he writes. “there’s a suggestion that Zuckerberg may not actually be a jerk–he may just be someone who acts like one. That’s about it when it comes to the upside of his character: He’s the bad guy in his own creation myth.” A creation myth directed by David Fincher. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

16 Jul 2010 11:22

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Culture: “The Social Network” trailer (in full this time) is looking pretty rad

  • It makes Harvard feel like a country club. We were hoping that this project would be pretty awesome, and the trailer thus far is suggesting that it might in fact live up to the hype. Our fingers are crossed. Don’t screw this up, Fincher and Sorkin!
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

15 May 2010 13:37

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Culture, Tech: Aaron Sorkin is about to ruin Mark Zuckerberg’s reputation

On October 1st, Aaron Sorkin’s new movie, “The Social Network,” promises to make Mark Zuckerberg look like the kind of jerk most techies think he is right now. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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