The Social Network (2010)

We liked this unauthorized version of the founding of Facebook and the legal battles thereafter. Jack said Jesse Eisenberg made us root for his unlikeable character and I say he is officially no longer interchangeable with Michael Cera. We saw this on opening day, before the crowds, and read the reviews after (why do these writers feel the need to tell us how it ends before we've seen the beginning???). We also waited (and I recommend that you wait, too, as there are spoilers) to read the long cover story in New York magazine (called "The movie Facebook doesn't want you to see"), wherein it was revealed that director David Fincher needed 99 takes for the fabulous first scene, in which Eisenberg's twitchy Mark Zuckerberg is revealed to be a dick. Speaking of Cera, Kate's little sister Rooney Mara, who had a part in the Cera-starring Youth in Revolt, plays Erica Albright in that first scene (as well as the rest), and has been cast as Lisbeth Salander in the American remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, now filming, also with Fincher (Oscar-nominated for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) at the helm.

The movie has screenwriter Aaron Sorkin's (best known for The West Wing, of which I watched only a few seasons, Sorkin has put his rapid-fire dialogue to Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006-07), Sports Night (1998-2000), The American President (1995), and the brilliant Malice (1993), among others) fingerprints all over it, despite its officially being called an adaptation of Ben Mezrich's book, The Accidental Billionaires (more on that in the New York article) (Mezrich also wrote the book from which 21 (2008) was adapted). Near the end of the New York article, Sorkin says, "This isn't a documentary." And the filmmakers don't let the truth, or the approval of the real people, get in the way of their story.

So this goes on the ever-growing list of Eisenberg's movies that I have loved (in order, with most favorite first: Zombieland, The Squid and the Whale (2005), this one, Roger Dodger (2002), Adventureland, A Solitary Man). Andrew Garfield (new to me in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus) does a first rate job as Zuckerberg's best friend Eduardo Saverin, as does Justin Timberlake, better known as a musician in *NSYNC, etc. (his role as Sean Parker is a wink to that career) but is getting good as an actor (I particularly liked Alpha Dog (2006)). Supporting help is provided by the impassioned Max Minghella (Bee Season (2005), Art School Confidential (2006), and more) as Divya and Armie Hammer as the identical Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler. Appropriately, for someone playing an entitled Harvard man, or two, he is the handsome great-grandson of industrialist-art collector-philanthropist Armand Hammer (in a few scenes Josh Pence plays Tyler--you will notice here and there they are not identical and then suddenly they are). Douglas Urbanski, normally a producer (of nothing I have seen), has a funny scene playing Harvard President Larry Summers, and Sorkin has a cameo as the ad executive pitched by Zuckerberg and Saverin.

For the soundtrack you have the complete list on imdb, and the reelsoundtrack list with six songs' streaming music, but there's a spoiler in the latter in the description of when the songs occur. The movie is rated PG-13, which seems wrong to me. Here's the list if you're considering letting your youngsters see it--note the typo in the drug reference: should be "snort cocaine OFF a girl's stomach." Yikes! I kept quoting Silas Botwin from Weeds, who said, "I love college!"