Thursday, September 30, 2010



Newsflash!


If you were a normal high school kid,


(ie. NOT a Drama Geek or one of those psychos who read for fun in their spare time instead of being like all sane sixteen year olds and sneaking behind the bleachers to score dime bags of ditch weed)


then you don't know what "Irony" means.  No really. You don't.  Because I see 18-23 year olds who are fresh out of the American education system everyday, and they use the word like they're singing prayers to Alainis Morisette (who also didn't know what the fuck "irony" meant either.)


Because, irony means the contrast between what appears to be so and what is really true, usually to humorous or poignant effect.


So, no.  "Rain on your wedding day" or "the good advice that you just didn't take" are not examples of irony.  And the fact that "OhMyGod! He slept with his ex?! That is SO ironic!" is not ironic either. Dumbass.


But you know what is ironic.  The fact that our generation (often called The Facebook Generation) has ZERO interest in seeing The Social Network.





How is this possible?!  We all use it: some of us a lot, some of us sometimes. And even if you don't ever use Facebook, the chances are that you have an account.
Or, at the very least, you use or have used some form of social networking.  Remember the hay-day of AIM? Remember middle school, when we all had dumb screen names that had some kind of phonetic resemblance to drugs or alcohol or to science fiction books (Jacksgurrrl015 or Arwen2219).  Remember instant message stalking in college? Like, you just get online and hope that "the guy" gets on too and then "sees" you and goes "huh, maybe I'll start a little cyber-flirt with her" to which you eagerly accept while Coldplay blasts through your Windows media player.


See? I refuse to believe that we are that above seeing a movie about the creation of one of the most popular and notorious forms of communication, one that has come to define a generation. And, one that, maybe more importantly has begun to redefine what it means to interact and communicate with each other.


Because this is what The Social Network is about.  It's not a bio-pic.  It's not 2 hours of watching the life of some cyber-punk and his evil mercenary ways.  It's about how people are attempting to connect in a meaningful way through a medium that is, by it's very nature, distant, mechanized, in-human, and impersonal (but also does work).





You know why else you should see it? Because the writer, Aaron Sorkin, is a genius (yes, David, I just used the "g" word).  He's the brains responsible for creating and writing the vast majority of the episodes of The West Wing.  And A Few Good Men. And The American President. And so on and so forth.  And apparently, this film is watertight. As in, the script is so good, a monkey could have directed it and it would still be solid gold.





But David Fincher (Fight Club, Seven, Benjamin Button) is directing it. 





And Jesse Eisenberg (The Squid and the Whale, Adventureland) stars. You should be running to the theater right now to buy your tickets.





Oh, still too cool for the Facebook movie?


Well, it's currently at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.  100% bitches!!!  And this is also among Top Critics.  They are LOVING it. Tod McCarthy even went so far as to compare it to Citizen Kane. And while, yes (Hey Ben!) this is totally pre-mature and kind of a silly comparison, I do think it will be a masterpiece of filmmaking. And I do think it will serve as a benchmark for our generation.


SO GO! Get off your high horse and Facebook and go see The Social Network.




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