The Social Network

So I finally watched The Social Network for the first time last night, and I must say that it is a very intriguing film. I never thought a biopic like that would be able to have my attention completely captivated for two straight hours. The whole movie’s about a stupid kid backstabbing people and it’s interesting! The music seems very odd at times when listened to in soundtrack form, but it fits almost perfectly when paired with the imagery on screen. Basically, it easily makes my “top of 2010” list, though I’m unsure of how it will hold up upon repeated viewings. I also greatly appreciate the artistry with which the movie was made. It’s a great, somewhat slow paced style (except for a rowing race scene that seems completely out of pace) that fits well with the extremely dialogue-heavy script.

The DVD release is amazing also. I haven’t checked out disc 2 (the special features) yet, but the packaging is incredible. Somebody’s finally realized that the buzzword-heavy packaging doesn’t matter after you get out of the store, so that portion of the packaging is designed to be thrown away. You’re left with an amazing matte black slipcover with the tagline from the movie poster (“You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies”) laid out in the same format as the poster. On the back in small gray text is the billing block. It’s pretty hard to see, but it stays out of the way.

Take off the slipcover and you’re faced with Jesse Eisenberg staring straight at you with the words “Punk Prophet Genius Billionaire Traitor” over the top of the image. On the back side are various images from the film in a montage. Underneath the disks there are equally artistic images. The DVD menus are surprisingly simple and long. For about 3 1/2 minutes the main menu just displays simple images that aren’t even directly from the film, but displaying some of the scenes from the film. There isn’t any dialogue and there is little sound other than a quiet piece from the soundtrack. The only real exception is when there is a period where the camera is sitting directly on a desk with a computer mouse close to the lens in focus. In the background we can see (out of focus) and hear the character of Mark Zuckerberg typing very fast on a keyboard. It is very artistically done and the whole main menu stays out of the way.

I enjoyed the film, the only problem is that I’m not sure which parts of it to believe and which to not believe. And ultimately, we don’t have Mark Zuckerberg’s side of the story, so I’m unwilling to take the entire movie at face value, but it is an interesting look into the start of a big idea that has potentially changed the way we communicate forever.