Saturday, November 27, 2010
Oscar & Emmy Watch: Musings & Misgivings: On Our Radar
11:44 AM | 
Posted by
Alan Appel
ZUCKERBERG UNBOUND
The flagrant gushing for The Social Network is way over the top. Can one day pass without the media reflecting on director David Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin’s cautionary tale of "Young Adult Genius" (and world-class nebbish) Mark Zuckerberg and the birth of Facebook?
Even the otherwise sensible David Denby in The New Yorker has opined that Sorkin writes the sharpest movie dialogue since Ben Hecht and Preston Sturges.
C'mon now. Better than Billy Wilder? John Huston? Ernest Lehman? Robert Towne? Never mind. People, the film is largely fictional. The presumed life lessons about corporate ambition and personal betrayal that so many feel that the film yields can be taken with a veritable shaker of salt.
In that sense, it's not unlike Citizen Kane to which The Social Network has been foolishly compared.
Here's the difference: In its textured look (by cinematographer Gregg Toland), memorable music (Bernard Herrmann) and multi-layered narrative and performances, there never has been a film quite like Citizen Kane.Whereas, the considerable chatter and debate re The Social Network seems to turn on a single shopworn question: what price success?
The Social Network has already been anointed the Oscar pony to ride in the Oscar derby because it so dominates the national conversation and invites questions about whether the brilliantly precocious but socially disconnected Zuckerberg is to be pitied, thanked, admired, blamed or ignored for giving us what Facebook has become.
Which is the point, its fans say. Here at last is a film we can argue about. Yes it’s entertaining, but controversy is what’s made it a critical darling. True, as its poster suggests, you can’t have 500 million friends without making a few enemies along the way, but in the case of Citizen Kane, one titanic enemy--publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst—was enough.
Read more: http://technorati.com/entertainment/film/article/oscar-emmy-watch-musings-misgivings-the/#ixzz13NisJI2I
Even the otherwise sensible David Denby in The New Yorker has opined that Sorkin writes the sharpest movie dialogue since Ben Hecht and Preston Sturges.
C'mon now. Better than Billy Wilder? John Huston? Ernest Lehman? Robert Towne? Never mind. People, the film is largely fictional. The presumed life lessons about corporate ambition and personal betrayal that so many feel that the film yields can be taken with a veritable shaker of salt.
In that sense, it's not unlike Citizen Kane to which The Social Network has been foolishly compared.
Here's the difference: In its textured look (by cinematographer Gregg Toland), memorable music (Bernard Herrmann) and multi-layered narrative and performances, there never has been a film quite like Citizen Kane.Whereas, the considerable chatter and debate re The Social Network seems to turn on a single shopworn question: what price success?
The Social Network has already been anointed the Oscar pony to ride in the Oscar derby because it so dominates the national conversation and invites questions about whether the brilliantly precocious but socially disconnected Zuckerberg is to be pitied, thanked, admired, blamed or ignored for giving us what Facebook has become.
Which is the point, its fans say. Here at last is a film we can argue about. Yes it’s entertaining, but controversy is what’s made it a critical darling. True, as its poster suggests, you can’t have 500 million friends without making a few enemies along the way, but in the case of Citizen Kane, one titanic enemy--publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst—was enough.
Oscar voters can be--what's the word?--stupid. The Oscar rolls have famously been littered with awards that made perfect sense (say, Glenda Jackson for Women in Love), awards that made no sense (say, Glenda Jackson for A Touch of Class), awards that were paybacks for better performances in other years (say, Jimmy Stewart for The Philadelphia Story), outright embarrassments (say, the Best Picture nod to The Greatest Show on Earth), and enduring performances that didn't even net a nomination (say, Anthony Perkins for Psycho).
So don't jump on "The Social Network" bandwagon just yet. Its box-office grosses have been good, not great, and hey, let's be honest, it's not even the best film so far this year. I'll take The Town and The Kids Are All Right, and there's more good stuff (like The King's Speech) to come.
So don't jump on "The Social Network" bandwagon just yet. Its box-office grosses have been good, not great, and hey, let's be honest, it's not even the best film so far this year. I'll take The Town and The Kids Are All Right, and there's more good stuff (like The King's Speech) to come.
Read more: http://technorati.com/entertainment/film/article/oscar-emmy-watch-musings-misgivings-the/#ixzz13NisJI2I
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