THE ASOCIAL NETWORK

Gentle Readers,

I've been looking forward to seeing The Social Network for months. When it came out, critics raved about how great it was and Oscar predictors said definitely Best Script, Best Director, probably Best Picture.

But the big honors went to The King's Speech, which I haven't seen yet, but now that Netflix has finally brought me The Social Network, I can certainly see that it would take a year of bad movies for Network to be the big winner.

I listened to Director David Fincher's commentary on the movie. He seems to see this character, and he emphasizes that it is a character and not a portrayal of the real person, of Mark Zuckerberg as a young genius worthy of our sympathy; however, that's not the feeling I got from the movie at all. The character of Mark Zuckerberg, as played by Jesse Eisenberg, is virtually friendless, anti-social, dark, mean, nasty -- all in all, a real tool. Business cards that say I'm CEO, Bitch? Come on.

This unpleasant character informs most of the movie and makes Network as unlikeable as Zuckerberg. The movie only becomes interesting and enjoyable when Justin Timberlake is on screen, playing Napster founder Sean Parker, who comes off as the most charming guy in any room he enters.

Fincher sees humor with Zuckerberg where I see none; Fincher sees kindness on Zuckerberg's part where I see none.

Before the guy gets drunk enough to start creating The Facebook, he wants to compare the girls at Harvard to farm animals and let people vote on which is hotter -- the girl or the animal. What a jerk.

The entire movie is misogynistic. Girls exist to dance at rich boys' parties and take off their tops and do drugs and get drunk; girls exist to latch onto Zuckerberg and Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) and shove them into stalls in a men's public restroom for what? Do they have sex standing up in that tiny space or is it BJ time? Don't know; don't care. There's also a psycho bitch girlfriend. There's a female lawyer who is seen throughout the movie but only speaks twice. Fincher says she's there to be an invisible person. There are young girls provided for Sean Parker's enjoyment. There's an intern who walks away from Zuckerberg and somebody else -- is it Parker? I can't remember -- and they turn to stare at her ass. Network women -- no, not women, girls -- are objects with which to play a sex game. Nothing more.

I thought I would love this movie, and I totally do not. Jesse Eisenberg was so great as the tender-hearted, unhappy teenager in The Squid and The Whale. All that tenderness is gone here. Supposedly Network has moments when we see Zuckerberg trying to be a good guy, but the only way I caught them was when the director pointed them out, and I just didn't think they were very strong even then. I can sure see why the real Zuckerberg made that huge donation to the Newark public schools on the day the movie came out. He had a serious reason to try to distract viewers from this movie.

I have a Facebook page. I post something on it occasionally but not very often. I joined because it's a way to keep up at least a little bit with nieces and nephews. I don't really understand people who are on Facebook ten times per day talking about every little thing they're doing and how they're feeling. I don't think many people care, folks, and it's not the road to the 15 minutes of fame that Andy Warhol promised you.

I hate the relationship status; I don't know what it means to "poke" someone but it sure seems naughty in a not at all interesting way; and I don't understand the stuff about so and so has answered a question about so and so. Then you click on the box and . . . blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

Facebook is really pretty lame, and so is The Social Network.

Infinities of love,

Lola