The Social Network
Turn On, Log In, Cash Out
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

Cocky Boston college kids get rich beyond their wildest dreams and hot chicks beyond their wildest wet dreams, thanks to a lil backhandedness and most importantly, brains!!  No, we’re not talking about Ben Mezrich’s fun book Bringing Down The House about the M.I.T.ers who beatdown Vegas, and the not-so fun movie adaptation 21 starring Kevin Spacey, but we ARE talking about another Mezrich work, and it too apparently involves Spacey. Ben’s Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal has been given the big screen treatment (Spacey as Producer), with overly whip & whit-smart dialog by Aaron Sorkin, and the unnecessary for this material directing greatness of David Fincher (who employed Spacey in Se7en).  And the results?  No, it’s not the Citizen Kane of the 21st century, the movie that defines a generation, or even the best of the year (a lil too early to tell, being September and all + there’s Fish Tank and Enter The Void?????), but it’s 3983283484 times the movie 21 was and it’s directed by David Fincher, so therefore it’s beyond beautiful and utterly fantastic (Ben Borings Buttons was an exception to HE RULES!!!!), although it’s no Zodiac, which IS one of the best movies of the past 10+ years, so there!  We will say that it’s probably the bestest internet related movie since the birth of the internets!!  INTERNETS!!!!!

So what’s the story of The Facebook anywayszz?  Is it even all that interesting and worth telling?  As a whole, no, but the real life characters involved and their strained relationships with one another are worth the exploration/exploitation.  There’s the face of the Book, the crafty/shifty Mark Zuckerberg (the always cerebral, and for once spiteful Jesse Eisenberg!), and all those he left in the dust on the way to zillions, who, in turned sued his pants off, like his former BFF and initial investor Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield, of Andrew Garfield Minus Andrew Garfield fame), and his over-privileged business partners of all of 8 seconds who’s ideas he nicked, rowing twins Cameron Winklevoss & Tyler Winklevoss (a perfectly WASPy Armie Hammer pulling double duty, who even met the real twins he played!) and Divya Narendra (Max Minghella).  There’s also the woman (Rooney Mara, the American Lisbeth Salander) who broke Zuck’s heart, and in turn motivated him to think big, and the man who stole his, Napsterer Sean Parker (a decent Justin Timberlake, although wethinks Mark-Paul Gosselaar should be getting all of his roles), who pushed him to think even bigger!

And yet the real stars aren’t the actors, but the mood makers.  Word em ups to Sorkin, and his whirlwind and sirprizngly funny script.  Hear, hear big time to Trent Reznor(!!!!) and Atticus Ross and their haunting, pulsating score.  And the eyes have it for cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth, who makes Harvard’s campus look like the next haunting grounds of… THE ZODIAC!!!  And speaking of Zodiac, is there any active director more on top of his game than Fincher?  Is he 5reals?  Can he figure out a way to direct 10 movies a year????  Seriously, how’d Ben Buttons turn out to be such a missfire?  Can he direct Zodiac again???  No, seriously, can he?  Cause if Social Network walks away with the Best Pic Oscar on February 27th, which wouldn’t be a shocker or undeserved, why can’t/didn’t Zodiac?????  IT DIDN’T EVEN GET ONE NOMINATION!!!!!!!!!  Doesn’t matter, cause they Academy Awards never get it right.  Always a bunch of make up calls or juss too late on everything and everyone.  See Danny Boyle and his Trainspotting vs him and his gold-statuette minted Slumdog Millionaire as a perfect example

ZODIAC!!!!

And oh yeah, nice to see Zodiac alum John Getz as Zuck’s lawyer!!!

and oh yeah,

ZODIAC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Become A Fan: of these Social hotties!!!

Brenda Song

Felisha Terrell (not Owens)

Caitlin Gerard

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

The Network gets wired at a theater near jews this Friday

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

f%#k GarfieldMinusGarfield.net cause now there’s

ANDREW GARFIELD MINUS ANDREW GARFIELD!!!!!!!!!

Never Let Me Go
Spare Parts
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

We could stare at Carey Mulligan and her imperfect perfect lil British face 4evers.  She’s more adorable than a child hugging a teddy bear in a field of sunflowers graced by 9 rainbows.  We never want to let her go!!  Amazing how only 5 years ago she was 2nd (or maybe even 5th) fiddle to Keira Knightley, playing one of her sisters in Pride & Prejudice (we were charmed by Mulli back then, well before any of yous was!!!!), and now the food chain is reversed with Carey as top dog, as seen in Mark Romanek‘s (director of the über-creepy über-awesome One Hour Photo) film version of Kazuo Ishiguro‘s novel Never Let Me Go

The trailer purty much gives away the goods, about young students being groomed at a posh school (headed by classy dean Charlotte Rampling) for something other than being model citizens when they’re adults.  SPOILLLSLSLLSERS ALERTS!!!  One rogue teacher (Sally Hawkins) spills the beans to her students that their actually being raised for vital organ donations, to end diseases and save lives!!!  But love gets in the way for students Mulligan, Knightley and the spastic Andrew Garfield (your next Peter Parker/Spider-Man), and they quickly realize that they don’t want to have their lives cut short.  You’d think they’d want to run away, but they don’t.  They simply stay in place and let whatever happens happen, and that’s the main problem with this beautiful, yet emotional devoid flick.  The characters are helpless, but don’t really help themselves, and in turn don’t really help the audience engage in their struggle.  It’s like Logan’s Run-ning on Empty, and with no cheesy sci-fi robots, like Box!!!

Our (Doppel)Gäng(ers): there be some mad casting geniuseses out there, especially when it comes to Carey Mulligan movies.  in An Education, they rightfully cast older look-a-like Cara Seymour as her mum, and in Never Let Me Go, found a gem in younger look-a-like Izzy Meikle-Small!!!

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Never Let Me Go is currently stalled in NY & LA only and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Boy A
The Pity of Lost Children
Trailers & Mo

As a young kid, Jack Burridge (a pleasure to meet you Andrew Garfield) did a very bad deed and had to pay his dues in prison. Now he’s of an adult age with a new identity and released to a world he knows little about, or at least how to act in it, considering his formative years were spent behind bars. The learning curve for this sweet, yet highly guarded and tortured soul is mighty steep, but with the help of his passionately devoted counselor (cpt o’ bestness, Peter Mullan) he’s got a job, a place to live, and more importantly, someone to lean on with all these growing pains (sadly, none involving Boner Stabone). Watching him trying to fit in with new mates (drinks and ecstasy don’t mix well, especially if you’ve never done either) and wooing someone to mate with (he tells a girl he just met that he’s in love with her) is some of the mos heartbreaking shiz we’ve seen all year. Eventually he starts to gain some confidence and begins the arduous task of putting his troubled past behind him, but will he truly ever be free of his past? That’s a question that’s almos as franztastic as the movie itself! Although the title of this film perfectly suits the action within (it’s the name given to children criminals as to help conceal their identities), they could have easily retitled it Boy A+

Boy A to Girl A: according to wikipediaaaa, the film/book may have been inspired by the cases of Sakakibara Seito, Mary Bell and the murderers of James Bulger

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Brideshead Revisited
Rite-Styles of the Rich and Infamous
Trailers & Mo

Did we fall asleep watching Atonement [review] and wake-up a year later watching Brideshead Revisited? Sure feels like it, with both high-brow films featuring pre-World War bratty rich kids (chameleon supreme Ben Whishaw and cutie supreme Hayley Atwell) running around some grandiose English countryside estate and falling in love (yes, both the sister AND brother) with a dashing commoner (dependable Matthew Goode), who in turn hits a roadblock when a dismayed member of the family (an underused Emma Thompson) intervenes and casts him off. Atonement‘s lovers were torn apart by lies and war, Brideshead‘s by a family’s deep devotion to Catholicism butting heads with an atheist. Sounds like Atonement would be the more scrumptious of the two, since religion is about as sexy as the ancient booer, but it turns out that Brideshead is better food for thought, since Atonement was nuttin but pining, so much so that in belonged in a pine forest instead of a theater. Brideshead Revisited is the second adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s book. The first was an 11-part TV mini-series starring Jeremy Irons and this film attempts to cram the same amount of material into 2 sprawling hours. At times it feels a bit choppy and not fully fleshed out, but we’ll take a Cliff Notes version over 659 minutes of Jeremy’s Iron

Revisited Revised: the film has seen its share of casts come and go, including the likes of Jude Law, Paul Bettany, Jennifer Connely and our boy (in name only) Benedict Cumberbatch flirting with the roles

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

WALL·E
Environmentally Sound
Trailers & Mo

The first 30 minutes of Pixar’s WALL·E, where our nuts and bolts title hero roams a desolate and deserted Earth, is a bona fide masterpiece. It ventures into a world of gloom and doom not usually seen in cartoons aimed at kids (well, since Dr Seuss’ The Lorax), and it’s all visually, as well as mentally stunning stuffs. But then our lonely robot trash collecting pal finds love with an iPod girl robot and then himself in a spaceship with obese lazy humans and an eco-friendly tale to spiel, and that’s where the film’s jets lose a lot of its propulsion. WALL·E goes from brilliant one-man band to background player with a troupe of characters that are not even remotely as interesting as he is. Obviously they have to cute this thing up to keep the kiddies in their seats, but imagine what this coulda been had they left WALL·E alone, with a whole extra hour of wonder and discovery (and him saying his name over and over, which is way cooler than the way his iOuttaTuned girlfriend sez it)? It woulda been something to not only write home about, but phone home too

Jedi Mind Tricks: WALL·E‘s sound effects and robot voices were created by big audio dynmo Ben Burtt. Burtt was a former Skywalker Ranch-hand, creating the ‘voice’ of R2-D2, the heavy breathing of Darth Vader, the hum of the lightsaber, and least importantly, the silence of Ebenn Q3 Baobab in Episode I

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Man On Wire
Towers of Power
Trailers & Mo

We live in a post-9/11 world where the Twin Towers are now a symbol of man’s frowning achievement. That wasn’t always the case, and Man On Wire helps us to remember a time when the buildings inspired only awe, and wasn’t partnered with the bombastic word ‘shock’. We saw this hamazin’ doc about high wire walker Philippe Petit’s endless preparation and goosebump-inducing execution of his walk between the towers months ago at the Thighbecca Film Festival, and it’s awe has yet to leave our minds. It’s finally hitting theaters and this is one death-defying act you gotta see to believe

Run For Cover: peep New Yorker magazine’s clever 5th annie verse airy of 9/11 cover featuring Petit

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Boy A opens in NY only today, Brideshead and Man On Wire open on Friday in limited release and WALL·E, hell, you’ve probably already seen it so we don’t need to remind you that it’s playing at a theater new Jews

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…