The Social Network

The Social Network is not only the best (new) movie I've seen in a theater this year, it's also David Fincher's best film¹. The script by Aaron Sorkin is- well, it's Sorkin on form; the cast are uniformly excellent (Jesse Eisenberg is scarily brilliant as Zuckerberg); it's a brilliant examination of the ways in which titanic ambition and juvenile pettiness can sometimes be linked (Zuckerberg begins the first iteration of Facebook as revenge against a girl who broke up with him; it goes on, of course, to be worth billions of dollars). Strongly recommend.



¹Yes, this is a qualifying footnote that concerns Fight Club. I thought that the first part of that movie was extremely pointed social satire: guys actually do things like get into fistfights to prove their manhood (far more often since the book and movie came out, of course). Later on, though, it turns into something of a bait-and-switch: having made some rather provocative statements about how people today (read: audience members) are living their lives, it then veers off into anarchy-related fantasies- and becomes a whole lot less relevant (one hopes) to our lives in the process. (I'm not going to go into the climactic plot twist/revelation, save to note that Fincher has always had a problem with endings- The Game leaps to mind- although Sorkin gives him a strong ending here.)

(no subject)

What could I love as much as Johnny Depp, who visited a London primary school- in costume as Captain Jack Sparrow- after one of the students wrote to him asking for helping staging a mutiny against the teachers? Not much, I thought. But then, Anderson Cooper calls out Vince Vaughn for using the derogatory phrase, "Ladies and gentleman, electric cars are gay." in a trailer for his new movie, The Dilemma. Well played, Mr. Cooper.

song for autumn

Do you remember chalk hearts meltin on a playground wall
Do you remember dawn escapes from moon washed college halls
Do you remember that cherry blossom in the market square
Do you remember I thought it was confetti in your hair
By the way did I break your heart?
Please excuse me, I never meant to break your heart
So sorry, I never meant to break your heart
But you broke mine

Kayleigh is it too late to say I'm sorry? Kayleigh could we get it together again?
I just can't go on pretending that it came to a natural end

Kayleigh, oh I never thought I'd miss you
And Kayleigh I thought that we'd always be friends
We said our love would last forever
So how did it come to this bitter end?

Do you remember barefoot on the lawn with shooting stars
Do you remember loving on the floor in Belsize Park
Do you remember dancing in stiletoes in the snow
Do you remember you never understood I had to go
By the way, did I break your heart?
Please excuse me, I never meant to break your heart
So sorry, I never meant to break your heart
But you broke mine

Kayleigh I just wanna say I'm sorry
But Kayleigh I'm too scared to pick up the phone
and hear you've found another lover to patch up our broken home

Kayleigh I'm still trying to write that love song
Kayleigh it's more important to me now you're gone
Maybe it will prove that you were right
and also prove that I was wrong

-"Kayliegh"
Marillion