Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by tinear (A) on October 17, 2010 at 17:44:02

In Reply to: RE: The Social Network--much better than I thought it would be posted by Jazz Inmate on October 10, 2010 at 18:20:16

the cataclysmic effect it has on its originator---- or at least, the one left standing after a bruising personal and legal war. The dialogue indeed is scintillating, up to the standards of some of the best from the golden age of film dialogue, the 40s. For once, Hollywood actors don't mumble inanities, but actually speak intelligently, quickly, and fiercely. What, you expected a guy with 1600s on his boards to speak like a sitcom idiot? Jesse Eisenberg is up to the task, a most difficult one, portraying a young man who defies any cliché, who eschews closeness of any sort.
Of course, there is some legal drama; hell, that's the point--- this isn't a Western, for God's sake, but rather a close-up dissection of what happens when "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" is lived by Harvard undergrads--- though this isn't any group of gold nuggets at stake, but rather a creation potentially worth billions of dollars. This isn't settled by six-shooters, but rather Ivy League attorneys who attempt to portray their clients as heroes and the other(s) as monsters.
There are geniuses, giants of intelligence and visionaries, that walk among us. This film not only portrays several of those responsible for one of our societies greatest products, but also throws in a look at the man behind another, the precursor product known as Napster, and how he became a central player also in Facebook. Justin Timberlake gives an adequate performance as this young man, though he's no crossover artist, a la Sinatra; unfortunately, one can see his acting.
This is a very good film with many interesting undercurrents: Jewish outsider vs. Ivy League exclusivity; old money vs. upstart.
In the end, we don't know exactly who this young man is, what he wanted. Must we have our human beings reduced to simplicities?