Why The Social Network is the best film of the year

Or the decade.

For the simple reason that Facebook---or pisbuk, as some of my colorful acquaintances lovingly call it---has taken control of every aspect of your life.

Even Friendster---that archaic incarnation of all things revolving around the spectrum of social networking has not conjured the kind of rabid following and dependence from people not unlike substance abuse and chain smoking the way Facebook did. I joined it with no real intention of actually spending any time toward it but MY HEROES ABILITY happened and it was all downhill from there. Underestimate the site at your own risk.


Even networking peers like Twitter and MySpace haven't successfully tapped into the collective sensibilities of all types of social strata, culture, and interests of the entire planet. Which makes the guy who came up with Facebook one of the most creative geniuses the human race has ever produced. A broad generalization, but I'm sure many will agree.


And that is what the entire movie was all about. But it was as much a story about Facebook's inception as that of highly talented individuals willing to sell their soul and screw each other over for profit. It's no more than a movie about Facebook than "SAW" is about a handyman tool.


Mark Zuckerberg is not a very likable person; at least if the way he was portrayed in the film and popular media is to be considered. But like most visionaries and innovators, a generous heaping of talent and imagination is apparently balanced by, well, let's just say being a 'people person' is not part of the package. 'Asshole' was a generally agreed-upon trait the guy's detractors were fond of throwing at his direction; and the real person the movie was based upon even went on record with a surprisingly civil statement about only wishing the filmmakers hadn't done a picture about him while he was still alive. Who could blame him? While the movie obviously painted a very 'human' side of the guy, pretty much everything else successfully painted him as an unfeeling and calculating manipulator capable of rivaling any reptilian entity in the planet.


David Fincher (SE7EN, Fight Club) managed to pull off an ambitious subject matter that would have been abysmally catastrophic had it fallen into the wrong hands. That it's a film where dialogue and a few shots of those rare 'Eureka!' moments Zuckerberg had in starting off the soon-to-be gigantic site, his Machiavellian strategies, and his different lawsuits are the only foundations to keep you interested and engaged instead of the kinetic action sequences, sappy teenage love scenes, toilet humor and CGI eye candies that are the staples in crafting movies for an audience who is increasingly devolving into a mass that's adapting the attention span of a housefly.

Another big revelation was Trent Reznor's involvement in the project. Another artist who I am confident can't do anything wrong. From ear-splitting anthems like 'Happiness In Slavery', the eerie soundscapes he did for the sound design of iD Software's Quake, to the gentle and ambient tunes off 1999's The Fragile and 2007's Ghosts I-IV, the guy is a walking incarnation of a modern musical renaissance man. He and longtime collaborator Atticus Ross created the music that enhanced the film's potency. Not that the NIN frontman is a relative newcomer to the film scoring scene; some of the early remixes of songs  from The Downward Spiral was also used in Fincher's SE7EN. And now it looks like Reznor is going to be nominated for the Oscar for this recent project.


Jesse Eisenberg's Mark Zuckerberg, while clearly played to suit the celluloid medium and probably a million times as obnoxious as well as interesting as the real deal, comes off as one of the best anti-heroes to have come out of the last decade. Eisenberg's Zuckerberg is up there with the likes of Travis Bickle, Gordon Gekko and Tony Montana.

Asshole? You bet. 

But he's still a billionaire, and he's the CEO bitch.

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In praise of B-movies

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Tomorrow we can drive around this town

For all its worth, The Gin Blossoms are still the same way I remembered them eons ago when I was still struggling with homework done in the middle of school halls and rest rooms. Not counting singer Robin Wilson’s obvious progression from a fresh-faced contender for the new alternative poster boy of the 90s to a scraggly-haired middle aged performer, guitarist Jesse Valenzuela’s weight, and absence of drummer Philip Rhodes, the music is pretty much what I expected to hear. Their appearance and lineup may have changed but the sound---despite the new singles from their latest album (No Chocolate Cake) pretty much sound the way you’d expect from something by the Gin Blossoms.


Whether the band will take that as an insult or a compliment is not relevant. Personally I like that they never deviated from what formula they used in crafting songs. There are just some bands that look and sound stupid (Chris Cornell’s “Part Of Me”, anyone?) when they tinker with the approach on how to create music. Gin Blossoms belongs to that category. Doing what they did best and snagging new fans out of evoking nostalgia from the old ones. The same catchy, hooky pop songs you wouldn’t mind humming to or hearing from the nearby coffee shop or PUV and tapping your hands along to the beat. Thank God the band has a good head on its shoulders and enough sense not to overstep their capabilities just so people would take them ‘seriously’ as “artists”. 

When I first heard about the news of the concert I surprised myself by not being too enthusiastic about it the way I’d probably had been when I was still in high school. I knew my high school version would kill just to see the concert. Two worn-out cassette copies of New Miserable Experience (1993) would attest to that. I was just a little apprehensive that they might not play a lot of their early materials because when I recently Googled the band I found they had a bunch of new albums after Congratulations I’m Sorry (1995), their second album and the last collection of tunes from the band I’m familiar with. I figured it’s okay if I missed the concert since they’ll probably promote the latest album anyway. And I’m only interested with the singles I knew.


Then the 18th came and I found myself with my wife in the middle of Araneta Coliseum yet again for a concert with another band that belongs to our generation (NIN: Wave Goodbye Tour last year.). 


The band launched into “Follow You Down” and the entire place turned into a massive karaoke sing along complete with the token howls and shrieks from the female fans. It was followed by other lesser known singles like “As Long As It Matters”, “Until I Fall Away” and a whole batch of new materials nobody knew because every time the band played them everyone kept quiet and sat down. I was waiting for the Douglas Hopkins-penned singles like “Hey Jealousy”, “Found Out About You”, “Lost Horizons” and “Pieces Of The Night”. Those were the songs I came for. As long as they played them, I couldn’t care less if they played a Linkin Park or April Boy single afterwards. And they did, with “Hey Jealousy” saved for the encore. 


For a few minutes it felt like it was the summer of 1993 again, somewhere in an old town with a big looming water tank standing before the mountains.