Dear Cinephiles,

When first released in 2010, “The Social Network” was one of the timeliest movies ever released – and with every passing year – its urgency and relevancy keeps increasing. What would our current moment be without social media? It has become a double-edged sword that consumes our time and takes us away from everyday life – yet for the past weeks it has been a form of solace and at times a strong form of welcome connectivity. It is that duality I speak about that is articulated in the masterful “The Social Network” and is fully embodied in the main character of Zuckerberg – is he a villain or an idealist? The movie is just like him – brilliant, smart, cold, exciting, and perceptive. Director David Fincher makes this movie so suspenseful despite the fact we know the outcome. This procedural about invention and “how times they are-a-changing’,” ranks up there with “All The President’s Men.” Why – it feels at times like an action film! In my humble opinion, Aaron Sorkin’s caffeinated script is one of the best of the past decade – and it grabs you emotionally as well.

“- Divya Narendra: This is a good guy?
– Cameron Winklevoss: We don’t know that he’s not a good guy.
– Divya Narendra: We know that he stole our idea, we know he lied to our faces for a month and a half!
– Cameron Winklevoss: No, he never lied to our face.
– Divya Narendra: Ok, he never saw our faces. Fine he lied to our email accounts!”

I encourage you to hunker down and revisit this recent cinematic masterwork – one of the defining movies of our times.

Love,
Roger

The Social Network
(Available to stream on Netflix. Available to rent on Amazon Prime, YouTube, iTunes, Google Play and Vudu.)

Written by Aaron Sorkin
Directed by David Fincher
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Rooney Mara, Armie Hammer, Max Minghella and Justin Timberlake
120 minutes

On a fall night in 2003, Harvard undergrad and computer programming genius Mark Zuckerberg sits down at his computer and heatedly begins working on a new idea. In a fury of blogging and programming, what begins in his dorm room soon becomes a global social network and a revolution in communication. A mere six years and 500 million friends later, Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire in history… but for this entrepreneur, success leads to both personal and legal complications.

About Director David Fincher
“Born on May 10, 1962, Fincher originally hailed from Denver. He stepped behind a camera at the tender age of eight and, particularly inspired by the work of George Lucas, reeled in his first major industry job ten years later at Lucas’ own Industrial Light and Magic. He worked at ILM for four years, during which he worked on Return of the Jedi and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.” (Fandango) “Starting his career in music videos, David went on to work with some of the world’s most influential artists such as Madonna, Michael Jackson and The Rolling Stones. He’s directed iconic ad campaigns for Nike, Adidas, Motorola, Heineken and Siemens (among others) and continues to shoot commercial work in between feature projects, his latest being for Gap. David has several Oscar nominations to his name, and feature credits include Seven, Fight Club, Zodiac, The Social Network, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and Gone Girl. He is executive producer of House of Cards and Mindhunter on Netflix.” (Academy Films)

The Book Behind The Social Network
The film is based on “The Accidental Billionaires,” by Ben Mezrich, a book about the founding of Facebook. Mezrich is also the author of a best-seller, published in 2003, about college students striking it rich, titled Bringing Down the House. Mezrich says that the book is not “an encyclopedic” description of Facebook’s founding but is nevertheless “a true story that Zuckerberg would rather not be told,” written in what he called a “thriller-esque style.” The book draws heavily on interviews that Mezrich conducted with Eduardo Saverin, Facebook’s initial business manager, who had a falling out with Zuckerberg and sued him. Mezrich did not talk to Zuckerberg. (The producer of The Social Network, Scott Rudin, tried to talk to Zuckerberg and other Facebook executives, but he was rebuffed.) Mezrich sold the movie rights to the book even before it was completed. He called Sorkin his “first reader,” and handed over chapters as soon as he finished them. (New Yorker)

The Making of The Social Network
“The Social Network was 178 pages, and the studio said, OK, the first thing you’ve got to do is figure out a way to cut 30 pages from this. And David said, I don’t think so. I think this is a two-hour movie, and he came over to my house with his iPhone set on stopwatch mode, and he said, “I want you to read the entire script out loud for me, at the pace you heard it in your head when you were writing it, and I’m going to write down the timing of each scene.” said Sorkin to The Hollywood Reporter. “So that opening scene…if I read it and it was seven minutes and 22 seconds, then in rehearsal, and David demanded part of what was baked into the budget was rehearsal time, and part of what wasn’t baked into the budget, I remember David saying to them, “Well, I can cut $125,000 out of your budget right away, because we’re not doing any test screenings.” And anyway, in rehearsal, Jesse and Rooney would rehearse the scene, David would say great, and he would give them a couple of notes, and always end with, “But this scene is seven minutes and 22 seconds long, and you’re doing it at seven minutes and 40 seconds. So I don’t care how, but you’re going to have to talk faster somewhere, because I promise you, this scene plays best at seven minutes and 22 seconds.” (IndieWire)