The Social Network

Deb 4 Me 2

Not the fault of the movie, but it was going for a few minutes before I realized it was the movie and not another preview of coming attractions. So the movie is running along and I notice it’s written by Aaron Sorkin; so I know two things, it will be well researched and it it’ll have a ton of dialog. It did not disappoint in this regard. A lot of verbiage, and I assume it was all correct in the context of computerese, which is a language I know little about. It made me realize how out of it I am in these times.

The text is punctuated by what I think is that new modern techno music, the worst music on the planet. I’m sure it is accurate to the time and place of the movie setting, but really obnoxious.

The people are young and bright Harvard students, but not necessarily hip. Most of the protagonists here are geeks and not really social adept. The actors were convincing, I really responded to most of them. There’s a lot of talking, and a lot of it is incomprehensible, and it goes by real fast, so it’s easy to miss some basic plot points. I assume the MTV paced minds this might be targeted to will pick up on everything, but my Howdy Doody paced mind missed a lot. Enough that at the end of the film I was puzzled by a lot of things that seemed unresolved.

Basically it is a docudrama about the guy who invented Facebook and the people surrounding him. Not a real charming guy. I was thinking about movies I had seen recently that might loan their titles to this movie. Waste Land would apply, so would Despicable Me. A bunch of intelligent totally repugnant kids who made huge changes in our society; for better or worse It is not really power they earned or deserved, they just did things because they could. Actually their motivation is much sicker than that, but I don’t want to spoil anything for you.

As the movie evolves and the characters are firmly established, the soundtrack settles down and the story telling progresses. I haven’t a clue about the high tech logarithms, but I do know about the base emotions that these children succumb to. These kids never even try to resolve their emotional issues but take refuge by using their intellect as a tool of revenge, damn the consequences.

I guess my real beef with the movie is that I felt left out, it was big on the loud and fast razzle-dazzle and low on the explanation of major plot points. I think everything may have been included in the movie, but they weren’t accessible to me.

Waste Land

Deb 9 Me 9

So we were going to see “Waiting for Superman” but missed the beginning so we dropped in on the next movie in chronological order, “Waste Land”. …never saw it coming. On the computer the analysis said it was a 1997 movie about Romania, there in the theater it said this was a new documentary about a contemporary artist who makes art from the world’s largest landfill. The difference seems to be Wasteland v. Waste Land (two words). You think they’d figure it out.

So the synopsis made it sound like its right up our alley. Neither of us had heard of the artist, Vik Muniz, and they did an admirable job of introductions. They established his credibility, his vision and his collaborators very nicely. Vik is a likeable guy who has a positive but difficult mission and apparently a man of credibility and means. The producers were willing to bet a camera crew and three years to follow his lead. I’m glad they did because I came out liking the guy, his art and his team.

As with many artistic visions, they morph as progress is made. Some aspects become clearer and some diffused as work progresses. This cat was no different and his assured ease and confidence in his vision carried him to success.

Briefly, the guy returns to his native Brazil, home of the world’s largest landfill, to create art using recyclable materials and the people of the island dump, referred to as pickers. These folks rummage through the tons of debris to find whatever can be salvaged. It is an amazing undertaking. There are thousands of these people attacking mountains of waste, smelly dangerous hideous city waste; 24 hours a day.

What Vik comes up with is astonishing, beautiful and a benefit to all those involved.

It is a terrific story and I recommend you see it, whoever you are.

Welcome to the Riley's

Deb 7 Me 7

Here’s another one that’ll go under the radar. It’s pretty slow but character development is good. I liked that all the people, and there’s really only three you need to follow, are doing the best they can given the cards they’re dealt. They’re all pretty sincere. For all its language and the central theme involving the ragged edge of New Orleans life, it’s a very tender little movie. I didn’t recognize any of the players from anything, which always helps me believe them. It seems most big actors have a formula or a pigeonhole they’re either in or trying to wiggle out of… these folks were fresh and very good.

My only gripe is there were a few instances where there were some big changes that happened in record time that pushed credibility, but the things in the plus column far outweigh the time compression. A great relief was that, like “the Visitor”, it didn’t have the Hollywood feel to the story, which was filled out well. I liked seeing it more than talking about it later. While watching the movie I could ride with any uneven waves of the story, and talking about them later just made them seem bigger than they were.