The Social Network: Review By Angelo Liberati, CPA

Date of Review: Sunday, October 31, 2010 HALLOWEEN 2010

'The Social Network' started on Friday, October 01, 2010, and it stars Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg, and Justin Timberlake as the founder of Napster, the online music download website.

'The Social Network' portrays the so - called drama of how facebook came about. The setting is the Fall 2003 undergraduate semester at Harvard University. Mr. Mark Zuckerberg, apparently, invented facebook one night without him realizing it at the time. His girlfriend broke up with him, and he went to his dorm room to project his frustrations out into the computer world, by tapping into the Directories of each of the dorms that house the young coeds of Harvard University. He combines all of these directories, which included pictures of each female student, into some sort of website - very quickly - and then he e - mailed, apparently, this website to several e - mail addresses on the campus of Harvard University. The website posed a question, to the user, to determine who is the most beautiful girl by matching up, side by side, two young women at a time.

Two twin brothers, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, heard about this instant website, and had an idea of their own. They wanted to build a similar online directory for all of Harvard University students, which was to be called 'Harvard Direct'. However, they did not know how to program a website from scratch. So, they asked a fellow student to help them. Who do you think was the fellow student? You got it. Mark Zuckerberg.

Most of the movie deals with the issue of who really had the idea of facebook, and the legal battles and issues associated with it.

The actors, and actresses, who played the various attorneys in this film, are very good. This movie is entertaining, and it will stay with you after you leave your movie theater. But that is it.

This movie was advertised - with that song preceding the trailer - that indicated that this movie would be about, at least somewhat, the needs of individual members that made facebook successful, and the trailer did not include anything at all that there was a dispute as to who founded facebook. The main trailer also related various scenes, from the film, to different things than the actual movie did.

This movie fails to point out why people needed facebook, as previously aforementioned. It fails to portray Mark Zuckerberg - before attending Harvard University - as to any indications that, one day, he would have invented this medium called facebook. Since he was a college student, there is no reference at all to his family in this film.

There are scenes where facebook - known originally as The Facebook - is 'expanded', as per Mark's instructions, to other Ivy League schools, and to Stanford University. There is no explanation as to why this website was 'expanded' to Stanford University. Also, this was a universal website at the time - live and online - so how can one expand a website to specific locations when it is a universal website on the world wide web?

As previously aforementioned, this website was 'expanded' to Stanford University, and, of all people, the founder of Napster sees this fledgling website on the screen of his girlfriend's laptop computer, after he had sex with her. How did this fledgling website get into this laptop computer? This was not sufficiently explained in this film. Also, when the founder of Napster, played by Justin Timberlake, looks at this fledgling website, there is this immediate revelation in his face that this is something big, and he needs to contact Mark Zuckerberg right away. Why did the founder of Napster feel like this as soon as he saw this website? The film offers no explanation whatsoever at all.

The film did not pit the concept of facebook against other similar social networking online sites of the time, such as friendster and MySpace, even though these two specific mediums are mentioned briefly by Mark Zuckerberg.

I would like to comment on the actors who played Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and the actor who played Howard E. Winklevoss, their father. The actors who played Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss had blond hair, and did not look like the real Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who both have black hair, and who both resemble a young John F. Kennedy, Junior. The actor who played Howard E. Winklevoss, who never said a word, also does not look at all whatsoever like the real Howard E. Winklevoss. Yes, I know what the real Cameron, Tyler, and Howard E. Winklevoss look like.

As you can see, this movie is good to see to a point, but then there are many questions that need to be asked, which is the reason that I gave this film 3.5 stars out of 5.00 stars.

I saw this movie with my lovely wife, Susan.