At their best, Aaron Sorkin scripts are driven by engaging, thought-provoking dialogue that still manages to sound natural. At their worst, they become rapid-fire word gauntlets where shrill actors talk-rape you with lines that communicate little more than “I was quite pleased with myself when I came up with this.”

This second teaser for David Fincher’s The Social Network (written by Sorkin, based on the Ben Mezrich book The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal*) is closer to the latter.  Hard to know if it’s the movie’s fault or just the trailer editor, since it seems mostly like a tighter-edited version of an earlier, much less-annoying version.  Anyway, it stars Jesse Eisenberg, Scarfield (they say he won his Spider-Man role based on this performance), Justin Timberlake, Rashida Jones, and Joe Mazzello.  I can only hope the movie is less obnoxious than this teaser, because I had the overwhelming urge to punch someone even before they got to the “We’re gentlemen of Harvard,” line.  Drama!  Yelling!  Gravitas!  Timberlake! (*fart sound*)

*Jesus, what is it with ridiculous subtitles these days?  It’s like they’re trying to search engine optimize book titles now.  You only get one colon, dude, this isn’t Human Centipede.

RELATED ASYLUM POLL: Would you want to see a movie about Facebook?

The Social Network started out sounding like one of those Magic 8-Ball/Bazooka Joe movie concepts (Facebook is popular!  It should be a movie!).  But then when we heard it was based on a book about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and that David Fincher was directing a script by Aaron Sorkin, we realized it was serious.  But even knowing that, before this new teaser trailer hit the web, I didn’t realize it was Inception-trailer-bass-sound serious.

“We have an idea that we’d like to talk to you about.”

(*BRAAAAAAAAHM*)

“Who should we send it to first?”
“Just a couple of people.  The question is, who are they gonna send it to.”

(*BRAAAAAAAAHM*)

“The site got twenty-two hundred hits within two hours?”
“Thousand. Twenty-two thousand.”

(*BRAAAAAAAAHM*)

“A million dollars isn’t cool.  You know what’s cool?  A billion dollars.”

(*BRAAAAAAAAHM*)

Their braaaahm sound isn’t as bassy as the Inception braaaaahm sound, which I assume indicates less gravitas. Still, it sounds pretty serious. (*BRAAAAAAAAHM*) It’s like the movie trailer equivalent of David Caruso putting on his sunglasses.

[via Pajiba]

The story of Facebook is set to hit theaters in October, starring Jesse Eisenberg as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (pictured) and Justin Timberlake as Napster co-founder Sean Parker, directed by David Fincher, based on the book by Ben Mezrich.  (*deep breath*).  The script, from The West Wing‘s Aaron Sorkin (your parents’ Joss Whedon), made the 2009 blacklist, and a review of it showed up on the Times Online a couple days ago:

Six years ago Zuckerberg created what was to become the internet phenomenon Facebook in a “tidal wave” of grief after being dumped by his girlfriend. The Social Network is a highly dramatised version told in flashbacks recalled in the drama of a court hearing. The film opens on the night of February 4, 2004 when Zuckerberg, then 19, is seen to be dumped in a Harvard bar by his girlfriend, Erica.
In the film Zuckerberg retreats to his college dormitory where, in a drunken fever, he writes the computer code turning Harvard’s annual collection of student photographs and biographies into a website where he and his male friends rank Harvard women as barnyard animals. Thirty minutes after “Thefacebook” goes live, it is so popular that it crashes Harvard’s computer network.
The film claims that after Zuckerberg quit Harvard his personal life spun out of control, with Parker helping him indulge his fantasies with a stream of “groupies”. Sorkin’s screenplay suggests Parker knew Zuckerberg was driven not just by money or fame but also sexual insecurity. While he is depicted as receiving sex in bars, Parker runs the business.

I never receive sex in bars, mostly because I measure my sex in complicated pie charts.  In any case, BroBible has posted the first scene from the script if you want to read it.  It’s exactly what you’d expect from an Aaron Sorkin script — characters with specific motives that will drive the story, illustrated through rapid-fire, borderline excessive dialog.  It describes Zuckerberg as a guy “whose lack of any physically intimidating attributes makes a very complicated and dangerous anger.”  To me that seems like it’s a pretty simple anger, but whatever.  Anyway, what I read was actually pretty good. I want to see this now.  But keep in mind I just sat through Robin Hood last night, which was like Braveheart meets Schoolhouse Rock for retarded kids. Any dialog seems genius compared to Cate Blanchett yelling “This one’s for Robert!”

I know the man-child thing is all the rage these days, especially for the vocationally pantless like me,  but I’ll be honest, it feels good to be excited about a trailer that doesn’t feature people in spandex shooting guns for once.  This one’s called A Solitary Man, featuring a cast of chicks nerds want to bang of all ages (Jenna Fischer, Mary Louise-Parker, Olivia Thirlby), not to mention Michael Douglas, Danny DeVito, Susan Sarandon, and Jesse Eisenberg, with direction by the guys who wrote Rounders.  Excited yet?  Here, try this cocaine.

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Jew Zombie Killers Can’t Hump: A Zombieland Review

Zombieland is a road movie about two of the last survivors of the zombie plague, who don’t really have anywhere to go.  They’re instead driven by their desires: Woody Harrelson’s “Tallahassee” a desire to find the last Twinkies on Earth, and Jesse Eisenberg’s “Columbus” to finally kiss a girl.  It’s a sort of funny premise for a sort of funny movie.  A movie that turns out to be a lot like the Twinkie — tasty enough, but provides little nutritional value, and after you’re done you feel kind of dirty.  It’s pleasant going down*, but you get the sense that the whole thing was ultra processed, created using proven science formulas to manipulate the consumer’s senses in a specific way.  Crap, this is a really good analogy, someone call USA Today.

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