The New York Film Festival announced today that David Fincher’s movie about the legal drama surrounding the founding of Facebok, The Social Network, will be the festival opener on September 24. On her blog, Anne Thompson passed along a quote from festival director Richard Pena:
[The film] powerfully captures the spirit of its time…David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin are a director/writer team, like Lumet and Chayefsky before them, that make this movie not only of the moment, but reflective of larger cultural issues as well, and confirm their position at forefront of contemporary cinema.
The collaboration between director Sidney Lumet and writer Paddy Chayefsky that Pena is referring to is the classic Network, a startlingly clairvoyant satire on the television industry’s ever-expanding obsession with ratings. Considering Network is generally thought to have one of the best screenplays of all time, that’s some high praise right there. Lumet’s masterpiece is one of my favorite films of all time, so if Fincher and Sorkin can capture even half of that movie’s wit and biting insight, I’ll be satisfied. I do like the marketing campaign for The Social Network so far, though; especially this new trailer released today. What do you guys think? Excited to see the (dramatized, stylized, exaggerated) backstory behind your favorite Internet addiction?
http://www.sonypictures.com/previews/movies/thesocialnetwork/clips/2256/
The Best Films of Our Lives 
I am VERY excited. I think it holds the key to my life. Though it is very odd that they’re making a movie already. I wonder what Mark Zuckerberg thinks.
I still haven’t seen Network, which I realize is blasphemy. At least I know, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” I’m skeptical about a facebook-themed film, but I trust David Fincher.
I mean, when ARE you going to make a Facebook movie? Why would you do it years later when no one remembers what Facebook was anymore? Probably smart to do it at the height of its popularity. And it’s actually based on a book that came out last year, The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal, by Ben Mexrich (stick to one title next time, Ben). So they’re not the first ones to jump on this story.
Zuckerberg is pissed, though. A quote: “I just wished that nobody made a movie of me while I was still alive.”
But yeah, I’m cautiously excited for this – I’m interested to see how Fincher shoots this movie since his subject matter is usually much darker. But I trust Aaron Sorkin even more than I trust Fincher – his gift for writing fast, witty dialogue and preference for dramadies feels like a perfect fit here.
The trailer is definitely clever and very appropriate.
And reading this over again, I say to the title: A&L anyone? 😀 I miss you guys. Even if I stay up for hours at night freaking out about newspaper (still).