The Social Network (2010)

I remember hearing a friend of mine repeatedly say, "I refuse to see a movie about Facebook," and whenever he repeated these words they sounded like a moral stance. The subtext was obvious: "Nobody should see this movie. Why would anyone want to see The Social Network?"

I'll admit that I had some issues with the pacing of this film, but in the end it was one of those important movies that speaks to the zeitgeist of our time. I remember when Facebook was only available to select colleges, and my friend Becky, then a student at Central Michigan University wanted me to be her "friend." "We're already friends," I thought, but I signed up for an account anyways. Today, you're a social outcast if you're not on the social network. People don't buy web sites anymore. Even famous celebrities and bands will sometimes have either a Facebook page or a blog instead of a home page. For better or worse, Facebook has taken up more of the public consciousness of the United States of America than any other one thing.

The film The Social Network merely gives us the other side of the story, the part that we didn't know we were taking part in. It tells us about the motives behind this juggernaut, this behemoth that has taken over our lives. It commemorates the events that lead to our hypnosis.

There is a strong part of me, the part that is familiar with Buddhist teachings, that believes that Facebook is something that I need to be liberated from. It is something that keeps my consciousness from devoting itself to better and more important things. But if that ever happens I want it to happen as a result of understanding rather than ignorance.

I'm not going to blame The Social Network. It was a fantastic film with great performances by that geeky guy, the guy from N'Sync and future-Spider-man. If there's anyone to blame for my dependence on Facebook, it's me.

IT'S A TIMBERLAKE-OFF

You remember how Neil Young was all like, "Southern people are dicks because they burn crosses and hang people because of the color of their skin," and then Lynyrd Skynyrd was all like, "Whatever, Southern people do what they want. Am I right, people of Alabama/the South?" Well, it appears that I have entered into a similar rivalry with blogger Josh Toulouse at Fat Train over which Justin Timberlake movie you should watch this summer. In my post "Friends With Benefits Trailer," I call the trailer for the upcoming Justin Timberlake film "one of the most promising romantic comedy trailers I've seen in recent history." Josh was quick to retort that this film looks like a rip-off of the Ashton Kutcher movie No Strings Attached, a movie he really liked, suggesting that Friends With Benefits will not be nearly as good ("Thoughts on the Summer Movie Schedule 2011 - Part Three"). On a previous post ("Thoughts on the Summer Movie Schedule 2011 - Part Two"), Josh expresses his hopefulness for the upcoming Justin Timberlake film Bad Teacher. I didn't really see anything redeeming to this trailer, except for Justin Timberlake, of course.

As much as I don't like to force people to choose sides, you must choose sides. Join the discussion here at Cavemengo or over at Fat Train. Which Timberlake film will be better, Bad Teacher or Friends With Benefits? I'll even re-post both trailers so you can all make an educated vote. BATTLE!

Friends With Benefits Trailer

This is one of the most promising romantic comedy trailers I've seen in recent history.

Role Models, Part One

I was in middle school when reports came in of a child who burned down his family's barn. At face value, this doesn't seem like a story appropriate for national news. But this barn burning was political. It wasn't terrorism. It wasn't the Ku Klux Klan or Al-Qaeda. It wasn't even the Michigan Militia. This crime was much more insidious than all of that. It was committed be a child under the influence of cartoons.

The cartoon in question was Beavis and Butt-head. The story we were fed convinced us that since the teenagers on this show were depicted playing with matches and laughing while saying, "fire, fire, fire," children watching this show had no choice but to become arsonists. By this time in my life, I had already been on my fair share of campouts with my Boy Scout troop in which boys my age were expected to start camp fires. I only had to see two or three of my compatriots melt their windbreakers painfully to their skin only to run back and do it again before I realized that teenage boys have been obsessed with fire since time immemorial. Beavis and Butt-head didn't prescribe our delinquency. They reflected our delinquency.

However enlightened I may have been regarding human nature as a teenager, I was not free from the veritable witch hunt that followed in the 90s under the names of "censorship" and "political correctness." I remember that my brother and I were at a church youth group get-together after school and that we, accompanied by a kid we know named Jake, were trying to do our best impressions of the Beavis and Butt-head laughs. I know that I had never seen Beavis and Butt-head before. I think my brother saw it once or twice at his friend Pat's house. But everyone knew about Beavis and Butt-head back then, even if they had never once seen the show. It was part of the zeitgeist. It was a result of that same magic that granted me knowledge of songs by Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls. We always did impressions of cartoon characters. There was the Bart Simpson: "Don't have a cow, man," the Wolverine growl with the word, "bub" at the end, the Tick's ridiculous exclamations like, "Honk if you love justice!" We never got in trouble for those impressions, but if you were referencing Beavis and Butthead back then you could get in some serious trouble. I remember on this particular occasion I was reprimanded verbally and the guilt was laid on so heavily that I felt like I had just burned down my parents' house with both my parents still inside, and that I had done so with only the power of my words.

It was through the media hype and government focus on my childhood cartoons that I first encountered the discussion of the responsibility of public figures as role models for the children of America. It was also during this conflict that I felt some of my earliest stirrings of authority issues. I had a serious problem with some Senator or Representative telling my parents that I shouldn't watch my favorite television programs. I felt the earliest pangs of righteous indignation with the idea that someone might stand between me and my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

A few years later in 1999, former Mickey Mouse Club child star Britney Spears got a record deal and released the album ...Baby One More Time. As Spears transformed from a girl into a woman she also transformed from the influence of Mickey to Madonna. She was dealing with her awakening sexuality just like any other girl, but unlike any other girl every moment of Spears ascent into adulthood was documented by either MTV, VH1 or the paparazzi. By the time Oops!... I Did It Again came out in 2000, Spears was defined by the lyric, "I'm not that innocent." (If it were up to me, I would define the girl by her overuse of the ellipsis in album titles, but it's not up to me.) Her interviews before this time usually centered around her sudden rise to fame and how grateful Spears was to those who helped her along the way, people like her mom or her friend Justin Timberlake and his band N'Sync. Now her interviews centered around the fact that she was acting as a bad role model for young girls and accusations flew that Britney Spears was responsible for over-sexualizing the day's youth.

I used to try to imagine what it would feel like to take Britney's place. Physiologically and emotionally she was changing into an adult, and sexuality is part of adulthood. (Why else would we put pornographic films in the adult film section?) She was also growing as an artist and doing whatever she could do to keep her dream of singing and dancing alive. In her place I think I would probably feel like there was nothing I could do right. I don't mean to say, "Leave Britney alone!" I'm not trying to excuse anything she's done in the public eye. I mean to say that even with all of the money and recognition Britney Spears racked up during this short period, I would prefer my overweight, zit-faced life with no money and no girlfriend to the life of Britney Spears, because at least I had the option to be myself without the media turning me into the scapegoat for a world full of sins.

Returning to the story of the boy who burned down the barn, I can say that I don't feel any connection with this boy. The two of us liked our cartoons and we liked our MTV, but this kid was known to the nation as the poster child of a poorly spent youth while I was emerging as an example of a well-raised son. I was a Boy Scout. I was engaged in community service. I stayed in school. I respected my parents and credited their teaching for any kindness anyone said to me. I went to college. I went to church. Most importantly, I was never caught burning down any buildings. I sometimes wondered if there weren't more similarities between me and the barn burner. To paraphrase the Joker in Batman: The Killing Joke, perhaps the difference between me and him was as insignificant as one bad day.

Maybe it's just the philosopher in me, but I cannot think about these events without stumbling into a difficult string of questions. Who are the role models that our children look up to? Who ought our children look up to? Who gets to make the choice? What is a role model? How ought a role model to act? How do we understand responsibility in light of the influence of role models in people's lives? How should we respond when we believe that role models are not acting properly? Should we respond at all? Should our government representatives intervene in these matters? What should they do? I know that if I am to listen to the testimony of someone pointing a finger and placing blame on cartoons and pop singers for the corruption of our youth, I'd like them to be able to answer all of these questions for me. I'd really like to be able to answer these questions for myself.

Role Models, Part One can be viewed here.

Best Guests

I've recently noticed that some of my favorite television shows of the past are really losing steam, most notably, The Office. It is fairly clear that the original story that The Office was intended to tell has already been told, but since ratings remain high these completed stories are still being developed, dragging us from the boring life of engaged Jim and Pam to the boring life of married Jim and Pam to the boring life of parental Jim and Pam. By now you've probably heard that Steve Carell is leaving The Office after the end of this season but that the series is set to continue without him despite the fact that it has been unoriginal and uninteresting for nearly two full seasons. The public is now trying to decide who should replace Carell as The Office's lead character and regional manager of Dunder Mifflin Scranton.

I don't want to be left out of the discussion of possible additions to the cast of The Office, but I also don't want to limit the discussion to The Office alone. Television programs have commonly brought in guest stars or added actors to their cast in order to breathe life into a dying story, but guests are also an important part of several of the most popular television programs on the market. 30 Rock, for example, follows the format of Saturday Night Live in many ways, feeding us interesting guest star after interesting guest star. If I'm not mistaken I think they even featured James Franco as himself, only he was in love with a Japanese body pillow.

The following is a list of funny television programs and the guest actors who would complement them best:

30 Rock

Before I talk about why Justin Timberlake would be the best addition to the cast of 30 Rock, I'd like to applaud those who do casting for the show for getting Matt Damon to play Liz Lemon's love interest Carol. I had been kind of bored with the show for a couple of months, but when Damon appeared in the season finale as a quirky pilot who loves TGS a spark reignited for the show. My first thought, when thinking of who would work well with 30 Rock, was a play off of Matt Damon's character Carol. I thought it would be interesting to have Ben Affleck join the mix, creating a love triangle between Damon, Affleck and Fey. It would be funny first of all because of their camaraderie in creating Good Will Hunting, but mostly because of the recent staged fight between Sarah Silverman and Jimmy Kimmel that the two got caught up in.

Ben Affleck is too obvious, and there's no promise that he would be any near as good as Matt Damon turned out to be for the show. That's why I think Justin Timberlake would be the best choice. I'm a huge Justin Timberlake fan, but honestly that has little to do with why he would be perfect. Like Alec Baldwin, Justin Timberlake keeps getting called back time after time to host and re-host Saturday Night Live, the program that this show is loosely based on. He is also responsible for one of NBC's most watched videos of the last decade, the infamous Dick in a Box music video. He just has a chemistry with these people and is incredibly funny, and honestly, I don't think it's so hard any more to prove the case that Justin Timberlake is developing into a fantastic actor. Like James Franco, Timberlake has proven that he has a sense of humor about himself, which means that he would be ready for any sort of embarrassing character traits the writers would throw at him.

Big Bang Theory

I think it was season one when Big Bang Theory first featured one of Johnny Galecki's co-stars from Roseanne. Since then, both Laurie Metcalf (Mary Cooper, Sheldon's mother) and Sara Gilbert (Leslie Winkle, Leonard's on-again off-again fling) have made repeat appearances, and since then, I have been crossing my fingers that John Goodman would be the next. I think I'm probably the only one these days who sees it, and probably because everyone's so tickled by the bombardment of Huzzahs and Bazingas, but Big Bang Theory really hasn't been all that interesting for a while. It seems, like The Office, to have overstepped its original story and continues to coast on the infinite references that can be made to comic books and quantum mechanics. I honestly think that as long as Marvel and DC are making movies, there will be an audience for this show. If we're going to watch it for several years to come, then I want to see John Goodman become a major player, possibly Penny's out-of-work father who crashes at her apartment "until he can get his act together." Maybe it'll even develop from a Roseanne reunion to a Big Lebowski reunion when some of his buddies played by Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore. The possibilities are endless when you have John Goodman on your cast.

Community

A show like Community thrives on guest stars, needing fun new actors every week to play a professor or classmate at Greendale. The lead actors are veritable Kevin Bacons of connections to other actors, from the old school SNL connections of Chevy Chase (Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, etc.) to the various entertaining hosts of The Soup that Joel McHale grants us access to (Greg Kinnear, Aisha Tyler). But my choice for guest star of Community is a cry for justice. Maybe some of you remember the internet sensation surrounding Donald Glover and his campaign to be considered for the upcoming fourth Spider-Man movie. The people of the internet could accomplish such inane things as getting Betty White to host SNL and yet we couldn't elect a black Spider-Man? I think that Andrew Garfield, the kid they chose to play the new Spider-Man, should show up on Community, on Donald Glover's turf.

How I Met Your Mother

This choice was hard. With Alyson Hannigan you gain access to the cast of one of my favorite television programs Buffy the Vampire Slayer. With Neil Patrick Harris you get the whole Harold and Kumar cast. But I want to go even further back into Harris's career. And I'm not talking about Starship Troopers. I think that How I Met Your Mother would benefit most by re-uniting NPH with his original wing man, Max Casella. On Doogie Howser, MD, Casella's character Vinnie climbed in Harris's (Howser's) window on a daily basis. It's time for these two to become the Maverick and Goose of bird dogging, to show Ted Mosby what he could have become if he could just keep up with Barney's compendium of rules and illustrations.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

I was originally going to sit on this blog idea for a while to see if I could brainstorm more ideas, but yesterday my good friend Josh, whose brilliant blog Fat Train deals with all the best and worst the worlds of television and film have to offer us, put some fire under me. During a class we both attend, he wrote a blog titled It's Always Funny in Philadelphia in which he linked his internet followers to this very blog post before it was even written. I thank Josh for his kind words and for introducing his people to my blog, but I also begrudge him for forcing me to be less lazy with my blogging.

The reason Josh prophesied this particular blog post is because we were discussing a recent episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia in which (SPOILERS!!!!!) Dee is revealed to be carrying the child of an unknown father. We both expressed that this would be the perfect time to invite a new actor onto the show and explain him as Dee's baby daddy. For some time now, I've wanted Arnold Schwarzenegger to join the cast as Danny DeVito's twin brother, calling, of course, back to the film Twins. Since we all know that Dee and Dennis were actually sired by Stephen Collins, TV's Reverend Eric Camden from Seventh Heaven, it wouldn't be completely tasteless for Dee's non-blood-related uncle to be the father of her child. It would be taboo, sure, but taboo is what keeps this show on the air.

The Office

My brilliant idea for the actor to replace Steve Carell on The Office was Michael J. Fox. He once had his own office, but it was taken away from him by Charlie Sheen. Now he's looking for an office of his own once again, and by golly, it looks like there's an opening. It would have been easy to write a decent amount about why this would be awesome, starting with the renewed focus on Back to the Future since the release of video of Eric Stoltz as the original Marty McFly.

To write an article about that would betray my sentiment that it is time for The Office to end. It is foolish to continue that show without Steve Carell, and I will not join in the speculations for his replacement because nobody should ever replace him. They need to suck it up, end the show, and start working on new pilots that promise to entertain people the way The Office did for its first few years. With an endgame in sight, there is only one choice that anyone can entertain for a guest star on The Office. That is the return of Amy Ryan as Michael's greatest love interest of all time, Holly Flax. In proper The Office fashion, things would look really grim for a long time, but Michael Scott would show a hidden reservoir of character that gives Michael and Holly some hope of being together. And that's where we end. The end of this season is the dignified end of this series. If it were to be done right, it would have happened closer to the time of the marriage of Jim and Pam, but it can still be done well.

The Social Network Third Trailer

The New Free Bird

How does Bob Saget play Purple Rain?
Justin Tiemeyer tells him to. That's how.

There is a measurable difference in awesomeness between me and your normal concert-goer. For example, I don't even think about leaving a concert until they raise the house lights and play somebody else's music on the house speakers. I don't get fooled by that whole "Thank you, good night!" charade.

More importantly, your normal rock fan still thinks it's cool to yell out "Stairway!" or "Free Bird!" When these shouts arise I think to myself, "Fools! Have you no popular culture sensitivity?" After all, the 1992 film Wayne's World closed the book on shouting out "Stairway to Heaven," with the line, "No Stairway? Denied!" Similarly, the 2005 film The Devil's Rejects gave us the closure we've always been seeking for the tragic plight of Lynyrd Skynyrd when a gruesome gunfight arises to the tune of "Free Bird." (Kudos to Rob Zombie for not playing "Blaze of Glory" instead.) If you know your history, then you know it's not cool to yell out "Stairway!" or "Free Bird!" at concerts anymore.

Unfortunately, however, there there is a kind of human need that is expressed in yelling stupid things to musicians at concerts. Just as there are checks and balances in the United States Constitution to prevent tyranny of one individual or group of individuals, yelling out "Stairway!" is a way of placing checks and balances on the possible tyrannical power of a performer. If it's no longer cool to yell out the names of these two classic songs, then how are we to regain our democratic right from these bullies up on stage? It was in response to this question and in light of my obsession with Prince that I began shouting out "Purple Rain!" at concerts.

"Purple Rain!" is golden. It's a song that everyone is familiar with. Just as importantly, it is still uncommon to hear as a request at a concert. That means it's still cool to shout it out. Every performer prepares a pat response to the inevitable "Stairway!" or "Free Bird!" But now there's a new level of measuring the coolness (and thus the power) of a performer: in all likelihood any given performer has not prepared for the "Purple Rain!" contingency, so if said performer can deal with this request in a cool and interesting way, this performer can be called cool.

* * *

Two nights before seeing Bob Saget I went to a Pete Yorn concert at the Dallas House of Blues. At this point I had been shouting out "Purple Rain!" at concerts for something over a year, and nobody had satisfied me with a really cool response. That night I requested the tune twice. The second time was with Pete Yorn himself, who didn't bat an eye at the request despite the fact that I was directly in front of him in the first row of general admission fans. The first time was with Yorn's opener, a young musician named Isaac Russell.

"Purple Rain!" I shouted. "Purple Rain?" Isaac Russell asked. "YEAH!" I shouted. Russell then proceeded to look from his guitar to his microphone and back for some thirty seconds, a look of mischief coming over him. Finally, as if he shook the devil off his shoulder, he said directly to me, "No. I'm not going to do that song."

Things did not look promising when I saw a live Bob Saget comedy set. For normal concerts, the general admission tickets admit one to the floor of the Dallas House of Blues. There are no chairs on the floor, and if you get to the House of Blues on time you can go right up to the front. At the Pete Yorn concert, a woman with a cheap admission ticket received Yorn's harmonica. He walked right up to her, kneeled down and placed it gently into her hands. For the Bob Saget show there were chairs on the floor, and these were the most expensive seats in the house. With general admission tickets we were pushed to the back toward the bar, an area loaded with pillars and douche bag college students to obstruct ones visual and auditory lock on Saget. I was fo far away from Saget that the Wayne's World line paraphrased itself in my mind: "No Purple Rain? Denied!"

To my surprise someone handed Bob Saget an acoustic guitar, and to me this was like some divine being handing me a second chance at greatness. My first chance at greatness was during a Justin Timberlake concert in Dallas a couple of years earlier. It was at this concert that I mastered surfing on the sound waves of the crowd. What I mean by this is that I was silent while the crowd was shouting, but just as soon as the crowd got to its quietest point waiting for Timberlake to speak, I'd shout something. I was against the back wall of the American Airlines Center, and in the relative silence I let out a lion's roar of a request: "DICK IN A BOX!" After about three requests Timberlake played a verse from this song: "Not gonna buy you a diamond ring / That sort of gift don't mean anything." Of course, his entire family was in the audience this night, so he looked up in the general direction of my hollering and asked, "Is it cool if I play another song?"

Saget was even more difficult than Timberlake. With Timberlake, I knew that he at least knew the words and tunr to the song I was requesting. Timberlake's concert, despite the screaming girls, had many more moments of silence. Bob Saget just keeps talking and talking, slinging insults at a rate that one begins to wonder if he needs to breathe. I found a silent moment, however, as he was adjusting the acoustic guitar on his lap. Taking advantage of this brief window of time I shouted, "PURPLE RAIN!" Saget's head stuck bolt upright and he said, "What?" I shouted again, "PURPLE RAIN!" Bob Saget began firing off questions. Had we ever met before? How old was I? Insult, insult, insult. I didn't catch all of it. But then he started strumming the chords that I know so well and singing that beautiful Prince tune. It went on for a verse and a chorus before he said, "This is a really long song," and stopped.

* * *

In the aftermath of living the greatest story ever told, I'm left with the question, "What's next?" Is there any point in requesting "Purple Rain!" if it'll never be more unique and insane than when it was performed by potty-mouthed comedian - not musician - Bob Saget? Ought I to move on to another song? And if so, what could compare? To paraphrase Prince: "Nothing compares 2 Purple Rain."

Though I'm largely in the dark as to how to respond to this situation, I know two things for certain. First, I know that there is some strange and dark Dickensian moment in the past that connects Bob Saget to the song Purple Rain, and I intend to find out more about this. Second, I know that there is still at least one person who might surprise me more than Saget doing "Purple Rain."

So, look out, Mr. President.

Pack your guitar, Mr. Barack Obama, because I'm coming at you with a personal request.

And it sure ain't "Free Bird!"

The Social Network Trailers