Y'know, I still think
The Social Network was very good--not great, certainly not epochal, but very good. But of all the critical things I've read about it, this hit home to me more than most, maybe because its main point wasn't really even to criticize the movie all that harshly, it has bigger things in mind:
"I enjoyed watching that Facebook movie, because there’s something intoxicating about watching people get rich by doing something that looks like fun. Everyone likes the idea, I think, that if you rock out hard enough you’ll make it big. In this case rocking out meant writing programs all day in Palo Alto with Justin Timberlake, but there’s other movies where the same thing happens with playing the guitar or making art or playing a sport.
"I think this is the principle that the Tea Party operates on. You put on period costumes or make “Back In The Saddle” videos or get liquored up and write incoherent tweets or shut down the government for no reason, and you can be a big star, get a gig at Fox or at least a wingnut welfare sinecure at Heritage (all of these things are of course easier and more destructive than whatever it is that the Facebook guy did, obviously, but they made it look easy in the movie)."
(from a favorite political blog:
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/04/07/living-for-childhood-is-easy-to-do/)
