THE SOCIAL NETWORK – Or How Did We Become one

[PREMISE: All considerations made into this post were inspired by a conference held by Professor Luca Malavasi in Milan, July 2015. The movies and books quoted were part of his lecture as well]

“You think you know me, don’t you?”
“I’ve read enough”
“You know how much I’ve read about you? Nothing.”
[The Social Network]

They say you could never make a movie about a writer because the best you could do is show him writing. And yet this is a movie about a computer programmer who uses a language that is even more intelligible to most people[1]. I guess it took David Fincher and the excellent writing abilities of Aaron Sorkin to make such a splendid film that spans over computer programming, web strategy and finance.

We all know the story of Mark Zuckerberg, the antisocial nerd who realized that what people wanted most was a glimpse of someone else’s life and gave them that. He created a network that has changed forever the world of social media, triggering a ripple effect that will probably incrementally evolve.

As a matter of fact Sorkin’s dialogues are built as a network, with complexity levels that are a reflection of the same system upon which relationships are built on Facebook. How many among your FB friends do you actually know or spend time with? Most of them are people you may have crossed paths with once in your life or people you’ve actually never even met. There are many other movies that are built like a reticular tissue, from Matrix to the most recent Inception.

I’m not gonna talk about the movie itself and what it means in terms of loyalty to a friend, the conflicts that aroused when people realized the potential value of Facebook or the profile of this young billionaire. I couldn’t do that even if I wanted, let’s not forget that The Social Network still remains a Hollywood movie and therefore Zuckerberg character has been accentuated from the person he probably is in real life. Although there was definitely a mimetic intention during casting: Jesse Eisenberg resembles Mark Zuckerberg as much as Justin Timberlake nailed the role of Sean Parker.

I actually wanna talk about the role of social media and how they’ve affected our way of living and perceiving ourselves, slowly turning us into our own social networks. I guess we could say that Facebook has pioneered this incredible revolution, becoming the third most clicked website, after Google and Youtube, with almost 900.000.000[2] visitors per month. Its population has increased dramatically over the course of a decade, having reached 1.06 billion by the end of 2012.

Many other social media[3] had preceded and many followed its path and became as useful and popular such as Twitter (which has a much simpler and private interface), Linkedin (for professional purposes) and YouTube (video sharing device), that actually is a lot more relevant that people would think.

Now what we ought to ask ourselves is the following: did we start relying so much on those social networks to fulfill some specific needs or did they slowly model our way of thinking and perceiving life that ultimately we have become social networks ourselves?

In this very interesting conference held by Professor Malavasi, several distinct features of our “social media generation” were brought up. Three of them were actually quoted from Henry Jenkins[4], an estimated Professor, writer of Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide[5]. (I highly suggest you read this book)

• THE NEED FOR SELF-PORTRAIT
  More commonly known as “selfies”, these silly pictures taken with one arm stretched out and nothing but your gigantic face to fill in the screen have become so popular that even President Obama took some. Dr. Terri Apter[6], psychology lecturer at Cambridge University, says it’s “A kind of self definition. […] We all like the idea of being sort of in control of our image and getting attention, being noticed, being part of the culture”. But mostly, the concept of self-portraying implies that you’re somehow able to control your image and present yourself, as you’d like to be perceived by others

• CONVERGENCE
  Defined by Jenkins as the “flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behavior of media audiences who would go almost anywhere in search of the kinds of entertainment experiences they wanted”
• PARTICIPATORY CULTURE
  According to Jenkins “In this emerging media system, what might traditionally be understood as media producers and consumers are transformed into participants who are expected to interact with each other according to a new set of rules which none of us fully understands”
• COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE
  This participatory culture inevitably generates an intelligence without boundaries that relies on inputs given by billion of users

For some reason I was by far the youngest person sitting through that conference and once all these variables were explained many older people commented, saying that all this sounded really bad and dangerous (some of them had already walked out during the screening of The Social Network because the dialogues were too hard to follow. In their defense we were also watching it in English with Italian subs. Try doing that with a Sorkin screenplay and let me know how it works out.) We obviously talked about the consequences that this new “social media society” has on the individual. And not all of them were bad…

FEAR THE CHANGE!

1. Social etiquettes and routines don’t exist anymore
2. Medias have lost their specificity
3. People have lost their identities

The paradigm of modern society expects a state of constant activity and therefore someone to direct this activity that is not human, that simply never needs to rest. If there’s someone watching, it means that someone else is providing content to watch and share. Therefore social etiquettes have lost their value: it’s never too late to call or shame in being online at 4 am. And after all if you can’t sleep, why don’t tell it to the rest of the world?

About the deprivation of sleep, a very cool book was mentioned in class. Written by Jonathan Crary called “24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep”[7] that talks about the awful consequences of the expanding non-stop processes of twenty-first century capitalism; having a market that operates literally 24/7 pushes us into being in constant activity. And this applies to us not only as consumers but especially as media consumers or better yet, relating to Jenkins definition of Participatory Culture, as participants.

“Maybe It was all inevitable. An unavoidable collision between mankind and technology.
The internet was meant to make the world a smaller place.
But it actually feels smaller without it”
[Transcendence]

As mentioned earlier in this post, the relationship with our own biography has dramatically changed in the last decade and having the need to post everything we do means that we’re evaluating our bio on a quantitative basis rather than a qualitative one. How many likes did I get? How many views will my video receive? How many followers on Instagram?
Now the real question is: are we the same people we put out there on Facebook? Aren’t we just projecting a better version of ourselves? Or at least the version of ourselves we’d like (and need) other people to think we are.
Our virtual identities are not we. They just look like us.

This induces a process called depersonalization, defined by the American Psychiatric Association[8] as “alteration in the perception or experience of the self so that one feels detached from and as if one is an outside observer of one’s mental processes or body”

Of course the Film Industry has grasped this major change in society and produced several movies that take this matter into consideration. Here are a few that were mentioned in class.

Transcendence: Johnny Depp plays a scientist trying to create an artificial intelligence by uploading his own consciousness into a program. He ultimately becomes a network himself. [Fun Fact: This is the directorial debut for Wally Pfister who had previously worked with major directors, including David Fincher, as director of photography[9]]

Lucy: A woman turns into a warrior by gradually expending her brain activity, evolving beyond human logic. Her evolution coincides inevitably with her disappearance. Once she reaches 100% power, she’s everywhere and nowhere until her own body dematerializes. Directed by Luc Besson.

Gone Girl: David Fincher is the director but this film doesn’t fall into its “post modern phase”; Professor Malavasi pointed out that it actually feels almost as a Hitchcock movie. It’s particularly interesting for its use of narration and reverse narration that enable us to relive the whole story from Amy point of view. And it’s because of her character that this movie is so strictly connected especially to the process of depersonalization. Amy describes in her diary the woman she has become for Nick but she gets to the point where it’s not even clear to herself who she really is. Ultimately, she can’t distinguish reality anymore.

Sens8: Created by Straczynski and the Wachowski brother and sister (directors of The Matrix franchise) and produced by Netflix, this is actually a TV series. 8 people around the world discover to be mentally linked and therefore can operate as one single unit capable of interchanging their respective abilities. Together they are a perfect example of collective intelligence and they operate better and more efficiently as a whole.

THERE MUST BE SOME GOOD

After exploring the not so good consequences that this revolution is triggering, let’s talk about the good that comes out of it.

First of all, I’d like once more to cite a paragraph from Jenkins “Convergence Culture”. And to think that this book was written in 2006 when we were beginning to enter convergence culture and yet it depicted a scenario that turned out to be exactly…

From the paragraph The Cultural Logic Of Media Convergence: “The American media environment is now being shaped by two seemingly contradictory trends: on the one hand, new media technologies have lowered production and distribution costs, expanded the range of available delivery channels, and enabled consumers to archive, annotate, appropriate, and recirculate media content in powerful new ways. At the same time, there has been an alarming concentration of the ownership of mainstream commercial media, with a small handful of multinational media conglomerates dominating all sectors of the entertainment industry. […] Convergence, as we can see, is both a top-down corporate-driven process and a bottom-up consumer-driven process. Corporate convergence coexists with grassroots convergence. Media companies are channels to expand revenue opportunities, broaden markets, and reinforce viewer commitments. Consumers are learning how to use these different media technologies to bring the flow of media more fully under their control and to interact with other consumers. The promises of this new media environment raise expectations of a freer flow of ideas and content.”

This “freer flow of ideas” is exactly the good that comes out of it. Grassroots productions are encouraged and there’s a streaming of new personal content (You Tube plays a bigger role than any other platform in this matter). What’s interesting though is not only the creation and diffusion of new content by the consumer/participant but especially the remaking of existing content.
As a matter of fact we find ourselves in what could be called REMIX ERA.

Through the Internet virtually everything has become available for manipulation. Movies are downloaded and re-edited, re-dubbed, taken into pieces as well as any textual content such as articles, interviews and reviews. This obviously implies the following:

• Downfall of copyright
• Loss of substance
• Loss of privacy

With these premises, it’s undoubted that editing has become the lexicon of our time. We’re all post producers and have taken the habit of editing everything, even ourselves.

I don’t know much about the music industry and I wouldn’t feel comfortable talking about it too much. But I guess this consideration could also explain the change in the role of the DJ and why he has become the show himself. Music festivals have become these huge events that are themselves a powerful platform to spread new ideas and sounds and they are built around “celebrity DJs” who become the main attraction.

Again, the consumers have become participants and they go to festivals not only to be entertained but also to be educated and discover new music. As a matter of fact I understand that some DJs have actually been criticized for “playing predictable or possibly pre-recorded sets”[10].

In return, participants transmit energy at high intensity that enables the DJ to pull such a great show. To cite Sebastian Ingrosso (whom departed from the DJ trio Swedish House Mafia in 2013): “The most important thing is now what we play, but the personality and how we interact with the crowd.”[11]

————————————————————————————————————————————————–[1] The Social Network. Roger Ebert. http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-social-network-2010
[2] Top 15 Most Popular Websites. eBizMBA guide. http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/most-popular-websites
[3] The World’s Most Important Social Media Sites and Apps in 2015, Randy Milanovic, Social Media Today. http://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-networks/2015-04-13/worlds-21-most-important-social-media-sites-and-apps-2015 [4] Henry Jenkins. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Jenkins
[5] Confessions of an Aca-Fan: The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins. http://henryjenkins.org/2006/06/welcome_to_convergence_culture.html
[6] Why We Really Take Selfies: The “Terrifying” Reasons Explained. Radhika Sanghani. The Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/10760753/Why-we-really-take-selfies-the-terrifying-reasons-explained.html
[7] 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep. http://www.versobooks.com/books/1570-24-7
[8] American Psychiatric Association (1994) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th edn) (DSM–IV). Washington DC: APA.
[9] Chat Room: Wally Pfister. http://shootonline.com/news/chat-room-wally-pfister
[10] What Is a DJ’s Role in Today’s Dance Music Festivals? Michelle Lhooq. https://thump.vice.com/en_us/article/what-is-a-djs-role-in-todays-dance-music-festivals
[11] The D.J. Maestros Axwell and Ingrosso Aim to Shake the Rafters. Joe Coscarelli. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/02/arts/music/the-dj-maestros-axwell-and-ingrosso-aim-to-shake-the-rafters.html?_r=3

Hitch

“One dance, one look, one kiss, that’s all we get, Albert”

IDDA’S SCORE: *

I always like to re watch movies after some time, to see if I understand them better or differently as I grow up and Hitch’s DVD had been sitting on my shelf for quite a while.
I was looking for a light romantic comedy that wouldn’t require too much attention to follow and I figured what the hell…Will Smith never fails to make me smile.

And that’s pretty much all I got to say about this movie.
Good performances given by smart and funny actors who didn’t have to make that much of an effort to get into their roles.
Other than that Hitch is nothing more than an average romantic comedy you quickly forget about and would not watch again for at least a year.
Is not because it’s not good or funny, it just falls in the midst of ok movies.

One thing I noticed this time that may have tricked my teenager’s eyes a few years ago is the contrast between Hitch luxurious apartment in New York and its supposed salary as date doctor. And actually the whole matter of being a date doctor.
I don’t think such a profession could ever really exist and if it does, I doubt it would earn you an unbelievable avant-garde loft in a building with a funny doorman.

Nonetheless, the pair made by Smith and Kevin James delivers a couple of entertaining and well directed scenes.
In particular the one where they go from destroying Albert’s office after his disastrous intervention in the conference room, to totally cool conversation when Allegra shows up and Hitch orchestrates the whole thing behind the door.

Eva Mendes’ intervention as Sara Milas works too.
And even if it didn’t, who wouldn’t wanna watch an hour and half of Eva Mendes? She’s just gorgeous. No matter how stuck up her character might be.
Unfortunately her role as the-one-worth-making-a-fool-of-yourself-for kinda nullifies the first two acts of the movie which had actually intrigued me into finding out if Hitch would have succeeded with the hopeless Albert and out of his league Allegra.
All that action is left on its own once we get deeper into Hitchens own misfortunes while trying to hang out with Sara.

Overall Hitch is a likable movie, although it does have a few to many cliches lines, especially the final love speech.
“[…] And there’s only one person that makes me feel like I can fly… That’s you”
Come on now. I ain’t watching Gossip Girl for a reason.

Should you watch Hitch? Yes.
Why? Because it stars a good cast and it goes by fairly quickly without ever getting boring.
Will you count it among the greatest romedies of all time? I’m afraid not, but if that were the purpose I would have not watched any of Matthew McConaughey’s movies prior to Dallas Buyers Club, would I?

Me, Myself And Irene

“No art passes our conscience in the way film does,
and goes directly to our feelings,
deep down into the dark rooms of our souls”
[Ingmar Bergman]

The first time I ever saw a movie I was 2.
I watched “The Lady and The Hound”, or so my parents tell me.
Once the last credit went by on the screen, I asked them to hit rewind on our old VHS player and let me watch it again. And again, and again and again.
They say the first time people saw “L’arrivée d’un train en la gare de La Ciotat” by the Lumière brothers, they got so scared that some of them even screamed believing the train would have come out of the screen and kept running.
To them it was like magic.

I guess my reason for falling in love with it can be reconnected to that astonishment I felt watching moving images unfolding great stories I could only imagine or dream about.
Movies pose no limits to the human mind. Everything you can imagine you can shoot.
Especially nowadays technology has enabled us to recreate virtually any scenario and make it as believable as it could be.
Through movies I can travel in the past and the future, go to Alaska or take a space shuttle to Mars. I can meet Napoleon and admire the greatness of the Roman empire.
I can cry for lost loves, cherish for a soldier that comes home and watch other people lives, discovering their culture and, most of all, realize we’re not so different after all.

To me, that’s what cinema is. A journey through space and time where imagination has no boundaries and there are no social etiquettes or written rules.
Anything and everything can happen in a movie.

What else is there to say about me?
I’m a ballerina and a mermaid.
I read and I write.
I’m a huge nerd and sometimes take Elvish writing classes.
I like drinking and ordering in restaurants.
I go to the Opera but I can’t sing nor read music.
I speak English but I’m Italian.
I’m studying French but don’t know anybody in France to talk to.
I love my family because they taught me the importance of freedom.
I studied Economics but wish I knew more about philosophy and literature.
I work in the Entertainment Industry and that makes me happy.
I didn’t like the Jim Carrey movie but always exploit the title.
Because this really is me: Me, Myself and Irene.

Memento

“Memory can change the shape of a room; it can change the color of a car.
And memories can be distorted. 
They’re just an interpretation, they’re not a record,
and they’re irrelevant if you have the facts”

IDDA’S SCORE: ****

For psychoanalysis, memories are conscious representations of the past suspected to be, at least in part, illusory. Their interpretation is personal and affected by feelings and emotions.
We often don’t realize how much we rely on faded frames floating in our minds but if we try to recall a certain event among a group of friends, we’ll be surprised that nobody seems to remember the same details, or even main facts.

But what would happen to us if we were to lose our memory and only remember our life up to that day?
How could we be in control of our actions and ultimately even tell right from wrong?
Memento explores this possibility through the character of Leonard Shelby, with a great performance by Guy Pearce.

Leonard is well aware that others treat him like a freak and even so he always relates to people without prejudice.
He knows he can only rely on his polaroids and tattoos but, if his facts lead that way, why shouldn’t he open up to the person standing in front of him?
He has to find the murderer of his wife at all costs because that’s his purpose in life.
Note that it is different from an achievement, because it has continuity.

In fact he has already killed the felon and Teddy has even taken a smiling picture of him (if it really was the killer, but I like to think so) and yet Leonard has never written on the back of that polaroid.
He doesn’t want to remember.
He needs to keep looking for him otherwise what would he be living for?

His life now depends on having someone to hunt down and if Teddy is getting tired of covering for him (after getting him into troubles) than that killer might as well be him.
All he has to do is write down “don’t believe his lies”, take his car plate and wait five more minutes for his memory to fade so he won’t remember what he has just realized.

Lenny has accepted his issue and exploits it to protect himself, to be sure he’ll never have to remember what has really happened.
Guy Pearce’s performance is perfect because he delivers a character worried, pensive and confused as you expect him to be, since it’s a whole new environment to discover every time he wakes up.
And yet he also makes you see the real man; there’s rage, excitement and love, especially when he remembers his wife.
It’s a lot for a man that doesn’t have mental capacity and time to feel almost anything.

That last glimpse of her smile, the way she brushed her hair and read over and over that old book, that is what Lenny wants to remember and live of.
He doesn’t want a new existence because he can’t have one.
And even if he could tattoo on his chest that he may now rest in peace, he won’t.

I was reminded of him after seeing the character of Teddy Daniels in Shutter Island: doesn’t he too chose not to remember the truth and rather “die as a good man”?
Sammy Jenkins was nobody but Lenny himself as much as Laeddis was Teddy: both projections of their own tragedies on fictitious men that could be blamed for their mistakes.

After all don’t we all seek refuge in our own memories, where we can find solace for what we’ve done and can hold on to a smile, a moment, a feeling?

Two last notes I’ll add to this review.
One is a two thumbs up for the technical expedient of presenting the story backwards. It really does bring you closer to the reality Leonard is perceiving and its uncertainty and lack of information.
The second one refers to Roger Ebert (my favorite movies lover of all times) and his review of this film: Memento review by Roger Ebert
Ebert mentions two readers that have pointed out that if Lenny doesn’t recall anything after the accident, how can he know to have short term memory loss?
I have to admit I hadn’t thought about it but I chose to accept the plot as it is and it couldn’t have been developed without such premise.

PLOT

Leonard, not Lenny because he hates it, has few certainties about his life: his wife has been brutally raped and murdered and now he seeks revenge.
Problem is that he has short term memory loss due to the trauma suffered during the struggle and he can’t hold on to his thoughts more then few hours.
In order to keep up with it, he takes pages and pages of notes, shoots polaroids of people he meets and tattoos on himself the main facts about his wife murder.
On his chest there’s one that says: “John G. raped and murdered my wife”…but, note after note, anybody could become John G.

What has really happened is that his wife survived the attack and they were reunited after.
Unfortunately she couldn’t bear the fact that Lenny had lost his memory and she was positive that, deep inside, her husband was lucid and his condition solvable.
So she tested him for good. She was diabetic and had him inject her the daily dosage of insulin more than once, to see if he could realize he was killing her. And he didn’t.
Of course Lenny doesn’t remember any of this, he thinks his wife was killed after the rape.

Teddy (Joe Pantoliano) was the cop who followed his case and the only one who believed what Lenny said about two attackers being in a room and not just one, whom he shot during the struggle.
Ever since then Teddy has helped Lenny have his revenge on the second attacker; in fact Lenny has killed him a year prior to the events told in the movie.
Teddy has even taken a happy photo of him after, but he has chosen not to write underneath what that smile was for.
Sammy Jenkins, the poor lad Lenny always talks about, is nobody but himself.
A projection of what has happened to him and his wife.

After justice had been made Teddy had taken advantage of Lenny condition, calling him on the phone with false clues about the murder that lead to drug related businesses ran by thugs Teddy has to take care of as undercover cop.

That’s how Lenny ends up killing Jimmy Grants (another J.G.), a man who’s got nothing to do with him or his wife. Larry’s a drug dealer and after Lenny takes care of him, his girl Natalie (Carrie-Ann Moss) is left to deal with his debts.
After figuring out Lenny’s condition, who in the mean time has decided to drive around in Larry’s car wearing his clothes, she decides to take advantage of him and make him getting rid of Dodd, whom Larry owed money to.

Throughout all this, Lenny is convinced to be after his wife’s killer and he loses his memory so often that most of the time he ends up acting instinctively based on what’s going on.
Natalie plays around with him and asks for a favor (to get rid of Dodd) in exchange for tracking down a car plate Lenny has written down on his notes.

That car plate belongs to Teddy and Lenny was well aware of it when he wrote it down after the cop had confronted him telling the truth once more.
Lenny has already taken care of his wife killer but after a year and a half he’s still hasn’t given up on his quest and Teddy is there to make sure he doesn’t get hurt, or rather to have Lenny scare away certain police targets.
Lenny (has said above) has decided to make Teddy the killer because he couldn’t stand to be exploited and then ridiculed with the truth about his life.
And everything sums up at the end because Teddy’s name is actually John Edward Gammell so he can be Lenny’s Jhon G. Again, anybody could become Jhon G.

In the end we’re not told if Teddy really has helped Lenny killing his wife or if is a cop at all.
That above is my interpretation and I understand it is really confusing  but give Memento a second watch and everything will be more clear. Trust me, it is worth it.

Young Adult

“Why Buddy?”
“He’s a good man, he’s kind”
“Are other men unkind?”
“He knew me when I was at my best”

IDDA’S SCORE: ****

High school can be tough.
For the majority of people it turns into an everyday challenge where the best you can do is find a group of friends that share your interests and passions, stick with them and make it trough.
But there will always be her.
The stunning beautiful prom queen you want to hate but you’re too dazed by her glamour, her older look and the charming spell she seems to cast on any other human being.
And you sit there thinking that ten to twenty years from now she’ll have lost all her beauty and the glorious days of her light perfect skin and soft lips will be nothing but a shadow on a wrinkly face.

Well, that is not going to happen.

Beauty queens will always be such because they will never let go of what made them special in the first place.
Mavis Gary in Young Adult is the perfect fallen queen.

Long after that last dance at prom, Mavis finds herself stuck in a lonely life with a dog she doesn’t take too much care of.
She’s evidently bored, depressed and unsatisfied and can barely find the strength to get out of bed in the morning, attempt to write the last season of a young adult series that used to be popular, wear a make-up mask that will hide the bags under her eyes and go out for a drink (or maybe two or three) at night.

She has no real purpose in life and this is why she’s so ready to turn things around and go seek her high school sweetheart Buddy Slade, once she has found out he’s a newborn dad.
Stormed back into Mercury, Mavis tries so hard to restore the high school romance that was dead long ago, with no clue of the embarrassment she creates around herself.
The only one who is straight to her is Matt (great performance by Patton Oswalt),  the one person she could care less about in high school who turned out to be as cynical and misfitted as she is.

Matt points out that Buddy is happily married and she has no place in his life but what I believe the movie implies is the fact that even if he really were unhappy with his marriage, he still couldn’t make Mavis life better.
The point is that she did not fit in small Mercury when she left after high school and she doesn’t now. Despite her issues, she has lived the city life and I don’t think she could relate to the routine in small Mercury or fit in clothes that are definitely not Marc Jacob’s.

Because after all, even to them, she’s the one who has made it.
She’s a glamourous writer living the life in Minneapolis.

At this point of the movie, seen that she had already acknowledged the failure of her plan, I thought she would have realized that she was better than what she had become and she could still fix her life.
There’s only one problem about that. Mavis is an alcoholic. 
And I very much liked the fact that none of the characters in the movie ever tell, she’s the only one to admit it.
She says it to her parents at dinner and she subconsciously admits it to Matt.
The relationship between them is the only thing that brings you closer to the character of Mavis who is so terribly blind to what’s really going on around her.

Mavis Gary is a fallen beauty queen who hasn’t realized that the years after high school should have been the starting point of her real life, rather than the ending journey of the best part of it.
Her beauty, which at 37 comes at a cost well portrayed in the movie, is what has always kept her going and is the reason why she can easily be convinced by a character clearly frustrated as Sandra (Matt’s sister) that everybody else is so jealous of her.
So “fuck Mercury”. She’s better than that. She always were and always will be.

I very much liked this movie. It’s different from all others high school related and it doesn’t turn into a gigantic drama about a woman with issues.
Charlize Theron delivers a character who keeps her head up and has an intimidating effect on people around her, despite what really goes on inside.
And even when she cries and admits her craziness, she’s still so beautiful, so perfect.

PLOT

Mavis Gray is a beautiful woman who lives a depressive existence.
With the only company of her dog and some superficial friendships and sexual encounters, she drifts through her messy apartment in an attempt to write the last season of a book series for young adult turned into a once popular TV show.

She’s alone and depressed, spends all her nights drinking and welcomes the following morning chugging Diet Coke. Then she receives an email from Buddy Slane (Patrick Wilson), high school sweetheart who’s now married with child. 
Mavis is bothered by the news and convinces herself that her lost love is stuck in a marriage he doesn’t want and it’s definitely time for her to rescue him and live the life they always talked about back in the days.

So she shows up after years in Mercury, Minnesota, and not too slowly unfolds her plan. Buddy is polite and kind to her but doesn’t show any sexual interest or much less dislike for his life and family. Mavis twisted mind misinterprets every single word of his.

The only person who confronts her is Matt Freehauf,  who used to be the high school joke whom Mavis remembers as “hate crime” since he was beaten up and his legs and genitals damaged for life by a bunch of jocks who thought he was gay.

Matt is the only person to rely on in a town where she can hardly remember anybody’s name. He has no problem telling the truth about her issues and the embarrassing scene she’s putting up with Buddy.
And when she finally has her epiphany, she finds solace in the company of the one man who is as cynical as she is.

Mavis has her moment of truth but forgets about it pretty soon, because it’s much easier to blame others for their mediocrity rather than accepting and seeking help for her own issues.

Alpha Dog

“So  you’re like  ransom or something…”
“That’s fuckin hot!”
“Yeah it’s, like, another story to tell my grandchildren…”

IDDA’S SCORE: **

I couldn’t tell you if I regard Alpha Dog as a good movie.
I’ve watched it more than once, last time yesterday, and still can’t figure out if overall I liked it or not.

I believe it gives good proofs of the fact that not all petty drug dealers are thugs and some of them are just really dumb.
Throughout the whole movie you get the uneasy feeling that the story could end in a good way but somehow it won’t because the kidnappers are just too stupid.

I’ve read many reviews of this movie and they all describe the character of Zack Mazursky as “naive”.
I don’t think he’s naive at all…he’s just an average kid who doesn’t go out much (yet again he’s fifteen pretending to be seventeen) and is very happy to spend some times with older dudes he can have fun with.
I believe the rest of the bunch is the one being naive, naive to think that they are “the shit” because of the constant partying and smoking and drinking and unrated language, naive to think that kidnapping a kid for $1200 ransom would be this incredibly smart symbolic gesture…until things get out of hands.
I believe it was Cassavetes intent not to give us detailed information about the case but to let us be carried by their incredibly ridiculous way of solving the situation.

To me they’re just spoiled rich kids who live off their parents money and ultimately just hide from the real world and resulting responsibilities.
Justin Timberlake portrays it best playing the character of Frankie, who gets to know Zack and develops an affection towards him and yet is unable to impose himself unto Johnny Truelove and take the kid home.
Truelove is played by Emile Hirsch and, like any other performance of his, delivers a character you’ll hardly remember.
After all though he has to come off as a poser who is just scared of guns and real fights, compared to Jake (Ben Foster) he’s nothing but a wimp who makes the wrong decision and is too weak to take control of his actions.
On the other hand I loved Ben Foster performance: he comes off as the only real thug turned into a junkie who tries, or not even, to be a good brother.

Overall I would say that the film is alright.
There are definitely some good performances and you get the overall feeling you wouldn’t want to be friends with these people who are just a bunch of posers who find solace in partying because they’re too scared to face reality.
And when they do, when they actually face the fact that they’ve kidnapped a person, they panic and then run.
Zack, if he had survived, was the only one who would have made something out of himself.

One thing I’ll admit about this movie: Sharon Stone monologue at the end is among my favorites of all time. It is so real and painful that it brings you back to reality and makes you realize the abomination of such act.

PLOT

Alpha Dog is based on the real homicide of Nicholas Markowitz (in the movie Zack Mazursky) occurred in 2000 by Jesse James Hollywood and his peeps.

Story is simple: Zack’s brother Jake (played by Ben Foster) is a drug addict who buys from Johnny Truelove (Emile Hirsch), who isn’t much of a thug but acts as one and is looked up to by a bunch of “friends” who spend their lives partying and having fun.

When Jake falls into debit with Johnny, things begin to get nasty and Truelove, who’s too scared to face Jake directly, crosses path with Zack running from home after a fight and decides to kidnap him.

Zack is not the usual victim: he’s not tied up in anybody’s basement or beaten or starved but is treated like a cool kid who happens to be kidnapped. He develops relationships especially with Johnny’s straight man Frankie (Justin Timberlake), has sex with much older girls (e.g. Amanda Seyfried) and enjoys parties as a good new addiction to the group.

Aside from the many witnesses they leave behind, Johnny and friends have many chances to come out “half-clean” by taking the kid home but the latter is just to scared of Jake’s reaction (who has already raided his home and pooped on his floor) so they keep holding Zack captive.

Then Johnny begins to think that the solution of the problem would be getting rid of the kid…
I won’t tell what happens in the end, although I believe that readers already know.
I don’t want to write it because it’s still unbelievable to me that it really happened.

Lars And The Real Girl

 

“Lars asked us not to wear black today.
He did so to remind us that this is no ordinary funeral.
We are here to celebrate Bianca’s extraordinary life. From her wheelchair,
Bianca reached out and touched us all, in ways we could never have imagines.
She was a teacher. She was a lesson in courage.
 And Bianca loved us all. Especially Lars. Especially him.”

IDDA’S SCORE: ***1/2

Lars And The Real Girl is ultimately a movie about a guy with issues that begins to love a plastic sex doll.

And yet there is nothing about it that makes it corny, off-color or insulting. In fact it’s a sweet movie that never crosses the line.
There is not one sex joke regarding the doll or a bitter comment that could have made it all wrong.

We’re not asked to feel for Lars Lindstrom but just to let him be.
Because it’s only by doing so that we can appreciate the delicacy of his nature and be part of the world he sees.
He is so kind and compassionate that by the end of the movie I had too, developed affection towards that inanimate piece of plastic.

The way he relates to Bianca is so pure, genuine and romantic that it almost brings her to life and makes you wish she could love Lars back.
But in fact she does.She does it through the love of his brother who has realized how alone he had left him for years, his wife Karin who grows into being a newly mom and the whole community that learns a lesson about diversity and, as the priest says in his sermon, ultimately courage.
Two thumbs up for Ryan Gosling who delivers a performance that is accurate and yet so delicate that it makes you wish he would have done more movies like this and spared us some of his recent Refn collaborations…

Movie runs for 106 minutes which is more than enough to develop affection for Lars and his family and not be bored by this fairy tale from the real world.

Sometimes people forget how simple love can be and Lars And The Real Girl is a great proof of that.

PLOT

Watching this movie I was reminded of one of those fairy tales settled in some place dispersed in the middle of nowhere, with only one main road, surrounded by snow and in which fashion is still dictated by flannel pyjamas.

When you first get a glimpse of Lars’s house, no information is given regarding its location.
I imagined it to be some cold region of the United States, in one of those towns that are cut out from the rest of the world and have so few inhabitants that they could all be gathered in a Wall Mart store.

Lars is a shy, ordinary young man who lives in a garage close to the house of his brother Gus and sister-in-law Karin.
He is genuine, kind and helpful and very much loved by his family and the community, although he prefers to be alone in his small room rather than being hugged and hosted at people’s parties, reason why he often refuses to the point of running away from Karin just to avoid having breakfast with them.

He has an office job and is totally capable of taking care of his persona.
We learn throughout the movie that his mother died giving birth and his lonely and depressed father raised him until his death.
He has friends and acquaintances and even a slightly childish young colleague who shows much attention for him. And yet he does not seek other’s company.

But then comes Bianca.

Bianca is the girl of his dreams: she’s beautiful, educated, kind, quiet and not used to the whole kissing-and-hugging that he despises so much.
And that’s because Bianca is not a real person; she’s a plastic sex doll that Lars ordered off the Internet.
But in his delusional mind she’s real and perfect.

And this is what makes Lars And The Real Girl such an extraordinary movie.

Lars’ family is shocked and puzzled at first sight of this sex artefact treated as if she were a real person.
Lars has all figured out in his mind: the reason why she’s forced on a wheel chair and her incapability to eat or dress herself.

Doctor Dagmar, probably my favorite character in the movie, suggests that his family should too act as if she was real, giving her the chance to talk to Lars while Bianca goes through weekly therapeutically sessions.Lars has to come out of his fantasy on his own, since Bianca seems to be a projection of his own personality and traumas.

 

The whole community ends up playing along with them and Bianca is treated so much like a real person that everybody is comfortable having her around at parties, in church and even volunteering at the local hospital.

Until one day when Lars makes her leave just has she had come, just in time for the last snow to melt.