By The Butcher
You love ’em, he hates ’em! The Butcher carves up your favourite films, and this week, he applies his sharpened cleaver to David Fincher’s Oscar winning Facebook drama The Social Network starring Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake, Andrew Garfield, and Armie Hammer.
Hey, did you just poke me? Wait a minute…I’ve just got to update my status on Facebook. Here you go: “The Butcher thinks The Social Network sucks.” Feel free to “like” this statement because, well, it’s true.
Though common knowledge now says that Facebook is pretty much old-hat with the emergence of new social media platforms like Elon Musk’s X (for xtra shit), the Chinese spy site TikTok, the circular messaging service WhatsApp and others, there was a time when Mark Fuckerberg’s website was king. Yeah, now it’s for parents and people in nursing homes, but Fakebook was once “hip” and “cool”, and was very much the place to be. Even “the kids” were all over it, before it got clapped up, and they ran off somewhere else more shiny and new.
Tech billionaires like Mark Fuckerberg are now also solidly on the nose. Just look at the response Amazon Man On The Moon Jeff Bezos got when he purchased that massive wank-fest that is The Met Gala, whatever the fuck it is. If ever something could prompt the mass beheading of entitled, let-them-eat-cake celebs, it’s that stupid, fucked up, look-at-me-but-respect-my-privacy event that “commoners” aren’t even allowed to see on a news report. Katy Perry, Beyonce, Sarah Paulson, Nicole Kidman, and yes, even you, Hugh Jackman…fuck off!
Anyway, The Butcher digresses slightly. With all this in mind, a fair bit of the shine has come off the 2010 award winner The Social Network, but upon its release, you all loved it…yes, you did! You blew your collective load over the script by the insufferable Aaron Sorkin, and carried on like it was the second coming. But prior to its release, there was certainly a lot of doubt around The Social Network.
When it was announced that David Fincher – quite possibly the most horrifically overrated director in the history of Hollywood – was making a movie about Facebook, it was greeted with the kind of giggles and snorts of derision that usually accompany the viewing of the latest viral video featuring a cat sneezing or a panda scratching its cags. “How can you make a movie about Facebook?” amused punters wrote on their walls, while others hit the blogs to question the allegedly great director’s motives in making what would appear to be such a lame flick.
When The Social Network was finally released, however, these same doubters quickly admitted that they were wrong, and proclaimed Mr. Fincher’s film as one of the defining works of the new millennium. Well, I’m now going to poke you with the internet version of a thick-head: you were right the first time, people! OMG! Making a movie about Facebook was, indeed, a stupid idea, and the end result was, as initially presumed, totally crap. IMHO, The Social Network was nothing new, nothing interesting, and, well, nothing good. Oscar nominations? Critical plaudits? LMAO, you’ve got to be kidding!
There are, of course, exceptions to every rule, but a good film usually requires things like interesting (though not necessarily likeable) characters, a plot where things actually happen, and a story that, in some ways, matters. The Social Network is essentially a boardroom drama (zzzzzz…) focusing on a selfish, arrogant, sexist, socially inept tool’s fight for ownership (read: the fight for money) over a silly website where people can play Scrabble and pfaff on about their boring lives, while reconnecting with people that they never liked in the first place.
When combined with the thickly sliced ham served up by actors Jesse Eisenberg, simpering former Mickey Mouse clubber and drunk driver Justin Timberlake, third-rate Spider-Man Andrew Garfield, and BDSM freak and accused wannabe cannibal Armie Hammer (in dual roles, no less…eek!), The Social Network is a shallow, sallow, meaningless experience not even worthy of friend status. Delete!
Want to read more from The Butcher? Check out his angry missives against Argo, Gravity, A Clockwork Orange, Scarface, The Artist, Only God Forgives, One Battle After Another, Birdman, Lethal Weapon, Blazing Saddles, Strictly Ballroom, Donnie Darko, Psycho, 12 Years A Slave, Red Dog, The Wolf Of Wall Street, Breathless, Elizabeth, Miracle On 34th Street, The Full Monty, There Will Be Blood, Les Miserables, The King’s Speech, Picnic At Hanging Rock, The Magnificent Seven, Gone With The Wind, The Right Stuff, 81/2, Pulp Fiction, Easy Rider, The Shawshank Redemption, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Wizard Of Oz, Jaws, Black Swan, Gladiator, Chopper, I’m Not There, Interstellar, Marvel Studios and Citizen Kane.
