The Social Network

image credit: Jeff Hester/FlickrI just seen the movie "The Social Network" and was blown away particularly by Aaron Sorkin's adaptation of Ben Mezrich's book "The Accidental Billionaires" and David Fincher's execution of the script. Whenever Hollywood does films about hackers, programmers, or the subject of computer science in general, it never gets details quite right. In stark contrast to these kinds of movies in the past, the Social Network delivers with stunning precision. The programs that were running on computer screens were accurate and the dialog with respect to programming jargon was as well. I love the line where Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Eisenberg) says, "I have to break out Emacs and modify that Perl script" and "I need a linux box with an Apache backend". Those lines or anything like them would have probably never made it into a mainstream Hollywood movie if it were not for the due diligence of the filmakers. Aarons Sorkin's style of fast paced highly intellectual dialog was perfect for this film. The way the screenplay was executed by the actors, particularly Jesse Eisenberg was flawless. This movie is so much about our time, about this generation, and about taking chances, and not settling for the status quo. With that said, I think that it is unfortunate that some will walk away from this movie thinking that this is the actual story as fact, and that Jesse Eisenberg's Mark Zuckerberg is the Mark Zuckerberg. This would not be unlike the way some reacted to the movie "The Pirates of Silicon Valley" and its depiction of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. I will say that in reading Ben Mezrich's unauthorized book and reading David Kirkpatrick's authorized book, there are overlapping parts of the story and where Ben Mezrich is one heck of a good story teller (see also "Bringing Down the House") it is just that - a story of what may have happened and Mezrich stipulates just that. If you want a more non-fiction account see David Kirkpatrick's book "The Facebook Effect" which to me is just as interesting, actually even more. In closing, this film is a must see and I would love to read your comments.