It's all The Killing and Facebook

Look at that we're a quarter of the way through December already. Technically we're not but those days between Christmas and New Year don't really count do they. The snow has fallen. Not that bad yet. Thankfully the sun has come out and it's probably all melting. Bad news for the photographers, good news for me as i won't need to do my Bambi impression when trying to navigate my way across the ice that's been left by the stupid campus tractor scraping to top layer of snow off in the car park. Follow all that? good...

By the time your read this I'll be deciding if I either go sweating my arse off in a spin class or I'll be at home watching Home and Away. I'm scheduling this post you see. It's what we bloggers can do on this here Internet.

How was your weekends? Good. Bad. Indifferent...? I spent most of mine in shops buying stuff that wasn't for me. But we've been through that so i won't go over it again.

Yesterday, when I came home I jumped on my bed and watched The Killing II from Saturday night on the iPad. It's such a great series. In case you don't know it's a Danish crime drama/thriller series showing on BBC4. I'm loving the relationship developing between Lund (the main female lead character) and her colleague Strange (a detective working alongside Lund). He's very lovely in that 'you would for an older guy' kinda way. Anyway, I'm not going to give away any spoilers but i'm on episode 6 and can't wait for 7 and 8 next weekend!!

I then played about a bit with the iPad. I don't think i can get over how much the screen resolution disapoints me. I don't knwo what i expected but it was something a lot better than that. Especially now i have the iPhone 4S. Perhaps the new iPad will have that, along with a hefty price hike no doubt. I do like having it though as a peaceful calm has been bestowed upon the sanctuary that is my bedroom now that I no longer need to fire up the 2007 Dell Inspiron laptop with it's constantly whirring fan! Thank goodness.

Later I watched the programme about Facebook. The one that in the trailer you got a whole load of Zuckerberg talking and in the actual programme you only got about another 5 minutes of him talking a bit more. It was a lazy programme. I learnt more about people actually entering their credit card details to buy silly things on Farmville than i learnt about the Z-man himself. Oh and for good measure they threw in a question and the VP on policy (or something) looked flummoxed and of course the programme makers kept in the huge gaping awkward pause. It was a cheap shot. She was asking the question of whether a person clicking the 'Like' button were being used to advertise the brand or product they had 'liked' without their knowledge. (In case you didn't know, you can see recommendations or rather 'sponsored stories' usually on the right hand side of your news feed page and your friends may appear there some times. In fact you might appear on your friends pages as a sponsored story / advocate for that brand. Effectively, you are advertising it). The guy wasn't keen on her using 'advertising' as a word. He paused. A huge pause...Massive pause. I'm sure he paused several times during their conversation but it was only this pause they chose to show. Personally I have no problem appearing as a sponsored story on someone else's feed. I choose the brands I 'Like' with care. Therefore I reckon that even the simple act of 'Liking' that brand page is a message in itself. I wouldn't 'Like' something if i didn't really 'Like' it in real life and so I'm not bothered if folk know that. Are you following this? If you didn't see the programme you may be a bit lost. Apologies, go check it out on the iPlayer or something. Anyway... I didn't want all that from the programme.

I wanted an insight into Mark Zuckerberg, the man. His thoughts. How he decides what to do next. Everything. What i found out was that he wears the same jacket nearly every day. But it isn't the same actual jacket, he has several of these jackets in his wardrobe. Insightful! I also found out that hey! The social network is a movie. A fictional movie that may or may not have events embellished so as to make it a box office hit. I knew this already and always wonder at those people tweeting... "watching the social network again for the 50th time. I want to be Zuck!" Ok ok so they don't tweet that but you get the idea... I sometimes think people take The Social Network as being the gods honest truth forgetting the fact that its a Hollywood film. Oh, we also got a whole load of shots of Emily Maitlis strutting around downtown Palo Alto in a vest and jeans. I think she must've only spent about 10 actual minutes in the presence of Zuckerberg. The rest was simply rubbish. Well, it wasn't all rubbish. We got to see Margo from Southend-On-Sea peddling her 'business' around local shop owners. "I can set up and look after your Facebook page" said Margo. "I can do your banner". FFS! Whit?! I about fell off my chair laughing at this point. It was so crude and frankly amateurish. I'm sure they could've gotten a better example than Margo, I mean f*** knows there's plenty of them around.

Anyway, there's only one MZ. We'll probably never get to know the workings of the boy, the man, the brain of the thing that has changed our world. But I'm sure there'll be plenty trying.

Oh btw, the wife wasn't called Margo, nor was she from Southend-On-Sea but i can't quite remember so for the purposes of this post, that's who she was.

Did you watch it? What did you think?

Angela XX

.

The Social Network

Here goes. My review of The Social Network.

Just got in from the cinema where I went to see this much talked about movie. First off if you think you're gonna hear that wonderful Scala version of Radiohead's Creep you're not. Not that I heard anyways. First off the casting is excellent. Jesse Eisenbergs's awkward (slightly autistic?) Adidas flip flop wearing genius Zuckerberg is brilliant. I think he plays a lost soul, a social misfit but ultimately I was left with the impression that he's a decent guy with a big heart for whom money is not the real motivation. All he wants is the girl to accept his friend request (Don't we all?)

Justin Timerblake's Sean Parker of Napster fame is perfect. I didn't really know that whole back-story... you know the 'what happened after Napster' story. But Justin gets the somewhat dodgy character of 'Sean' down to a tee. Andrew Garfield plays the CFO Eduardo Saverin. The money man behind The Facebook.The wronged best friend. And Rooney Mara plays Erica. The girl Mark wants to be his friend on Facebook. Cameron and Tyler Winkelvoss are great characters. I have to say in real life these are people I like to see fall on their faces. People who think they have influence just because they have money (old money?), or rather the parents have. Vile.

The script is sharp and has some great lines. But some of the best bits come during the opening exchange between Mark and Erika in a Boston bar. It gets a bit complicated but i think this sets us up with an understanding of what's going on inside the head of Mark Zuckerberg. I noted a few lines down during the movie... "A guy who's built a chair doesn't owe money to everyone who's ever built a chair", "The ability to make money doesn't impress anyone around here" and one of my faves "The internet's not written in pencil Mark. It's written in ink".

David Fincher's direction is fab. It's funny I watched Fight Club again not so long ago and this is just as good. For a film centred around a computer geek, that is! And I like that the geek has been made a baddie, easily led, a genius, but mostly at heart a good person. I mean he refused to monetise the site early on when Eduardo was pushing for it. I've heard reports of the movie portraying Zuckerberg badly but I didn't think so. Did I miss the point? I actually felt a bit sorry for him. He seemed a bit socially awkward (I can relate to that!) and a is bit quirky looking (ditto!). I liked that he wanted to get the attention of the Harvard clubs but never really wanted to join them. The film jumps from past to present (well as much as you can jump from past to present in the space of 6 years), from Harvard to lawyers offices, to Facebook offices in San Francisco. There is a scene in particular where the Winkelvoss' lawyer asks Mark if he has his full attention... then replies. I liked that one a lot.

But I don't want to say too much and I'll let you be the judge of the movie yourselves but overall i liked it. It made you think about the whole phenomenon that is the internet and social site such as The Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and the rest. Sometimes we think they just appear and pop up and you log on and you dabble or you get hooked, for a little while at least and you tend to forget that these are passions of people (perhaps geeks), they spend months taking snippets of ideas and turning them into something... well massive!! And it wasn't even that long ago, 2004. This world is changing fast and it's all down to guys like Zuckerberg. Ask yourself where would we be without sites such as Facebook or even Twitter. *shudder* I can't even bear that thought.

In summary Jesse Eisneberg definitely steals the show with his genius Zuckerberg. But i think Facebook will be a winner too. Say what you want, I bet there are millions around the world who wished they'd thought of that idea. I know I would! One day...  Go along to see this film. I liked it a lot x 500 million!

One last line that I loved... "I'm an entrepreneur" "A what?" "An entrepreneur" "...so you're unemployed". 

Now, go on and tell me...  What's on your mind?

Ange x

PS Dear Mark Zuckerberg, I'll accept your friend request. The End.