The Social Network

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the neighborhood's shy with Blank Check Mr. Newman, do I have your full attention? No. Do you think I deserve it? What?

[00:00:26] Do you think I deserve your full attention? I had to swear an oath before we began this deposition. I don't want to perjure myself, so I have a legal obligation to say no. Oh, okay, no. You don't think I deserve your attention?

[00:00:39] I think if your clients want to sit on my shoulders and call themselves tall, they have the right to give it a try, but there's no requirement that I enjoy sitting here listening to people lie. You're part of my attention. You have the minimum amount.

[00:00:50] The rest of my attention is back at the offices of Blank Check Productions, where my co-host and I are podcasting things that no one in this room, including and especially your clients, are intellectually or creatively capable of doing. Did I adequately answer your condescending question?

[00:01:03] John Getz looks mad at you right now. John Getz looks furious. John Getz is shaking his head. John gets mad. John was happy. John gets mad. John gets mad. John gets sad. John gets sad. This is like a baby book that I'm reading.

[00:01:21] John gets happy, and it's just pictures of middle-aged character actor John Getz doing emotions. This is, we should, we should, you should make a thick cardstock, baby board, maybe one of those plush books. Those are good.

[00:01:36] So they're soft so she can, you know, your daughter can go to sleep nuzzling my John Getz feels things. I guess it's called John Getz Blank. John Getz Blank. Right, right, right. Yeah. So it's just called John Getz and it's just, it's just this headshot.

[00:01:52] His professional headshot is on the cover of the book. When John sees puppies, John Getz happy. This is an episode on Blood Simple actor, John Getz. Yes. Apparently he was in the Fatal Attraction series recently. Did you know they did a new Fatal Attraction series? Yes.

[00:02:12] Well, because no. Yep. Paramount Plus. Lizzie Kaplan not being in Party Down is because of two things. Fatal Attraction, the series which everyone loved, digested. Everyone was just talking about. We got nourishment from it. I totally missed this. No, you didn't. You watched it four times. Oh, yeah.

[00:02:36] Okay. You forgot. I mean, you tried to miss it and then it popped up on your TV and it said, I don't want to be ignored. Yes, I won't be ignored. It was the first limited series to exist exclusively in pop-up ads. What's the other reason?

[00:02:52] Don't ignore me. Well, Fleischman got in trouble. Ah, speaking of Fleischman, right? Speaking of Fleischman, John Getz, who I feel like has this reputation where it's like, oh, and like the lead from the Coen Brothers first movie. Right. What happened to the other guy in the Coen Brothers?

[00:03:09] You know, oh, Frances McDormand's in Blood Simple. That's cool. You know, I'm at Walsh. That's cool. Someone was saying this to me recently, like, and that's so weird. The lead in that movie, like never worked again. I'm like, you've seen that guy 80 times. You just never clock.

[00:03:21] It's the same guy. And he's always looking at Mark Zuckerberg. Yes. Just with the kind of like, you're ruining my case. In every movie and for like 20 years. You're driving up the settlement price every time you do one of these Sorkin monologues.

[00:03:34] For 20, 30 years, he was in movies looking at Mark Zuckerberg exasperated and people said, John, this doesn't read. Zuckerberg is not a character in this film. This energy is being wasted. Look at the other people on the scene.

[00:03:47] And he went someday, there's going to be a Zuckerberg in that chair over there. You'll see. You'll see. And they're like, well, that's fine. But you're fired. No, he works all the time. He's great. This is great in this. He's great in this.

[00:04:02] Number one performance in this with a bullet. This is our take. This is our hot take. We have no guests on this episode because we need to get straight to our hottest take. Ready? I'm going to even hype what you're saying.

[00:04:13] The only good performance in the social network. Everyone else dog shit. Dog shit. Gets drags this movie to a B-. Cloning it in. John gets. What if that's what we did?

[00:04:22] We were like, we have no guests for the social network because we need three hours to poop on it ourselves. And boost gets. And boost gets. Yes. He's going to get his flowers in this episode. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David.

[00:04:38] It's a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce. Baby.

[00:04:51] This is a mini series on the films of David Fincher. And it is titled Curious Pod of Benjamin Butt-cast. V. Nope. Drop the V. It's cleaner. There you go. I was setting you up there. Thank you. It was a little loop. Thank you.

[00:05:10] Today we're talking about the social network. Mm hmm. The movie that, well, it's odd because on one hand he was a guy who got to do what he wanted to do it. Uh, okay, sure.

[00:05:22] But this is the movie that finally kind of solidifies him as like, oh, Fincher, the movie's a hit. The critics love it. It's an Oscar heavy hitter. He's at the top tiers of the conversation now. Right.

[00:05:40] I feel like often with him up until this point, all three were not in sync. Right? Right. It's a huge hit, but it's not an Oscar movie and critics dismiss it a little bit. Keep going. You're totally right. Zodiac, critically beloved, but bombs in theaters, gets no nominations.

[00:05:58] Yeah. And I do think it's critical love only grew over time. Totally. I think it was critically respected on release. Yes. Yes. Uh, Panic Room hit, but kind of. She hit him with a sledgehammer. She hit him with a sledgehammer. Yoakam. Treated as a programmer.

[00:06:13] Tops him down a damn flight of stairs. Yeah. Which it was by design. Uh, then Benjamin Button's his Oscar breakthrough. Mm hmm. The critics are a little. Critics are a little tepid. Everyone's a little tepid in a way. Right.

[00:06:24] And then this is the movie where it's like Fincher's kind of assumed his place in film culture that people may be since the early nineties had been predicting he would. Mm hmm. And it starts, uh, the most kind of, uh, successful three film run of his career before

[00:06:43] the industry collapses. Sort of true. Yeah. I guess his run from Zodiac to Gone Girl, I do think is the peak of his career. And in terms of just, uh, cultural sort of being, being culturally locked in. Uh, yes.

[00:07:01] Uh, not that he was doing badly before that run and not that he's really been doing badly after that run. It's just been more TV, obviously. Yes. And we'll talk about it in future episodes, but it is one of these, uh, things that is

[00:07:17] kind of bleak in terms of looking at the industry. We can also discuss part of it is career decisions that he made that shifted the winds of the industry along with him. I suppose so. Yeah. He does. You mean like starting Netflix basically by mistake almost?

[00:07:32] Yeah, he kind of hoists his own petard in a certain way. But I mean, nobody, nobody knew. It was like, oh, we don't look, we can't talk about. No, no. But there's just a fascinating thing of like social network gone girl, uh, social network dragon tattoo gone girl.

[00:07:46] Right? And then why does it take so long for him to make another movie? He has multiple TV shows shut down in that time. He has films he can't get off the ground. That's part of it.

[00:07:56] He starts attaching himself to things where you're like, why would Fincher want to do that now? We'll talk about it. Of course we will. Um, but this is the movie where it feels like, oh, now he's just going to keep being undeniable.

[00:08:08] And then it only lasts so long. Sure. Well, not, not by his own. Things are finite, dust in the wind, social network. The social network. You know, this film probably should have won best picture, but a certain King had to speak. Yeah. What with great difficulty. I know.

[00:08:25] Give him some credit. It was not an easy speech to make. Uh, no, honestly, I salute him for working so hard in his speech. It's fine. I just don't know that he needed an Oscar for it. He was already king of all England. Yeah.

[00:08:38] You know, I think you like that movie more than I do. I mean, I think that movie is undeniably a, a watchable good time. I agree with that. Right? Like, I mean, I mean, I don't know what you mean.

[00:08:47] I don't really have a ceiling for it beyond that. I guess it's sort of a good version. There are certainly worse versions of that kind of movie. Many that were made after that movie because it won best picture and was kind of a box office phenomenon. Yeah.

[00:09:00] So I do think, yeah, you know, it's pretty good. Right. And then the other wild thing is that social network was a big hit, but like a King speech made twice as much. Uh, I, we can talk, I can, I can look during the box office.

[00:09:13] It certainly did very well. I want to now I want to see where I had the King speech on my list in 2010 because I have the social network at a number one of 2010. I have King speech at number 40. You pick social network as your movie of the decade.

[00:09:30] I'm going to drop King speech down a couple just as we it's too high. It's too high. Yeah. Just a smack at that. You, you had social network as your top film of the 2010s.

[00:09:38] I think that it makes sense as the best movie of the decade, even though it's at the start of the decade. Yes. I mean there's, I, I calling things the best movies of the decade is very, we're getting really fungible whatever, but yeah, I think it is.

[00:09:54] It is one of the most rewatchable films of modern history. Yeah. And I rewatched parts of it a lot as much as I watched the whole thing. But this is one of those films where because I knew it was coming up on the schedule, I

[00:10:08] have sort of been edging. Yeah. Yeah. I knew you were going to say that. I want you to know I was not planning on saying that only as I got halfway through the sentence I went, should I go to edge instead of abstain?

[00:10:21] Back in April, you flipped your calendar over to September and wrote like on this day, say edging when talking about social network. Uh, I just points. I don't know the last time I watched it in full. Sure.

[00:10:35] Although I've seen a number of times and uh, watching it again last night. Not that I don't give this movie credit my mind. I was just like, Jesus Christ, were they ahead of fucking everything? Not to the, it's just right. It's a harbinger of everything. Absolutely.

[00:10:48] How the, how culture works and yes, how, uh, also just a hugely influential movie. Like just, just there are so many movies that are trying to do this. Yes. Then never will be able to come close obviously. No. Uh, and I saw and enjoyed dumb money.

[00:11:05] Um, just the other week about my review of it. And that is a movie that is, it's not, it's not like there's nothing about that movie's attitude. That's like, this is the next social network. But the attitude of that movie is like social network.

[00:11:18] We're going to try and it becomes a genre. It's a genre. It becomes a genre. Look, I've talked about my love for it before on this podcast. I think blackberry is the only thing that has come close in the now 13 years since this movie came out.

[00:11:29] I think there are others, but blackberry is good though. Yeah, that's a good example. There's stuff like money ball you can say where it's like money ball gets the boost from money ball and Steve Jobs. A Sorkin rewrite coming after this.

[00:11:38] Don't count those because those are Sorkin scripts. So yeah, that's a little right. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, I think the big short, which is not a movie I love is the most obvious movie that's ripping off the social network, even though people maybe don't make that

[00:11:52] connection or no. And now the big short is seen as a template and I'm like, no, it's version 2.0. I mean, yeah, but big shorts adding other stuff into this. Yeah, it is bad things, right?

[00:12:06] It's like you have a nice big stew and then the big shorts like pouring in like some junk. Yeah. In my opinion. I mean, whatever. It's okay. Whatever. Maybe we'll cut all this out. That's fine.

[00:12:18] I think what, you know, when I saw this movie at the time, what was impressive to me was how quickly it had digested culture and processed it with a kind of clarity. Right? Because like dumb money, I probably will have seen by the time this episode comes out.

[00:12:34] But at the time we're recording, it's just going into it's coming. It's widening this week, I believe. Right. Yeah. And it's one of those things where you're like, how are we already making movies about things that happened during the pandemic during lockdown?

[00:12:47] I have a whole take on that. Of course. But I'm like, I and as much as I expect to find dumb money fun. You may not. I mean, yeah, might be your least favorite thing of all time. Possibly.

[00:12:58] If Fast X came out this year, it's not gonna be my least favorite thing of all time. I don't expect that the movie is going to make some like huge trenchant point about the way we live now that seeps into my entire.

[00:13:11] No, no, nothing's going to be the social network maybe ever again. That's okay. But I just think at the time I was like how incredibly precise and quickly they process the things that just happened in the world we're living in right now.

[00:13:28] And then I think in certain ways that I don't even know if I can give them credit for, they just it feels like this movie has coded into it an understanding of where we were going. Ben, what do you want to say?

[00:13:40] Ben Misrich, the writer of the book that dumb money is based on. Producer Ben speaking here. Yes, he wrote. He wrote the book that this movie is based on. The Accidental Billionaire. And the book that dumb money. Oh, yes. It's called the anti-social network. Yes.

[00:13:58] Look, I don't want to speak ill of Ben Misrich, but he is an absolute hack who churns out one of these a year basically to get them option to make movies. Have you seen the Wikipedia photo? It's terrible. It's not great. It's one of the worst.

[00:14:10] But he's from New Jersey. Well, I know he's giving. He's a New Jersey Ben. He's giving. It's not a good photo. It's not a great photo and it's also New Jersey but in a bad way. He wrote 21 as well. Yeah, he wrote. Right.

[00:14:22] He's written a lot of things that have been turned into movies. Yes. And then you pick up the book and you sort of flip through it and you're like, oh, this is barely a book. This is basically just fodder for the screen.

[00:14:35] Not to get ahead of the dossier and I'll ask in advance for permission to let me be frank. David? Please be frank. Thank you. Go ahead. Go ahead. Gentleman of the Senate. But wait a second. There are no crimes in podcasting.

[00:14:53] Kevin Spacey bought the rights to Ben Mezrich's book that became the movie 21, which he co-starred in and produced. Set up at Sony. And then basically a couple years later, the word comes out that Ben Mezrich is writing accidental billionaire. And Spacey basically gets the rights.

[00:15:15] Before the book has even been finished. Yes, 100 percent. Sorkin Aaron Sorkin is writing before the book is finished. Right. Yeah. Like this movie is being developed in tandem with the book, even though the book comes out first and they purchase the books. Right. The book.

[00:15:33] The book eventually came out like a year before this movie came out. We'll talk about it. But it's basically like this movie is using the same research that the book is called rather than Aaron Sorkin reading this book and using it as a template. That makes sense. Yeah.

[00:15:48] I think Ben Mezrich is a little bit got a little lucky on his credit for this movie and the money he was probably paid for it. But he was there at the right time. And also he's been he's cashing that check going forward.

[00:16:01] I mean, maybe he's a huge blank in which case I apologize. Ben Mezrich and I'm sorry that we fucking slammed all over your Wikipedia picture. Try and maybe change it. So those things like if you're the guy who's there at the right time, maybe we should change

[00:16:14] it for him. Yeah, actually, it's getting there. Let's get in the tools here on the ground. You're doing the research, whatever it is. Right. And then you basically just like have your publishers go to all the movie studios and go like he's working on this subject now.

[00:16:29] They're just like, let's just buy the rights before anyone else does. I mean, that's what they did with Dumb Money. Yes, that's 100 percent what they do with that. Look, all right. The Social Network, a major film from David Fincher.

[00:16:40] He was the co-host of season three of the World Series of Blackjack on the Game Show Network. That's great. He represented Massachusetts as a contestant in the Sexiest Bachelor in America pageant. Sure, I was in that pageant too. I moved to Wyoming.

[00:16:54] I carpetbagged just just to get in there. There's got to be a better picture of him. Probably. I'm going to search. That sounds good. This film comes after a fairly busy period in Fincher's life. You know, Zodiac and Button come out back to back years. Yes.

[00:17:15] And those are two pretty massive projects. Two films that were years in the making. Exactly. And so that had kind of stopped. I would say that had been a temporary cure. Fincher's case of the attaches goes into remission for a while.

[00:17:30] Because he's actually working on two long running projects. Please remind the listeners what you mean by attaches. He's name being like attached to a million different, you know, sort of up and coming or long gestating Hollywood scripts. Torso! Well, that's OK. So that's the thing.

[00:17:47] Post Button, it's like, all right, buddy, you finally got your Oscar nomination. This was a hit. What do you want to do? One of them was an adaptation of Brian Michael Bendis' graphic novel Torso. Torso! A script by Aaron Kruger. Another cast attached.

[00:18:02] Cast was going to be Matt Damon, Casey Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Gary Oldman. And Torso is a sort of different take on Elliot Ness, who we all know from The Untouchables and the Al Capone thing. And it's sort of a true crime thing about these torso murders.

[00:18:18] It's a very cool graphic novel. Fincher wanted to shoot it in black and white. Project falls apart because of that. Mm hmm. David Lowery, friend of the show, has also been attached to Torso in the past. He was a fan of Torso at some point. Really?

[00:18:34] Many years ago. Brian Helgeland wrote a script for Paul Greengrass at one point, never really materialized. OK, another thing. In 2007, Paramount acquires the rights to some little graphic novel called The Killer. Never happen. It'll never happen. Wait a second. Yes, it will.

[00:18:53] Check in with us in a month. That is Fincher's latest film. Variety in 2008 reported that Fincher, and I remember this, I'm being hyped for this. Oh. Was going to direct an adaptation of Charles Burns's graphic novel, Black Hole. A book that rules. Really, really good.

[00:19:09] I feel like we've recommended it to Ben several times. Yeah, and I haven't read it. No, it's a book you'd love. I'm looking at Torso. This looks sick. Yeah, Torso is cool. Black Hole, bunch of kids in like Pacific Northwest start to get weird. Yes.

[00:19:23] Sort of body modifying, disease-y. It's all a metaphor, but like all kinds of weird stuff starts to happen to them. It's cool. But that announcement coming, you know, less than a year after Zodiac, I'm in the mode where I'm like,

[00:19:35] this is exactly what I want to fucking see him do. That has since, you know, passed through Alexandra Aha. Rick Famuyuma, I think it was most recently attached. Yeah. Then there's rumors that Fincher might do an animated film based on some stories from Heavy Metal Magazine.

[00:19:54] Obviously, there are Heavy Metal movies, you know, that have been made. But this was, I think, going to be an omnibus movie. Right. Kevin Eastman, Tim Miller, Zack Snyder. Kevin Eastman is, is no, he yeah. Del Toro, Verbinski, James Cameron.

[00:20:12] You know, a lot of names have been like attached to this thing. This is also the time that he starts boosting Tim Miller really hard. Tim Miller, who eventually makes the Deadpool movie, but worked with Fincher a lot and did a lot of other stuff.

[00:20:24] A lot of his title sequences and such. He now says at one point that he's going to produce a CGI adaptation of Eric Powell's The Goon. That's the other thing, fucking Fincher's attaching himself to comics left and right at this point in time.

[00:20:38] Yeah, well, he, whatever. He's smart. Eric Powell's The Goon, which rules. Okay. That's not in the dossier. Okay, I'm just telling you this. This is the thing I know. Okay, he knows. Because he was a good director. Okay.

[00:20:52] He did a lot of projects for Tim Miller and Heavy Metal was one of those to sort of boost Tim Miller to video, from video game, animatic, and opening credit sequence, special effects guy to actual filmmaker.

[00:21:03] The other thing, and this is funny, one point Fincher was attached to a movie called Seared, which later becomes a television show called Kitchen Confidential because it is based on Anthony Bourdain's writing. Yes.

[00:21:16] But then Fincher gets attached to a different project called Chef, not the Jon Favreau Chef. No. A different restaurant set romantic comedy with Keanu Reeves attached to star Fincher described it as good and chewy, a celibate sex comedy if that means anything.

[00:21:31] That transmutes and takes form and eventually becomes Burnt. Yes, the movie that… The Bradley Cooper starring chef movie. Cooper basically makes at the peak of his power… Cooper obviously also the star of Kitchen Confidential. Not the star, but a… No, he was the star.

[00:21:48] He was the star. He played Bourdain. But that's like, Ben, just weird cultural artifact. Bradley Cooper was on a Fox sitcom in which he played Anthony Bourdain. It was a flop. A couple years before it became a movie. Didn't really, you know, had an all-star cast.

[00:22:05] Stack supporting cast, like Jon Cho was on it. Jon Cho, Nicholas Brendan, John Daly, Bonnie Somerville. Lasted less than a season. And it was set in a kitchen? It was based on Bourdain's book. Keep it confidential. Jamie King, you know, Frank Langella. But like a total flop, right?

[00:22:22] And then like 10 years later when Bradley Cooper's at the peak of his stardom, he's like, all this fucking work I put in again ready to play Bourdain. I want to put it to good use. I cut a whole bag of onions.

[00:22:35] I can still make mirepoix better than anyone. So he finally gets his hands on this script that Fincher and Reeves and other people had wanted to make for so long. And he makes it, comes out like within six months of American Sniper. Sure. Yeah, 2015.

[00:22:52] No one wanted to get burnt. No one got burnt. Yeah, burnt! That movie sucks. Yeah, that movie also has an insane supporting cast. It should be good and it's just not very good. It eats ass. It does kind of eat ass.

[00:23:06] In 2008, Ben Mesrich, possibly hot off the hottest Bachelor competition. I'm not sure when that was, Griffin. 2000. He's not really hot off it. Maybe settled down at this point. Gets an email at 2 a.m. in the morning. That's right, a.m. means in the morning.

[00:23:23] That says, I'm a Harvard senior and I have a fantastic story for you. This email is from Eduardo Severin. Ooh. He tells the whole story from his perspective of the launch of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg screwing him out of the company in his opinion, blah, blah, blah.

[00:23:44] Mesrich gets excited. He turns this quickly into a book proposal, The Accidental Billionaires. The proposal is what gets circulated through Hollywood. Scott Rudin might have heard of him. It's just the proposal. And it ain't that Sandra Bullock movie either. Scott Rudin finds out that he wants the rights.

[00:24:06] Turns out they're already owned by Mike DeLuca and Dana Brunetti. Rather than fight over the rights, Brunetti and DeLuca bring Rudin on board. Probably because he was holding two phones in his hands ready to throw. No, I'm sure it's because he asked very nicely.

[00:24:21] Rudin, to his credit, is like, this will be great for Aaron Sorkin. I guess, you know what? I shouldn't say that's to his credit because I guess a lot of people in 2008, probably nine, would have been like, oh, Aaron Sorkin might be a good writer.

[00:24:33] Yeah, that was also one of Scott Rudin's three default modes. Aaron Sorkin had written a screenplay. What if Aaron Sorkin wrote this? Had written a screenplay called The Farnsworth Invention about the invention of TV, which is one of those famous never made into a movie.

[00:24:46] It was produced on Broadway. It was turned into a play eventually. Never saw it. The play was good. Click. Hank Azaria and Jimmy Simpson did it on Broadway. And so Sorkin, in his classic way, with all of these projects, with Steve Jobs, with Moneyball,

[00:25:04] like any big movie he's written, I don't know anything about Facebook. I don't know anything about Mark Zuckerberg. I don't know that I've ever even heard of Mark Zuckerberg. I don't know anything about this world. Yes. But he cracks the book and he's like, three pages in.

[00:25:20] I want to do this. He cracks the proposal. Cracks the proposal. And he's like, wow, Reynolds and Polyka have a lot of chemistry. This is good. No, he's immediately like, I really get it. Even though I'm not on Facebook, friendship, loyalty, class, jealousy, betrayal.

[00:25:37] Struck me as a big classic story. He signs up and gets a Facebook page. Starts posting Minions memes? Really, as much as this is technically an adapted screenplay and Sorkin wins adapted screenplay, he didn't have the book. Right. So it's not really.

[00:25:59] Like, he's basically going off some notes, you know, like in sort of a general structure. Yeah. But he doesn't really have much to do with the actual book. He's not really interested in the book that exists. Mezrich's book is is really Eduardo Saverin's point of view. Yes.

[00:26:15] Sorkin is way less interested in that. I would say that Saverin is sort of the protagonist of this movie, kind of, but like not really. Like he's maybe where the audience and sympathy slide the most when you're watching it the first time.

[00:26:27] I was going to say, he's quote unquote the heart of the movie. But Suckerberg is the protagonist. But also like there's lots of stuff from the Winklevoss perspective and, you know, like it's not really a single protagonist movie. No.

[00:26:39] And obviously Eisenberg is like the lead of the film. That's undeniable. And Saverin then, as this book is coming out and then this movie is coming out, basically goes into hiding because his lawsuit with Zuckerberg reaches ahead, settles, he signs an NDA, Saverin then moved to Singapore

[00:26:57] because he doesn't like paying taxes. So Saverin kind of disappears. Yes. Apparently when the movie was released, he did get in touch with Scott Rudin and they like, you know, give him a private screening. Okay. But that's kind of it. Yeah. The book itself is like poorly regarded,

[00:27:18] I would say. Yeah. And when you read it now, it basically ends with like, anyway, who knows what will happen because all this stuff is tied up in litigation and it feels like you're just reading like a sketch of a book. Like, you know,

[00:27:35] it's like the beginnings of Facebook and that's it. Like, you know, it's ending with them having 1 million users. Like it's really just the germ of Facebook. Well, the big thing is that Sorkin gets access to the transcripts of the depositions. And, you know,

[00:27:53] and to a lot of like emails that Zuckerberg sent and... Yes. Because this was all part of the lawsuit. But that's always a big thing he's pointed out is like what I would expect is me just using direct transcripts verbatim. Right. Like, you know,

[00:28:14] there's a lot of Sorkin dramatization here. Right. And there's Sorkin creation here. But also a lot of the stuff is like because obviously a big part of this movie is Zuckerberg starts going like they got me totally wrong. I never would do any of this.

[00:28:32] I never acted like this. It's the germ of transcript of what you said in front of lawyers. Well, OK. So, all right. Rudin goes to Facebook and says would you want to cooperate in any way? Could we get Zuckerberg to talk to Sorkin? And they...

[00:28:50] Facebook says, well, you'd have to not call the company Facebook in the movie and it would have to not take place at Harvard. And they're like, well, all right, well then forget it. Sorkin doesn't really care about that. Like that he didn't get to like

[00:29:04] talk to Zuckerberg or whatever. And he's just like, I just think of this as like a shy and awkward and sort of aggressive in ways, you know, not fitting in 19 year old. I get that, you know? Yes. He claims Sorkin's idea is basically

[00:29:22] like for basically the entire movie he's an antihero at the end he's kind of become a tragic hero. He's not a good guy. But, you know, Sorkin says he's always talking about Facebook. Yes. Mark's line, if you were the inventor of Facebook you would have invented Facebook.

[00:29:42] That's coming from me, Sorkin. That's me unzipping myself and stepping out and shouting and every single hack who comes out of the woodwork and says 10 years ago I wrote the script that absolutely nobody read anything about but it also had a scene in the Oval Office

[00:29:58] so you stole it from me. Like if you were the writer of The American President Steve Jobs, he's so good at writing egotists. Yes, yes. I mean, I guess I want to start seeding this through here. Okay. I regrettably spent some time on Reddit this week Disgusting.

[00:30:20] Hive of Scum and Villainy but someone in the Blank Check subreddit was, there was a good discussion going on. Was the live Kinsey scale going on the left sidebar? People were getting horned. After listening to this episode I'm moving David up to a 4, Griffin down to a 2.

[00:30:40] Sorry, go on. We should be doing the voice. Sorry, we have our voice now. I mean, could they really talk like this? Oh, God, I've done the wrong. All right. What were you doing on Reddit you disgusting freak? I apologize. That's my fetish. I'm being humiliated by Reddit.

[00:31:02] No, this was a discussion I found very interesting and it's been kicking around in the old bing bong in the week leading up to doing this episode re-watching the movie, you know? People were saying like what's interesting about the social network

[00:31:16] and what probably makes it work so well is the push and pull between Fincher and Sorkin not just as artists, right? Which I feel like is much discussed but their differing views of Zuckerberg. And I forget which take was put out first but like

[00:31:32] well, Sorkin loves the guy and Fincher's clearly kind of terrified by the guy and that contrast works. And then someone made a really good case for the exact opposite. Right? And it was going back and forth and no one could settle it and both cases are equally convincing.

[00:31:50] I think both people probably identify with a lot of Zuckerberg in this movie not the real Mark Zuckerberg who loves to grill meats and is like, what's this? It sounds like a Muppet. Is it like the world's most terrifying? If I'm Mark Zuckerberg

[00:32:08] I'm like thank fucking God the social network because that's the only thing I'm cool in is the social network. Remotely cool. This movie kind of makes him seem like a badass. Yes. Remember when he was going to run for president and then like two months later

[00:32:24] it was like, he's not going to do that. People aren't excited about me. By being catching fire out there. The other thing that I think is right is like for both Sorkin and Fincher there are aspects of Zuckerberg that they relate to too deeply and aspects of Zuckerberg

[00:32:42] that they are Repelled by. Correct. And they're different. Sure. Okay. They're both I think kind of in conflict about this guy but their feelings don't overlap. But I think there's more going on beyond Zuckerberg and re Harvard and the culture that created Zuckerberg and his competitors at Harvard

[00:33:08] and I think that I think a lot of Fincher's interests lie there. That's Sorkin's do too but Sorkin is you know he writes about class in a pretty straightforward way you know he gets the Zuckerberg is aspiring to jump the ladder and get into these like

[00:33:26] rooms and all that technology right. Fincher loves pushing through walls. It's like this is like a haunted house as well. Well correct. But Sorkin is a kind of a classicist and also he is if not a Luddite he is a Luddite he's fully a Luddite

[00:33:46] I mean I think he's a self-professed Luddite Yeah. And I think he kind of is one Right. I think he's terrified by technology and also has disdain for it. It's not even like a this is not for me thing.

[00:33:58] Aaron Sorkin also I probably would really hate the Internet because the Internet really likes to talk about Aaron Sorkin like you know so I would get turned off This Reddit thread was going around like Sorkin's obsession with quote unquote great men right. Go ahead.

[00:34:14] I might want to stop talking about the Reddit thread I haven't read but OK because I don't think Sorkin's obsessed with great men but OK go on. Well this is the question right or he doesn't think they're great

[00:34:26] but he does there's nothing he loves more than a guy who understands how smart he is and gets to like sort of run these linguistic circles around everyone else and just fight to persist in his worldview pushing through. Right. I think the best Sorkin projects are the ones

[00:34:42] like it's what's so great about Moneyball is that the guy fails. Right. We can talk about Moneyball when are we going to talk about it? In this movie the guy succeeds but I think Sorkin's a little terrified by the effects of what he's done

[00:34:58] and what he kind of likes about him it's like this guy threw bricks through every fucking glass window. You think so? I don't know man. I don't know we are this is getting complicated for me. I'm going back to the dossier. All right.

[00:35:14] Because I don't know if Fincher totally thinks that. I don't know. I have a lot to say about one thing on that. OK. We'll get to it. All right. Fincher's given the script on a Friday and he's like I want to like you know

[00:35:30] I feel like this is a strike when the iron is hot thing anyway because you know this story is unfolding. Changing so fast. Right. So the quicker we make it the better. It's a big challenge for him I think on two levels

[00:35:44] one it's a lot of boardrooms you know and lawyer you know depositions and conversations. Talkiest movie he's ever done. Right. Even like Zodiac which is very talky is not. That's a tense film with you know a serial killer in it. It's dialogue based.

[00:36:00] It's dialogue based and literally everyone in this movie is going to be OK. And by OK I mean we'll be a billionaire like the people who get fucked over in this movie get fucked out of more billions but they all end up at tens of billions. Yes.

[00:36:14] Like Saverin for basically let's be honest if you want to be real about it we're just having doing fucking nothing and almost blowing Facebook. Now maybe he should have blown Facebook because I could do without Facebook and I could do without anything and he's worth 14 billion dollars

[00:36:32] just because you know he was Mark Zuckerberg's pal who gave him a thousand bucks like you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. If you read about it where to sever it he's he is not a sympathetic figure in my opinion in this movie. Sure. Yes.

[00:36:56] Well that's a lot of that's just yes. I mean I'm not a nerd. It's a version of this. Yeah but there's more something more compelling about his wanting to do it his way because he was right like regarding like you know advertising you know early on

[00:37:14] like that like Zuckerberg is right about most things in the course of the movie The Social Network like his his mind for how to do this even if he's ruthless and rude like it is sort of like correct. Right. I think he needed to be devised by someone

[00:37:30] who doesn't have the best communication skills is how Fincher puts it. It's a great ironic notion. I'm not here to crucify Mark Zuckerberg he accomplished an enormous amount but I know what it's like to be 21 years old and trying to direct a 60 million dollar movie

[00:37:46] and sitting in a room full of grownups who think you're so cute but they're not about to give you control of everything so that's where he gets that part that Fincher relates right. I get that. I get that. I'm just like they're both terrified

[00:38:01] of different aspects of him and both impressed by different aspects of him. Right. There was all the David Pryor sort of documentaries on the special features of this movie that are really good. David Pryor empty man. Should we just do empty man?

[00:38:19] I'm like should we do that instead of Mindhunter people are going to hate. I just don't want to cover TV. I don't either. I don't want to cover them. With a fucking baseball bat. Exactly. Hammers. Should we just do a poll? Yeah.

[00:38:38] Well you never know with the empty man hive because they're everywhere. Have you seen the empty man? No. There's not a lot going on inside. And by F I mean it A pluses. Sure. Make it clear this ain't no F CinemaScore because no one was in theaters

[00:38:55] they didn't get to see it. It's a good feature length documentary about the making of this movie that's on the DVD. Very good. They didn't direct the whole show and it's not like a mini series where we can knock the whole thing out. I agree.

[00:39:12] Honestly, I kind of agree with you. Not to devalue it within his filmography and whatever. Fuck so hard. But that's sure. Yeah absolutely. Maybe Ben and I just do a side project and there's definitely a lot. And talk about striking while the iron's hot.

[00:39:29] Well the thing with Mindhunter is though it's true crime which no one really chats about in the podcast. I don't think anyone's been brave enough yet to talk about serial killers. Well no here's the thing. Being a little funny while talking about true crime on a podcast.

[00:39:47] That's untouched. What I was going to say there's an Eisenberg quote I'll paraphrase here that the reason Zuckerberg was so effective at making this social network right? This thing that basically rewrote the ways in which we interact with each other is because he thought about

[00:40:11] social interactions in such a binary way. He thinks about them like code. Like the whole creation of Facebook of being able to like I'm going to click on the name of my favorite band and see everyone else who has listed other people is how he was

[00:40:27] thinking about other people. Well Eduardo and I live in the same house you know we're part of the same like dormitory we like the same band We are friends Right it's like that you know he was already almost seeing the code of that as someone with no natural

[00:40:47] ability to organically connect to other people. It's like well you look for the matching data sets. It's like a very astute observation from Eisenberg. He's a smart guy. He's a very smart guy. And I mean how old was he when he made this movie? 26 I believe.

[00:41:08] I mean this is I just we'll talk about it a lot more. What a fucking towering performance and a performance that kind of feels like for the 2010s on like the seismic shift of like the anti-hero landing with their anti-heroes in the early 70s.

[00:41:28] You know I completely agree. This is the first guy the first performance the first movie to fully crystallize a new kind of terrifying type of modern man. Right. And they hit it so hard and you just have so many people trying to replicate this performance in one

[00:41:48] space or another. And some people have gotten close but this still just remains like he's done a good job finding himself sort of blockbusters to be in and stuff like that. And making smaller projects boosting a lot of smaller filmmakers first time filmmakers foreign filmmakers.

[00:42:05] But I almost I still like kind of wish he had more. Totally but I'm also just like I was thinking the same way and then I looked at his filmography and as you said I don't think he's made bad choices but then I step

[00:42:19] back and I go like how does he top this? I mean he's got like his best post social network performances. I really like the double. That's my answer. That's my answer. He's so good in that. Yeah. And like second best or whatever you know competitors might be like

[00:42:39] Art of Self-Defense which I really like. Which is fantastic and a film I also love. He's very good in Louder Than Bombs although that's kind of like a slight like that movie isn't quite what I'm used to doing like now you see me and it's on the lens

[00:42:56] before this. Oh that's right. It is. But what about Zombie Land Double Tap? Well he tapped it a second time after this. Did Emma Stone die in that one or something? Like how much time did she give them? That was my thing.

[00:43:17] I was just like she must be in it for the first five minutes. I was ready for that to be some expendables for shit. Sorry you mean ex-portables? Ex-porn-endables? Yes. Ex-porn-endables. I just think it's interesting that like even Zack Snyder right? I mean if

[00:43:42] just half a second side tangent here right? But like Zack Snyder offers Jimmy Olsen to Jesse Eisenberg in the wake of this movie for BVS. And the bit was going to be well obviously Jesse Eisenberg is Jimmy Olsen that's great casting and then I kill him.

[00:44:00] I shoot him square in the head. He's turned into mush. Yeah fucking twist. And Jesse Eisenberg goes I'd rather play Lex Luthor and Snyder to his credit kind of readjusted goes like yeah the modern day Lex Luthor would be Mark Zuckerberg. No it's it's I mean

[00:44:17] the Zuckerberg performance is very big. Well this is what I was going to say and then Zuckerberg even realizes like what am I going to do just do Zuckerberg again? You mean? I'm sorry Eisenberg realizes I can't just straight up give the Zuckerberg performance again even

[00:44:36] though that's probably what everyone wanted to see to a certain degree. I think if he had given the Zuckerberg performance again in that movie I'd have to say that's probably the best script in the universe. No that he's reading from there.

[00:44:51] It also feels like he chose to play Max Landis more than he chose to play American Ultra gets made before. This has always been my pet theory about that performance. Solid theory. Thank you. I met him once I did a panel with him at Sundance.

[00:45:07] He was incredibly nice. Yes just like unbelievably nice and it was in that movie he's in I think I've talked about Wild Indian that you know like yeah you know just being in the movies for helpful total man. Yeah yeah. Seem really nice.

[00:45:21] Yes and once again is a guy who has helped to get a lot of tricky movies off the ground and he please Abraham I'm not that man. You know what that you know what I'm referring to. No it was in I believe a New Yorker

[00:45:34] profile or oh yeah maybe time out. Yes. Where they were like hey do other people like recognize obviously he's really pre social network just to be honest with you. He's really zombie land he's good and other stuff. He says I get called Napoleon dynamite

[00:45:52] because I have curly hair I live in New York City and I ride a bicycle I bike down Ninth Avenue there's this kid who goes to school named Abraham and every time I pass him he calls me Napoleon dynamite he screams it

[00:46:04] out and his friends laugh it's a fine movie and I wasn't in it and the guy says well what do you say back and he says I say please Abraham I'm not that man. They have different they have different energies but they they were Hollywood's nerds premier nerds

[00:46:21] of the 2000s you know. But it's like Sarah's whole thing is like this is this is the softest he's also nothing like John heater I mean these are all sort of odd personality matches. Yeah anyway Fincher and Sorkin sort of an odd union in a way. Yeah.

[00:46:39] You know like Fincher's technical precision very difficult. Very different from Sorkin's whole like you know like the West Wing can go 50 million dollars over budget who cares like you know right Sorkin had written for example that Mark would be drinking a screwdriver during the initial face mash scene.

[00:46:57] Right. I guess Sorkin just kind of thought like that makes sense in my head for something he would drink. Well correct me if I'm wrong here because there's been a lot of talk over the last 13 years since this movie came out about how much the

[00:47:13] Erica Albright character is a bit like a drunk. Sure right. That's a Sorkin sort of framing device dramatic device. Yes. But there is a blog. Right. There's a real blog post about him creating face mash that is maybe not filled with invective towards

[00:47:33] like you know but like is like a lot of obviously a lot of that drunken wake of rejection. But like him talking about like all the technical language of like first I do this you know that's like there is I are directed at a woman in it. Right.

[00:47:49] Am I wrong about I might have to check that my my double check this but my understanding had always been that Sorkin sort of extrapolate from that like oh I'm going to make this all about the one girl who rejected him that he

[00:48:03] never got over whereas it felt like it was perhaps a much smaller thing. I mean the things Zuckerberg has always said in his defense is like there's nothing about a woman. OK. OK. But the thing there is yeah is the next pictures of farm animals is

[00:48:21] in the blog putting you know and but yeah you can read the blog it's almost entirely verbatim in the movie. OK. But not the stuff about your stuff like for us I can shit like that how he hacks and pull all that

[00:48:37] stuff but also the stuff of like oh Billy had an idea of comparing like a ladies to farm animals like that's a lot of like the thing with like though the touring feel you know and all that stuff but Sorkin's thing was he was like he

[00:48:51] should be doing a screwdriver and Fincher was like he says he's drinking a Becks in the blog so he's going to be drinking a Beck's right like we're going to be accurate here. Well and it's like it's such a great little microcosm of the

[00:49:06] difference between these two guys right is that Sorkin's justification was the way he is like he needs to be doing something heavier. Sure. Yeah. And Fincher's like but he was drinking a Beck's and I think Fincher did post that right which means either.

[00:49:23] I also think Fincher is like more interesting about that makes sense to me a 19 year old college student drinking a Beck's like the Finchers just immediately like that's how I see it like totally that because it's real like but also like that says something about

[00:49:39] him that he wasn't dead drunk. Fincher's you know obsessive detail oriented thing right. You've got to get it exactly how it was I remember reading some piece about Zodiac when it came out and they talked about him being a stickler about like what

[00:49:58] is the actual pen that Robert Graysmith would have used at his desk. Sure. Right. What do you gain by tracking down the you're not going to see it. Yeah. Who cares. And it's sort of like the Beck's like by holding the real pen that

[00:50:14] the guy made that somehow informed something right. If you just go like oh the shape of this means that you're writing like this instead of this in the same way that it's like there's something you gain from the character by it being a Beck's

[00:50:29] because that was what he was drinking. I think so. Yeah. The other thing without trying to make some greater point out of it by like dramatizing into something that it's their main theme. I mean there's the scenes where Will Smith shows up and you're writing those третьe pages

[00:50:48] Sony was like the movie needs to be two hours long way too long. And Fincher is like you and me are going to sit down and read the script. And he starts to stop. Watch. And he and Sour can just read the

[00:51:00] script to each other like at the pace Fincher imagines the dialogue going click hour 59. And he calls the studio. And he's like we don't need to change anything. We don't need to cut anything I mean, most things about this movie are pretty much perfect, I think.

[00:51:12] Like, you know, technically. Yeah, so I, uh... This script starts getting sent around, the movie gets set up and announced. When I am on the set filming, the off is discussed, especially recently, but we're at the Gonzo. Mm-hmm. I'm on a movie shoot with a bunch of people

[00:51:32] between the ages of 16 and 25. And that film came out the same year as The Social Network and had a similar successful run. Equally successful, equally successful. But we're filming the movie summer 2009. So this script hits and like every single person on set

[00:51:47] is like, I'm just trying to get any fucking part in The Social Network. Anyone between the ages of like 20 and 26 read for this movie, basically. I just want you to know, imagine you are an actor trying to get your foot in the door, right?

[00:52:02] Get noticed, make your name. This script lands in your fucking email inbox because there's so many young parts for it. And they're like, maybe they'll cast a couple names, but they're casting a wide net. They're seeing a lot of people and there are a lot of roles.

[00:52:16] And basically all of them are good. Even the people who only have four lines of dialogue, there are four lines written by Sorkin. Everyone who reads this script goes like, holy fucking shit. Because you're also reading dog shit all the time. No, absolutely. It's an exciting script. Right.

[00:52:30] And his scripts read really well. Yes. Like when you read a Sorkin script, you're kind of like, how could this be bad? Totally. That's like, you read this and you're like, and this is so actable. Like I remember reading the Studio 60 script

[00:52:39] and you were like, this is gold. It's tough. I'm not joking. You got to fucking master this language. As Jeff Daniels said, you need to learn so well you can dance on it. As Jeff Daniels said. I pointedly remember that the,

[00:52:52] they sent the script out, but for the auditions, it was just other Sorkin scenes. Right. Because I think as Fincher puts it basically, we needed to see that people could do the pace more than anything. And when they saw Eisenberg's tape, he self-taped. It was the first time,

[00:53:09] if Fincher says it was the first time I said, we're going to be under two hours. Like this is what we need. I think I did a Paulson Perry scene from Studio 60, but I also know there was a West Wing scene

[00:53:18] and you could like pick which one you did. Did you play Paulson or Perry though? I played Paulson. What do you mean? Of course. I was defending Crazy Christian. No, fuck. That's the wrong position. He doesn't want it on the arts. His sketch.

[00:53:31] She's defending the actual Crazy Christian. She's defending. That sketch dares skewer. Excuse me. She's defending scene, reasonable Christians. Of course you're right. Yes, everyone reads the script and loses their fucking mind, right? Studio 60 is hosted by Rob Reiner that week. The script is really long.

[00:53:49] The script is really long. I remember in the lead up to this movie coming out reading that, you know, anecdote about them reading the movie with a stopwatch. And then I think it's so funny and I clocked it again rewatching last night that the dialogue on

[00:54:05] this movie basically starts the second the studio logo start. Yes, as if they're like we have no time to waste. Right, right, right. If we're going to stay on pace, we have to just like... Zuckerberg talking over and there's the, you know,

[00:54:15] the music, the ball and biscuit, White Stripes, you know. Yeah, it's great. Eisenberg's approach to Zuckerberg as he says, I think he's trying to run this organization and keeps having to deal with people who feel like they deserve something because they've always gotten their way.

[00:54:31] I felt my character was in the right. There's no other way to act it, which is totally, you know, a good call. Here's another thing to mention about the Eisenberg casting. This movie gets announced. People are like, oh, you know, Jesse Eisenberg would be good as Zuckerberg. Mm-hmm.

[00:54:43] Sure. He starts getting a fan cast shortlisted a lot. It looks like him a little bit. A little bit. A little bit. Fincher has said in interviews like, I hate when people tell me who to cast. Right. Especially the public. Everyone online starts telling me this is who

[00:54:56] you should hire. So I almost go into it resentful when I'm finally watching his tape. But like, I'm going to fucking cast someone else just because I don't want to pick the person you're telling me to pick. And then as you said, he sees the tape and it's

[00:55:07] just like, goddammit, you assholes. Undeniable. He's the pick. Right. He's the one guy who can deliver this at the speed we want, the intensity we want, the energy, all that stuff. Now Garfield, who's already up and coming, but obviously 2010 is his big year.

[00:55:21] But Mark Romanek, that's his launch at British TV film, basically. He's very good. And the Red Riding Trilogy. But Mark Romanek had already worked with him for Never Let Me Go, which comes out the same year, puts him in front of Fincher. Fincher is into it.

[00:55:37] Garfield never meets Saverin. That's not surprising, obviously. Sony had already done Zombieland, which comes out after this film, but before Social Network is a movie. So there is someone who's probably, you know, okay by them. He's on their good list.

[00:55:52] Sony wanted Jonah Hill to play Sean Parker, pushed for him really hard, even though Fincher was like, I'm interested in this, this performer you may have heard of named Justin Timberlake. Yeah. Who I think will pop. It's just weird to think that Sony was like

[00:56:04] Timberlake, get him out of here. You know, like, I don't, maybe they just, well, I mean, Jonah Hill was certainly a big name at the moment. Yeah. And I guess maybe Sony is like, oh, he'll overwhelm the picture. Oh, he, you know, he doesn't know how to act.

[00:56:16] I don't know. Timberlake? Tim, Justin Timberlake. Yeah. Yeah. I think also they're just like, if we have Jonah Hill in this, we have security that the movie will be funny, right? I think they want, I could understand there being

[00:56:30] a little worry on Sony's part of like, is Fincher going to make this thing so fucking heavy? Is he going to make it so dark? Had he brought sexy back yet? He had brought sexy back. So maybe that was part of maybe what they were weighing in.

[00:56:42] They were nervous. But like, and what goes around had come around. Right. Yeah. But like Dick in a Box had happened. Like, it's not like Justin Timberlake had not been part of funny things. And obviously that's the funniest thing that ever The Sorkin script reads funny.

[00:56:55] The Sorkin script reads funny. Fincher had not made anything close to being this much of a comedy outright, you know, as much as obviously Fight Club is deeply satirical, you know? Yeah. I could see them being like, put one person in

[00:57:06] who was kind of a conventional comedic actor. But Timberlake's like, sorry, Fincher's like, no, and I want, I mean, Hill is actually a closer read for the real Sean Parker. Yes. Timberlake's like, this needs to be a fantasy, like when he enters, you know, and I kind of

[00:57:21] want this guy to feel like a star within his world. It is, what is smart about the casting is that you're casting Eisenberg and Garfield who are movie star versions of dorks. So they need to be impressed by a guy who in

[00:57:35] the real world was sort of a movie star version of a dork. But in a world where movie stars are playing dorks needs to be played by a pop star. You need to like adjust everything on a curve around it being a movie.

[00:57:48] I think there was just the feeling of like, yes, does Timberlake overwhelm it? He had been in a couple movies at this point, and the audiences had not accepted it. He'd been in the Love Guru and shit, right? There'd been a little bit of a push to put

[00:58:00] him in movies. At this point, he'd already sort of receded. They're like, he hosts SNL and he's a pop star. That's his thing. And then it's funny how quickly after this movie everyone's like, he's a movie star. We're forcing this into happening.

[00:58:12] His friend to the benefits is the next year. And people basically reject us. Yeah, they do. He's I think he's absolutely incredible in this movie. And I don't really think he's been particularly good in anything else except for Inside Llewyn Davis, which he's like, you know, good at.

[00:58:25] He's only good when great directors use him. Well, you know, ain't that how it goes? Yes. No, Sony does About Time and... Yeah, because I love him in Southland Tales. Right? It's in time, right? In time. Yes. But Southland Tales, part of the earlier,

[00:58:43] the movie career isn't sticking run. It is, but it's also like, it's obviously just like his big moment in that is he sings a song. Like, so anyway. In time. I mean, he lip syncs. But in time and Friends of Benefits are both Sony.

[00:58:55] It's like Pascal watches this movie early. And it's like, you know what? I'm wrong. Justin Timberlake. We're all in. He's not actually that bad in Friends of Benefits. People stick up for that movie. I think it's pretty bad. Pascal basically sees the dailies from this movie

[00:59:10] and is like Rooney Mars, Lizbeth Salander, Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man. We're making three Timberlake pictures. Like people gave her credit. I think so much fairly. Most of those bets were solid. Right? Yeah. Of just being like, you know what? Fincher nailed.

[00:59:24] Obviously Fincher is part of the Lizbeth decision as well. Yeah. Kept making more movies with Eisenberg. Was just like he picked a couple really big fucking stars early and then Dakota Johnson gets plucked to her own thing. 100%. Her own franchise. Her own franchise.

[00:59:40] And don't forget great performance from Caleb Landry Jones. Did you catch him? He's in the frat house. Ben? No, I didn't. He's at the Coke party. He's at the Coke party. Oh, really? And you know who I truly love in this movie

[00:59:54] and we probably won't talk about it again is Joe Mazzello as Dustin Moskowitz. He's so good. He's so funny. Yes. Which is all he's required to be. And also Dustin Moskowitz to me is the perfect example of like that guy.

[01:00:06] I'm not saying he's not a successful skilled person. I'm sure he is. But it's like why is he one of the richest men on Earth? He was just Zuckerberg's roommate. He was just right there and his vibe for the whole movie

[01:00:17] is just like happy to be here guys. Whatever. Understated aspect of what makes Mazzello so good in this is he's arguably and it's because this is what that role requires, right? For that exact reason that he's just some dude.

[01:00:31] He's maybe the only person in the movie who does the sorkin dialogue but makes it sound like it isn't dialogue. He's really good at it. Right? Because everyone else is playing the patter, the rhythms, you know, and he's just kind of throwing everything off. Mm-hmm.

[01:00:46] Because you're like this guy doesn't have the energy of I'm doing something important here. I'm someone who people are going to be studying forever. Some other people in this film. Armie Hammer. Uh-huh. Is in this film. He plays the Winklevoss twins.

[01:01:01] Yeah, he played two characters in this film. Obviously. Oh, he did both. Josh Pence plays the body of one Winklevoss. Yeah, it's your who you split a split a credit with in your right. It's you and him on in draft day. I forgot that it's been.

[01:01:15] I think about that a lot. Yeah, maybe there's a third person in there to I can't remember. I think it's just the two of you though. I think that's right. He honestly maybe one of the most impressive things Fincher has ever done technically to this day.

[01:01:27] You're like well army. There's actually two Armie Hammers like it never ever feels weird to me. No, I I look I don't want to. I don't want to pull rank here. Okay, I watch my 4k Blu-ray of this which is currently only available in the Columbia classics.

[01:01:45] I can't remember if the volume to whatever. Yeah, the sets that you've been opting out of because you don't like how big the boxes don't like a big there but they keep on not putting them out as individual releases. How much bigger of a box are we talking?

[01:01:57] It's wide. Do you think it looks bad in 4k because I haven't seen it before. No, I think there are a couple shots. Uh-huh. Especially the ones where he has to move a lot. Sure, where I did feel a little bit of the sort of deep fake

[01:02:12] tracking never know spatially sure in like dialogue scenes. It works fine. He's incredible in this movie and it's one of those performances for me with a lot of these canceled celebrities where I'm like, I'm so used to this performance because I watch it so many times pre cancellation.

[01:02:28] Yes, that for some reason it's siloed away from me. And but if I then I watched death on the Nile right around the same time. I watch this and you're like, whoa, whoa, get him out of here. Oh spoiler alert. He's also awful in that movie.

[01:02:41] He does end up being a bit of an army hammer his character in that movie, right? Yeah. Yes, he's bad. I mean everyone in death on the Nile. The whole point of those part of mysteries is at the end part was like you are all terrible. Yes.

[01:02:51] I am the only good one. Goodbye. Let me stroke my two mustaches. It's just funny that he's he's his great crime in this movie is being kind of an annoying piece of shit. The character doing both of them. Sure.

[01:03:06] Yes, right rather than being well, I have a lot to say about their characters a criminal. Like like in death on the Nile or sure, right? They don't commit any crimes in this movie, right? Right. And yet this is the performance where you're just kind of

[01:03:19] like, well, it's actually all the weird army hammer stuff almost kind of boosts. That is yeah. I mean, yeah, yeah, please. No, he's incredibly good. Yeah. Yeah, Rooney Mara, incredible find obviously. I think just without her performance.

[01:03:35] This movie is lesser, you know, like if there was if someone was just kind of like average in the Erica Albright role. Yeah, that would feel like really corny. I put this disc on I watched it face is so amazing.

[01:03:48] It's all like her eyes like, you know, like and how quickly you can tell like his words are hurting her and like, you know, like go ahead. Where you know, I put the disc in I watched this opening scene. It starts the credit sequence.

[01:04:02] I'm like, you know what? I'm going to fucking restart the movie. I just wanted to watch the scene twice in a row. It's a great scene. I mean, it's great. Yeah, very, very, you know, I mean, look, I remember seeing

[01:04:14] this phone also, of course, we have to shout out Max Minghella my favorite Max Minghella moment by far the fall one of the greatest. Yeah, it's incredible. Same thing. It's so good and for you see this would be like once before I've seen this movie like 50 times.

[01:04:28] Yes, I was just like honestly one of the best Pratt Falls coming up and she she was just like what what do you mean? This is there's nothing about that scene. That's just Pratt fall in. Okay. No, and you also think about it being Fincher that he probably

[01:04:41] had to do that fault 150 times. I'd love to know Max. Please tell me all the more impressive. I remember so I saw this film Griffin this home up in the New York Film Festival, you know, and then went on to an

[01:04:52] Oscar run, but I saw it at BAM. Have you heard of it? I have Brooklyn Academy of Music. Yes with my girlfriend at the time. I'm Rose. I'm a humble brag correct and my roommate our roommate Andy Scott shout out Andy Andy doesn't get shouted out enough

[01:05:07] on this podcast learn it foot gets his learn it gets his flowers in the sun. Yeah, but but Andy Scott we love him also met him on Oscar watch.com. Okay. Yep, and I just remember obviously that first

[01:05:20] scene you're kind of like whoa, you know, like, you know the dial you're like fuck right Aaron Sorkin because my Aaron Sorkin had written a movie in years when this comes out, right? Yeah, this is kind of the start of like Studio 60 bombed. He's all right.

[01:05:33] He's moving off TV for a minute, right? Like first movie since American president. It's his first note. There's Charlie Wilson's war right? Okay, which everyone just kind of agreed to not think about too hard. That's the only other one in between American president.

[01:05:47] That's well, that's well and obviously had stuff like Farnsworth invention where you like when's that coming up? Yeah, I mean first scenes incredible. No one just said we were all like, whoa shit, but then it's the marks jogging through the Harvard campus. The score comes on.

[01:06:02] Yeah, where you're like, no one told me this was the vibe. Yeah, like I was not I know the trailers were very cool and moody. Yeah, but no one told me this was the vibe that like I felt

[01:06:12] like a monster was about to jump out from behind a corner. I remember talking to a friend about how good the trailer for this movie was, which is one of the all-time great true. Do you mean the the initial initial creep trailer?

[01:06:24] Scala and Kulshansky brothers and saying like it looks like like Breakfast Club meets Zodiac right? Right and my friend was like time. You were also kind of like but how is that going to work totally and who cares about a Facebook when really and really well,

[01:06:39] I had read the script so I knew how fucking good the script was and I was like a year people being like I don't want to see a fucking Facebook movie. I'm like you don't understand how good this thing is, right?

[01:06:48] But even still it was like I don't totally see and I'm so in the tank for Fincher at this point. Sure, but it's like it isn't an obvious fit nothing about this. No sounded good on paper. No.

[01:06:58] And so I say to my friend like it's like Zodiac meets Breakfast Club. I'm from is like all where are you getting the Zodiac from in that trailer? Right and I went well David Fincher directing with David Fincher directed the Facebook movie. He did.

[01:07:11] Did you know that he actually directed this one for network? He did. Yeah, but that trailer has this sort of creepy vibes of opening with that song and the super zoomed in pixelated clicking through profiles thing in this way that feels voyeuristic, right?

[01:07:27] But I guess me and other people who hadn't read the script for like is the movie going to be about like using race truck because if so, that sounds bad. Yes. No, what's fascinating about that trailer is that it's it's

[01:07:39] 30 seconds of this zoomed in Facebook usage right over this very haunting piece of music. It feels like what would be a teaser trailer that ends with one line of dialogue or one shot and instead that for 30 seconds and then they give you the full trailer basically, which is

[01:07:58] such an interesting tone setting thing in the same way that this opening credit sequences of just being like there's something kind of unsettling happening here. Mm-hmm, you know in opposition is something like 21 where it's like a fun story about a fucking a bunch of rebels.

[01:08:15] Stuck into the system. Do this bullshit. Right? It's this thing that Fincher's tapped into of like there's something really kind of unsettling at the psychological core of this thing. When you really dig into it, right? Yeah, and watching all this like the behind the scenes stuff.

[01:08:33] They had three weeks of rehearsal with the script in the full cast, right? And there's so much but it's a fucking drinking game whenever I say right. There's like three weeks of rehearsal table work with Sorkin with Fincher and with the main cast.

[01:08:49] And Eisenberg says I maybe spoke for a grand total of 15 minutes across those three weeks. Okay. He's the guy was most of the dialogue in the script and he went I realized this wasn't as much about Fincher trying to do

[01:09:02] blocking get the line readings down time all that up because he's going to do a hundred takes on set, right? It's not like he's waiting for them to be first take perfect, you know trying to prep it in advance.

[01:09:14] That was all him trying to nail the story down. He didn't say that to us and then you're watching these cutaways of Fincher just going through line by line with a fine-tooth comb and going Aaron come on. That's too cutesy. Right? Sure.

[01:09:27] You don't need to repeat that four times, right? When you say it like this, it feels like too much of a that. I wish they had collaborated again because I do think he's a great and we don't moderate and you're just no one else is going

[01:09:37] to give Sorkin notes like this. Sure. I don't think Sorkin takes notes from anyone else like this. Well, he probably doesn't anymore. There may have been a point where he might have but yeah, Fincher's being gentle with him, but also is so resolute in what he's saying.

[01:09:51] It's not like he's trying to like fucking sledgehammer him. No, but you can also see in that documentary like how interested Sorkin is by the whole process of making movies and how excited he is to be on the set.

[01:10:02] I think it's fresher for him then it would be, you know, whatever by the time a certain trial was taking place of some guys from Chicago, for example. In all this footage of the back and forth of them pushing on these things.

[01:10:18] There's a really interesting telling piece of Sorkin saying, but do you think if we lose that this character is still like relatable? Is the audience still rooting for him if we lose this? Okay, and Fincher's like, what do you mean?

[01:10:41] And he says something like, I mean, I just think I'm rooting for this guy more if I understand it's because his heart was broken rather than because he's trying to become rich or successful or whatever it is. And Sorkin, I think, thinks well, that's the emotional in I

[01:10:57] need is I need to create this Erica Albright character, right? I need there to be this person who broke him in this whole thing and especially like we're ending on him sending her the friend request. Refresh, refresh, refresh.

[01:11:09] He thinks of that almost as like an emotional sweetness of like that's how you redeem this character for the audience. If you ground it in a real emotional rejection, I think Sorkin is framing it that way. Here's this guy who would come off as like off-putting.

[01:11:22] If you didn't add this thing, whereas I think Fincher sees that as like this is the creation of a monster, right? It's like this moment of rejection curdles him into something. It's almost though the difference of like between someone

[01:11:37] who's never used Facebook and someone who has because to me the ending, you're like this is so creepy. Yes, eerie and like a thing totally that people engage in right with obsession. It's obviously not that like this fictional woman is responsible for turning him into an asshole, right?

[01:11:57] As she calls out, he already is one, you know, but it is that his response to this is so bad that it sets him on this path that to some degree destroys human society as we know it.

[01:12:12] And I think that cutting to from that sequence, which is so much fun to watch, right? Is this like amazing fucking screwball patter between two young actors who were just like ready to fucking bite in the material this good.

[01:12:26] Yeah, and just the Sorkin thing of like you have to be aware that one of them might be replying to a question that was asked a minute ago and they've already moved on to another topic where she says like sometimes I don't know which thing

[01:12:37] you want me to respond to. Dating you is like dating a stairmaster. Yeah, but in a lot of Sorkin projects, the lead male and female characters have this kind of banter, but the unspoken part is much like, you know, a Barbara Stanwyck character, a Rosalyn Russell character.

[01:12:53] Even when they're fighting, they both find it kind of find it charming, right? Even when like Harriet is, yeah, 100% furious at Matt Arby. It's sexual chemistry. It's yeah, of course. Yeah, the precision, the sort of the tuning of Rooney Mara's

[01:13:10] performance into like she's genuinely just so annoyed at this point. She can keep up with him, right? She can fucking do the Sorkin dialogue with him, but like this is not fun. He's impossible. Even before the moment she decides I need to end this.

[01:13:25] It's just like what the fuck are we doing here? And then when you cut to the credit sequence and as you said the music kicks in and you're just like whoa, this is a different vibe than I'm expecting. That's Fincher setting the tone of just like there's something

[01:13:39] really ominous happening here. There's something really dark happening inside the soul of this guy and it is now just going to spread right and it's going to be forged in this place. That is, you know, like Harvard.

[01:13:56] Yeah, that is kind of like terrible like, you know, we like that like it will just state this kind of like brooding insecure evil, you know, like this like toxic like dynamic of like I

[01:14:09] have to be the best and I have to you know, be a hit cut throat and then he goes home and he writes a nasty blog post and he creates a nasty little website, you know to make people feel bad about themselves.

[01:14:23] Like it's like this sort of most blunt force version of Facebook, right? It's like the drunken mean version of Facebook. I'm not going to put them on blast by name, but I remember a couple years after this movie coming out reading an interview

[01:14:36] with an actor who is promoting a different movie who was still angry about the fact that he had not gotten cast as Mark Zuckerberg in this film. Wait, who is it? I will tell you. Come on. I will tell you offline. Fine.

[01:14:50] I mean, I can't you're not even going to know who it is without looking him up. Kiefer Sutherland. That's why I was like, it's really weird for you to grind this axe here. It was Kiefer Sutherland. God damn it.

[01:15:01] But his big gripe was like you watch footage of the real Zuckerberg. I spent like hours days studying him getting the voice right He's not even doing Zuckerberg, right? And even the adding of like Erica, you know all the things

[01:15:15] in this movie that are fictionalized this sort of version of Zuckerberg. They create I think of this movie like the way that fucking Shakespeare wrote tragedies about like, you know world leaders sure who like self-destructive. Okay, right these people who had all this power to move Nations

[01:15:35] and shift the tectonic plates of society. Okay, and just like collapsed in on themselves. And that's the thing that I think. This opening credit sequence gets across and that's been carried through the rest of the movie is like this is a guy who's now

[01:15:52] emboldened with the need to like reshape the world in his image and they are using him as a dramatic construct basically taking a lot from real events and real transcripts of what he said, but it's like it's the idea of and this is what I think this

[01:16:06] movie gets at so well of like this is the moment when the rules of humanity are rewritten. It's a thing that I think black hat is kind of about a movie. We've discussed in the past movie, which is Michael Mann going like now my blu-ray.

[01:16:21] I spent my whole they keep doing it because the director's going to prove and I can't wait. I prove it's being second disc. It's not 4k, but it's because elements not being available. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine.

[01:16:31] I've approved the shipping delay many times Target asked for you to approve the release date change or else it cancels your order black hat. I think is a movie about Michael Mann realizing that the guys he spent his entire career writing about cops and criminals no

[01:16:46] longer are the people who are the badasses who get to intimidate the world show, right? Sure, if everything is on a computer system, yeah, you know, I get you then the guy behind the computer has to be Chris Hemsworth.

[01:17:00] Also someone's gonna stab you tie a phone book phone book to your chest. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. This is a moment where like not only well, obviously the guys who write the code they create the inventions. They become billionaires that come the richest man in the world

[01:17:15] Zuckerberg starts actually rewrite the fabric of how we interact with each other. I know he's not the person to create social media. He's not and also he's not entirely doing it because out of Mount he well, he's not doing it out of malice at all really,

[01:17:29] but like you say he looks at the world in a certain way at least within the world of this movie, right? And he makes a thing that makes us look at the world through that viewpoint. Maybe even though we don't feel that way or but that's the

[01:17:42] frame that I think that's so smart that that Fincher is and and Sorkin are putting around it, which is like you have to play some intentionality into it for dramatic sake, right? But like but here's the actual like takeaway much like if

[01:17:56] you're trying to write about Julius Caesar, it's like but what what can we actually infer from what happened in who the guy was? Well, let's get into Shakespeare. You're gonna you're gonna get me on so many rants. I'm like Erica right now.

[01:18:07] I don't know which thing I was supposed to respond to the reason we have no guess on Facebook though. I did create a group that was praising a particular sandwich you get at the my university is like, you know, sandwich counter the chicken bacon sandwich sounds cool.

[01:18:23] Yeah, we all had a great time on it. So I think Facebook worked out for the best. I made a Facebook Facebook group called I'm really fucking pale. Sure. That was good mostly to have a reason to talk to the other

[01:18:33] the pale girls in my high school that I had a crush on. Absolutely. I got really big in Australia. That's look we can't do it was like 20 minutes when Facebook was interest and then like 10,000 people from Australia,

[01:18:47] but it is that whenever I watch this movie, I cannot help but remember those sort of two to three years. It's really that it's not much longer than that when it was still just college students certain. Well, the first initial phase where it was just your college

[01:19:00] where it actually was cool. Yeah, like yeah, and then the next wave where it was still like, well, we all use Facebook but before like the news feed had come in and it was sort of like they were still fine. It was still invite went on a vacation.

[01:19:12] Should I post the pictures on my wall? And now like the idea of posting anything on Facebook sends a deadly chill up my spine. Like imagine if I posted on Facebook. I'm pretty sure what Facebook is mostly just laser content

[01:19:26] that there is a satellites in the sky that shoot lasers down into your head. I got into a whole conversation recently with the local business owner where they were telling me that the Hawaiian fires were caused by invisible lasers, but that invisible lasers are the

[01:19:40] strongest form of lasers and that there's all different kinds. There's purple lasers. There's blue lasers. It was all color-based but invisible is the hottest most dangerous type of laser. What sort of business was this been it actually weirdly enough was like a like a craft store.

[01:19:57] Well, there you go. Yeah, so it's basically just like my aunt and then like three people whose pages I shouldn't look at but they're so strange that I click on them. So Facebook is clearly like, oh, is that your friend?

[01:20:11] We'll show you everything they say and I'm like, get them away from me. Also someone with a lot of twine on their hands. Yeah, sorry took me a second to get there. Good good. Thank you. See, you're city kids though.

[01:20:22] Whereas I as someone who grew up in the suburbs, I feel like Facebook is also a place for ants but also for people from high school. Uh-huh. Yeah, I don't have too much of that cool friend. Although I did well, no, that's like well, I do activated my

[01:20:38] Facebook profile several years ago and I've started a fake account that I use only to sync up my Disney emoji blitz a game across multiple devices. The last thing that's like sync to your Facebook is Disney emoji blitz a new account. I created just to do that.

[01:20:54] Fair enough. And then they're like three private groups. I joined where I want to gawk at what people are saying in adjacent social groups, but but like look at how we fucking bring it up and immediately.

[01:21:04] We're like, well, I was able to make a group about the fucking sandwich that I liked. Here's a lightning rod that connects me to other people in my community. I remember getting into fucking college because I think Facebook really starts to grow in between my sophomore junior year.

[01:21:20] I go to college in 2007. I joined Facebook. I think it 2005 it was either five or six and that's when it was like, oh, this is a college only thing. Wait, I heard a couple high school people have gotten on. I got it in 2006.

[01:21:37] If your high school gives you your own email domain. And you have a referral from someone else you can get onto Facebook. So it was either 05 or 06 I get on by 2007. I'm looking up everyone else who is going to the college that

[01:21:52] I've chosen in every program comparing their interest against my own like pre-picking who my friends are going to be. I mostly just tried to girls. But this that's the whole fucking point. Yeah, I just and but like I think we are obviously the last

[01:22:18] generation that will have any memory of the feeling that this movie is very much about a Facebook being something exclusive. Yes, something you want that maybe your friends your friends who have it and you don't have it yet.

[01:22:30] I had you know, like already done Friendster in my space at this point. The novel never did either right? See I did both. I was hard and both I only did my space. I didn't do friends.

[01:22:40] I was so so into Friendster but like yeah, the novelty was not there with Facebook, but the exclusivity immediately made me want it more the fact that it was like my older friends have this and I can't get on it also had a good aesthetic at a clean

[01:22:54] presentation at the time looked cool. Yeah, yeah, and you look at those pages as you see in the movie like right? Yeah, Facebook didn't used to be like cluttered by bullshit. Well, don't you talk about the things that Zuckerberg was right

[01:23:04] about both Friendster and my space basically became unusable within a year or two right Friendster would always crash and then my space just got like so bogged down with ads with artist pages with spam, you know, the internet wasn't fast enough

[01:23:22] back then these pages take forever to load right? These are all mistakes that Zuckerberg and others saw where it's just like no needs to be clean and simple. So like it loads fast. It's an understated aspect that just for those first couple

[01:23:34] years Facebook crashed so much less than these other sites totally that they basically drove themselves into the ground because they couldn't keep up with the demand but uh, what was it? I said, oh yeah, Facebook as this movie portrays went to Oxford

[01:23:50] and Cambridge first and LSE and I had friends at Oxford and Cambridge. I didn't go to Oxford and Cambridge. I got waitlisted at Cambridge. Yes. And so I had to wait. Yep. I had to wait which college the smart one good.

[01:24:07] I had to wait an additional like seven months or whatever. Yes. And then my friends would be like, oh yeah, I did this on Facebook and I'll be like, that's cool. You know, yeah. Anyway amazing to think about any of this now because of course

[01:24:18] Facebook is is bad. But all of this bad for society, but it's also just bad to use all this feels it felt novel at the time where it's like, oh, I've unfolded some new tools on my Swiss army knife of how to

[01:24:32] interact with other people right rather than being like this has basically become the dominant model of how people interact with each other. Yeah, that's what's fascinating to think about is like their pitch on this in the movie, which is so much how it was received

[01:24:51] by us people at the exact ages to be in the crosshairs of the Facebook phenomenon right as it was like emerging was like and here's like all these bonuses right here are these like extra limbs you can gain your ability to interact with other people in the world.

[01:25:11] Yeah, but basically people this character right this like absolutely antisocial sort of what's the word I'm looking for? I mean, there's a bunch of behind-the-scenes stuff where Fincher just keeps on reminding him. This scene has the four things Eisenberg when he's like directing eyes, Oregon scenes.

[01:25:33] He's like, I want to remind you the four things you're terrified by in this scene physical proximity eye contact. He's directly confronting you. Sure. It's like they created like a bullet point list. These are your triggers right and basically saying like in

[01:25:46] this scene, he's doing six of the ten right, right, right. Interesting. Here's a guy who like doesn't know how to interact with other people. Yes in actual life and his defensive posture as is often the case with people like this is to just play smarter right to be

[01:26:03] a sorkin character to act like an asshole or at least try to seem like an asshole because that's the only way for someone who feels that weak and uncomfortable existing in a real room with other people to gain any sort of illusion of social capital.

[01:26:19] And instead it's just like well, what if I just change what the rules of socialization are in the film? What happens Zuckerberg is insulted broken up with goes to his dorm creates face mash gets in trouble gets academic probation and this catches the attention of the Winklevoss twins.

[01:26:44] Who asked him to make a social network site for them based on the exclusivity of the harder Harvard email address and that clearly sparked something in Zuckerberg's brain where he's like, why don't I take my Facebook hacking skills and that idea to

[01:26:56] make Facebook and we're seven minutes into the movie. I want to say two more things about the credit sequence to say them quickly, please. The score which is obviously credible scores amazing. No, no, but the thing of the the basic sort of piano melody.

[01:27:14] Right where you're just like well, that sounds like loneliness and right. That's the thing that married with what feels like the ambient noise from a slasher film. Yeah, it's such a good encapsulation of the whole tension of this movie, right?

[01:27:30] If you have never seen this film in a theater and you ever get the chance it sounds incredible incredible on a movie theater sound system. The him going across campus. Rather than being any complicated super long tracking shot the kind of thing that someone might think.

[01:27:47] Fincher would attempt to do in a long wordless sequence like this is instead a bunch of largely stationary shots. Sometimes the camera shifts in to find him or shifts out when he leaves or whatever but almost all these shots are big wide

[01:28:00] shots of campuses with a bunch of people around them people socializing. He's alone looking comfortable rushing to get home as quickly as he can all this space between the bar where he's now been left and humiliated and his the safety of his dorm room feels

[01:28:16] like it physically hurts him right and almost all of these shots the shot starts before he enters into it and they cut out of it after he's left the frame. And it's like he's struggling to get I like that through all of this as quickly as possible.

[01:28:34] The second we get into the dorm you're in tight on him. He's at the computer. He's surrounded by friends, but they're out of focus. Yes, they're out of focus. This guy needs the safety. He's back in his fucking cocoon.

[01:28:44] It also just feels like once he has his laptop open he can communicate in a different way. Yeah, all that stuff. All of a sudden it's like his life is focused up again and he's comfortable and he's safe. The music starts to become cool. It's in his favor.

[01:28:56] You're cross-cutting it with this party where it's like well, these are the guys who define what's cool at the school he goes to. Cool, maybe certainly these are this is the upper crust, you know, the much desired a guy like him. Society Porcellian all that follows fucking free.

[01:29:14] You go to turn to my wife and I say our daughter is never allowed to go to Harvard and she's like neither Princeton and I'm like, mm-hmm Yales off Dartmouth. No, you know, and then we were like we would we let her go to any IV.

[01:29:25] We're basically like cutting my daughter's opportunities off or just like she can't be near these people a guy like Zuckerberg the character, right? You imagine by this time through high school and goes these people don't fucking get me and then I'm going to go to college

[01:29:39] where my intelligence is respected where I have capital, right? And you get there and it's like no these Ivy League fuckers these legacy dudes, right? These golden gods still are above me in the chain. And tradition and this idea the rumors I hear they bust people

[01:29:57] into these parties all the theatricality the pomp and circumstance the speech this fucking guys giving on the staircase, right? But in real time as he does this blog post as he writes this first website the face smash website.

[01:30:14] He's like he's shifting the power over to himself in real time to the point where people are stepping out of the party and over to their computer screen. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. It's somewhat unbelievable in a way but I guess I looked at

[01:30:28] my computer a lot back then. I don't know, you know the idea of things spreading that virally without a social network. Yes does seem kind of crazy and like in this movie. It's like oh my God an email, you know, like or whatever.

[01:30:41] Yeah, but did you it was a thing? I guess they're compressing the timeline a bit. I'm sure but also like it did happen. It was a thing. It was certainly a notice notice thing noticed thing. Okay, but yes the Winklevai just you know are intrigued Winklevai

[01:30:56] and Divya Narendra. Is that how you say his name? Narendra. Yes, and and yeah, right but like, you know, that's like the fundamental thing that the Fincher and Sorkin are interested by right is like they having the idea of trying to replicate

[01:31:13] the exclusivity that was so naked at Harvard right in the social clubs and all and just in the fact that like Masters of the Universe kids go she hates what she's you know, yeah, but he also like spiraling about to Erica. Yes, right.

[01:31:27] They Rogue Crew they embody everything that he's kind of resentful of that. He doesn't have that. He can't access. And here they are pitching him a site that is just trying to reassert their innate value based on it's their birthright where

[01:31:44] they went to reasserting the value but it's also just creating a porcelain online by creating their club online right where it's like yeah only the best of the best get to be in here and They're having this conversation in the bike room where he can't go any further.

[01:31:58] They're giving him the sandwich like it's some kind of you know, lucky you you got a Phoenix Club sandwich or close-minded though. They are but they're also just like I can see this bigger way bigger understands right? Yes. He immediately understands like the wider implications like

[01:32:15] better than they do. Yes, but what I love about the Winkle bosses who are sort of like they certainly in the movie you're like I get they do undeniably get screwed over right? Like those guys have been fucking dining out on that's why the movie is so successful.

[01:32:33] Yes. I mean look, how is it can sequentially we proceeding here because like the crux of the movie is the summers is the Larry Summers thing. Yes, Zuckerberg's not even in yes, but we can get to that I guess

[01:32:45] but yes, they they definitely see Zuckerberg as like a little Worker man that they can bring in to do to you know, activate their great ideas. Hammers delivery the moment where he because it because it was like a brick says like this myspace friends or what are you

[01:33:01] pitching to me sure and they go it's the exclusivity or Harvard dot edu. Yes, right, right. Yeah, and there's there's an arrogance to which he delivers that as if it's like the fucking mic drop moment. But this is undeniable like he Zuckerberg completely gets it and

[01:33:18] it's this like Harvard Masters of the universe mentality as you said of these guys being like we need to exert our superiority and everything we do in our lives, right? The way it's obviously the joke of people who go to Harvard.

[01:33:34] How many times they can mention that they went to Harvard, right? Sure and the boys club and the connection and all this sort of shit, right? It's like they also now are trying to extend that onto the internet.

[01:33:44] They want to make sure that everyone knows that they are superior on the internet. But it's upholding a pre-existing system versus Zuckerberg immediately seeing them being like, well, wait a second if they're going to hire me to make their website to perpetuate

[01:33:58] their thing the tradition that I cannot break through. Why wouldn't I instead do this for myself and make a new system in which I establish what the social strata is? Yeah, social network, Facebook another drink the facebook.com the facebook.

[01:34:14] Well, I have one note on that drop the thoughts cleaner. So obviously as this movie is proceeding we are being interrupted by the depositions this, you know, yes, every screenplay style where like we were, you know, we the audience are in the momentum of things are being created.

[01:34:30] The lock is simultaneously Eduardo Saverin your friend in this movie is now suing you stop the Winklevoss's and Divya Narendra are suing you and Eduardo's there too, you know, as a witness well, no, that's the empty chair. Well, he no, but remember he's sitting on you're right.

[01:34:47] You're right. He empties the chair after his testimony. So I mean, which is a great. Yes, great moment. Yeah, but right and so you're like wisely the movies just like you know, just FYI. So, you know as you probably do like this is all going to end

[01:35:00] in like legal bickering because we're just watching kids talking college but like billions are at stake. Well, so the smart framework of this movie of like often these stories that are being made the films being made so shortly after the real-life events. How do you end your movie?

[01:35:20] If we're still existing in the timeline of this thing if we don't have perfect perspective on it and it's like that's that's the loop here. The loop is the creation of this thing through to these two lawsuits everyone arguing who gets the credits.

[01:35:35] Yes, the glory the money piece of the pie right right and what happens from this point who knows but like this is the difficult birth process of this weird thing that we now live with it gives you a good endpoint to know where your stories. Yeah.

[01:35:49] No, it's clever going to stop clever construction. I'm yes, obviously and so many of the iconic lines of this completely iconic screenplay are in deposition scenes, you know, and I remember certain now I'm so used to this movie but like

[01:36:04] I definitely remember at the time like the first time I saw Being kind of like thrown like, you know by the cutting to all the account. How am I supposed to be keeping track of this? Like how much of this movie is evidence that I need to reference

[01:36:18] back every time we're cutting back to the boardrooms. Then of course you watch the whole movie and you realize like of course none of this really matters. He will settle with all of these people. It's meaningless. You could classify this movie as a legal drama, which I think

[01:36:29] is fascinating. Could yeah, so yeah, sure. Why not but it's a legal drama in a very contemporary Way of like, yeah, but all these things get settled behind closed doors with NDA signed and money given over and like it doesn't

[01:36:44] matter because zones going like just fucking pay them. It doesn't matter. Well, she's not even saying that's my advice. She's saying like FYI that is happening. You're one of the worst witnesses I've ever seen in deposition

[01:36:55] you come off as so arrogant is a parking ticket to you and right and also right you have hundreds of billions of dollars. It doesn't matter move on which is what happened. Obviously. Yeah, and that should make this movie feel like it has no stakes

[01:37:10] because as I said every single person in this movie got so much money. Yes, and they got so much money often for what amounted to like a semester in college like of like, oh, yeah, sure. Great.

[01:37:21] You know, I'll help you know, write some code for you or I'll give you a little seed money or something. So like everyone's fine. Yeah quote-unquote, but it you feel the dread and like the horror and also you are so attached to Mark and Eduardo in

[01:37:38] this movie like to their friendship and like we can briefly mention like this movie is like an iconic film in tumblr slash fiction culture. Sure, like like so so huge for like people, you know sort of inventing like romance and like deep, you know connection like

[01:37:56] you know, just like off of the chemistry of these two actors Garfield one of the most innately empathetic actors of his his eyes are always shimmering his voice always sounds like it's cracking. Yes. Yeah, his introduction. We watched the whole sort of like face smash coding intercut

[01:38:15] with party. Eduardo shows up and don't you think you'll get in trouble? He comes in at the end of that sequence, right? Well, but he's saying like when do you want to stop doing this like we've we've watched the whole like hand-covered bruise

[01:38:26] hand covers bruises such a fucking good name for that track to but we've watched that whole walk and then at the end of this like big sort of coding sequence the triumph of the thing getting uploaded you cut out to Eduardo arriving at the dorms.

[01:38:44] And he's dressed like a grown-up which was apparently the real Eduardo severance vibe. He wore suits to college, right? The guy looks good. And there's this tiny Garfield movie star moment where he takes out his badge that he has to swipe and he like does it to the

[01:39:00] side almost in like a little bit of a Gene Kelly move not to overstate it. Okay, but just immediately from behind you're like this guy's got a little more finesse than any of the dudes. I just saw upstairs and he comes upstairs and the first thing

[01:39:12] he asks is Mark. Are you okay? Yeah, right. He's I heard it. So it's also here's the first guy to break up with Erica. He's like actually emotionally caring for him. Yeah, and Zuckerberg movie. Yes. How do you know how you hear about that your blog you're blogging

[01:39:24] about it as we speak right and it goes well do you see about the website because I'm not asking like Erica. No, but then even as they then switch to the website Wardo is the one being like this is going to get you in trouble when

[01:39:36] maybe we call it a night. Like, you know, I have the algorithm. I'll write it on the he can't help himself. Right? It's just such efficient characterization of like first Justin movement and in visuals. This guy is cooler than these other guys while still being a nerd.

[01:39:52] He has a little something that Zuckerberg can't even fake. Well, but he that's why Zuckerberg uses him. I think both in real life and in this movie. It's like he has a foot in each world. He's empathetic nerd. He actually knows how to emotionally connect to people or

[01:40:06] at least try. Yeah, and also he does like carry his own weight in this world. Even if he is within this group seen as a little bit more of the businessman a little bit more of the grown-up. Yeah, but he you know, it's not like he's a dilettante.

[01:40:20] Well, he actually kind of was I think but yeah within this I'm talking when I'm talking about I know and I'm putting all these names in the question in the movie was in the movie, but the question in the movie I think is yes, of course,

[01:40:31] Zuckerberg and and Eduardo on the window is important. It is. Yeah. Yeah, because he uses it to make face mesh. That's what you mean, right? No, I think I do think that genuinely provides something but then like one of the most quietly brutal little moments

[01:40:46] of course is they've been working on Facebook together Eduardo gives him a little money. They make this thing. Yeah, and then he's like it's ready to go. Give me the emails of everyone. Yes, and the porcelain or the Phoenix Club or whatever

[01:40:57] it is, you know in your club. And like that is Zuckerberg's like he's not wrong though. Like that's who that will just send it to them and it spreads from there. Like, you know, that is the algorithmic way of thinking about this.

[01:41:11] Yes, but it feels callous and suddenly it feels like oh, he's just is he just friends with Eduardo like for this like much like he's gonna connect. He's gonna brush off the Winklevii until they mentioned that they were a crew right and now that lit something in him,

[01:41:24] you know, he's having fun with this as like a project until Eduardo mentions that he got punched by the porcelain. Yeah, I mean it's the Phoenix. I was you know, who fucking and then that immediately makes him go. Let's step outside. I want to go bigger with this.

[01:41:40] It's like every time he gets some sort of reminder of the things in the conversation with Erica it like lights a fire In his belly to be like we have to go 10% harder the party scene where Wardo goes. He's got the hat on.

[01:41:53] It's like another little movie star moment of like Garfield's undeniable and he just makes Eduardo guy who's just a little bit cool. I was doing his little shimmy there to be clear. It's a good shimmy. It's such a tough supporting actor year. It is wild rising.

[01:42:12] But you were just complaining about this with another movie Matt Damon Truger it exactly. Yeah, and it's just like. Really tough five Jeffrey Rush is the weak one and it's like that's an Oscar winner giving a very big emotional performance in the best picture winner.

[01:42:24] Yeah, like and then Christian Bale. You're sort of like quasi lead. I guess like yeah, no, but yeah, it's a really tough five. Yeah, and Ruffalo getting his first nom. Yeah, which was overdue at that point. But but now in retrospect, I throw that to Garfield or Damon

[01:42:38] now that I mean I might as well got his other not Ruffalo's. I think he's very good in that movie, but my feeling all right time was just like thank God. We're finally nominating him for something. I certainly have Garfield and Damon in my five.

[01:42:53] So yeah, and neither Ruffalo nor Jeffrey Rush or your other thing Jeremy Renner in the town who was nominated John Hawks and Winters Bone who was nominated and of course Ken Watson having an inception one of my favorite performances ever.

[01:43:07] Of course, I want to be an old man filled with regret waiting to die alone bought the airline I seem cleaner. Um, keep going. If you want me to please. Yeah. No. Okay. So Wardo and suck. Yeah.

[01:43:18] I mean, I think they just thread the perfect needle of like I do believe they have some genuine connection. Yes, but obviously they met in college. So it's not like they were longtime friends. No, and there is a transactional element to it, which is

[01:43:33] I thought it's like fucking Harvard. That's all it is, especially these Harvard undergrads. It's like well, how can you get me somewhere? You know, like who do you know? And who do I know? Right? Like a lot of that is probably just always floating in the air there.

[01:43:45] Yeah, except for Joe Mazzello, who's just like, hey, baby. I'm just sitting here for the ride by casting Garfield. He's going to give a performance where you innately believe that he cares about this guy to some degree to some degree. Yeah, he does care. He feels bad.

[01:44:01] There are little sorkany moments and that such sorkin shit. Yes, much like that moment in Chicago 7 where what is it? It's like Abby Hoffman is like, oh, I read your speeches, you know, you know, like shit like that, you know, like I defended you about the chicken.

[01:44:16] Like, you know, with you know, like those little moments Zuckerberg may be using Eduardo, you know, so threatening him strategically, but you also can't deny it. This guy's nicer to him than anyone else because he seems kind of in doesn't have a ton of options. Yeah.

[01:44:33] Yeah, he's by default his best friend. Mm-hmm. But I am meeting a sour patch kids. I am sour patch kid. One little one little kid green green best one. I might agree with you on that. Well, Ben. I like green. Wow, but I like blue too.

[01:44:56] Now that's that's controversial. That's right. I feel like that's a boulder take. Yeah, we'll save that for the dragon tattoo episode. We don't have room for that in this episode. We can all agree on green blue talk will happen in the next one.

[01:45:06] God, I can't wait for that episode. Um, okay. So what happens next in the film at what point as you said, there's this going back and forth of Miguel's character clocking. How do they first find out again that he started this site?

[01:45:25] Well, it starts to go around and Miguel is, you know, Divya is at the fall. That's what I'm saying. You know, he's at this like a what is called a performance or whatever. Yes, he sees it. He's like, holy shit.

[01:45:38] He goes to the Winklevoss's and it's one of my all the Winklevoss stuff to me is just so crucial. Yeah to this movie telling a story about how like success and you know, capitalism worked in America and was changing where

[01:45:55] it's the I forget which is which but you know, one of the Winklevi is slightly nicer than the other one. Like one of them is a little harder edged and it's the I think it's Tyler might be the nice one who's like, well, we

[01:46:04] don't sue people were gentlemen of Harvard that. That whole thing. The whole men of Harvard attitude is like and Divya has the really good like you thought he was the only one who's going to think that was stupid. Yeah, but this guy doesn't understand the rules have already

[01:46:18] changed but like these entire systems that they have bought into that they think give them capital in the world which are which have given them of course to be clear and they are obviously tremendously wealthy people but are like eroding in rapid time, right?

[01:46:30] But just like I love that idea that he's like it's low class to sue someone that is not what we do right like that is obnoxious that is stooping to his level or whatever. We'll of course just triumph because we're the best like our

[01:46:45] product will be better like what we're offering, you know, our faces are, you know, whole affect is better but in a world where everything is run off of computers the people who know how to write the code that computers use basically have the ability to rewrite reality.

[01:47:01] And also I mean Divya is obviously really smart and just being like he got there first like we are that's it. We're fine like we could just like launch the same website and be like but ours, you know is by six foot four guys who

[01:47:13] recruit doesn't care about any of the shit you're fucking talking about and he doesn't have to win anyone over in the court of public opinion because everyone wants to be on Facebook. Yeah, exactly. He did it. He did it. It's done.

[01:47:27] It's also like for as much as the Winklevide, you know, sued Zuckerberg and got a settlement because maybe he you know, like whatever borrowed elements of their idea. They got a pitiful paltry 50 million dollars each or whatever the fuck more than that.

[01:47:40] Oh, that's what they got publicly right? But um, you know, like they eventually made a website and it was shitty like I think it was like it was like genuinely shitty. Yeah, and Facebook was obviously connect you. It's called connect you. Yeah. Makes me think of connect four.

[01:47:55] I'm out. I'm not playing a board game here. I go back to the Eisenberg thing of like they were overthinking it. Yeah, right. You need a guy who already thought about social relationships like they were code. But obviously they still think they're playing by different

[01:48:13] rules and they have this whole revelation of like well, the Harvard fucking student book says you can't steal from students. So Ben there are rules that we all agree to Larry summer president of Harvard this scene. That is so good.

[01:48:29] Yeah, the actor in this scene is a man named Douglas Urbanski auger Bansky. Okay, who is Gary Oldman's producing partner and not an actor not an actor. He's his producing partner. I believe also his manager. Yes. He's like his business partner.

[01:48:41] I should say yeah because he he was like a theater producer. I don't know how old man honestly, I don't know what's up with him originally, but they start working together on nil by mouth, which is the movie Gary Oldman directed.

[01:48:55] Yeah, but which is like I mean Douglas Urbanski is like a guy from Jersey, New Jersey. Totally and like nil by mouth is like this like harrowing tale of like life in you know, the projects in London like it's like,

[01:49:05] you know, really really I was trying to dig into it. I could not find how they got linked up. But basically from that moment on they're joined by the hip. He's his business manager. He's producer on a lot of his films. Okay, he is not an actor.

[01:49:18] No, he was a frequent guest of Rush Limbaugh. Yeah, he's a right winger or at least used to be, you know, like a very Rush Limbaugh right winger like sort of loud and obnoxious in that way. I don't know. I mean, obviously Fincher eventually worked with Oldman

[01:49:35] and really admires Oldman. Also Fincher and Oldman share an ex-wife. They sure do. The mother of Fincher's daughter. They do undeniably. And they had been their projects they talked about doing. They're obviously guys who existed in, you know, adjacent spheres for a long time.

[01:49:51] I still don't really know what the story is of Fincher being like, you know, who'd be great to play Summers. It's what is a scene where you could bring in a heavyweight actor. Absolutely. Because like it makes sense. This is a this Larry Summers was secretary of Treasury.

[01:50:06] Yes. He was a celebrity in this world like so it would be fine if you had fucking name and that, you know, John Lithgow or whatever. So in a movie show up for one scene where almost all of your characters are under 25.

[01:50:19] You could be like, well, here's a good opportunity to get an established August character actor, a friendly face, someone just fucking nailing it. And yet this performance is transfixing. Urbanski says, okay, I found an interview here.

[01:50:33] You know, I hate to admit this, but David may have seen a big physical resemblance. He says, I didn't study Larry Summers for the role because I quote, I couldn't be less interested in Larry Summers. Talk to a couple people, you know, right?

[01:50:44] Larry Summers has hair Douglas Urbanski does not. So the resemblance is not that strong. Like I think they both are kind of stocky guys. That's about and sort of similar age range, but like I don't really know, you know, he's not really because Urbanski is

[01:51:00] probably like kind of too, you know, inside Hollywood to be like, oh, you know, this is how it happened. He's just like, I don't know, Fincher wanted me to do it. So I did it, you know, fine. He's amazing in this movie. He's amazing.

[01:51:12] But you if not that I recommend the same one, but you dig into his interviews on extremist right-wing outlets, right? In the 90s and early 2000s, and there's something to the way in which he talks about like these these idiots.

[01:51:26] They don't get it, you know, that feels like a straight line to this performance. There's some brilliance though to Fincher being like is any actor regardless of how good he is for a one scene part going to nail this better than getting the guy who just exudes this

[01:51:43] energy, right? Right. I mean, and he's got like he's got a great speaking voice. He does. He's so funny in this scene. I watch this scene monthly. I watched this. It's incredible all the time and there's something to the

[01:51:55] fact I think in terms of him being a non-actor where he has the energy of obviously the characters can we get this over with? I don't want to be in this fucking meeting like written in that great Sorkin way of like and you're here and they start

[01:52:07] to, you know, do some, you know exposition. He's like, I understand why you're here. Why are you here? They see doing it. He's like, I know that. Why are you here? And then you finally realize that he's trying to get through to them.

[01:52:17] Like, how did you make it in here? Right. How did this bullshit reach my desk? I'm in charge of Harvard. I'm not in charge of like, you know, some tiny little liberal arts college where like sure I have to mediate between a thousand students total.

[01:52:29] This is Harvard University. Or Bansky. Very large organization. Or Bansky the person I think genuinely is exuding. Can we get this over with? I'm not an actor. Gary's on the phone. He wants two extra points on The Contender. Right. We're spending three days on a fucking three-page scene.

[01:52:47] He's demanding a character poster for the Book of Eli, and I think he deserves it. Yes. These are the kinds of things that Douglas Urbanski is used to occupy. He genuinely feels like he wants to be out of the scene, which is perfect for the scene.

[01:53:00] That's the thing. It's that his complete disinterest in making a meal out of this role versus any actor regardless of how comfortable they were in the reputation would be like, this is a fucking good scene. I can nail this.

[01:53:12] Urbanski's like, I don't know why he asked me to do this. I'm just going to get this over with. And Summers' vibe in the scene is just like, it is offensive to me that you have made it this far clearly through some

[01:53:22] fucking connection that your dad has with the university or whatever. Let's point out too, they're identical twins. Abusive. Who dress alike. I mean, and are. It's absurd. But that's why. They're the same person. I'm sure Sorkin is reading. Well, I'm 6'5", 220. There's two of me.

[01:53:36] And also the Karate Kid joke of like. We don't want to look like we're in a skeleton outfit. It's true. It's chasing the Karate Kid. Yeah. But I mean, I'm sure Sorkin cracks the book and he's like, wait, you're telling me that this little reedy Jewish nerd. Yes.

[01:53:47] Like who's a computer dork was being sued by fucking Olympic rowers who are identical twins. Who like golden God. Like what? Right. And they invest so much stock into this idea of Harvard and what it represents and what it will translate into for the rest of their lives.

[01:54:04] Right? This, this like badge they will proudly wear on their chest forever. They go into like the highest office of Harvard. And like God bless him. They truly think that he's going to be like, you're totally right. Of course. I've just checked the handbook and you're right.

[01:54:15] Yeah, you're right. And he's like, I don't fucking care. I have a business to run. That that Lydie has. Like Harvard students are so interested in inventing jobs rather than just going and getting one. Like he's very interested in Harvard as a business.

[01:54:28] He doesn't care about the fucking mythology that like the magic of what Harvard represents in the minds of little wasps everywhere. 500 year institution. Right. And like also like, I mean anyone I know who's actually gone to Harvard as an undergraduate, which these kids were is always

[01:54:42] kind of like it's fucking Harvard. Like the graduate schools are so important. Yes, but that's where everyone's attention is like at a like the undergrads is just kind of like yeah, what you were best of, you know, at your school. Fine. Go do your work.

[01:54:54] We don't want we're not interested in you, you know, and like then you'll go figure your shit out. This area is so unsufferable for guys like Eduardo and Mark and and Moskowitz and everyone who like worked their way into

[01:55:08] this school by like actually, you know, well Eduardo was rich. I'm not saying I'm not saying they couldn't afford it right, but it's like they had to like in high school create shit that actually was a valid right Eduardo's fucking doing futures bets

[01:55:24] based on meteorology and Zuckerberg to pay the Zuckerberg created a fucking algorithm that he, you know, Microsoft wanted to buy, you know when he was a teenager or shit like that to repeat my point they show up here and they're like, well here I'm going

[01:55:36] to be valued and it's still guys like fucking this and it makes them want to tear the whole fucking thing down collateral damage be damned. It's just I just think it's so funny to watch them realize in that scene because that's the scene.

[01:55:51] That's the end of them right really having a shot at beating Zuckerberg then they go gloves off and they're way too late at that point, but it's just like it's over. Yes, we lost we thought the rules worked the way they are

[01:56:04] supposed to work for people like us. Yes, and this I'm saying this is a Jewish guy crafty little Jew it has fucking out Fox does yes and like despite having no personality being unlikable in the pages of the Harvard

[01:56:19] Crimson like, you know, like a violent lack of personality literally like launching his reputation on doing like something like horribly sexist like an attracting like genuine criticism from like women's groups like if he forky said this and I had to agree

[01:56:32] with she's like if he did that today, he would get like kicked out of Harvard like if you like did some weird sexist invective on the internet and then created like lady ranking site like you know that wouldn't it just be like a slap on the wrist

[01:56:45] national international would be like get out of here right? Yeah being international news in Madagascar. They'd be like he did what Alex? Alex the lion Marty the zebra Melvin the giraffe King Bruno. So that scene is just so crucial. I think to move it. That seems funny.

[01:57:06] That's was reading the news in Madagascar at the circus. Did you go to Afro circus? Kowalski? I think Gloria is the hippo going you invoked it. I mean, I invoked the name of the country Madagascar which happens to sure name with a franchise never talked about the

[01:57:23] different chronologies happening. We've talked about it on this podcast multiple times. I don't think I ever mentioned movie. So that I'd remember if I talked about that is the end of the Winklevi in a way like yes, as you say, then they try

[01:57:37] to kind of go gloves off doesn't work. They does the regatta scene? Yes, which we you know should obviously mention but like they're certainly their challenge to Zuckerberg is blunted once summers shuts them down. Yeah. Yes. No, they think great now will mount a full-scale legal attack.

[01:57:55] They have this match. What do you what do you call a rowing match? It's a race. I mean a race race. They lose painfully close. This was the Olympic qualifying event is that right? It's the it's the Royal regatta. It's like a really big rowing event.

[01:58:13] Yeah, that happens every year in March in on the Thames the River Thames if you know it in London, but they're at this fuck. That's like a that is an event for aristocrats like, you know, I've never been to the Royal regatta, but I know that if

[01:58:27] you're going there you're gonna have to wear a fucking straw boater or like a fascinator or whatever. Club like whiskey and cigar room fucking sports blazer. All this shit that Harvard you're so close. I mean Harvard is only pretending much like all the American

[01:58:41] Ivies to be that old and then when you go to England, it's like this shit is that old. This shit is a that we've been doing this shit for a thousand fucking years and it was aristocrats then it's aristocrats

[01:58:51] now and they they already know that they're like they fucked up right there too late. Now, there's only so much gain they can recover, right? That's where the course they hear that it's spread to Oxford and then they're like we're 40 times more fucked than we thought

[01:59:03] we were and also the fact that this fucking guy is impressed by Facebook, right? Right, right there. Prince Albert of Monaco or yeah, it's Prince Albert of Monaco. Oh, it is Jesus because that's the joke.

[01:59:14] He said, you know Divya is like don't or one of them says like don't worry. His country is like the size of Nantucket, right? Right, right, right, right. But like already there they're obsessed with the failure. They just experience which everyone is sort of like padding

[01:59:30] them on the back and pity, you know, good try next time you'll get that very good. Very close. By the way, have you heard about this? It's a website. The Facebook.com not sure what that means. Yes, so glorious. Go ahead. Oh like they're brutal failure.

[01:59:50] See it all just sort of really stack on top. But then you also are like yeah, but then I'm not rooting for Mark Zuckerberg. That's what's so good about this movie is you're always kind of like I'm not even sure where am I supposed to be putting my

[02:00:04] loyalties and it's sort of with Eduardo because like you say he's sort of the emotional part of the movie, but I but then like is the protagonist he is but then also as you watch this movie, especially now you're like wait.

[02:00:16] Did he really just like not he just like went back to school like he went to his internship. Like what was he doing? Like it's like there's no was playing the old game, right? Exactly. He's doing another version of playing the like.

[02:00:28] Well, you have to that's the path. That's the track. He was like selling at yeah, we're going to get some ads, right? Which once again is the most it's like something that personally hurts Mark. It's not as much in my read that he's like that stupid strategically.

[02:00:43] He does think it's super strategic. He does which it was obviously, but I think he's also like how could you value that old system versus what you are and I are making right you and I are fighting against the world shirt and you want to be with them.

[02:00:57] You still want their approval. It's another version of wanting to get into the club, right? Then like I mean the split happens because Mark by the Phoenix. Well, that's part of it. Well, that's already happened. Obviously, you know, but I'm saying it's an extension of

[02:01:10] him wanting the intern and the D of yeah of Mark being like Mark both maybe desiring that path and like resenting it the traditional path that it Mardo is going on. But he wants to tear it down.

[02:01:24] Well partly out of he wants to be part of it as well though, you know, like because that's what he's saying. Like we need to expand to the most elite universities and to Stanford and to you know, like all that stuff but then

[02:01:34] they meet Sean Parker and Sean Parker. Of course, we meet Sean Parker in a wonderful scenes featuring Dakota Johnson that might be the funniest scene in the movie just because of when Sean Parker says like there's a snake

[02:01:45] in here and she has to come out of the show biggest star in the movie comes in like an hour in I think he's at the 55 minute Mark. Yeah, and you know, he sees Facebook. He's like I want to meet this guy and in Sean Parker as then

[02:01:58] this is true to life. I think Zuckerberg is meeting someone who like has that vibe of like we need to we're tearing it down. I don't listen to what they tell me like big businesses come after me. Fuck them who cares like sure. I don't make money.

[02:02:10] It doesn't matter like I'm cool. I can go to restaurants. Everyone knows me like all this shit. I have models hanging off my arms, right? I mean, he's kind of actually he's really like the proto Mark Zuckerberg. Yeah, but also kind of predicting that mentality.

[02:02:28] Yeah of like getting all these VC investors and just and creating these products and having this braggadocious nature about you. Also his line where he's like Napster didn't fail. It changed the music industry forever, right? And now you're watching you like you ruined everything Parker.

[02:02:46] Let me ask you. He he made no money off of it. Right, right. Yeah, it like was beaten into the ground but his victory is I destroyed something. I destroyed an institution. I destroyed the way things used to work. No one can say that's a failure.

[02:03:02] I broke a corner of the world forever, which he's right about but that's exactly who Mark wants to be. I will say it is the one thing in this movie and I always bump on it a tiny bit and perhaps I'm just being so fucking petty about this.

[02:03:19] It is the only thing in this movie where I feel in the script Sorkin's lack of knowledge of any of these people are the things that they created is when Dakota Johnson knows him. Sean Parker's the founder of Napster.

[02:03:34] Yeah, I just think for all of us growing up Sean Fanning was the guy where it's like he's the Zuckerberg. He's the guy who coded Napster and Sean Parker was his Eduardo. Yeah, sure, but you are being petty.

[02:03:45] I just think until Facebook Sean Parker was not the known of the two even if he gained a lot of reputation and Silicon Valley and all of that. Where are they? Silicon Valley. Exactly. That's the only reason it doesn't matter to me because

[02:03:59] I don't think her character would know it but it's my only gripe of that time in this whole movie. It's like you just have to forgive it as screenwriting and also I accept it. I think this film is a perfect masterpiece.

[02:04:09] If this was Oxford University and someone knew who Sean Parker was, I'd be like there's no way anyone knew who Sean Parker was. You'd arrest this movie. You'd arrest it. Under arrest. But in Stanford I'm like, eh, she probably might know who that is.

[02:04:21] So yes, yeah, he is. To my point though, I'll say since this movie's come out. I feel like Sean Fanning exists in no one's memory. Everyone just credits Sean Parker with everything connected to Napster now. I mean it's because you know Parker knew how to market himself

[02:04:37] obviously in a way but it's also yeah because Fanning never really he never really made anything else. No, that like took off whereas Parker, you know, he's very crucial to the launch of Facebook. Every time they tried to relaunch Napster as a new paid premium

[02:04:51] service Sean Fanning would like come by and be like hello. It's me the mayor of Napster. Napster. Jesus. Um, but like. The cat? Yeah, no I remember it all man fucking downloading what are you know Sugar Babes albums or whatever. Anyway, like Sean Parker. Sugar Babies? Sugar Babes.

[02:05:10] Shout out Sugar Babes. Anyone doesn't know what I'm talking about. Look it up. Great British pop band. I think the Green Sugar Babes is the best one. I know Ben likes the blue one. I was just trying to think of like a 2001 thing that I might have

[02:05:22] heard not the whole because the whole thing with Napster for me was I was like I buy records. Yeah, but then there's other stuff around like, well, yeah, I don't want to buy that. Like so maybe I like I was one of those similar dorks where I was

[02:05:33] like I'm only using Napster for bands where I only like one song. Yeah, or like maybe I check an album out and if I like it, maybe I'll buy it. I wasn't like some kids I knew where they were like just downloaded

[02:05:45] the entire discography of Western music yesterday. Yeah, and I have it on this hard drive and now I can listen to it all the time and I'm like but how could you possibly listen to all that? They're like who knows but I've got it.

[02:05:55] I mean, I think the big deal though really was if you were into like underground or out of issue music or hard to find music. All of a sudden you were like I don't have to take a bus.

[02:06:07] Yeah into the city and like go through trading like now. I go to the village. Yeah, I know 100% I can just discover anything. It was really mind-blowing. That was a big deal. I'll admit it. I'll you know what?

[02:06:20] I'll admit it that's after had some impact very big of you but he's empowering to Zuckerberg in and in this movies perspective. I think it's like, you know, he's a pretty maybe villainous is too strong, but he's an insidious character obviously because he's encouraging.

[02:06:38] You know, I mean Peter Thiel shows up a normal and chill man in real life, but even in this movie you kind of get the sense of like right, you know, like this sort of cocoon is building around him and he's he is Zuckerberg with style.

[02:06:51] I don't just mean visually but in the way that it was the finesse that he does not and how to interact with people even if he's being brash it is in a way that is compelling which Zuckerberg is

[02:07:04] not interpersonally and when like Wardo is like he is bad and we shouldn't be aligned with him right? He is from the from a business perspective. So completely wrong. Yes, from the emotional perspective of the movie. You're like, yes, this is yeah, you're right like this.

[02:07:20] These are not good people and you also know just like yeah, they're just going to make Facebook which is the other part that you're sort of thinking the longer the range gets like them for the more. This is an older and older movie. Just like Jesus someone stopped.

[02:07:34] I got it. Stop elections are going to get fucked up because of this and like multiple countries within the world of the movie. It's like like there's there maybe even could be a scene where Zuckerberg sits at Eduardo's having down and goes like we don't

[02:07:46] need to make money right now. There will we will get venture capital. This is how fucking Silicon Valley works. We didn't invent this. That's an old bottle of finance mark knows this guy by reputation, but the second he sits down at the table and he watches how he

[02:07:58] interacts with everyone there especially with Eduardo's girlfriend. It's like well, this guy has a really good way. Shout out really hilarious and this was really so funny in like a fairly underwritten Sorkin II lady character who's just like

[02:08:12] into Wardo for two scenes and then crazy for two scenes on fire. Yes, but so funny the second Zuckerberg is actually watching Sean Parker exist in person, right? He's like in all Zuckerberg is just like dumb. It's become his entire mood board of this is the realization of

[02:08:31] who I become who I want to be the version of me that makes the most sense. Yes, I'm going to have my business card say what I was which is a real thing. It's MCO bitch. That was a real thing that Zuckerberg did again as you said Griff

[02:08:45] like he really presents himself like only around when this movie is coming. I was like, what do you mean? I'm the most normal guy in the world. I love to wear t-shirts and shorts. Don't meet, you know got a wife and kid.

[02:08:54] I'm not like one of those normal CEOs. I'm not stuck up and then you hear like, oh, you got business cards printed saying I'm CEO bitch. You're like, well, that's pretty crass. And then you're like, I guess he was 20.

[02:09:05] Like I guess I should remember it's so funny child in the way that like you watch the the fire festival documentary and everyone's like Billy McFarlane. It's the guy was so magnetic when you're in a room with him. He could sell you anything and you watch the interviews.

[02:09:19] He's like I had an idea to make a concert festival at the night where you watch video footage of Zuckerberg and you're like, how could this guy ever sell the swagger of the like asshole little stinker shit he's doing when it feels like he'd be like break into

[02:09:34] tears coughing in public, right? Like of embarrassment. It's someone caught him sneezing. Like the Aaron Sorkin scene where like what is that? You know, he's like a glottal stop. Now obviously Zuckerberg's trying to tank that meeting. I think it's the idea.

[02:09:50] But he did shit like this all the time. But he was weird. Yes. And anyone who's not like Peter Thiel, who of course is very normal. The most normal. By the way, he's funding this podcast now. We should make it very clear. No, he's our only sponsor.

[02:10:03] No, every we have to do three ad reads. It's like Peter Thiel. What I like about him. Normal, normal guy. But like Peter Thiel can look at Zuckerberg and be like, you know, I don't like he's given us no money. Yeah, I don't like him.

[02:10:17] You're the kind of freak like I understand like, you know, I get that this is the kind of person who makes a fucking website but like some Madison Avenue ad exec would be like what the what are you wearing? Like, can you make eye contact with me?

[02:10:29] Like, you know, like imagine Don Draper meeting Zuckerberg. Yes, but that's what this guy exists to be in opposition to. Obviously it's Sorkin in the Gladys stop scene. He's perfectly cast. He's really funny. I think Sorkin should act more. I honestly do. Yeah, maybe direct less. Yeah, exactly.

[02:10:50] Let's bring these sliders down. I need to be willing to be like Sorkin, you can be the lead in your next movie if someone else directs it thing I was going to say. It is like a Luke. I am your father type thing.

[02:11:07] Whereas plays out in the movie and I've seen this so many times I forget every time that this is how it works. Million dollars isn't cool. You know, what's cool? Eduardo says you and then it cuts to the deposition right and

[02:11:21] Eduardo is the one who delivers the line, right? Right, and he doesn't actually say it. He does say back to the silence cleaner. He does say that it cuts back to the silence after he said it.

[02:11:32] But I have such a like implanted memory in my head of everyone thinks timber Lake leaning in and saying a billion dollars, but you never see on screen. Um, but of course that is that is a Parker's again, right?

[02:11:45] Where he's like you guys have to stop thinking about this like some cute little thing you made like there are billions of dollars at stake with this idea. I love and I'm sure you guys to the nightclub scene so much

[02:11:55] the Fincher esque choice of the music is loud and you can barely hear what they're saying. I feel like it's the only movie only time ever get this and 13 years and everyone should be copying people have obviously done like nightclub scenes where the music is loud.

[02:12:09] Yeah, but they're all about no dialogue. The atmosphere is overwhelming for whatever reason someone's losing it. Someone's having fun. This is just like no, these two guys are having a regular business conversation. It's just at a nightclub where the music is so fucking annoying.

[02:12:23] They're screaming at each other. It's not just the volume of it. It's that weird intensity of like you cannot have a subtle conversation in a place where music is playing this loud. You know, I go home from like nights at bars and I go like

[02:12:35] did I sound like a fucking moron because everything I want to say I had to yell. I had to go like and the thing you have to understand is he didn't really get his blank check until his seventh movie and

[02:12:47] that's what he's telling the story of the Victoria's Secret guy. I mean Mark Zuckerberg even has a joke like I said, was that a parable or whatever? You know, like but like it's I love that scene so Timberlake so good in that scene.

[02:13:00] I mean, Zuckerberg plays all the Timberlake stuff great. I mean, I mean, because he does actually seem like odd to be in the room with him. That's why I was going to say, you also you realize it's one of those things where it's like power in absence.

[02:13:14] Yeah, you realize this character is basically not listening to anything. Anyone has said to him the entire movie, right? He's almost always looking somewhere else deep in his own thoughts immediately dismissing it and then it's only in these early Sean Parker scenes where Zuckerberg is like captive.

[02:13:30] He's leaning forward. He's reactive as you said, it's like a little boy meeting Spider-Man like it's like he's looking at him like it's like I cannot believe I get to be in the presence of you. You were the coolest person ever my life.

[02:13:45] He's so blown away by every new revelation every like insight day when they're the dinner scene where they're like testing their competing theories on what they should do right and Parker has the line where he's like, so which of us is right and he's

[02:14:01] like both of you kind of you know, he's like you're both kind of right but for the wrong reasons the things you the thing you guys don't understand is that what you have right now Is cool and it's indefinable and you need to just run with

[02:14:16] that which is like what they did and the more he explains it the more mark keeps going. Yes. Yes, exactly. This is what I was finally saying. Yes. What I haven't been able to articulate won't stop seconding everything again.

[02:14:29] It is so ironic to consider how uncool Facebook became. Yes, like but because this movie now you watch and you're like Facebook cool, but it was great and that it is this ineffable thing of like it's cool people want to be on it.

[02:14:40] It's cool, but it stayed cool enough like the blank check patreon. That's what the blank check patreon is like now. It's still cool. It's exclusive. No, it's it's the difference between my space and Friendster is it stayed cool enough to achieve total world domination

[02:14:56] where then when the floodgates opened it was like yeah, and there's so much stuff that like, you know a couple years ago like 10 years ago now I feel like this is the exact same shit that fucking Musk is trying to do with X where they're

[02:15:10] like Facebook should be the one resource used for everything play video games do it on Facebook. It should be your wallet do it on Facebook. Yes. Yes, right. It should be your digital life. I'm face right live here can't have legs, right?

[02:15:24] It's I mean, it's not like we used to live in farms and we live in cities. We're going to live in the internet, right? Right and I think a lot of people were like this is nefarious. This is like big brother shit.

[02:15:34] He wants us to like hand over all our information which is some degree does because he understands that the ultimate currency and that's the ultimate value they have as a company is possession of all of that right, but there's the other

[02:15:43] part of him that truly I think believes like that's the better way for humans to live right like he wants that he thinks it's good. I mean the fact that many years later he went he was like we're going all in on meta.

[02:15:58] We're going all in on this like virtual reality universe because that surely isn't that we've what we've all been waiting for it's not that I'm been like everyone's reaction to this is like no we weren't waiting for this like we don't want to live

[02:16:09] on the fucking holodeck from Star Trek, bro. I know you might it's not that he thinks he's doing a good for mankind. No, he's it's that he can only see the version of the world that he wants to live in which he's like I'd like to log into

[02:16:23] one thing and have everything solved for me and then I live in the holodeck. It really should go all in on it though right now meta. Yeah get into the metaverse. Yeah, whatever episodes become metaverse exclusives. That would be great. We make us lots of money. Yeah.

[02:16:37] So instead of video it's like you can be immersed and video video podcast or old news. Yeah. I want people to be right here in between our tables and we'll all appear as Sims. Yeah, and I bunny ears will all be David Sims.

[02:16:51] Yeah, we'll all be David Sims. Yeah. Sure me. Yep. Yep. My likeness. Mm-hmm. Right perfect man. Okay. I'm the baseline in this world. Let's move on. Yeah. Well, I'm not the perfect man to be clear but physically mentally Ben is the perfect man. That's true.

[02:17:07] Oh, yeah physically and mentally. I agree the end of this film obviously is the skipping at the end already. Well, not the final act of the film. They moved to California Silicon Valley. Yes is them in Silicon Valley. You do have in Harvard.

[02:17:22] I believe the triumphant is in Harvard the triumphant coding scene. Oh where the people are all like hacking just like a hackathon and the best one will get to be in Facebook and Mark, you know checks his code and it's like what kind of Facebook and

[02:17:35] everyone flips out and you can feel like for the first time in his life. This guy is cool in a room. Exactly. Yes. It's such a powerful scene like you're and it's it's impressive and scary like that shot of him standing there smiling.

[02:17:49] You're kind of like good for him and you're also kind of like, oh my God, like he's like becoming a god like this is a little terrifying really bringing to this right? It's like it's the Meekshul inherit thing. Yeah, combined with absolute power corrupts.

[02:18:03] Absolutely where it's like we used to think the dominant ruling forces in the world were the wrong people and what if the power could be redistributed and if you give it to the people who have this chip on their shoulder about the world doesn't value me enough, right?

[02:18:18] I'm not saying the oppressed. I'm saying the people who feel self-oppressed or socially oppressed not actually oppressed if they get the power we will all be in the firing rage of their vindictive wrath. Sure, their contempt for Humanity, you know, basically like

[02:18:36] people grew up being like, why doesn't anyone think that I'm smart? Why doesn't anyone appreciate that? I'm smart. Why don't they value that over? I don't girls like me correct. He just knows that's like right you hand it over to those guys.

[02:18:49] You give them the ability to rewrite everything and it's not going to turn out well for anyone. Just want to point out to that while this is taking place is the chicken ongoing thread, but do you I'm saying it's like he's he's designing his own challenge, right?

[02:19:08] The drinking challenge the coding challenge because there's so much jealousy. Yes about the fact that Wardo has been invited on the way to the on his way to be a welcome to the room and then he feeds the chicken some chicken nuggets and this is called cannibalism.

[02:19:24] I believe this is a real incident of some. I believe this actually did happen. Yeah got written up in the Crimson or whatever. I mean my favorite Garfield line delivery should have gotten the Oscar nomination for this alone is, you know, don't the

[02:19:37] fish eat the other fish the Marlins and the trout so funny. It's referencing them talking about Marlins and trout like 15 minutes earlier in the movie. I love it when screenplays do that. Yes, we're like that's why those words are in his head because

[02:19:51] they had that other conversation that didn't have anything to do with this. Alex Ross Perry talks about that a lot of the Morgan thing not that specific but the magic trick of like presenting something to you circling it underlining it put it right

[02:20:03] in front of your eyes leaving it there on the table and then get back to it. Right and when you get back to it, it still somehow feels like the audience is like he surprised you right? Yeah, even though we couldn't have made it more apparent.

[02:20:14] Yeah, Silicon Valley stuff like the bet maybe the clearest funniest version of Zuckerberg's like inherent awkwardness never leaving him is the beer the beer and throwing the burlap beer at the girl is funny. Yes, she misses it smashes and then he just throws it again.

[02:20:33] Every other person would be like, okay, she's not in the business or catching beer. That's what's actually is I'll buy more beer. I'll keep throwing it till you catch one who gives a shit. It's well, the whole vibe in this house of is like a very

[02:20:45] like lame kind of chaos of like they're making a mess and Parker walks in and really says this is perfect. This is exactly what you should be doing and he's right. He's like you should be living like fucking idiot. It's just like like fucking lost boys, right?

[02:20:59] And like then just like diving into the pool with your shirt on like that's really all you need to do. This is the ethos from which this company gets to a billion dollars like you say Wardo shows up and he's like I've been

[02:21:09] kicking my ass riding the subway. I was waiting outside the airport in the rain, right? Yeah, he's such a pathetic creature and you feel for him, but then like you are kind of like why aren't you here? What is what are you thinking buddy?

[02:21:21] Like you what you needed to do your Lehman Brothers internship like who fucking cares? No, I think he feels like I think both a I need to at least set up the tracks for the commensal career path if this doesn't happen or B.

[02:21:38] I use what I gained from the real world to help this business rather than understanding. This is the moving train. There's no need to lay down tracks anywhere else. Right just stay on board. Yeah, yeah, I think truly hurts Mark.

[02:21:55] It hurts Mark because correctly Mark is like you don't believe in this right and Wardo would probably be like well, yeah, who knows like this might not amount to anything. Yes, and Mark's like no no no like I'm already resolute that like this is a mountain.

[02:22:07] Parker reads it immediately. He goes he went to New York. Yeah. Yeah, so you're telling me he's not here. He's missing all of this? Look when you read about the reality of this situation. It is in retrospect insane because you're like, yeah, he made a thing.

[02:22:19] It was a phenomenon. They were getting hundreds of thousands of members. He moves to Silicon Valley and Eduardo Saverin was like, well, I think I want to like, you know, do my Lehman Brothers internship and then like go back to Harvard right and and

[02:22:32] then like by the time they cut him out which the movie dramatizes this way but like and there you can read emails from Zuckerberg where he's basically like he's not even answering my emails. We're just gonna fuck it. We're just gonna cut him out.

[02:22:43] Yeah, and they cut him out by just making a new company. Having the new company by the old company and then completely changing the shares. And yes, they knew he would sue them and they knew they have

[02:22:51] to settle but they did it because they were just like we can't make business decisions. He's not here. Yeah, and like that's just how he got fucked over. Then he went to Ben Mesrick and was like I got fucked over

[02:23:01] and this movie was born and it's a masterpiece about toxic masculinity taking over, you know, a certain kind of toxic personality. Yeah, taking over how people interact with each other for the rest of their lives. Yeah, because one billionaire got screwed over by a bigger

[02:23:16] billionaire when they were 19 years old basically. That's just funny to think about. Yeah. No, I agree with you. I agree with you. Yeah, you agree with me. I was trying to process a cannibalism joke about the fucking chicken and army hammer.

[02:23:29] They're in the same movie and I drafted like 40 versions and none of them were worth fucking that chicken. Yeah, that was so funny. What's the other one? The it takes it takes a tender man to fuck a chicken or what do you know that one?

[02:23:42] It's one of those like famous news bloopers and I think it's a Mr. G. To make tender chicken, right is maybe the purdue line, right? And then Mr. G the local New York City newscaster legend. This was a couple years before he retired was trying to quote

[02:24:00] that and said something like it takes a tough man to fuck a tender chicken on the news and you just look at his my favorite anchor a gas and then he has to say like I apologize for the comment. I mean, it's always good. That's it.

[02:24:15] You know, that's kind of what this early Facebook era is the same era where like what did like these YouTube exists for it's like to watch clips of local newscaster say something weird. That is why we have you talking about the face machine and

[02:24:30] people leaving the party to go to this website. You were like, is that realistic number touring colleges, right? And I'm like at the fucking dorms. I'm at the fucking frat houses like parties with whoever was like, give me the guy and I'm like trying to see what the

[02:24:44] social life is. He like here. Yeah, 17 year old right trying to hang out with college didn't see if I could fit into this place. My strongest memory is being drawn into a room in a dorm away from the party where everyone's drinking and it was just people

[02:25:00] watching YouTube videos. I mean for like two hours. It was certainly true all the way back in college. Yes, someone would be like, hey, can I show you YouTube video? You'd watch it and then suddenly it's like, oh, this is our night.

[02:25:14] We're just going to keep finding more to what have you seen this one? Have you seen this one? This feels like the fun room to be. Well for Griffin Newman, especially Joe breezy Patron chug. That's where I discovered that. Have you guys ever done keg stands? Grape fall.

[02:25:27] I've never done a keg stand because I it's so disgusting. I'm more of a keg sit guy. I do love to sit or anything is the opposite of standing. Of course, there's nothing more exhilarating than getting up there. There are things that are more exciting. Gambling various drugs.

[02:25:46] Have you ever funneled a beer? I have done that. Okay. Yeah. All right. I have shotgun to beer. How fast? What's that? I didn't have a stop. Maybe I would be able to do it under 10 seconds. There were those people who could like open their throat, you

[02:26:00] know, and it will be like, oh, it's so cool in Britain. There's a yard of beer. You were what a yard of beer is. No, which is I believe I believe it. No, of course I am because I almost went to smart Cambridge, right? You're waiting. You're waiting.

[02:26:13] Listed at the good college. A yard of beer is two pints and you get served it in this sort of like, you know, six foot long like thin glass. Oh, sure to go like, you know, like, you know, it's sort of like that. Sure. Gross. Yeah.

[02:26:28] I love a beer. I love, you know, what beers for sipping flip cup flip cup. I played. See, this is where I play beer pong. I love drinking and I hated when sports cut involved. It's true low level. I see and you know what I'm saying?

[02:26:41] I'm like the people who really love that shit were jocks. Correct. And I'd be like, I finally have like a fucking social lubricant. I have a thing that like knocks my anxiety down a couple of rungs and now I have to like and hang out situations have use

[02:26:54] hand-eye coordination. Yeah, which by the way, when I'm sober. Have I ever told this story? It's very quick. I don't know but like middle school one of those sort of like scared straight health class were teaching you the dangers of

[02:27:08] drinking showing you videos about drunk driving or whatever and the teacher brought out drunk goggles, which are sort of like safety goggles that have lenses adjusted to make it look like what it feels like if you're like blackout drunk and

[02:27:22] they put a tape line on the floor and they were like one by one. Everyone's going to walk this line and then you put the goggles on try to walk the line with the goggles on this or it feels

[02:27:31] like to walk when you're drunk and the bit was it was like watching Legends of the Hidden Temple or whatever you'd watch and be like, but I'll fucking nail it when I get up there, right? I got up there and they said okay.

[02:27:41] So now walk the line without the goggles on and I fell down and then I said, okay, well give me the cause get wouldn't know we're not going to that's that's an auto fail. And I think they finally let me this is I can't believe I haven't

[02:27:57] brought this up. This is like a really kind of totemic story. I think the teacher let me put the goggles on as long as I held her and I mean, she had health and safety to worry about it while

[02:28:12] you're breaking your neck trying to learn about drinking anyway. Yeah, I don't like beer. So obviously the the coup that happens right in front of Eduardo's faces. He gets cut out of the company. Yeah, when he returns to Facebook to celebrate their million users

[02:28:36] is when he finds out, you know, tell me you have no share your sort of the timelines not the timelines but the this sort of three narrative strands of the movies are starting to speed up and get closer and closer together almost almost Dunkirk Ian.

[02:28:49] Sure, you know temporality. Yes, and you know Mark smashes his laptop. Yeah, it's like it's it's not to reduce it in this way. And I'm not even saying it's the it's the peak of his performance

[02:29:07] because I think the real strength of it is in a lot of the smaller moments we've discussed but this is the scene where you're just like it's kind of it's it is astounding even in a tough year that he didn't get the Oscar nomination.

[02:29:18] It's also he's already been cast as Spider-Man by the time this movie comes out. Is that true? Yes, he gets cast in July. The movie comes out in September. I mean Pascal cast him off of you know, having seen the finished

[02:29:35] film worked with him, but he's testing for it right after this movie is basically finished in production. Yeah, so like this movie comes out and it's one of those things where everyone's pointing to it and going like and by the way,

[02:29:48] this guy has just gotten one of the most coveted roles in Hollywood. He's going to be a star. He had that like emerging star heat around him and then this this scene is just like such a knockout. It is the what's the line? The fuck you flip-flops.

[02:30:06] There's so many good ones. Sorry, my proudest of the cleaners along with my hoodie and my fuck fuck you flip-flops you pretentious douchebag. Yes, says the Sean. And look Andrew Garfield who has a tendency to cry or at least be on the verge of tears and performances.

[02:30:22] It is it is put to great effect here. Yep. No, like him having to deliver the Gatling gun felt betrayal Sorkin delivery. He doesn't have time to wallow in it and he looks like but he's just maintaining just on the brink of complete emotional collapse,

[02:30:39] but he also looks like he's going to cry during the entire deposition. Yes, you know anytime you're coming back to him. He's like Zuckerberg sort of like this is annoying right? I should be back making Facebook and Eduardo.

[02:30:52] It feels like is like how do we fucking get to this point where we're on opposite sides of this table? I gave you Sean Parker flinched out that moment. No, it's so good. It's so good. He seems like actually genuinely intimidating and he really he scares.

[02:31:06] He really scares Garfield has a moment where he like relishes it before he even says the you know, I like about you Sean. It's a stain X you it makes me feel tall. There's a moment where he like does the fist and then he sort

[02:31:17] of like licks his lips and is kind of like, oh that worked, you know, yeah. Movie ends Sean Parker gets busted with coke. Sure. I'm trying to think of the other any other final elements. Here's a phenomenon in this movie. I don't know if we've ever mentioned.

[02:31:34] I don't I don't know if it's ever come up in reference to another film but like that scene. Has that feeling? Where I maybe it's at this point because we're so conditioned to like so many of these types of stories have now got drawn out into eight-hour miniseries.

[02:31:49] Very true, but it doesn't feel like that scene is like, oh and by the way, this movie is going to be done in less than 10 minutes. Sure. You might there might be like an hour left of this movie. You're building up such a head of steam.

[02:32:02] There's something about the fact that this movie like gets out at its peak, you know, it's set up these threads. It's able just to tie back in the two depositions and get out right. This is so close to the ending rather than having like 20 minutes

[02:32:16] of unsatisfying sort of like bow tie and this happened then this happened. Then yeah, doesn't matter and of course crucial decision for this movie given that there was so much more to happen anyway, but that's the end of the main emotional crux of the story.

[02:32:29] They're telling Rashida Jones swoops in to say like, yeah, you know, this is all pro forma. You are going to settle with these people. It won't matter to you in terms of money. You are going to be very successful and then, you know, the big

[02:32:45] Sorkin line of like, you're not an asshole. You're just trying so hard to be the mirroring the Erica Albright like it's because you're an asshole, right? Which I think is Sorkin trying to retain the audience's sympathy for this character to reassure.

[02:33:00] He is in fact a nice guy and then yes, the way Fincher There's a lot of interesting talk and in all the David Pryor documentary shit about the Fincher 100-200 takes stuff, right? Which we talked about a lot in the Fight Club.

[02:33:16] David has pushed his microphone fully away from his face. I was looking at some quotes. I'm looking at this is such a quotable movie. I just want to make sure we like mention every quote that we have already.

[02:33:27] A lot of these young actors talking about what it's like to work in as many takes, right? It said like the deposition scenes for the ones that were nightmares because you're like just in that box for like two weeks. There's so much dialogue to get through.

[02:33:46] You're going to do so many takes. 72 days. Seems like that. The amount of fucking coverage you have to do for how many different people are sitting at different sides of the table from every angle or whatever. It's like it's like two consecutive weeks of just going around

[02:33:58] that table. It does make you feel like you're going insane probably in the way that like psychologically you feel and like our six of a deposition except you're on day 10 of it. But all the actors kept on saying there's something kind of nice

[02:34:08] about it, especially Fincher being able to work digital at this point in his career where the hundred takes thing doesn't feel like it's excruciating and like he's beating you into the ground. It almost feels freeing where it's just like you're just doing

[02:34:21] an extended rehearsal and you're filming all of it. And Eisenberg who's like I'm a very self-critical actor. I'm very neurotic. I'm constantly questioning myself. I go home at night. I think I should have done it better. There's something nice about being with the director where I know

[02:34:35] he's not going to move on until he has it. I feel like it takes a lot of the pressure off of me and it takes the pressure off of any one individual take to have to be the

[02:34:43] thing which I really like and Fincher has talked about the moment he cites as like this is the reason why I do a hundred takes is I'm paraphrasing here. He said this thing of like actors they prep the thing the night

[02:34:58] before they do it a bunch in the mirror. They come in they go that's going to fucking kill. I'm going to nail it. That's my big move and you get in there and it's sort of hermetic right and it's two people who prep different things and isn't

[02:35:08] working and the circumstances are different all of that. There's a certain degree which you need to like beat things out of their system to which it becomes a routine. You've said the word so many times that you're not even thinking about what you're saying.

[02:35:20] It's just like deep in your bones and that's when these little things come out that you couldn't get otherwise these tiny things. I'm looking for it sort of much like we talked to a Kubrick where it's like he's not doing a hundred takes looking for them to

[02:35:33] achieve a thing. He's waiting for he's looking for them to do a thing that surprises him and there's the moment in the opening Erica scene where she goes like Mark listen and she keeps talking and he leans in he goes Erica like vindictively.

[02:35:47] He says her name back to him. Yeah, and Fincher's like that's like the kind of fucking moment I'm looking for which he only does on one take. It's such a weird bizarre thing that I only get if I'm filming

[02:35:57] it that many times and I'm like cross shooting it and whatever right sure and so there's a lot of like yeah watching him direct people them talking about how much they appreciate being able to go through it when he's directing Eisenberg in this final moment

[02:36:11] of refreshing the page over and over again, which I believe it seems like was the last thing Eisenberg shot in the entire movie kind of cool was his total rap in in the documentary. You do see pretty much everyone getting like wrapped out right?

[02:36:24] You know, and that's a picture wrap on boy. Yeah, although they just took the last day of filming was like three insert shots and Fincher walked up to Sorkin said I'm going to do the first two.

[02:36:33] I'm going to get in the car you direct the third one which is cool and he was like that was him trying to help me start which maybe we need to hold him accountable for yeah, maybe Fincher's canceling.

[02:36:41] Maybe don't give him that much confidence as a director, but he was like you see him over Eisenberg shoulder kind of doing the similar bullet points of like and here are the things remember that's factoring into this as you're refreshing in this and that

[02:36:54] Whatever and he's like, but here's I want give me a take just all that in your head. Give me like nothing. Give me nothing. I don't need to play any intent on this is like I want you to play

[02:37:05] this in a way where we can read whatever we want on your face here, but there is something to the way he constantly and a lot of it's the score as well, but also the way he shoots Eisenberg who has like very odd angular features.

[02:37:19] He's almost always lighting him in this way. We're like his eyes are lost in shadow under his brow, you know, and and he's he's physically playing the role like he's a bit like green more worm tongue or something.

[02:37:35] You know, he's like it always feels like he's almost like recoiling away from the camera at odd angles and there's something about that refreshing and the way it actually plays out that stops it from being a cute ending, especially in the wake of the Rashida

[02:37:55] Jones line that maybe aims to exonerate the character or at least you know realign our sympathy. I think it I don't know if it's real. I think it's just I think that we can talk about it, but I think this ending does make him feel so thoroughly pathetic.

[02:38:10] It's pathetic and you're like it all just still comes back down to this like that one fucking I think feeling this guy that's broken. Yes that I don't think I feel like that's a good guy.

[02:38:20] I think Sorkin is like the a lot of this isn't out of malice. It's out of an inability to connect with people. I don't think that Sorkin thinks that he's a good guy. It's why I'm interested in him saying is the audience still rooting

[02:38:33] for him because I think he's still worried about audiences are going to bail out on this movie if they don't like this guy and Fincher recognizes that they're telling a much larger story, right? And that it doesn't matter whether anyone likes this guy or rooting for him, right?

[02:38:47] This is sociological at this point. It's not about audience sympathy for one person in the personal journey, you know, it's emblematic of a much larger thing, which is why it's important that like this final moment is just such

[02:38:59] an empty husk thing of just like all of this for nothing. You know the final you have these sort of inner titles over him refreshing refreshing refreshing catching up on a lot of the settlement deal in the world.

[02:39:12] Everyone got right and then cut to black to what end he still just hates the fact that she won't acknowledge him made a badass website though. Yeah, and I can find out if someone's in a relationship or it's complicated for example, you know, they had their favorite favorite

[02:39:27] quotes flip some dank Pepe memes. All right. Let me see if there are any like funny lines that we haven't thought about. I mean, there's six five. I'm two. I'm six five to twenty and there's two of me.

[02:39:41] If you're an adventure to Facebook, we would have you would have invented Facebook. I think we did a good job and realize I do like the best podcast. I don't even know who that I don't even know who the speaker was. It was Bill Gates shit.

[02:39:53] That makes sense. Yeah, very good. So every little part in this is so good. Yes, right like every two-line performance is so good and some of them are people where you're like, oh and then he went on to become a little guy Jones.

[02:40:06] Yeah, but for as many of them, I'm like that guy nails his part so fucking hard in a Fincher movie drop the where's he now? Do we say drop the vote just face like we did at the beginning of the miniseries. It was funny. I don't like that.

[02:40:20] You know, let's see if there's just gonna just stroke your beard and go through every it's a David's a lot of quotes a very long. I went through it last night because I at one point I thought I was going to type out a longer pages long intro.

[02:40:34] I was going to go full. Let me be Frank and do more extensive word replacement. You and I arguing over open your present who created a link. You ever seen me wear a scarf. It'll be your first. That was really funny.

[02:40:49] I guess no, that's the only thing we can talk about is this like the humbling of Sean Parker him getting busted at the party where it's just like the second cop show up. It's so pathetic that this guy is here with the interns. I'm being creepy. Yeah.

[02:41:04] Well, that's why you're just like this guy still for how much Mark looks and it's like he has to figure it out. He fucking dates Victoria's Secret models. He still wants to impress the exact kinds of people who would have dismissed him in high school and college.

[02:41:15] Of course, the real Sean Parker famously had a wedding that cost a million dollars is almost themed after Lord of the Rings. I'm sorry president summers, but what you just said makes no sense to me at all. I'm devastated by that. So funny.

[02:41:27] He's got this like I was the US Treasury secretary. I mean some position to make Scott. That's like almost British little to his voice, which is very I don't know if he spent a lot of time in the process of Gary. Yeah. I'm devastated by that. Yeah.

[02:41:42] Yeah, it's just I'm sick. We should move off of the quotes page. I don't know. We're done. Okay. Yeah, we really did hit everything. That's a good job by us. Shop for 72 days. Just going to clear up anything else in the dossier.

[02:41:57] They didn't mostly were not allowed to shoot on Harvard campus. Harvard didn't want them to so they mostly use John Hopkins Johns Hopkins. But of course the shot through Cambridge, you know, Harvard doesn't Own most of that property. He's jogging through so they could do that.

[02:42:11] They built a battery-packed light cart that they would like follow around with him to like light the scenes like, you know, which is cool. They also there's that shot when he's leaving the bar and you sort of like pan across downtown Boston with a bunch of the Harvard

[02:42:28] buildings. It's where the social network title comes up for the first time And that shot is entirely constructed of like super high-def images taken like piece by piece because they he was like Harvard was antagonistic to us right?

[02:42:46] You try to block us in every way and so they ended up shooting around as much as they could bunk soundstage is going to other places whatever but like that shots basically constructed of like 15 shots that they visually all titled together and had to be lit individually

[02:43:01] not by the car. I don't know if they use this for that for some of these other sequences as well. But this is just Jordan Cronenweth was talking about this for that they had a mime who had a backpack with all the lights on it to

[02:43:14] stay right outside of the frame. Yes, they did have a mime. And he was like why a mime? And he was like because cops are going to be trying to shut us down and Harvard will have them on warning.

[02:43:22] If it's a truck, if it's a crew guy, they'll stop without like any hesitation. If it's a mime, they're going to be so confused about what's going on and it will basically have at least two minutes of them trying

[02:43:34] to go shit with a mime and being like do we have to let them finish their routine before they actually shut it down. There's also something kind of fancy about miming that it fits a little bit like on campus.

[02:43:46] But Cronenweth the DP was basically saying like it's great than on like a 40 million dollar studio movie. There's something still kind of like student film, guerrilla punk rock and Fincher wanting to like psychologically break down how

[02:43:58] to get the movie made not just assuming all the resources in the world. I know also when he signed on to do this movie, I think Pascal was like we have this budget for 20 million dollars and Fincher was

[02:44:09] like I need 40 and they were like this is a high school movie. This is a college movie that mostly takes place in rooms. We have no big stars. Why does it need to cost 40 million dollars?

[02:44:20] And he was like look, I know I have this reputation for being like going over budget being exacting all this sort of shit. But like I don't waste a penny. I read the script. I know exactly how much it's going to cost me to make it right.

[02:44:31] I know the time I need to do everything. There's not a piece of equipment I ever rent that I don't use on the day. I don't leave things on the truck just in case like this is the

[02:44:41] amount of money to do this correctly and you watch a lot of this David Pryor shit and I'm just like no one fucking gets the bandwidth to make movies this way anymore on any level where you watch the

[02:44:51] amount of rehearsals he does of like Brenda song fucking lighting The fire and like the fucking camera test in the wardrobe test and all this shit where it's just like this is a movie for how much Fincher said my style in this was trying to have no style.

[02:45:05] There's no lighting set up that took more than 15 minutes. I'm trying to be an obtrusive because it's mostly the dialogue and the performance is carrying it get time to just finesse everything to the point of being exactly correct music video obviously

[02:45:23] seven bringing him on board is maybe the most influential thing in the movie business that he did. Yeah, basically the most iconic score of the decade and then launches so copied, you know, and then of course their own careers amazing. Yeah, and it is

[02:45:41] On going diverse and diffuse and yeah, when I interviewed them when I interviewed everyone who worked on make they were the people I was obviously the most terrified to talk to and Trent Reznor is really soft-spoken and quiet and kind of tough to get an answer out

[02:45:56] and then fanatics Ross is the most lovely garrulous British guy ever who's just like oh, yeah, you know we had some trombones on this one, you know, like the opposite of him sure. So they must have some weird. Yeah, you know creative chemistry. That's beautiful.

[02:46:10] Box office game box office game. This film was a hit. Yeah gross 97 million just short a hundred. It's kind of a shame. They couldn't push it to a hundred worldwide 225 but against a budget of 40 so it did very well a movie that will play forever

[02:46:24] 100% of the most rewatchable films of modern history. It opened at number one on October 1st 2010 22 million dollar opening weekend number really does first. Nope over first week of October and it's number two. What do you hear on the wind? It's not the owls of the cool.

[02:46:46] Flapping in on its second weekend Legend of the Guardians the owls of Gahool. Oh, wow at what? Well in its second weekend, they've made 10 to add to their total of 30. Okay, but they are holding fast at number two because number

[02:47:03] one has dropped to number three a much-mined sequel long awaited seek a legacy equal of sorts to a Oscar-winning 80s drama. Oh, it's Wall Street money never sleeps. No money you never sleep not on Wall Street. Oliver Stone's Wall Street to a movie as an

[02:47:23] interesting as its title is incredible terrible movie has also made about 35 million dollars a bit of a disappointment that film although given how bad it was it actually did like give the whole piece of shit. This is should be happy you made a dollar when this came out.

[02:47:40] There were some staff that like Shia LaBeouf had had seven consecutive number one openers or something like that, right? Yes. Yes and Shia LaBeouf had this just brutal quote where he was just like yeah, but look at the movies.

[02:47:50] I was attached to I don't give myself credit that Frankie Muniz could have opened all these movies to number four Frankie. Three Transformers Indiana Jones. All right, Wall Street. They would have made the same money with I'm realizing we need to order food.

[02:48:05] Okay, but okay number three at the box office, but you're right horrible burn on Frankie Muniz. Yeah, number four the box office is a great, you know again sort of grown-up drama. It's a thriller. Okay, made sort of similar to the opening hours of September release.

[02:48:23] It's a September release. Okay, but did similar to you know made like a 90s domestic. It's an R-rated film though. R-rated September 2010. What studio released the picture? The Warner Brothers. So the two of them. Warner Brothers film and it's not The Town. It is The Town.

[02:48:42] Ben Affleck's The Town a great film. Duh Town. Yes, number five a rom-comedy for teenagers. A rom-comedy for teenagers in 2010. The Good People. Sony Pictures. Was it Screen Gems or was it Sony Pictures? Is it EZA? It's a mainline Sony. It's EZA. Right. With Emma Stone.

[02:49:10] Another example of I mean, I guess super bad is Star Trek. Superstar given her vehicle. Who knows she might win her second Oscar this year. We don't know it could happen some other films you again. Oh, yes you again. I kind of like you again. Really?

[02:49:26] I've never seen that's the Kristen Bell one right with Betty White. I believe. Yeah, Jamie Lee Curtis. So we're all tearing up pictures. Yeah, who's the other young woman in that or is it? Yes, Annabelle a death a date. Yes, man. Annabelle about Annabelle. Yes, man.

[02:49:42] Okay, someone can someone just like take a little you know, paperclip and reboot. I swear to God something I said in there was correct. I think you're right. Went through a couple names number seven opening this week a movie called case 39.

[02:49:56] I feel like that's one of those like much delayed that was I think that's a Rene's though. I said it was one of those things that was shot in 2006. Yes came out four years later. Yeah opening to five million dollars.

[02:50:09] You've also got let me in Matt Reeves is let me in a huge bomb opening at number eight a movie. I can tend is very good. It's good movie. Obviously not as good as the original but one of the better American

[02:50:20] remakes of a perfect movie that never needed to be remade right definitely needed a TV show number nine. Well, that's what they finally cracked it devil. Oh, I'm not sure I'm on presents elevator devil. You know, they often say the devil's in the details.

[02:50:34] I find the devil's in the elevator number 10 in the elevator. Miss that one. What if someone in the elevator is the devil number 10 an animated film? I have never heard of called Alpha and Omega. Oh, yeah, David. It's a Lionsgate release. It's sort of Balto runoff.

[02:50:51] They have made like seven direct-to-video Alpha and Omega is the new land before time Ben wants to do something just wanted to guess was the tagline going down. Devil are we going to end the episode on that?

[02:51:04] I think I think the tagline for that one was from M night Shyamalan. I will of course he produced it. It was based on his story. We've talked about on his miniseries people laughing. Yes, and when his name would come up in the trailer people would laugh.

[02:51:19] No, here is the tagline for devil. It's a pretty ordinary tagline going down with well, there were actually two taglines. The first one bad things happen for a reason weird tag. Bad things happen at good elevators.

[02:51:31] The second tagline which I think was more trying to hit the elevator thing was five strangers trapped. One of them is not what they seem. It's like, okay, Jesus. Okay, we get it when I'm there in an elevator.

[02:51:40] Those are both terrible going down was should be my tagline should be my tagline going down and then you go down like to halfway down the poster new line all the way down and then further down the poster further.

[02:51:56] This is made you look I mean down to hell that's where the elevator is going. It's going down to hell and then it says but this movie is good though. You should check it out from the twisted mind of $11.

[02:52:05] So, all right, I have to pee so badly Griffin. So just take us out unless there's anything you want to say about the social network because I don't think we talked about it much on this episode. It wins the Oscar for score and for screenplay and maybe editing.

[02:52:23] I think I have three wins. Is that right? But yeah, I feel like it's thought of as one of the story. I remember this one win was almost surprising. You were kind of like, oh good for them. Like this is a different kind of score.

[02:52:35] Like yes felt a little more modern than this screenplay win felt fairly sewn up like felt done because it's such a written movie. The whole campaign was can you believe that Aaron Sorkin doesn't have an Oscar? It felt inevitable. A little bit of that.

[02:52:49] Yeah, but I feel like this one is kind of our modern. Yeah, editing is the other one which is funny because then they Angus Baxter and Kirk, Kirk Baxter, sorry, and Angus will also win for Dragon Tattoo the year later. They went back to back editing Oscars.

[02:53:03] It's I think this is in that like good fellas dances with wolves pantheon of just being like, okay, we enjoyed the King speech but come the fuck on. And like with every year the absurdity like it only grows. Yes. Yes.

[02:53:18] Yeah, because as much as an Eisenberg lost to Colin Firth which you know first performance is very strong like and he had given a great performance the year before like there's a lot of love for him. Yes, but in retrospect, you're like what the fuck happened here?

[02:53:30] You know, like it's just. Iseberg would have been the youngest best actor winner ever wouldn't be we would have beaten out that goodbye girl. Yeah, RD. Where's it Brody Brody's like 29 and Eisenberg was 26. I mean, I think you're correct that he would have been the youngest.

[02:53:47] I just can't remember if Brody took the prize from Dreyfus. Yes, he did. It's just because it's one of those things for you like Richard Dreyfus was 30 when he made a goodbye girl. You're like I watched the goodbye girl.

[02:53:55] The man is 65 and I know what you're talking about now. Lex G will sometimes use the term aging like Dreyfus which it's really but yeah, obviously this film was highly acclaimed and the fact that it did so well just set Fincher up for the next few years.

[02:54:16] Yeah, and it's good. I think it's good. I think it's really good. He's pretty pretty terrific picture. I'm on the record. Okay, we need to end this David STP and we have to record another episode. We do thank you all for listening.

[02:54:30] Please remember to rate review and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media. I think do we shut down her Facebook page? I think we did right or is it still there just to hold the space? It's I think inactive. I think it's an active.

[02:54:45] I don't know. Let me look. Yeah, let's look into it. Thank you for our social media Facebook included or excluded and helping to produce the show. Thank you to agent McKeon and Alex Baron for our editing JJ Burks for our

[02:54:57] research Lane Montgomery in the Great American Novel for our theme song. Jabo and Pat Reynolds for our artwork. You can go to blank check pod.com for links to some real nerdy shake including our patreon blank check special features where we do commentaries on film series right now.

[02:55:15] We're doing the Pierce Brosnan Bond movies and also every 10 days if you want to sign up for a free membership, we unlock an episode from three years ago, including the alien series which times into our alien 3 episode recently can listen to all of those.

[02:55:32] How's your Facebook looking bad? Well, it's not allowing me to look at the page saying I must log in. Okay, so I have a feeling that we it's not public anymore. It is in fact deactivated.

[02:55:46] I'll try logging in on my sniffing Pumon account that once again has zero friends do not friend request me and it only exists. We should just to sink. I think it's funny though. I want people to hear it. Okay, it exists to sink into Disney emoji blitz.

[02:56:04] I'm going to reject every request you send you're going to get a bunch of requests. Anyway, you know it guess what? I never fucking log in. I don't care. You're not getting in.

[02:56:12] I have no friends and I never will tune in next week for the girl with the dragon tattoo got big-ass tattoo pen. I know she is incredible looks in the movie Marie just walked in. Hello.

[02:56:28] I was hoping in my time out where when Griffin thanked you you would have walked in the door. It almost worked out. I'm also now I'm like does David leave the bathroom before I finish the episode?

[02:56:38] Can we be playing the Trent Reznor music over this the outro so it sounds really kind of like sad and haunted or is that going to get us into copyright claims? We can recreate it because it's so sparse anyway.

[02:56:49] Okay, so yeah, yeah, can we do like the blank check theme in the like Trent Reznor style? Absolutely. Okay, that's what we're doing and David's out of the bathroom. We're still going. We're still going.

[02:57:01] Griffin is stretched it out because Marie came in and you know, I mean we had to make sure that the episode was, you know, well it is already three hours three hours. Yeah, three hours isn't cool. You know, it's cool. What four hours perfect. Mr. Newman.

[02:57:20] Do I have your full attention? No. Do you think I deserve it? What do you think I deserve your full attention? I had swear an oath before he began this deposition. I don't want to perjure myself. So I have a legal obligation to say no. Okay.

[02:57:34] No, you don't think I deserve your attention. I think if your clients want to sit on my shoulders and call themselves tall they have the right to give it a try but there's no requirement that I enjoy sitting here listening to people lie.

[02:57:44] You have part of my attention. You have the minimum amount the rest of my attention is back at the offices of blank check productions where my co-host and I are doing things make fuck. Let me take that part again. No, you said doing things.

[02:57:56] No, that's not what I want to do. I'm just gonna take that part again or do you want to do the whole thing from the beginning? No, I was kneeling it. Let's do it again from the beginning for a rhythm. Oh, yes. What do it David?

[02:58:07] Do it David. Do it.