It's a three-for. Because I'm awesome? Nah, I'm lazy.
Since the Oscars are this weekend, let's start the Up, Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, and The Social Network trifecta review with The Social Network.
My first thought was that I couldn't follow the opening scene. I wasn't used to the pace of the dialogue and I simply wasn't prepared. I got the gist, but I definitely missed a portion of the scene due to not being ready for the shear volume of dialogue. My second thought was, "Zuckerberg had all these people following his blog even before he was super-famous-rich?" Wow.
I liked the way the movie progressed with the story while the hearings were taking place. Eisenberg did a great job of portraying a Zuckerberg character that is a complete douche who has little skill in dealing in social circumstances. His retorts to the lawyers were enjoyable to say the least.
Justin Timberlake was good in the movie, not like, "wow, he should get an award", but more like a "wow, I'm not completely distracted from the fact that he's Justin Timberlake - is he going to sing 'Rock Your Body'? I love that song, if he pops his shirt off maybe my wife will want some action sooner rather than later..."-kind of way.
The end of the movie states that the Winklevoss twins settled with the Zuck for $65 million and signed a non-disclosure agreement. Per their recent interview on Piers Morgan, that supposedly didn't settle things and they're still going for more (BuDa Note: they're contesting the agreement from three years ago. Convenient timing, strike while the irons hot I guess, still, their main argument is that they were too stupid to understand what they signed in 2008) - their basic statement that now the company is worth a few billion, they deserve a larger share. Personally, this was the most intriguing piece of the movie to me. Most people who I know got into Facebook when it was still TheFacebook.com, before you could state whether you 'Like'd something, and when you needed to be in COLLEGE (not high school, or just have an email). The evolution of Facebook is pretty amazing, and the question of what the Zuck stole versus what he created is most intriguing to me.
Harvard Connection versus Facebook - Harvard Connection was supposed to start by highlighting only Harvard.edu students, and presenting their pictures. The movie portrays that Facebook goes lives only after Mark introduces the "Relationship Status" and "Interested In" qualifications. According to the movie, these two ideas are purely Mark Zuckerberg's intellectual property, and arguably the basis for Facebook and it's success. Beyond this, Zuckerberg expands Facebook beyond only Harvard and is dedicated to making sure it is never offline - as well as developing "The Wall".
Will be interesting to see how this actually plays out in real life, but as far as the Oscars go, Sorkin is probably due for Best Screenplay, and who knows what else. The movie was a good movie, maybe Fincher will get something for the direction. I'm not a film buff, and I've seen none of the other movies (except Toy Story 3 - Go Woody!, "There's a snake in ma boot!") but I don't know if this movie is getting any acting awards. Who knows. I liked the movie, so did BuDaChick.
For those who don't want me to geek it up just yet with Spider-Man chatter, I'll go with my UP review next...
This movie, I thought, was awesome. I don't know where Pixar gets off making really enjoyable and emotional movies. I don't know where the son of a bitches get off making me feel upset about inanimate objects (i.e. - Toys), fish, and now digitized old people, and their cohorts. Seriously. I should feel this emotional about a cartoon? Maybe I'm pregnant... (right? pregnant women get overly emotional at things they shouldn't be getting emotional about, right?)
The idea that someone could uproot their home from it's foundations with a significant amount of balloons is pretty entertaining in and of itself, however, I was thinking about how the house didn't fly away during the night when Carl was filling them up and preparing his house for flight. Seriously, the tarp must have been anchored to the backyard, and it must have been some serious tarp.
Beyond that, the movie is completely delightful. The idea that Carl doesn't want to leave his home, so instead of leaving he uproots it altogether is both real and fantastic. Real in the sense that these are real feelings, and it was executed in a completely believable manner, not that the house floating away on balloons is believable as real.
My favorite character was Doug. Doug was just too freaking funny. Really, all the dog's were. Beyond Doug and the dogs I really enjoyed SQUIRREL! . . . . I really enjoyed Kevin, and that Kevin was a she.
This movie was a really heartwarming story, and I dare you to not have all sorts of emotions flying when you read Ellie's words to Carl at the end of the movie. Dare you, you heartless son of a bitch.
Finally, I get to nerd it up with a little comic book discussion. VIDEO GAME TIME and it's about my man, Spider-Man!
Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions is a video game that takes place as Mysterio steals a tablet, Spider-Man intervenes, the tablet breaks, and that broken tablet is now tearing apart time and space. Spider-Men across time and space are called together to aid in the retrieval and reassembling of the tablet.
Weak story right? Wrong! I mean, yeah, you're totally right. This story is weak as shit.
I can deal with that. Why? It's eff-ing Spider-Man, man! Can I web sling, can I kick ass? Well then I'll get some enjoyment out of this game!
Unfortunately, this game is not designed as a free roam world. It's designed as levels. Level 1, tutorial, enter Act 1, one level per Spider-Man type, three acts, and one final level. BORING. Why can't I swing around the city? This sucks about this game. That's two strikes - shitty story (which I can get beyond if the game is fun) and a shitty way to play a game that has produced free roam Spider-Man'ing of New York City before.
How about the controls? The controls are unfortunately inconsistent. Right trigger sets into motion the series of events that start a web sling. Spider-Man shoots out web and start swinging - you then release the trigger, and start it again to keep the process going. Unfortunately (and I don't think my controller is broken) there is a split second delay from when I press and hold the Right trigger to when the web slinging starts. Most levels are linear, and are preset at "heights" that you can't drop too far. Fortunately the designers have a "recover" setting instead of forcing a checkpoint reload, because without wanting to you'll reach that threshold in no time.
The web-zip from Ultimate Spider-Man is gone, in favor of signals popping up on the HUD throughout the game where you can tap Right trigger to "web-zip" to that location, in any direction. This is probably why there's the delay on the web sling, and unfortunately you can't control the specific location you want to zip to, you have to hope the HUD selects something close to where you want to go.
One portion of the web slinging/zipping/jumping/running portion of the game is that interesting is that if you release a web sling and fall towards a series of pillars, or posts, Spider-Man gravitates towards the tops of those posts, or to balance on a power line. This is great when you want it to work, but to get off the top of a light pole you can't exactly jump up and down to the road, you'll end back up on the light pole. You just have to press and hold towards the direction you want to go.
The four Spider-Men are the Amazing Spider-Man (typical Spider-Man, original, voiced by NPH), the 2099 dimension, the Noir dimension and the Ultimate dimension, who to differentiate from Amazing is wearing the symbiote costume. Amazing and Ultimate are similar except that as Ultimate you have more power, and can enter rage mode, while Amazing can string together pretty bad ass combos. 2099 has similar but different moves, and the levels are a little dark. Noir is the most gimmicky dimension. I read reviews where people liked the Noir dimension the best - this was terribly boring. Instead of fighting your way through, you stay in the shadows and silently takedown your opponents by pressing the B button.
Best level is the Deadpool level in the Ultimate dimension. Closest to free roam as you'll get. I got a bronze medal for time. I sucked it all in!
All-in-all, this game is fun. The levels are too long. Took me around 45 minutes per level on my first go through. Personally, I like shorter missions instead of one single monotonous level. More variation would be good. I also like free roam. If the missions weren't cookie cutter over and over and over (meet the boss, beat the guys, fight the boss, beat more guys, beat the boss) with nonsense in the middle, I might have enjoyed it more.
Finally, if you didn't click on the links above, here are the embedded videos for your enjoyment (the Winklevoss link is provided, not embedded).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4Yr2Mw98Kc
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