"The Social Network" (2010)

At the end of David Fincher's "The Social Network," a young lawyer who's been sitting in on the depositions with Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) says to him, "You're not an asshole, Mark. You're just trying so hard to be one." Played expertly by Jesse Eisenberg in his meatiest role yet, Zuckerberg is a weasel of a man, a neurotic genius who is acid-tongued, bitter and condescending. Eisenberg is used to playing the likable nerd. This time he plays a nerd all right, but this one is utterly unlikable and unable to connect with anyone. Consider the opening scene of the movie as Zuckerberg has a beer with his girlfriend, Erica (Rooney Mara soon to star in Fincher's "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"). Their conversation seems normal at first but upon further listening, you realize how strangely he is interacting. It's darkly comedic but also deeply unsettling as is the rest of Eisenberg's performance. Zuckerberg verbally assaults Erica and is not so much talking with her than piling all of his rage-filled grievances onto her. She promptly dumps him and heads toward the door not before turning around and calling him, yes, an asshole.

And this is the young man who founded Facebook at Harvard back in 2003 and is now the youngest billionaire. He is a computer programming genius obsessed with being included, driven by his idealist vision and yet so blind-sided by it that he becomes a Citizen Kane for the Internet age, a man whose goals overwhelm his ability to remain engaged in the world around him. Mark Zuckerberg is the anti-hero of our time. Director David Fincher ("Zodiac," "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button") and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin ("The West Wing") are a miracle of a pairing who have taken the story behind the founding of Facebook and turned it into a modern epic that is endlessly compelling. This is a rush of contemporary filmmaking that is brilliantly entertaining and even more brilliant in its resonant implications and unexpected emotional wallop.

Based on the book "The Accidental Billionaire" by Ben Mezrich, Sorkin takes what could have been a complex and muddled tale and shapes it into an easy to follow and fascinating fact-based structure full of searing and intelligent dialogue that rewards big for paying close attention. The narrative shifts back and forth in time between Zuckerberg's creation of the revolutionary website and the depositions surrounding the lawsuits that followed its success. Aiding in the storytelling is the impressive and sleek editing as well as the cinematography from Jeff Cronenweth which bathes every visual in a gorgeous sheen. A tantalizing and ominous musical score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross fits the mood.

Back in his dorm room after getting dumped by Erica, Zuckerberg sits down and writes a nasty blog post about her that gets us angry and disgusted. He doesn't stop there and creates a site called Facemash by hacking into the "facebooks" of Harvard dorms, gathering up the head shots of female students and placing them side by side to judge their looks. The site gets a resounding number of hits to the point where it crashes the campus server. The act is illegal and puts Zuckerberg on the map. He soon gets approached by a pair of rich twins, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (Armie Hammer), who are on the prestigious rowing team and have an idea for a website called the Harvard Connection. After accepting their offer to help build the site, Zuckerberg privately talks it down claiming how juvenile their techniques are and goes on to create his own site, Facebook.

Of course there's no way he could do it on his own. He recruits the help of his only friend, Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), who lends all the money to start up the site and becomes CFO of the company. Praise is due for Andrew Garfield whose performance is the movie's moral compass and soul juxtaposed against Zuckerberg's own soulless proceedings. When he eventually is betrayed by his friend, Garfield shows a painful devastation in Eduardo that cannot be matched. Both Garfield and Eisenberg greatly deserve Oscar nominations for their phenomenal work.

The glitz of fame and fortune is presented to Zuckerberg and Eduardo through the cocky and charismatic co-founder of Napster, Sean Parker, who is played with conviction by Justin Timberlake. Parker takes them to flashy clubs, elegant dinners, house parties with underage drinking and drug use and becomes an idol to Zuckerberg as the one who pulls him into the big leagues. When Parker convinces a move to California, that's when Eduardo gets left behind by his ex-comrade.

The movie is a surprising thriller, a social observation on why Zuckerberg screwed over the people he did. In the same moment when he is called an asshole by the young lawyer, Zuckerberg slumps down before his laptop and goes to his ex-girlfriend Erica's Facebook page contemplating whether to request to be her friend. His blank stare as he repeatedly hits the refresh button sums up the cruel irony of "The Social Network." For something our culture relies so heavily on, something we ourselves have become obsessed with checking more than once or twice a day, the fact that its origin comes from an act of scorn by an angry nerd against those in his own social circle is quietly disturbing. This is a movie about the way we live today, a cautionary tale looking back at who invented this way of living. It is the ambivalence of our relationships and the ambivalence of Facebook itself. This is not only one of the year's best movies but very well may be the best movie of the year. It is easily the most important one you will see all year.

"Devil" (2010)

M. Night Shyamalan may no longer be able to aptly write or direct a movie, but there's no denying he's a good storyteller. In perhaps what it could be considered an attempt to reinvent his image, "Devil" is the first entry in a planned series of movies being called the Night Chronicles which are produced by Shyamalan and stem from his original story ideas. He comes up with the story and has others do the work. So, while this first feature, "Devil," has direction from Drew Dowdle ("Quarantine") and a screenplay from Brian Nelson ("30 Days of Night"), the story comes from the mind of Shyamalan, and as a result the movie will more than likely still be placed on his reputation. It's a good thing, then, that this movie doesn't suck.

The premise is intriguing: a group of five strangers get stuck in an elevator inside a high-rise office building only to then be tormented by one of their own who may or may not be the devil himself. Equally intriguing is the deliciously ominous opening credits panning across an upside-down Philadelphia skyline which is fittingly unsettling. This initial intrigue expands beyond just the setup as there's actually a lot more to the story than just what the trailers hint at and qualifies this little movie as an effective claustrophobic thriller, a tightly-wound one boasting an efficient script and brisk pacing within a 80-minute running time.

The elevator inhabitants all have one thing in common, and it's that they're all sinners. The story goes that the devil takes human form and torments the damned before claiming someone as his own. There's a mattress salesman (Geoffrey Armend), a security guard (Bokeem Woodbine), an ex-Marine (Logan Marshall-Green), a beautiful businesswoman (Bojana Novakovic) and an older lady (Jenny O'Hara). Their time on the elevator together leads to rising tempers, skepticism and terror. The inhabitants are offed one by one in increasingly gruesome ways, but who's to blame? The most important character in the matter is actually one not shown in the trailers. He's Detective Bowden (Chris Messina), and he's dedicated to rescuing the trapped victims.

None of it is particularly scary, but it does maintain an uncomfortable level of suspense and tension that keeps you on edge without the use of any gratuitous violence or gore. The jolts come from some creative camera work and a nerve-racking use of darkness as the elevator goes pitch black at the most inconvenient of moments. The twist ending--yes, of course there's a twist ending--is a bit of a cheat but easy to forgive considering the circumstances. And don't dwell too much on the film's blatant musings on religion, fate and redemption. Just enjoy the tantalizing fun the premise of "Devil" promises and, for the most part, delivers.

"Easy A" (2010)

In the tired genre of teen movies, which then got rejuvenated with the likes of "Superbad" and then exhausted again, here is "Easy A" which flips the genre on its head again pumping it with a level of sharp, intelligent satire that'll have even Diablo Cody blushing. And as a teen movie derived from classic literature, such as "Clueless," "10 Things I Hate About You" and "She's the Man," this movie uses Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlett Letter" to clever effect. It's the story of a girl named Olive Penderghast who is labeled as the school skank at East Ojai High School. The truth, though, is that she's a virgin, and it starts with one fib to her best friend about how she spent her weekend. Embarrassed to admit she spent it dancing around her room singing along to "Pocket Full of Sunshine," Olive creates an elaborate story about how she lost her V-card to a college guy.

Olive is embodied by Emma Stone (probably most recognizable from "Zombieland"), the beautiful, husky-voiced redhead who exudes genuine charm and sass in every single scene. Sometimes there are those actors who go unnoticed until a certain role lets them shine. This is Stone's role, and she's now, safe to say, a breakout star. She is irresistible and nothing short of remarkable as Olive who wears her skimpy lingerie wardrobe and embroidered letter A to match her reputation with such biting wit and irony that it goes right over the heads of all her peers. Nobody knew who she was at her high school until she became known for her floozy promiscuity, and now everyone knows her. Rather than denying the bold claims against her, Olive embraces her new imaginary and degrading identity.

Olive finds a way to put her new rep to good use by helping out a gay classmate named Brandon (Dan Byrd) who gets harassed at school. At a bustling party, Olive stages a drunken hookup with Brandon allowing for the bullying against him to stop. Word of this favor gets out, however, and while there are still those who believe Olive is legitimately whoring around there is now a sector of guys who are willing to pay Olive in gifts to let them say she slept with them. Lies get piled upon lies and stories continually get more twisted placing Olive under the scrutiny of the worst of the school population including Marianne (a hilarious turn by Amanda Bynes), an overly pious bitch who promotes Olive's exploits as a lesson to everyone else.

One of the movie's best features is Olive's relationship with the adults in this hormone-filled environment. Her parents are played effortlessly by the talented Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson who are admirable, understanding and almost impossibly down-to-earth, funny and kind. The scenes between them and Olive are full of joy and warmth. Thomas Haden Church is great as a teacher, Mr. Griffith, who attempts to view Olive's situation from an objective lens even as his wife, Mrs. Griffith (Lisa Kudrow), the school's guidance counselor, takes a certain interest in it. Lisa Kudrow is also great, and her maniacal whimsy makes me wish she could land a lead role in something soon.

Director Will Gluck ("Fired Up!") and writer Bert V. Royal have made "Easy A" not only a great comedy but a really great, a surprisingly and pleasingly great, movie that is near-perfect on its own terms. What makes it that good? It's the level of sophistication at which every instance of comic timing and variation has been spun from the simple and potentially one-trick premise. It's the way the movie is an ode to 80s teen movies while keeping with the spirit of today's habits of social networking and the rumor mill and doing so with such verve. And, of course, it's Emma Stone, the exuberant delight that she is.

"Machete" (2010)

Remember how "Grindhouse," the 2007 exploitation cinema epic from directing team Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, had those fake trailers in between the two features? Well, something had to come from those trailers, and here it is from Rodriguez: an expanded feature length version of his trailer and arguably the best of the trailers, "Machete." As the trailer was so pitch-perfect, Rodriguez certainly knows his way around the genre of trashy 70s action flicks. The movie works like a Hispanic blaxploitation movie, and while outlandishly violent, gory and preposterous it is also loudly political and timely which actually become the movie's most tongue-in-cheek moments. So now with the full movie to accompany the trailer, it boils down to whether or not less is more in the case of this battered and scarred federale.

Danny Trejo plays the lead, and at the age of 66 he carries the part effortlessly as a badass just as he did in the trailer. With a scar covered face, a tattooed body and long haggard hair, Trejo never cracks one smile and says lines like, "Machete don't text" with such flat, assured delivery that he's funny without even trying. With an all-business, blade-slashing attitude, he gets the women and mows down the bad guys with astonishing reserve. As Machete, he gets set up to assassinate a racist Texas politician (Robert De Niro) who wants to stop illegal immigration by implementing a large electric fence on the Mexican border. Arriving at the job, he gets double-crossed and left for dead (all described in the original trailer) leaving him to fend for his life and take revenge on those who hurt him. Revolucion is in the air, blades get sharpened and the blood begins to spew.

The movie's mood is perpetually pissed off, and while this allows the action and dialogue to seethe with rage it also detracts from its ability to have as much fun as it perhaps could have. A lot of bits are funny in their intentional B-movie flair, but many of the characters' one-liners actually fall flat on their face. And in its openly deadpan mockery of exploitation schlock full of gratuitous levels of sleaze, it tips too far into the self-serious realm, and for a few instances it becomes exactly the type of schlock it initially wants to satirize. Rodriguez and his co-director Ethan Maniquis have a love for the genre but too often forget to wink more knowingly at their audience.

There are some absurdly brutal action sequences including the rousing opening along with one involving a person's intestines and medical utensils and another boasting the creative use of gardening tools such as a weed whacker. A lot of this action, however, is front-loaded and wears out its shock value far too early in the rather lengthy running time. It begins to lose momentum by the end when the chaos should have been ramping up the most. A lot of it turns into waiting for certain bits from the fake trailer, which do make their way into the real thing, and they end up being some of the very best parts. Some of the mid-section turns to unnecessary plodding, which goes to answering the initial question of whether or not less is more.

From Steven Seagal who has the appearance of a lumpy piece of meat to Jessica Alba and Michelle Rodriguez who are equally obliged to just look hot, the ensemble cast is great and everyone appears to be having a blast. Robert De Niro and Jeff Fahey are a hoot, and best of all is Lindsay Lohan with the way her character is introduced considering her recent antics in the tabloid spotlight. She spends the majority of her time completely naked and eventually dons a nun outfit toting around a machine gun. While "Machete" may not stand among the likes of Rodriguez's "Planet Terror," it's worth seeing if not just for Lohan's outrageous final screen performance before her time in jail.