Andy Gapin

Given my obsession with Zooey Deschanel, checking out Our Idiot Brother was obviously a requirement for me, even if it took an extra week. But Zooey aside, the cast for the movie is pretty stacked. And for the most part, that’s what the movie became to me, a showcase of actors and actresses that I enjoy.

Our Idiot Brother isn’t a strong movie in any real sense, but Paul Rudd makes it work in the way that he pulls most things off. The story is just average and doesn’t really progress along too much. It feels as though it’s trying to tell a little too much at once. While most of the film tries to focus on the relationship between Paul Rudd’s character and his three sisters, a lot of time is still spent developing the individual lives of all four characters before everything can really culminate in Rudd ruining each of his sister’s lives–or rather exposing how they’ve ruined their own lives. Because of the three sisters, each of with coming with a male (female in Zooey’s case) counterpart, there was a lot of Rudd to spread around. Three may work well in theory, but I felt as though there were too many relationships to build.

Like I said, the movie itself is mostly average, but I walked away from Our Idiot Brother with a few other thoughts:

• Zooey Deschanel and Rashida Jones as a lesbian couple is almost too much to handle.
• I’ve said it a thousand times before, but Steve Coogan needs to be in a million more things. Everything, really.
• I’m really glad Adam Scott is on Parks and Recreation now and I’d also like to see him in a million more things.
• Elizabeth Banks looks even better with as a brunette than she does as a blonde.

Despite having a thousand relationships to build out, if you need a few laughs and are interested in any of the things I’ve just mentioned, Our Idiot Brother could be well worth the cost of an AM cinema ticket on a rainy weekend morning.

Rating: B-

You wouldn’t expect a movie about Facebook to be too good, but this thing has been getting a lot of hype for months and months. Honestly, it’s deserved, The Social Network is solid. It’s got sex, drugs, nerds, and douchebaggery, what else are you looking for?

In all seriousness, The Social Network is a terrific movie. It’s not entirely what I expected. I mean, it mostly is, but I was expecting Mark Zuckerberg to be portrayed much more negatively. I had heard a lot beforehand that the film painted a very negative image of him, but I didn’t think that was the case at all. He wasn’t made out to be the best dude ever, but he wasn’t that bad either. The worst thing about him wasn’t so much that took someone else’s idea and ran with a much better version of it, but that he easily let himself get sucked into Sean Parker’s ideals and turned his back on his best friend. Mostly, the dude just worked a lot towards a very particular vision and stopped at nothing to make it a reality. Maybe I just wanted him to be shown as more of a dick because I’m not a fan of him in real life. Don’t get me wrong, I like Facebook and I’m obviously grateful for its existence, but things he has said and his general status towards privacy are a bit upsetting. I think the dude is nothing short of one of the smartest people in tech right now, but I think he’s kind of a douche. Actually, just about everyone in this movie is shown in a rather douchetastic light.

Everything about the way The Social Network was put together is terrifically done. The movie is shot very well and the dialog is great, especially the opening sequence. Jesse Eisenberg, as always, was awesome. He seems like the perfect fit to play Zuckerberg…he even looks a little like him. I didn’t even realize until after the movie that the same dude played both the Winklevosses–to be honest, I didn’t even realize it on my own. I guess it was pretty obvious and I somehow just missed it.

The Social Network is just a great film that is very well put together and describes a very interesting story. For those of us that are of the age to be able to remember college both with and without (widespread) social networking, this is a great story about the creation of something that has become so ubiquitous in our lives now that we don’t even think twice about it or what life was like before it. The idea seems so simple now, but The Social Network is a reminder it wasn’t always that obvious. The story isn’t entirely true, but it also seems that it’s also not completely untrue either.

Rating: A