Reviews by Miklécio Costa

"This is our world"

great documentary about our illogical monetary system and how we can create another system, this time linked to the planet resources (including ourselves). it's a very inspirational movie that hopefully will disseminate the ideas of The Zeitgeist Movement around the world.

it seems to be a more detailed version of its prequel "Zeitgeist: Addendum". although it might be a bit repetitive for people who understood the message in the prequel, it goes deeper in analysis of problems and solutions.

bad choice of sound effects, though, comparing to the prequels, the visual effects are more enjoyable. but in a documentary built upon many interviews those things are not so important. i liked the animations inserted along the movie. it helped to turn the long speech into something more visual.

i think the greatest contribution in this movie is the end. it gives a suggestion about how we could smartly make a peaceful revolution. after all, the solutions supported by the movie depend on a transition process. but the end also predicts that this transition wouldn't be easy, because there would be resistance by the group currently in power.

another great direction by david fincher. great characters, surprisingly well performed by young actors. and... that's it. although the first trailer was great, i was expecting something more than what i saw, i was expecting the definition of our society. but it was just another wasted opportunity.

the story is developed as a biography, so there's no focus on a central message. many different characters are brought to the scenes and each contributes almost equally to the movie. that makes it more realistic, but decreases the importance of the story.

so overall it's a story about the life of Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook. anyone who knows a little about history of information technology will find it a bit repetitive. a simple idea that becomes very successful because no one has implemented it before. it happens a lot, though rarely as successful as Facebook.

there are a lot of little messages along the film, but i'd say four of them are the most important ones. they are represented by the characters Eduardo, Erica, the Winklevoss brothers and Sean. It looks like Eduardo and the dramatic story of friendship betrayal get most of the attention on the screenplay. Mark's passion for Erica could explain all his acts, but that is just lightly insinuated. The Winklevoss brothers bring the message of betrayal too, but less about friendship and more about copyright crime (they are also responsible for the biggest loss of focus in the movie, which i call "the rowing scene", that brings another little message, but not about Mark). And Sean represented my highest expectations about the movie. the few scenes with Sean were great because his message was about our contemporary society and how the technology should be a tool to expand our social concepts. but as i said they were just a few scenes.

so to me The Social Network is not a great movie but has a great direction. the need for a biographical screenplay made them waste an excellent opportunity of coming up with a meaningful story. it seems to me that all the acclamation around the movie is still a result of that first trailer.

great visual effects, not as groundbreaking as in the first movie but maintaining its own style (the neon thing) in up-to-date graphics. astonishing action scenes!
as in "the curious case of benjamin button", one actor performed characters in extremely different ages thanks to visual effects, though here one of them was limited in facial expressions, which was very convenient..

as in the first movie, a terribly simple story about good and all the adventures to defeat evil. some of the nerd/geek terms were put aside in this sequel, while the religious aspect of the "user" was improved. now, besides the mysterious "user", we have the powerful "creator", the miraculous "ISOs" and the "fallen angel" clu. yeah, a bit repetitive but maybe a sign of a mature story coming in the next sequels (i think i've seen a cliffhanger ending).

"- When did you begin to believe you were Jesus?
- When did you begin to believe you were a psychiatrist?"

Amazing story! The questions, the answers, even the unanswered questions, they all say so much. The twists in the movie show how weakly we believe in human knowledge. Historical changes in science and religion are presented and also corroborate that idea. All we need is someone to tell us a coherent and believable story, as John does along the movie. The drama becomes clear with the repeated line "anything is possible", letting our beliefs scarily small. But in the end, beliefs are all that are left to us...

To me, the movie just fails in exploiting the possibilities of cinematography. John's house is the only setting. I mean, the movie is about the whole world, right?! The things that John said about it, I had to imagine all of them, like if I were reading a book.

"- Three bad things and you're out.
- Like baseball!"

great idea, but not a great movie. the plot introduces an interesting way of thinking about life. if a lie can become a truth, where is the difference between them? the movie slightly talks about the importance of human beliefs, suggesting an answer to that question. but overall the story is much more about superficial subjects, like how funny unconditional truth and parodies of christianity can be. and at a certain point in the movie, those two things get too repetitive and boring.