The Social Network's Oscars haul: Best adapted screenplay, score, editing
David Fincher’s Facebook movie “The Social Network” headed into the 83rd Oscars ceremony tonight with eight nominations, including the Best Picture and Best Actor awards. It walked out with only three: Best Adapted Screenplay (for Aaron Sorkin), Best Original Score (for Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross) and Best Editing (Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter).
The film faced stiff competition from the likes of “The King’s Speech”, “True Grit”, and “Black Swan.” But given that The … Continue Reading
Mark Zuckerberg meets The Social Network's Jesse Eisenberg on Saturday Night Live
Tonight, on Saturday Night Live, the real Mark Zuckerberg popped up in the show’s iconic opening monologue alongside Jesse Eisenberg, who played the Facebook founder in the oscar-nominated movie The Social Network.
It’s ironic that Eisenberg, who played a big role in trashing Zuckerberg’s reputation, is now part of an effort that makes Zuckerberg more likable. That’s pretty important, considering that Facebook might one day depend on that kind of outside support support if and … Continue Reading
Week in review: Microsoft's game business is growing fast
Here’s our roundup of the week’s top tech business news. First, the most popular stories we’ve published in the last seven days:
Microsoft’s Kinectified game business grows 55 percent — fastest-selling consumer electronics device in history — Call it Kinectification. Microsoft said Thursday that its video-game business grew dramatically thanks to sales of its Kinect motion-sensing system.
What you should know about LinkedIn’s IPO — We look at some of the most significant facts about … Continue Reading
You know what’s cool? 8 Oscar nominations for The Social Network
“The Social Network” snagged eight Oscar nominations this morning, including the coveted Best Picture Award and the Best Actor award for Jesse Eisenberg’s portrayal of Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
That the film was well-received by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences comes as no surprise — The Social Network was a critical darling, and it also walked away with four Golden Globe awards, including Best Picture. (Check out my podcast review … Continue Reading
Sean Parker says he enjoyed Social Network film, but "it's complete fiction"
The Social Network was a beautiful and well-made film, said Sean Parker, who is depicted by Justin Timberlake in the movie about Mark Zuckerberg and the creation of Facebook.
The film won Best Picture in the Golden Globe awards and it may very well win an Oscar. But Parker (who founded companies such as Napster, Plaxo, and Causes) said he believes the depiction of his role in the founding of Facebook was a “complete work … Continue Reading
Social Network creators compliment Zuck on Golden Globe stage
The Social Network walked away with a few choice awards, including Best Picture, at the Golden Globes tonight. The film is loosely based on Mark Zuckerberg and the creation of Facebook, and it largely trashes his reputation from the very first scene, where the Zuckerberg character (Jesse Eisenberg) gets trashed by an ex-girlfriend, who says some classic lines to him.
Erica Albright, played by Rooney Mara, says, “You are probably going to be a very … Continue Reading
Why Facebook's playing a dangerous game with the Winklevoss brothers
Usually, Facebook’s public-relations officials can be relied on for a good old-fashioned “no comment” on truly sensitive matters. That makes the company’s response to a recent wave of reporting about ongoing litigation with Harvard classmates of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg more than a bit surprising.
As VentureBeat first reported in May, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, cofounders of a rival social network called ConnectU, filed an opening brief in an attempt to overturn the 2008 settlement … Continue Reading
Sean Parker: Spotify will finish the job that Napster started
Sean Parker is getting a lot of attention right now thanks to The Social Network, the movie about Facebook where he’s played by musician Justin Timberlake. But today at The Daily Beast’s Reboot America conference, Parker didn’t say much about Facebook or the movie, and he focused instead on his latest project — music startup Spotify.
Parker is a managing partner at the Founders Fund, which invested in Spotify. In a recent Vanity Fair … Continue Reading
Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook doesn't make real profits, and that’s okay
Speaking at incubator Y Combinator’s Startup School today, Mark Zuckerberg talked about how his attitude toward building a business has changed over the years.
His initial indifference toward revenue is almost legendary at this point, at least in the startup world. Even now, Zuckerberg said he’s not that interested in making money. Facebook is focused on gaining users and improving the experience for existing users, so any extra cash is just reinvested in the product, … Continue Reading
Facebook co-founder Saverin: Who cares if The Social Network is true?
Does the move The Social Network offer an accurate depiction of Facebook’s founding? It’s no surprise that chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and other early employees have called it fiction, but you might expect Eduardo Saverin, the Facebook co-founder who is portrayed the most sympathetically in the film, to stand up for its accuracy.
Saverin didn’t comment on The Social Network until today, when he published a short op-ed on the CNBC website. Anyone hoping for … Continue Reading
Aaron Sorkin: The Social Network's sexism comes from real life
Many fans of The Social Network, the new movie about the founding of Facebook, have one big problem with the film — its shabby treatment of women. See, for example, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin’s appearance on The Colbert Report, where news-comedian host Colbert asks why most of the movie’s female characters are “high, or drunk, or fucking guys in the bathroom. Why are there are no other women of any substance in the movie?”
Sorkin … Continue Reading
Social Network movie rakes in $23M in opening weekend
Social Network — the controversial movie that depicts Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg as a jerk — generated $23 million in box office receipts in its opening weekend.
That’s not on the scale of Hollywood blockbusters such as Iron Man and The Dark Knight, which can generate more than $100 million in sales in an opening weekend, but it’s respectable, given the fact that Facebook itself and its employees have been blasting the movie as wildly inaccurate … Continue Reading
Early Facebook employee: The Social Network is 'just wrong'
The Social Network may be getting insanely good reviews, but early Facebook employee Matt Cohler said the movie’s portrayal of the company and its co-founder Mark Zuckerberg is “just wrong.”
Cohler spoke on a panel this afternoon after a movie screening in Redwood City, Calif. According to the film, Zuckerberg started working on Facemash, the site that would eventually lead to Facebook, as a way to get back at (or maybe win over) a girlfriend … Continue Reading
After The Social Network, Facebook's IPO is the real show we're waiting for
Last night, I watched The Social Network, the much-anticipated movie about the founding of Facebook from Hollywood storytellers Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher. And as the credits rolled, I found myself thinking that it could have been much, much worse for Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s youthful CEO, who finds his life being chronicled when much of it has yet to unfold.
The Social Network draws largely on court documents filed in lawsuits by Harvard schoolmates of … Continue Reading
Screenwriter says Facebook movie is not 'a punch in the face' to Zuckerberg
The New Yorker just published a lengthy profile of Facebook cofounder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg. It’s a fun, thorough piece, one that lives up to the subtitle “Mark Zuckerberg opens up” — though for readers who have been following Facebook there probably isn’t much new from Zuckerberg himself.
The most interesting quotes actually come from Aaron Sorkin, writer of The Social Network, the movie about Facebook’s early days that’s scheduled to open on … Continue Reading
Could Facebook make its own rebuttal to 'The Social Network'?
It’s no secret that Facebook‘s Mark Zuckerberg is not a fan of the idea that a major Hollywood film may go on to define his life on celluloid. But “The Social Network“, which comes out next month in film festivals and nationwide October 1, is exactly that — a Hollywoodised version of the Facebook founding story, complete with Zuckerberg at its helm as the hacker-traitor antihero.
It must be a perplexing time for the company, … Continue Reading
Facebook co-founder Moskovitz says movie overplays sex, booze
Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz seems to remember that the company’s beginnings had a lot more work and a lot less sex than the recently released trailer for David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin’s “The Social Network” depicts.
Moskovitz, who is now building Benchmark and Andreessen Horowitz-backed productivity startup Asana, gave his take on the upcoming film on Quora, a question-and-answer site from other Facebook alums.
He surprisingly thought that the trailer ended up portraying Mark Zuckerberg … Continue Reading
