In an increasingly technology obsessed world, some people aren’t willing to put their gadgets down long enough to watch a movie. Or heck, even have a conversation with another human being. You’ve seen it happen a million times. Somebody refuses to turn off their cell phone in a theater despite the on screen warnings before the feature. Someone you’re trying to talk to at work won’t look up from their Facebook page long enough to give you their full attention. The President cancels a press conference because he’s playing Angry Birds. Okay, so that last one might be speculation, but this type of behavior is a real problem we’re facing. Well Warner Bros. isn’t letting it get in the way of their efforts to distribute films. Not too long ago they became the first company to distribute films as iOS apps, and now they have made a deal to stream their films through Facebook. The first app versions of films they created were Inception and The Dark Knight. The launching of Facebook streaming begins with just The Dark Knight. Before they’re done with you, Warner Bros. is going to make sure you’ve watched that film on every screen you own.

Armie Hammer can remember back to his high school days when the craze of Facebook started being whispered around the hallways, and he caved to peer pressure and joined. Now, he’s playing two people in The Social Network with the benefit of some great CGI. Luke Mullen sat down with the star to discuss playing twins, working with David Fincher, and the musical quality of Sorkin’s writing.

Jesse Eisenberg wasn’t on Facebook when he took the job to star as Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network, so he spent a few weeks under an alias trying to understand the experience that the man behind his role created for millions upon millions of users. With his performance, it seems to have paid off. Luke Mullen sits down with the star to talk about playing a sympathetic villain/hero, to drop a few Terminator references and to better understand how someone manages to fit all of Aaron Sorkin’s words into their mouth.

The Social Network is nothing new, but that’s kind of the point. Its structure creates a story of uniquely American ingenuity, individualism, and capital that we’ve seen often, one that follows beat-for-beat the formula of young, ambitious, humble beginnings to meteoric rise toward contested success to the people that really mattered being inevitably pushed out of the way. It is in The Social Network’s belonging to that subgenre which draws apt comparison to films like Citizen Kane, Sweet Smell of Success, or There Will Be Blood – not qualitative comparisons, mind you (the very title of Citizen Kane has become an inescapable and meaningless form of hyperbole in that regard), but comparable in terms of basic narrative structure and genre play. Such narratives are perhaps more common in films depicting less legitimate business practices – gangster films – which also catalog the rise in stature but fall in character of an outcast who uses the system for their own advantage. From starry-eyed associations with questionable made men (Timberlake’s Sean Parker and the debaucheries of success associated with him) to the inevitable “hit” on one’s kin in the best interest of the business (Zuckerberg and Parker firing Eduardo Saverin), The Social Network is something of a Goodfellas for geeks. Why is it that the first major studio film about the phenomenon of social networking feels like such a familiar movie? Why does it resort to well-honed, expertly crafted but familiar cinematic territory instead of pioneering unexplored terrain analogous to the phenomenon [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr strikes out against… well, pretty much everyone reviewing movies by taking issue with The Social Network. Sue him if you don’t agree, or friend him at Facebook.com/FatGuysattheMovies. But while he cringes under the weight of Jesse Eisenberg’s smug Michael Cera impression, he also rejoices in October being officially here and all the horror movies the month of Halloween promises to bring. Up first, he cowers in a dark theater to the likes of Let Me In and Case 39.

Be it good or bad, The Social Network has certainly caused some extreme reactions. It was met with almost universal skepticism when it was first announced and has now seen nearly universal praise leading up to its release in theaters. Initially referred to as “the Facebook movie” in a way clearly meant to belittle it, audiences at early screenings across the country have discovered that description simply isn’t accurate. Is the movie about Mark Zuckerberg and the inception of Facebook? Of course it is.  But to say that this is a detriment to the film’s potential is just plain wrong. The Social Network follows the story of Mark Zuckerberg, a young computer genius attending Harvard University. After breaking up with his girlfriend and some drunken blogging, Mark decides to create a site to rank the sex appeal of Harvard co-eds. He uses his exemplary computer knowledge to download pictures from the online photo catalog’s that each house or dorm at Harvard has for students to get to know one another.  He compiles the photos into a website which he dubs facemash.com similar to hotornot.com where visitors are presented with two pictures and asked to click on the one who they find sexier. The site crashes Harvard’s computer network in a matter of hours, garnering tens of thousands of htis and drawing the ire of the administration. This leads to Mark developing a new website which he calls The Facebook. Eventually changed to just Facebook with the help of Napster-founder Sean [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

It’s difficult to conduct an interview about a film that no one’s supposed to be talking about, but there’s more fascinating things going on beyond the mystery of Catfish. In a closed door, password-protected session, I sat down for a lengthy conversation with directors Henry Joost and Ariel Shulman, and the subject of the documentary Nev Shulman to discuss how real everything was, the horror aspect, aborted plans to use Bruce Willis’s face for advertising, the list of possible titles, it’s Grizzly Man connection, and what they’re turning down the Justin Bieber biopic to make next. [Spoilers exist simply because we'll be talking openly about the film.]

Other than being vaguely aware of an argument as to the authenticity of the contents of Catfish, and the equally vague but glowing praise for the film coming out of of Sundance — it seems that my fellow reviewers honored the advertised wishes of Rogue Pictures in keeping their friends in the dark. I walked into the Arclight Theater with a clean slate; having no idea what kind of film I would be reviewing. What I was treated to was a lovely, disturbing, hopeful,  perhaps too well edited/played out documentary. The last part, however — never really matters, because the content of the film is still rich and meaningful, which ends up being more important than most of the questions you may end up asking yourself once the credits roll.

The most obvious problem to creating a movie about Facebook is that it’s a movie about Facebook. It’s the least mysterious of all beasts, and no matter how fascinating some of its social implications are, it all comes out sounding incredibly masturbatory when you say it out loud. It’s like questioning the emotional depth of Twitter. Sure, Marshall McLuhan would wet himself if he 1) saw the kind of communication possibilities we have today and 2) was still alive, but at the end of the day, it’s still that place where your frat brother posts that bong picture and your girlfriend talks about how much she loves Coldplay. Unfortunately, the marketing team behind The Social Network decided to either get out in front of the issue or missed the boat completely. Choral version of Radiohead song? Check. Slow pan shots of people’s Facebook pages? Double check. Faux sense of importance lobbed on ubiquitous blue buttons that say “poke?” Check please.

Columbia Pictures announced today that David Fincher’s upcoming drama The Social Network, which chronicles the turbulent behind the scenes action during the rise of Facebook, will make its debut at this year’s New York Film Festival. They’ve also released a clunky new teaser trailer that is just like the last teaser trailer, but with chat room lingo and photos of the players involved. It’s supposed to deliver some high drama, I’m sure, but it’s ultimately a silly way to present the film. Especially now that we’re on to trailer number two. The first teaser being all voice-over was fine, but this one doesn’t work. Perhaps its time to dust off some of the footage that was actual shot and give us a real trailer, am I right? Check out the new teaser and get more details on the NYFF premiere after the jump.

With every announcement that some random piece of plastic from the 1980s is going to be given the big screen treatment, a cry goes up about the lack of creativity in Hollywood right now. Of course, we all know that it’s not a lack of creativity, but a lack of balls when it comes to delivering the kind of quality that audiences will flock to the theater for even if the title of the movie doesn’t ring a nostalgic bell. However, with this announcement, it might actually be the creativity that’s dead, too.

It seems so long ago that people were laughing about the idea of a Facebook movie. Then David Fincher signed on. Then Aaron Sorkin signed on. Then things didn’t seem so funny anymore. It’s a film that’s been almost over-exposed even before launching its first trailer, but that moment has arrived, and it’s time to see truly how much over-exposure this bad boy can get.

Disney wants to use you to sell its products, but you won’t be getting paid. How do you feel about that?

Last week, Universal Pictures and Edgar Wright launched a campaign to get 100,000 fans to “Like” Scott Pilgrim on Facebook. Today, we find out that there’s more to the story.

‘Catfish’ is, arguably, the breakout hit from Sundance 2010. Expect to hear a lot more about it soon.

You’re about to get a friend request from David Fincher.

This week’s Culture Warrior talks fake movies that look real but are fake, from Paranormal Activity to Blair Witch to old people getting in it with garbage.

End of Show is reporting that a movie based on the popular social network Facebook, or rather a movie based on the creation of Facebook has been greenlit by Columbia Pictures.

Kevin rages out at people who splatter his Facebook wall and TweetDeck columns with movie and TV spoilers.

According to those that have seen the script, it seems so.