Plot:

Violinist Samantha (Jennifer Love Hewitt), an American music student in London, is always taken for granted by her live-in partner Ian Wyndham (Paul Nicholls). Shortly after a painful fight with Ian (and nearly broke up), Samantha dies in a terrible accident.

Miraculously, the next day Ian gets an opportunity to live the fatal day all over again. What will Ian do? Try to love Sam like there’s no tomorrow, or even try to changing the events with hope to prevent her death?

Release Date: January 23, 2004
Distributor: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Directed by: Gil Junger (10 Things I Hate about You, Black Knight)
Starring: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Paul Nicholls, Tom Wilkinson, Lucy Davenport
Budget: n/a
Gross Revenue: n/a (not distributed in US theaters)

Review:

Have you ever taken someone for granted? And if you only have one day, what will you do to make up to that person? That’s the main theme of If Only. Well, the plot about “second chance” and Brit guy dating American woman probably sound cliche to you. Moreover, you might also doubt the cast. I mean, who the heck is Paul Nicholls? And when Jennifer Love Hewitt ever played a good film? At the very least, you’ll recognized Golden Globe winner and Oscar nominee Tom Wilkinson, but he only played a small role as cab driver in this movie.

Well, don’t let all of that fool you. This is a good movie, even if the story, including the ending, is so predictable.

The first 1/3 of the film introduces you to the pair, which will probably make you hate the Ian character, as he neglects his beautiful, funny, kind, and sexy girlfriend. But after Sam died in accident, you will suddenly share Ian’s sorrow, and feel pity for him. Imagine Ian’s surprise when he wakes up the next day with Sam is still alive, and he can redo the events from the previous 24 hours.

Ian’s efforts to change events and love Sam like there’s no tomorrow is arguably the best part of If Only movie. The scenes are romantic, warm, and filled with smiles and tears. So touching that you’ll probably view the world in different perspective, and embrace the time you have with your loved ones.

Unfortunately, as good as it is, there’s a big flaw in the script. Instead of “one more day” for Ian, it feels more like “one more week!” Started with wake up in the morning, he then attended company meeting, celebrated in bar with colleagues, searched Sam around town, then took her to the village by train, hiking, made love in a cabin, back to the village and drink in a pub, back to London, back to the apartment and get dressed, photocopy a lot of music sheets, and then attend Sam concert at 7 pm. Meaning that all of those activities were done in about 12-13 hours! Many viewers probably ignored this, as it isn’t the point of the movie, but for me, it’s just bugging.

Lastly, if you love romantic movie, this one will suit you well. Moreover, if you love Jennifer Love Hewitt, this is probably her best performance ever. The acting was okay, although not extraordinary, but she’s beautiful, convincing, and sing several nice songs in this film.

My Rating: B-

IMDb user rating: 7.0/10

Rotten Tomatoes meter: n/a

Metacritic: n/a

Entertainment Weekly: n/a

MRQE Metric: n/a

Your Ratings: Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it.

Note that ratings and gross revenue are based from when this review was written, so the values might already changed by now.

Plot:

Cheating is when you’re in a committed relationship and have sex with another person. It’s not cheating if you live in different area codes, if you are too wasted to remember it, or if you are with two people at the same time because they cancel each other out. But it is definitely cheating if you videotape it and mails the tape to your girlfriend.

This is what happens to Josh Parker (Breckin Meyer), who have been together with Tiffany (Rachel Blanchard) since they were kids. He then accidentally sent the sex tape of him with college friend, Beth (Amy Smart), to Tiffany. Josh must now drag two college buddies, and one not-so-eager-kid who happens to own the car, on a raucous 1800-mile road trip from Ithaca, New York to Austin, Texas to save his lifelong romance.

Release Date: May 19, 2000
Distributor: DreamWorks
Directed by: Todd Philips (Old School, Starsky & Hutch, Due Date, The Hangover, The Hangover II)
Starring: Breckin Meyer, Seann William Scott, Amy Smart, Paulo Costanzo, DJ Qualls, Tom Green, Rachel Blanchard
Budget: $16 million
Gross Revenue: $68,525,608 (US), $119,754,278 (worldwide)

Review:

Started with American Pie (1999), early 2000s is the time where there are so many teen-comedy movies which filled with violent humors and vulgar scenes, mostly contain nudity. Van Wilder, Not Another Teen Movie, Tomcats, Say It isn’t So, and of course Road Trip, are some examples of them.

The key to watching this kind of movie is easy, that is do not expect anything but laugh. The jokes are gross and not smart, the dialogues are unmemorable, the events are beyond logic, and the plot is….none. Like I said, the main point of success for black-comedy is on how to make the audience laugh, and this is where Road Trip has successfully done. The script is no more than a setup to create a wacky and bizarre moments, creating a hilarious visual gags during the whole movie.

The strong elements are always the characters, which are naturally funny, especially Kyle (DJ Qualls) and Mitch (Tom Green). Unfortunately, the main character itself, Josh Parker, is very dull and boring. It’s weird that the guy that actually cheating and sent his own sex tape to his girlfriend is looked like the only “nice guy” among the other male characters in this movie.

Anyway, this movie is obviously not for everyone. Whether a viewer will find if it’s fun or absurd is depend on his/her personal taste. Also, even though titled as Road Trip, there are not many road trips moments and experiences that you can learn from this film. You should check at travel tips website if you want to know more about road trip.

My Rating: C+

IMDb user rating: 6.4/10

Rotten Tomatoes meter: 58%

Metacritic: 55/100

Entertainment Weekly: B

MRQE Metric: 58/100

Your Ratings: Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it.

Note that ratings and gross revenue are based from when this review was written, so the values might already changed by now.

Before we go on to the special offer, let’s take a look about the company first. Satellite Solutions Network. Inc. is the official retailer of DISH Network (one of the top satellite TV service providers), with over 12 years experience in satellite TV industry. Of course there is no doubt to use their service if we see their existence in TV industry, even on these days that require every retailer to provide a good service for the customers.

Now, Satellite Solutions Network have an offer for the new customer that want to order DISH network. The company will handle everything include the installation of the equipments that is needed to use the service, since every new customer will need a small satellite DISH, at least one receiver, and a remote control for each TV. What I am sure that will make you smile is you do not need to pay anything for the usage of standard equipment needed, only a monthly fee for the DISH service.

Besides that free installation charge, just like I have mentioned above, it is a good news for you who are the big fan of blockbuster movies, cause they offer The Blockbuster Movie Pass for free if you order DISH Network now.

What you can do with The Blockbuster Movie Pass are:

• Stream thousands of movie titles right to your TV or PC
• Unlimited DVD and Video Game by mail rentals
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So what are you waiting for, just visit their homepage at www.satellitesolutions.com and get $75 cash rebate for all the other promotional offers if you order DISH Network now.

Plot:

A beautiful Mind is a semi-biopic of the famed mathematical genius John Forbes Nash, Jr. (Russell Crowe) and his lifelong struggles with his mental health. Nash enrolled as a graduate student at Princeton in 1948 and almost immediately stood out as an odd person. He devoted himself to finding something unique for his doctorate, a mathematical theorem that would be completely original. His only reliable friend during Princeton time is his roommate, Charles Herman (Paul Bettany).

Soon, John Nash becomes a professor at MIT where he meets and eventually married a graduate student, Alicia Larde (Jennifer Connelly). Over time however John begins to having delusions and lose his grip on reality, eventually being institutionalized diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. As the depths of his imaginary world are revealed, Nash withdraws from society and it’s not until the 1970s that he makes his first foray back into the world of academics, gradually returning to research and teaching. In 1994, John Nash was awarded the Nobel prize in Economics.

Release Date: December 21, 2001
Distributor: Universal Studios (US) and DreamWorks (non-US)
Directed by: Ron Howard (Cocoon, Apollo 13, Ransom, Cinderella Man, The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons)
Starring: Russell Crowe, Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly, Paul Bettany, Christopher Plummer, Josh Lucas
Budget: $60 million
Gross Revenue: $170,708,996 (US), $313,542,341 (worldwide)

Review:

Although based on real-life story, the elements in A Beautiful Mind are actually something that we’ve seen often in Hollywood’s drama. A brilliant youngster gets bullied in university, a genius who’s also mentally-ill, and a love story between beautiful hot lady with a nerd, are some cliches that you can easily get from other movies. Fortunately, this film offers much more than that. Director Ron Howard was successfully mixed all those elements into a combination of drama, thriller, and romance, with some fun scenes here and there.

The movie is started with a rather slow pace, tells the story of young John Nash when he was attending Princeton as graduate student. Only with his roommate Charles Herman that support him, Nash desperately seeking for a breakthrough in mathematical theorem. Besides to make the audiences understand the whole personality of John Nash, this first third half of the movie also filled with math talks, which might be fun for some of you.

The mid-part is the best part of the whole film. It’s started with the romance between Nash, now a professor in MIT, with one of his student, Alicia Larde. As John Nash is a very “weird” person, the love-story is filled with many awkward yet sweet moments, sometimes added with funny dialogues. Later after they married and Alicia is pregnant, Nash started to show signs of paranoid. He, who secretly works as a spy for US government, feels that his life is endangered, that some Russian agents are tailing him. At this point, audiences will wondering who’s right, doctor who says that Nash is having a delusions and actually never a spy, or John Nash himself is right and he’s actually an agent who’s trying to stop the next nuclear war.

Whichever one is true (as I won’t spoiled for you who haven’t seen the movie), now the life of John Nash is devastated. He then must fights with himself and regains his senses, so he can start to rebuild his relationship with his wife, as well as his career in education.

Russell Crowe was brilliant in this movie, as he can made the character very believable. Not only as a delusional schizophrenic genius, but also how he turns his character from a young graduate student until becomes a Nobel Prize winner 47 years later!

A Beautiful Mind also comes with few flaws, as we always expecting from Hollywood’s biopic. They’re basically come from some over-dramatic scenes, especially from the romance part, such as the way John and Alicia even started seeing each other wasn’t very realistic, and why Alicia would stay with John after he becomes distant (the real John Nash and Alicia Larde were actually divorced around the time Nash was hospitalized, and only remarried again in 2001).

It’s nice to see a mathematician takes the main role of a movie, especially if it’s a real-life genius and Nobel Prize winner like John Nash, which the brain kinda makes me envy, as I still need to access an online calculator to do a simple algebra .

My Rating: B+

IMDb user rating: 8.0/10

Rotten Tomatoes meter: 78%

Metacritic: 72/100

Yahoo! critics: B+

Yahoo! users: B+

Your Ratings: Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it.

Note that ratings and gross revenue are based from when this review was written, so the values might already changed by now.

So, for you gadget and computer freaks, here are my list of 15 of the coolest hackers in movies. Leave a comment if you have other opinions.

15. Milo Hoffman (Antitrust/2001)

Actor: Ryan Phillippe

At first, he’s a programmer being rented by a satellite company, and later he finds out that the corporate using the satellites to spy on competitors. A movie that’s probably hated by hacker community as it pictures hacker as corporate watchdog. We have to envy Milo though, as he can date Claire Forlani and has Rachael Leigh Cook as co-worker.

14. Angela Bennett (The Net/1995)

Actress: Sandra Bullock

Angela Bennett is a young and beautiful computer expert who becomes involved in a web of computer espionage. Only hours before she leaves for vacation, she discovers secret information on the disk she has received from a friend that turns her life into a living nightmare. Another hacker that’s described as an introvert and anti-social, luckily, she’s hot.

13. Gus Gorman (Superman III/1983)

Actor: Richard Pryor

Gus is a bumbling computer genius who works for villainous multimillionaire Ross Webster to destroy Superman. Webster then orders Gorman to use his computer knowledge to create kryptonite. After the computer fails to analyze an “unknown” element in kryptonite, he improvises by replacing the unidentified element with tar, garnered from a pack of cigarettes!

12. Boris Ivanovich Grishenko (GoldenEye/1995)

Actor: Alan CUmming

Boris is an evil genius in the James Bond film GoldenEye. He is a brilliantly talented computer programmer and hacker who has hacked the United States Department of Justice. We can easily remember him from his catchphrase, “I am invincible!” whenever he succeeds.

11. Lyle (The Italian Job/2003)

Actor: Seth Green

Lyle is a computer technician that joins a team of thieves who plan to steal gold bullion from a former associate who double crossed them. The reason why he made it to this list is not because he was able to hack the LA traffic system, but because the possibility that he’s the real inventor of Napster (if you believe what he says).

10. Kate Libby (Hackers/1995)

Actress: Angelina Jolie

The movie tells the adventures of a group of gifted high school hackers and their involvement in a corporate extortion conspiracy. The main hacker is actually Dade “Zero Cool” Murphy, but since Kate “Acid Burn” Libby is played by Angelina Jolie, we have to pick her.

09. Matthew Farrell (Live Free or Die Hard/2007)

Actor: Justin Long

A group of cyber terrorists plan to hack FBI computers and takes over several U.S. technology infrastructures. Computer geek Mat Farrell works with immortal cop John McLane try to prevent that from happening. The character himself isn’t that interesting, but since the actor Justin Long was known as Mac personality in the campaign ads, this movie is like a free advertising for Apple!

08. Luther Stickell (Mission: Impossible 1-4/1996-2011)

Actor: Ving Rhames

Who says that hacker must be a skinny and introvert nerd? Luther is a muscle-bound expert computer hacker who works for the fictional “IMF” (Impossible Missions Force) division of the CIA, and he’s the only character besides Ethan Hunt that appears on all four Mission: Impossible movies.

07. David Lightman (WarGames/1983)

Actor: Matthew Broderick

Lightman is a young hacker who unwittingly accesses WOPR, a United States military supercomputer programmed to predict possible outcomes of nuclear war. He gets WOPR to run a nuclear war simulation, originally believing it to be a computer game, which later causes a national nuclear missile scare and nearly starts World War III. This movie was notable for coining the term “firewall” in reference to computer network security.

06. Neo (The Matrix Trilogy/1999-2003)

Actor: Keanu Reeves

I don’t know whether Thomas A. Anderson (aka Neo) can be categorized as a hacker or not. He lives in a world where machine and computer try to subdue human population, and “hacking” has a new definiton in this movie. However, many agree that The Matrix contains many references to the cyberpunk and hacker subcultures.

05. Trinity (The Matrix Trilogy/1999-2003)

Actress: Carrie-Anne Moss

I actually hesitated to enter two characters from a single movie in this list. However, since we lack of women hackers (especially the hot one), I decided to pick her anyway. Like the series’ other main characters, Trinity is a computer programmer and a hacker who has escaped from the Matrix, a sophisticated computer program in which most of the human race is imprisone. She’s also Neo love interests.

04. Kevin Flynn (Tron/1982)

Actor: Jeff Bridges

If you want un-serious movie about hacker, then Tron is the one. When Flynn attempts to hack into the ENCOM mainframe, he’s literally abducted into the world of computer and forced to participate in gladiatorial games where his only chance of escape is the help of a heroic security program. How cool is that?

03. Cosmo (Sneakers/1992)

Actor: Ben Kingsley

Rarely we seen an Oscar winner willing to play as a hacker (Jeff Bridges hasn’t got his Oscar when he played in Tron), and if there is one, then it must be a special role. In this movie, Cosmo is the master villain who believes that who’s controlling the information, he controls the power. This is his cool quote:

“The world isn’t run by weapons anymore, or energy, or money. It’s run by little ones and zeroes, little bits of data. It’s all just electrons.”

 
02. David Levinson (Independence Day/1996)

Actor: Jeff Goldblum

David is an MIT-educated computer expert working as a satellite technician in New York City. How we can deny that he’s an expert hacker if he was able to hack and send virus to alien’s mother-ship to disable their shield, which gives chance to human to fight the invaders.

01. Stanley Jobson (Swordfish/2001)

Actor: Hugh Jackman

A super hacker previously convicted by the FBI but now is trying to stay clean. Now he is targeted for recruitment into a bank robbery because of his hacking skills. He is easily become a hero for the nerds as in the movie he shows that he still can hack a computer while having a gun pointed to his head and simultaneously receiving a blow job!

That’s it for my choice of 15 of the coolest hackers from movies. Those films mainly teach us one thing, that is important to keep your data and computer save. The most susceptible way of losing data is if you keep them on a small device, such as memory card, external hard drive, or USB flash drive. That’s why you need to install USB flash drive encryption software for those devices, so if in any case you loss it, your date can’t be opened and used by other people.

Plot:

Although has the title of The God of Cookery, celebrity chef  Stephen Chow knows very little about cooking. However, he disguises as a brilliant chef who sits in judgement of those who would challenge his title. He finally loses his title when a jealous chef reveals him to be a con-man and humiliates him publicly.

As this new chef takes on the God of Cookery’s role, the former God tries to pull himself back on top again. With the help of his no.1 fan, Miss Turkey, he opens up street restaurant. When his fame started to rise, he begins his campaign to challenge his rival and find once and for all who is the true God of Cookery.

Release Date: 1996
Distributor: CN Entertainment (Hong Kong)
Directed by: Stephen Chow (Shaolin Soccer, Kung Fu Hustle), Lee Lik-chi
Starring: Stephen Chow, Karen Mok, Vincent Kuk
Budget: n/a
Gross Revenue: HK $15,887,000

Review:

As both an actor and director, Stephen Chow only been known in western cinema since the last decade, thanks to Shaolin Soccer (2001) and Kung Fu Hustle films (2004). Chow’s mo lei tau (literally translated as “nonsensical”) comedy genre is new for western audiences, thus very highly regarded. However, before those movies, Chow has produced some good works for Hong Kong cinema, and The God of Cookery probably the best one.

I won’t talk about this movie’s plot, because story is obviously not an important aspect of Chow’s comedy. The best part of The God of Cookery is obviously the humor, which is filled by comical-style slapstick. True that the jokes are silly, and often absurd, but they were all set at the perfect timing, which added with the natural funny expression from the actors.

The movie also acts as a spoof, both for kung fu (like the scene with 18 brass-men of Shaolin) and for cooking (it’s actually a parody of Japanese cooking show Iron Chef). The scene where Chow and his rival demonstrate the mixing of martial art and cooking to create “Buddha Jumps Over the Wall”, a famous dish from Chinese cuisine, is one of the most interesting scene I’ve ever seen in a comedy genre.

So, as this is an “unusual” movie, you can easily love it, or hate it. However, even if you dislike this one, you must still admit that this is new and won’t be found on any other films.

My Rating: B

IMDb user rating: 7.3/10

Rotten Tomatoes meter: 84%

Metacritic: n/a

Yahoo! critics: n/a

Yahoo! users: n/a

Your Ratings: Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it.

Note that ratings and gross revenue are based from when this review was written, so the values might already changed by now.

Plot:

Harvey Bellinger (Beau Bridges), his wife Lydia (Rosanna Arquette), and their two teenage kids live a well off life in suburbia. This changes, however, when their seventeen year old son Colby (Mathew Botuchis) installs video cameras around their house, and starts a website to broadcast the family’s actions live on the internet.

When the whole family find about this, they are angry and appalled. But when they realize that money can be made with the internet live feed, the Bellingers start acting crazier, eventually leading to Harvey blowing up the house to get rid of the cameras.

This is a sexy comedy that pushes reality TV to the limits.

Release Date: 2006
Distributor: n/a
Directed by: Eric Steven Stahl (Safe House, Final Approach)
Starring: Beau Bridges, Rosanna Arquette, Mathew Botuchis, Shiri Appleby, Baelyn Neff
Budget: $6,200,000
Gross Revenue: n/a

Review:

When his stepsister Audrey deliberately smashed his laptop , Colby decided to have a payback. He install a webcam in her sister’s room, and then create i-see-you.com website to broadcast the live feed. In no time, the new website received thousand hits, and starts generate some money for Colby. Sense a lot of profits, Colby then puts video camera all over the house, including in bathroom and his parents’ room.

This is where the movie gets funny. All family members doing their daily activities without knowing that the world is watching. Natural thing that they do, and we’d probably often did too, can be look gross and embarrassing when it’s broadcasted to the world.

As predicted, the website receives much more traffic, and media pays serious attention to thing that they called as the real “family entertainment”. Soon, the Bellingers are recognized as celebrities, which make them realized what Colby is doing to them. Smells the money, they decide to continue the live feed. What started as natural daily life now turns to merely an act.

This second part of the movie is what I think as pointless and not believable. I can’t believe a father can let her teenage girl doing breast implant to attract audience, or let the world watch his wife seduce a foreign man. Moreover, I also can’t believe the website still has an increasing visitor, even when they know that the Bellingers “know”, which makes the show is no longer a “reality”.

However lame this movie is, it’s probably still gonna be appreciated by bloggers and webmasters because of its original idea, especially because there aren’t many films about website in Hollywood. By the way, if you’re a webmaster of software developer, you might want to try this prototype development tool, which has the function to design your software or website mockups within minutes.

My Rating: C+

IMDb user rating: 5.6/10

Rotten Tomatoes meter: 31%

Metacritic: n/a

Yahoo! critics: n/a

Yahoo! users: B+

Your Ratings: Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it.

Note that ratings and gross revenue are based from when this review was written, so the values might already changed by now.

Plot:

When Josey Aimes (Charlize Theron) returns to her hometown in Northern Minnesota after a failed marriage, she needs a good job. She turns to the predominant source of employment in the region – the iron mines. It’s an industry long dominated by men, in a place unaccustomed to change. Encouraged by her old friend Glory (Frances McDormand), one of the few female miners in town, Josey joins the ranks of those laboring to blast ore from rock in the gaping quarries.

The last thing the miners want is women competing for scarce jobs–women who, in their estimation, have no business driving trucks and hauling rock anyway. When Josey speaks out against the treatment she and her fellow workers face she is met with resistance–not only from those in power but from a community that doesn’t want to hear the truth. Through many struggles, Josey will find the courage to stand up for what she believes in–even if that means standing alone.

Release Date: October 21, 2005 (wide)
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Directed by: Niki Caro (The Vintner’s Luck, Whale Rider)
Starring: Charlize Theron, Frances McDormand, Sissy Spacek, Woody Harrelson, Sean Bean, Michelle Monaghan, Jeremy Renner
Budget: $30,000,000
Gross Revenue: $18,324,242 (US), $23,624,242 (worldwide)

Review:

Once again, we’re “forced” to see the Hollywood’s version of real life’s struggle. Fortunately, this time the result is quite good, put aside few over-dramatized scenes and anticlimax solution.

North Country focus on the story of Josey Aimes, a single mother with two children who has to received harassment and discrimination from her male co-workers, because she has a job in all-male working environment. When her pleas for the treatments that she and her other female miners received weren’t heard by the company and the community, Josey has to take a drastic measure, that is to bring the whole broken system to the court.

The first part of the movie, which describes the struggles that Josey had to face, both in the mine and the city, is absolutely brilliant. Charlize Theron once again gives her best performance as a woman who almost single-handedly face the corporate, the town’s people, her ex-husband, and even her own father. She manages to make us feel the scary sensation of having to make a big decision which can cost everything, including her relationship with her children.

The court part of the movie is where Hollywood gives to much of its touch. The plaintiff’s attorney, portrayed by Woody Harrelson, commits every procedural violation that could possibly be conceived. The arguments by both sides are often absurd. The solution is also quite not believable.

Well, it’s probably just Hollywood’s way to make the story more entertaining, as the true story itself probably boring (the actual case itself only settled after 14 years!). So, despite that this film brings good messages, you should only see North Country movie as pure entertainment, as you’d probably will see some holes in the plot, plus some “unreal” scenes here and there.

My Rating: B-

IMDb user rating: 7.2/10

Rotten Tomatoes meter: 69%

Metacritic: 68/100

Yahoo! critics: B

Yahoo! users: B

Your Ratings: Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it.

Note that ratings and gross revenue are based from when this review was written, so the values might already changed by now.

Plot:

On a fall night in 2003, Harvard undergrad and computer programming genius Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse  Eisenberg) sits down at his computer and heatedly begins working on a new idea. In a fury of blogging and programming, what begins in his dorm room soon becomes a global social network and a revolution in communication. A mere six years and 500 million friends later, Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire in history, but for this entrepreneur, success leads to both personal and legal complications.

Release Date: October 1, 2010
Distributor: Columbia Pictures
Directed By: David Fincher (Alien 3, Seven, Fight Club, Panic Room, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Rooney Mara
Budget: $40,000,000
Gross Revenue: $96,917,897 (USA) $224,920,315 (worldwide)

Review:

Is it true that to become a successful figure in computer business, someone has to started it by becoming a jerk? We’ve often seen (or read) Steve Jobs or Bill Gates being described as an egoistic, megalomaniac, perfectionist, self-centered, manipulator person, or even as a thief of ideas! Apparently, The Social Network also tries to make the co-founder of Facebook Marc Zuckerberg as that kind of person too.

The movie focus on the early creation of Facebook, from where Zuckerberg got the idea, who he worked with, who helped him, how fast the business was developing, how the team can be torn apart, until how Zuckerberg finally have to be sued by both his former Harvard colleagues and the other Facebook co-founder, Eduardo Saverin.

Like a usual David Fincher’s movies, The Social Network perfectly describes the dark side of humanity, along with the anti-hero protagonist figure. The dialogues, although the Zuckerberg’s character often speaks weirdly fast, were well-written. The acts also pretty impressive, which surprisingly include the former boy-band singer Justin Timberlake, who plays as Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster.

The only problem I had with this movie is the Mark Zuckerberg character looks too unreal. He’s described as a cold-dark-weird nerd, which in this film doesn’t seem to have any good side at all, besides his genius mind. It might be too over-dramatized, as if you believe that it’s real, you probably gonna immediately stop using Facebook after watched the movie.

As a reference, the real Mark Zuckerberg also said that The Social Network is inaccurate and made without his counsel at all. He also added that this movie forgot to describe how hard his struggle of creating Faccebook actually was  (probably refers to the programming, as in the film everything seems to be done only with typing a few codes to the keyboard).

Anyway, Zuckerberg success was gained during his college year in Harvard, where he finally dropped-out. It seems like many billionaires didn’t finish their college, right? Besides Zuckerberg, we also knew Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or Richard Branson as famous figures who dropped-out from university. However, unless you have a really brilliant mind like them, I strongly suggest you to go to college and graduate, as education is quite important for any career. On the way to achieve that, anytime you need help of writing a college essay, you can visit essaysreasy.org which capable of writing the most difficult and original papers. Writing essay and paper are often difficult, so need to be ashamed for searching help from the pro.

See you in the next movie review!

My Rating: B+

IMDb user rating: 8.0/10

Rotten Tomatoes meter: 96%

Metacritic: 95/100

Yahoo! critics: A

Yahoo! users: A-

Your Ratings: Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it.

Note that ratings and gross revenue are based from when this review was written, so the values might already changed by now.

Thanks to the advancement of Internet technology, we no longer have to live under Hollywood’s domination these days. Internet now has became a new way to promote independent movies and web series, such as 13 Witches, an upcoming web series from Sabine Mondestin and My Destiny Production. This series seems to be receiving good response, which proven by more than 15,000 hits for its trailer, which only launched on YouTube couple of weeks ago.

Here are the trailer and synopsis of 13 Witches:

“13 Witches is a Fantasy Horror story where thirteen sisters who practiced paganism, centuries ago , were wrongfully accused of being witches. They were tortured, punished and burned alive by those they loved. Only one of the sisters escaped: Nemesis. A deal is struck between Nemesis and the devil and centuries later, the sisters have been reincarnated and seek revenge on the ones who stole their lives. Sexy and dark, with comedic timing.”

Judging from the trailer, 13 Witches looks exactly like a classic 70s horror movie, which filled with excessive use of blood, with some sexy touch. The actresses are fresh, and they look amazing too. Can’t wait to watch the 1st episode, which probably will be released in next month.