Nerd against Geek in a battle to the Steve.

When Statistics Became Sexy.

Brad Pitt ends MONEYBALL with, “How can you not be romantic about baseball?” which is ironic, because he just spent the whole movie deconstructing The Great American Pastime’s romanticism with “sabermetrics” (a clinical mathematical process that focuses purely on statistics to choose players), wheeling and dealing at the highest levels of the baseball industry with wrath-of-God money, and buying and selling players like sides of beef. So romantic.

Pitt plays the real life talent buyer for the Oakland A’s, Billy Beane, who was awarded a baseball scholarship for his unlimited potential in all disciplines – pitching, hitting, fielding – which proved to be a bust. He just didn’t have the follow through. Now in his late 30s, general manager of the A’s, he finds himself taking advice from the crotchety old men on his board, trying to beat the big-budget teams on their own ground – by buying superstar players, with no budget to speak of. In desperation, Billy latches onto a statistics whiz-kid, Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), whose advice seems to be working for other teams with minimal budgets.

Brand’s strategy is not to be distracted by the glam value of players (“Does he have a good-looking girlfriend?” “Is he a drug risk?”), but to go deep into their stats (How many times do they get on base? How many walks can they accrue?). Beane and Brand put their counter-intuitive strategy into motion, raising eyebrows within the Oakland board on why certain non-glam players are making it into the team, not least the ire of coach Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman in a small but brilliant performance).

The strategy works. While it was being implemented, the crotchety old men resisted, their excuse: that it was threatening the game, but it was really a threat to their livelihoods; all the experience they had accrued over the decades being discarded. Oakland A’s would go on to win a record 20 games in a row at one point. When asked why he was still morose, Beane tells Brand he cared nothing for the money, the records, the rings, “If we win on our budget, with this team, we’ll have changed the game.” He wanted a sea-change, he wanted baseball to be regarded from this statistical angle, undervalued players chosen on their merits over the glamour boys…

Be careful what you wish for…

MONEYBALL shows us the genesis of the strategy that now informs all baseball drafts. Beane’s methods worked so well that he shot himself in the foot. Whereas he once had an intellectual advantage over the big budget teams, when the big budget teams did in fact adopt his methods, they then also possessed his strategic expertise PLUS big budgets!

“Money can disregard what baseball likes and dislikes.”

Directed by Bennett Miller (from the book by Michael Lewis, Moneyball: The Art of Winning An Unfair Game), MONEYBALL’s performances are naturalistic method with unobtrusive camera. Hill keeps it straight, and Pitt keeps it grounded. The scenes around the scout table arguing player merits are like real meetings, with overlapping dialogue, occasional stammering, and straightforward discussion even when perturbed. Who are these fantastic old guys, and why don’t they seem like they’re even acting? One scene between head scout Ken Medlock and Pitt illustrates perfectly that unspoken fear of becoming irrelevant, and the exemplary naturalistic acting, as a talk about destroying the team turns into a quick exchange of blows, Pitt pushing the frustrated, jabbing Medlock away from him. It’s not “movie fighting”; it looks like a real case of someone getting jabby and being shut down.

How do fans keep any loyalties to their teams with all the players being swapped so often and nonchalantly? And so obviously for money? And when a ball player you worshiped is suddenly sold to a team that is playing against your home team, what then? And if you do in fact find baseball romantic, isn’t all this shuffling of players in a meat market more like one big gang bang?

END

Revenge of the Nerd.

THE SOCIAL NETWORK officially makes Jesse Eisenberg the male version of Michael Cera.

Eisenberg is boy-genius Mark Zuckerberg, creator of the most insidious computer virus since electricity was invented – Facebook.

Let’s face it: the internet – for all its proven utility as an advertising forum, a business device and knowledge repository – is just a faster better cheaper porn delivery vehicle. Likewise, Facebook, for all its vaunted connectivity to old school friends and promotional tool for your mundane esoterica – is just a faster better cheaper porn delivery vehicle.

Don’t believe me? How come every hot chick has ten thousand more “friends” than any given average joe?

That’s why Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook in 2003 on his Harvard college server in the first place (according to this movie and, I hazard a guess, in reality) – for horny college kids to keep track of who was boning who.

Why else does Facebook have a Relationship Status field dealing solely with whether you’re Single, In A Relationship, Divorced, Married or It’s Complicated?

It seems “facebook” was a generic name for the index of students’ pictures online at every college. If that was the case, Zuckerberg’s genius was to trademark the name. (As canny as Gene Simmons trademarking the ‘$’ sign – as David St. Hubbins sagely advises, “There’s a fine line between stupid and clever.”)

THE SOCIAL NETWORK does for computer programming nerds what STAR WARS did for action figure geeks. Mark Zuckerberg – through Eisenberg’s scathing, forceful characterization – comes off as a cross between Clint Eastwood and Batman.

Written by Ben Mezrich and Aaron Sorkin, with the same intelligent vernacular Sorkin employed in A FEW GOOD MEN (1992); directed by David Fincher with the same verve he directed FIGHT CLUB (1999), THE SOCIAL NETWORK is apparently not an accurate depiction of Zuckerberg or the events surrounding Facebook’s political controversies (according to the subject himself and many associates), but it pulls off a great dramatic punch and, like IMMORTAL BELOVED (the fact-challenged Beethoven biopic), the movie captures the charging spirit of someone who has entrenched himself in the history of the world. The controversy over this social phenomenon only proves the point that any person who attains such hedonistic power will always become more sexy myth than nerdy flesh.

When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
–from THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE, 1962.

The opening scene’s shotgun dialogue dives into Zuckerberg’s character headlong, foreshadowing his ultimate treatment of people – coldly calculating, cynical, brash, contemptuous and condescending. And he’s just talking to his girl. It’s almost as if he was born to communicate via the clinical efficiency of a computer monitor. She angrily tells him, “All your life you’re gonna think girls are rejecting you because you’re a nerd. But let me tell you from the bottom of my heart – it’s because you’re an asshole!” And the problem is…? Isn’t it the nervous daydream of every nerd to actually become an asshole? Wouldn’t we all – assholes and nerds alike – rather be assholes than nerds?

Score one for The Zuck. Chicks love assholes.

Justin Timberlake is Sean Parker, the inventor of Napster, who inserts himself into the Facebook juggernaut when it is still in baby pants, with his smooth talk and language of largesse. He hits the sociological sea change on the head when he tells Zuckerberg “It used to be if you had a good idea, they’d say, ‘Good job, kid! The grownups will take it from here,’ but not this time!” He’s right – the whole idiom is a young person’s game. The grownups couldn’t’ve taken over even if they wanted to.

The last time I saw Andrew Garfield he was being overpowered charisma-wise and character-wise by Heath Ledger in THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS; here he holds a prominent position as Eduardo Saverin, Zuckerberg’s best friend and co-founder of Facebook, one of the three male co-leads with Eisenberg and Timberlake; next, he’s Spider-Man. Gee, turn your head for one second. They grow up so fast…

Armie Hammer plays the Winklevoss twins, who try to sue Zuckerberg over Facebook being their idea. And I never picked it; the “twin” special effects are that seamless. In BACHELOR PARTY (1984) the Indian pimp tells Gary, “These are twins of pleasure!” Sorry, but that’s all I can think of when I look at the 6’4″, 225-lb, blond and built rowing champions, the Winklevosses. Ladies, can I get an Amen?

Story flits between Harvard 2003 and a “present-day” hearing over Zuckerberg’s ownership rights. Like Monty Python’s classic “Bicycle Tour” sketch, there is an integral Scene Missing from the story. From being staunchly against allowing advertisements on his “cool” website, where did Zuckerberg make that leap to commercialism and more importantly, how did he get so rich so quickly? It is clear that Parker steered Zuckerberg towards commercialism, but we never actually see “how” it’s done.

Daniel Lyons writing in Newsweek comments on facebook, zynga and all those companies that don’t “do” anything or make products, just being repositories for ads – which is a turnaround on Zuckerberg’s original concept of an ad-free playzone.

In the hearing scenes, Zuckerberg is already the world’s youngest billionaire, reminding his interrogators with diabolical intellectual cool that he can buy them many times over. From humble asshole to antagonistic asshole, his business cards simply state, “I’m CEO, bitch!”

I love the guy!

Feeling betrayed, Eduardo laments to Zuckerberg during the hearing, “I was your only friend. You had one friend.” The irony is not lost on us, who are being beaten to death with Facebook currently crowing of 500 million “friends” on its network.

The greatest irony is that a forum calling itself a “social network” is one of the largest contributors to humans becoming more ANTI-social. The themes of this movie – betrayal, power, revenge – only bear out that scarring, anti-social truth. When I take a break from that lonely desert called REALITY and make bi-annual visits to my own Facebook page, I see people holding conversations without me on my personal wall, planting farms, riding unicorns and having pillow fights with flat-bellied damsels in low cut panties they could never hope to meet in real life. What the hell is wrong with you people? Don’t call me your “friend” just because you add a jpg of pixels that resembles my face to your page – pick up the phone or knock on my door. Preferably wearing low cut panties.

But poke me and pull back a bloody stump.

END

Owned By His Own War.

Before George H.W. Bush sold weapons to Saddam, before Ronald Reagan sold weapons to Iran, before George W. Bush lost 190,000 guns in Iraq – there was Tom Hanks, selling weapons to the Mujahedeen.

A splinter group of the Mujahedeen would later become the Taliban.

Thanks again, American Politicians.

In the Mike Nichols-directed political intriguer, CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR, America’s golden boy, Hanks, is early-80s Texas Democratic congressman, Charlie Wilson, quite a down-to-earth, uninhibited roarer, rogerer and cad (from this movie’s account); not afraid to whore around in public, do drugs at socialite parties and admit to unethical practices. Makes us wonder how such a fun guy was elected in the first place.

The real life Charlie Wilson was honored with this movie because he was in a position to help the CIA fund Afghan troops against Soviet invaders, thereby altering a major stream of history. Suffice to say, the movie paints him as noble, basing its stance on one trip he makes to an Afghan refugee camp to visit kids with their limbs blown off, thereby strengthening his resolve to appropriate funds and drive out dem debbil Russkies.

Chameleon Philip Seymour Hoffman plays disheveled, loose-cannon CIA operative, Gust Avrakotos, whose banter with Wilson is one of the features of this sometimes-tedious exercise. He is Wilson’s enabler and smarmy conscience. When Wilson exhibits doubt about the ethics and effectiveness of their planning, Gust consoles him with a Zen fable:

“A little boy on his 14th birthday gets a horse, and everybody in the village says, ‘How wonderful!’ And the Zen master says, ‘We’ll see.’ Two years later, the boy falls off the horse, breaks his leg, and everyone in the village says, ‘How terrible!’ And the Zen master says, ‘We’ll see.’ Then a war breaks out and all the young men have to go off and fight – except the boy can’t ’cause his leg’s all messed up. And everybody says, ‘How wonderful!'” Charlie Wilson pipes in, “Now the Zen master says, ‘We’ll see.'”

Poffy The Cucumber’s War

Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts), a high society harlot who occasionally bumped uglies with Wilson, squirms her way into the history books by being the one who convinced him to visit the camp. She is portrayed as a big influence on Wilson, even though she was just another pretty ass hanging off his cocaine-addled coattails, with a decidedly Marie Antoinette mind-set (i.e. out of touch with the common rabble): “People think it’s Joanne the social queen. That’s not me at all. I get bored to death when people talk about nothing.” Looked in the mirror lately, honey?

Gust and Wilson realized that their biggest problem with America supplying weapons to Afghanistan was that if Afghans were captured by the Soviets with weapons that were identified as coming from America, then the Cold War would become an actual war. So they had to supply weapons that looked like they could have been captured from the Soviets. Lucky Wilson was a politician – only a politician could be this duplicitous.

Charlie Wilson’s grand half-plan eventually unraveled due to the same political apathy that informs today’s inept government machinations – after he supplied the weapons to DESTROY Soviet intrusion, Congress funding disappeared before he could REBUILD; infrastructure, medical supplies, troop necessities were all swept under a Middle Eastern flying carpet.

The newsworthy elements were all taken care of (helicopters exploding, commerce continuing, funds disbursed, jubilant crowds in the streets) – who cares what happened next? I’m not gonna bite into the political paradoxes of Wilson’s deeds. We are not told WHY anyone would go so far overseas to support a war that isn’t theirs. What is the political/financial benefit to America? (It’s way too exhausting explaining the misdeeds of amoral politicians to an insensate public. In 2008, Alaskan senator Ted Stevens almost won back his senate seat, even after being convicted of 7 felony counts. How’s that for Low Information Voting?) Still, there is no animosity towards the American government in this movie – their neglect to finish the Afghanistan conflict is an unfortunate bureaucratic miscalculation, instead of the endemic problem it has always been. Again, the snide Amurrican gubmint never figured that decades later, their underhanded, unfinished, swinish alliances and misappropriations would be uncovered.

It makes me wonder: if supplying weapons to the Afghans was justified because one man from America was seemingly morally affected by the misery he saw and wanted to help repel the invading force (the Soviets), who’s to stop one man from another country visiting Afghanistan today (2008) and being saddened by the misery caused by the invading forces (this time, the Americans, under the pretense of fighting al Qaeda), and then funding the Afghans to repel the American invaders?

From this movie’s standpoint, Wilson is the hero – he’s Tom Hanks, he’s getting an award for being such a rogerer or something, and no one cares what the Mujahedeen descendants will do on that far-off date of September 11, 2001.

The war and its ramifications continued long after Charlie Wilson stopped finger-poking his two cents’ worth. So it only seems to be “his” war only during his involvement. He may have felt he “lost” his battle with Congress, but considering no one knows his name outside of this favorable movie, I’d say Charlie Wilson came out on top in the end.

Wilson poked his snowed nose into a melee already in progress and was “honored” with a movie terming it HIS war. Whatever will they say about that coward idiot-child president who started a war of choice with Iraq with no exit strategy?

We’ll see.

END

A Romantic State of Union.

“Romantic comedies” have long been relegated to the demeaning stable of Chick Flicks because their sophomoric bent allows them no breadth of intelligence or forays into behavior with balls – pussies browbeat men into behaving like pussies, whilst pulp novella situations play out in a world inhabited by pussified male models and Jennifer Lopez.

Director Rob Reiner‘s THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT is exactly the opposite; not only is the male protagonist anything but a pussy, or unlikely to be pushed into being one, the movie is intelligent and charming, yet masculine enough for men to appreciate, with astute writing and full-bodied characters, and takes into account the fact that some viewers can apprehend more than just boomboxes outside bedroom windows or fart jokes.

Michael Douglas is The American President, Andrew Shepherd, a widower with his second term election looming. Annette Bening is lobbyist Sydney Ellen Wade, whom he falls for. The obstacle between the smitten lovers is nothing short of the aura of the Presidency itself, and writer Aaron Sorkin (A FEW GOOD MEN) brings a depth of humanity and humor to this situation that is sorely lacking in American love stories.

…in the land of the Kree
And the home of the braves.

Douglas effortlessly inhabits the President’s mantle and it is a constant joy to see him imbue this office with a power that we know the real President does not have, a poignancy we know the real President does not possess and a humanity we know the real President has long since lost. (As in most American movies portraying the Presidential post, the refrain must unfortunately read, “We can dream, can’t we?”)

When President Shepherd orders an attack on a foreign country, his concern is for the civilians with families who will be working the foreign embassy when it gets bombed; it is a heart-wrenching decision for him – as opposed to the real life President G.W. Bush’s flippancy when asked whether he suffered any pangs of conscience after greenlighting the Iraq war, “I made the decision. I sleep well at night.” To the real life President, “only one thing matters – winning.”

Sociological disparities like this litter the film: we realize that opposing party leader, Bob Rumson’s (Richard Dreyfuss) smearing of the President’s love life and his half-baked jabs at Shepherd’s “flag-burning, hippie girlfriend” were reined in by the film-makers, after being aware of the real-life President stooping to outright lies to blacken his opposition (Bush versus Kerry, 2004).

And though it is obvious much White House protocol was passed over with a wave of the Hollywood wand, the movie is so well-made these deficiencies seem like trivialities.

Supporting players are suitably brilliant: Martin Sheen (as Shepherd’s Chief of Staff and confidante), Michael J. Fox (reprising his role as some kind of Alex Keaton within the President’s cabinet), David Paymer (the role of pollster couldn’t be more suited to a character actor so jumpy and uncomfortable), and John Mahoney (the character actor with his picture next to “father figure” in the dictionary).

The intelligent dialogue snaps and crackles like an electrified fence with a small animal thrown against it:

In a debate in the Oval Office, Sheen chastises Fox for questioning the president’s decisions, “The president doesn’t answer to you–”
“Oh yes, he does! Because I’m a citizen. And this is my president!… ‘Cause in this country, it is not only permissible to question our leaders, it is our responsibility!”

When Fox, in turn, melodramatically spins the president’s duty to uphold the truth, “People are so thirsty for truth, they’ll crawl through the desert until they find it. And if they find it’s a mirage, they’ll drink the sand,” the president counters with what we know to be the unfortunate truth, “They don’t drink the sand because they’re thirsty. They drink the sand because they don’t know the difference.”

Brings a tear to the eye that people could be this cognizant and lucid. Pity none of them are in government.

THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT never loses its focus on the love story, the element which actually holds our attention – rather than make us wince – due to being played out by intelligent adults, instead of 16-to-20 year-olds making all their decisions under the influence of hormones and beer, or pussified male models and Jennifer Lopez. Witnessing the chemistry between Shepherd and Wade, we can’t help but speculate that if the real-life Presidency could experience one-tenth of this heady hallucinogen with a woman one-hundredth as vivacious and witty as Annette Bening, there would be a million times less political turmoil in the world.

As it is phrased outside Presidential circles: “Dude, you need to get laid more often.”

END