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When Top Gun premiered in theaters in 1986, producers worried about one pivotal aspect of the film: the love story between the film’s leads, Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis. They believed the actors wouldn’t be believable on camera as love interests because, as one producer stated, she “looks like his mother.”

‘Top Gun’ producers worried Kelly McGillis and Tom Cruise wouldn’t look compatible on-camera

In an essay written for Medium titled “The Forgotten Star of Top Gun,” producer David Paul Kirkpatrick discussed his reservations about the pairing of Kelly McGillis and Tom Cruise. Several undeniable differences between the actors appeared too vast to ignore.

Kirkpatrick wrote McGillis “was much too tall for Tom Cruise. She was 5’11”. He was 5’7″.”

He continued, “Besides, she was 27, and he was 24, and the difference was palpable. After I saw them together for a ‘chemistry meeting’ on the Paramount lot, I walked away conclusively uttering,...

Twitter is experiencing growing pains. Last week, the company said it would integrate Promoted Tweets into user Twitter streams, placing them at the top of one's timeline. Here's expert opinion on how or if the once-breezy service can follow in the footsteps of ubiquitous ad machine Facebook.

"You don't want to ruin [Facebook] with ads, because ads aren't cool" --Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) to a young Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) in The Social Network.

Even factoring in the creative license taken by Aaron Sorkin, Parker's sentiment is true: Founders of the world's largest social network had serious concerns about incorporating advertisements, which would eventually become the company's bread and butter, for fear it might alienate its user base.

Now Twitter is feeling the same growing pains. Last week, the company said it would integrate Promoted Tweets, 140-character ads from brands such as Dell and Starbucks, into user Twitter streams, placing them high in users' timelines.

Mining clues from Jack Dorsey's inner life, just as he seems poised to return in a larger capacity to the company he founded, Twitter.

Several recent reports suggest Jack Dorsey, who helped spawn Twitter years ago, could be returning to a much larger role in the company. Dorsey had been ousted from his role as CEO, supplanted by Evan Williams, and Dorsey went on to pursue a new venture with Square, the mobile payment company. But now that Williams has stepped down as CEO, yielding that position to Dick Costolo, Dorsey has become more involved at Twitter--and might be coming on full-time as something like Chief Product Officer.

All of which makes Vanity Fair's April profile by David Kirkpatrick very timely. We studied Kirkpatrick's profile, which you should read in its entirety here, for insights into why Chief Product Officer could be an ideal position for Dorsey--and why he might succeed or fail.

Alec Baldwin has never really been known to hold back his opinions-- or epithets for his young daughter, for that matter-- but apparently he's been holding back on us all this time about his real reasons for never reprising the role of Jack Ryan after The Hunt For Red October. In a Huffington Post column that's loosely tied in to both Conan O'Brien and Charlie Sheen (you kind of have to read it to get it), Baldwin takes the time to strike out at Paramount executive David Kirkpatrick, who basically played Baldwin against his eventual replacement, Harrison Ford, to get Baldwin fired. Here's how Baldwin describes the somewhat confusing situation, with his hilarious insult of Kirkpatrick included: Kirkpatrick was a beady-eyed, untalented tool who had seemed like he was up to something throughout my sequel negotiation. Now, he became vividly clear. I had to decide if I would agree to...

Talk about burying the lead. Over the weekend, Alec Baldwin penned an open letter to Charlie Sheen about why he should head back to Two and a Half Men, which doesn't matter until you realize Baldwin included five paragraphs about how he wound up not appearing in Patriot Games. "People often ask me why I never continued in the role of Jack Ryan in the movies based on Tom Clancy's great novels," Baldwin wrote. "Usually, I have given a half truth as an answer, something about scheduling conflicts and so forth. But the truth is the studio cut my throat. Or, more specifically, an executive at the studio named David Kirkpatrick..." Burn.

It has been twenty years since the release of "The Hunt for Red October", the first film adaptation of a Tom Clancy novel. In that outing Alec Baldwin played Clancy's hero Jack Ryan and scored good reviews for his performance, while the film itself is easily considered the best in that series and a modern thriller film classic in its own right.

Thus it came as a surprise when the second film "Patriot Games" premiered with Harrison Ford playing Ryan. All these years later, Baldwin has talked about being replaced on his blog at The Huffington Post and the story is different than you might expect. Here's the key excerpt:

"John McTiernan, who directed 'The Hunt for Red October,' told me that during the period of the previous few months [after 'Red October' hit theaters], he had been negotiating to do a film with a very famous movie star [likely Harrison Ford] who had dropped out...

Alec Baldwin has a blog on HuffingtonPost, which he now used to answer why he did not return to play Jack Ryan in any more installments after he starred in "The Hunt for Red October." "John McTiernan, who directed 'The Hunt for Red October,' told me that during the period of the previous few months [after 'Red October' hit theaters], he had been negotiating to do a film with a very famous movie star who had dropped out of his film days before so that he could go star in the sequels to 'The Hunt For Red October,'" Baldwin explained. "John further told me that Paramount owed the actor a large sum of money for a greenlit film that fell apart prior to this, and pushing me aside would help to alleviate that debt and put someone with much greater strength at the box office than mine in the role." He...

Alec Baldwin used a personal anecdote about his "Hunt for Red October" passover at the hands of then studio boss David Kirkpatrick to share some advice with Charlie Sheen in an open letter published on HuffPo. Baldwin urged Sheen to eat a big heaping helping of humble pie, take it easy, clean up and get back to work for the sake of his career, finances and fans. The most interesting bit in the article is how Baldwin finally reveals the true story on him being replaced as Jack Ryan in the Clancy film franchise sequel; the role went to Harrison Ford. "Hunt" took the box office by storm the weekend of March 2, 1990, as "The Hunt for...

Photograph by John Huba.“It was like being punched in the stomach,” Jack Dorsey, who invented Twitter, tells Vanity Fair’s David Kirkpatrick about losing the job of C.E.O. “Twitter held all my desires in the world,” he says, displaying rare candor in his first full-scale profile. Now Dorsey dreams of one day becoming mayor of New York. According to Kirkpatrick, he has already discussed his ambition with the man who currently holds the job. Bloomberg advised the younger entrepreneur, whose fortune may well exceed $300 million, to make a lot of money first. Dorsey already has the endorsement of Newark’s mayor. “Frankly, I’m in awe of him,” says Cory Booker.

Gap model and former New Republic editor Andrew Sullivan announced on Sunday that his blog, The Daily Dish, will be relocating from The Atlantic to The Daily Beast/Newsweek/Tina Brown’s Slide-Show Concern come April. “The chance to be part of a whole new experiment in online and print journalism, in the Daily Beast and Newsweek adventure, is just too fascinating and exciting a challenge to pass up,” he wrote. Sullivan’s switch is the latest in a series of high-profile hires for the burgeoning behemoths The Daily Beast/Newsweek and its competition, the AOL/The Huffington Post. In the past few moths, the Huffington Post has picked up New York Times economics correspondent Peter Goodman, New York Times Sunday Business editor Tim O’Brien, Newsweek’s Howard Fineman, Andy Wiedlin, a former vice president of sales at Yahoo, and Brian Kaminsky, a vice president of global revenue operations at Reuters,...

Unless you somehow missed out on The Social Network, you'll know that twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss invented Facebook. Or, rather, that Mark Zuckerberg invented Facebook, with a big assist from the Winklevoss twins. Or, at the very least, that Sean Parker likes cocaine.

The true tale behind the founding of Facebook has yet to be told--and because of that, the "Winklevi" won't give up until we all hear their side of the story. In part one of our two-part interview, Fast Company talked with Cameron Winklevoss about his legacy post-Facebook, parties at Harvard, and his interpretation of The Social Network.

Today, in the second half of our interview, Cameron Winklevoss imagines a world without Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg--where ConnectU, not Facebook, is the world's largest social network. During our conversation we touch on Julian Assange, Steve Jobs, America, and Mark Zuckerberg's performance as CEO of Facebook.

Fast Company...

From the climate-change crisis to the mass appeal of clean energy, panelists weighed in on WindMade, the first consumer label identifying products made with wind power, at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Watch video of the best moments from the announcement of this new energy initiative.

The "Big Picture" Behind WindMade

Related story on The Daily Beast: Inside The New Beast

Wind, oil, and gas: Ditlev Engel, the CEO of Vestas Wind Systems, a wind-turbine manufacturer, said that while wind covers only 2 percent of electricity consumption today, his company believes in the future it will become much more significant. The vision: "We believe wind is the only source of energy that in the future is going to be recognized on par with oil and gas," Engel said.

Liebreich: WikiLeaks for Wind

Clean energy isn't "alternative": Michael Liebreich, the CEO of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, stressed that the success...

I've talked to a lot of people about "The Social Network." I've met people who didn't like it because they felt it didn't tell them enough about Facebook. I've met people who didn't like it because they didn't think it lived up to the hype or their expectations. But I haven't met anyone who didn't like "The Social Network" because it was untruthful. For whatever reason, it's just not a big deal to most viewers. Oh sure, they may be curious about where director David Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin contorted the facts to serve their needs as filmmakers. But very few people looked at the truth, compared it to the movie, and said "this invalidates the film."

Which is why I'm a bit confused by the growing controversy around "The Social Network"'s biggest competitor at next month's Academy Awards, "The King's Speech." Most of it surrounds this article by Christopher Hitchens for Slate.

What topics are dominating the hallways and panels at the World Economic Forum? From low-income countries to Larry Summers, David Kirkpatrick on six things everyone is talking about. Plus, John Kao on the irony of Davos' elites bent on social innovation and the best video moments from WindMade's panel on wind power.

Digital + Business = Everything

Related story on The Daily Beast: Obama's Apology Tour

The realities of digital convergence are finally sinking in on Davos Men and Women (of whom there are more here than in past years), from the discussions to the behavior of conference attendees. At one session of 80 people, about 35 were carrying iPads, a device only first announced sometime around last year's Davos. What does Digital Convergence mean? That the proliferation of digital tools fundamentally changes the social and business landscape. Both hallway talk and numerous formal sessions explored the likely transformation of industries of all sorts...

uProtect.it, a new application from Reputation.com, enables users to restrict who can see their data on Facebook. David Kirkpatrick tracks down Reputation.com CEO Michael Fertik in Davos for more details on the tech bombshell-from its implications in revolts like Tunisia to whether it'll be banned by Facebook.

A new application on Facebook gives users, for the first time, ironclad control over the data they post on the social-networking site.

Related story on The Daily Beast: Goldman's Shady Facebook Deal

uProtect.it, as the application is known, has not been announced by its creator, the small security company Reputation.com, but was reported in The Wall Street Journal's Digits Blog on Monday. I ran into CEO Michael Fertik Tuesday night in Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum, where Reputation.com, formerly known as ReputationDefender, has been honored as a so-called Tech Pioneer, one of a small number...

iTunes Movie Trailers: Focus Features finally releases a clip of Julianne Moore’s show-stopping soliloquoy about marriage in “The Kids Are All Right” — and, as a fan of Moore’s, I’m furious. This should have been done months ago when it really could have made a difference, not five days before Oscar nomination ballots are due. At this point, virtually all of the heat for the film has been guided towards Moore’s co-star Annette Bening, and it seems doubtful that Moore’s prospects can be salvaged by anything.

The Facebook Effect: Today, several awards bloggers, including yours truly, received a copy of “The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World,” David Kirkpatrick’s authorized history of Facebook, from a prominent PR firm that is promoting its paperback release on February 1. The timing of this delivery struck some of us as a little strange,...

As entire tech world returns from the Consumer Electronics Show, David Kirkpatrick reports on what was hot. From iPad rivals, 3-D televisions, these are the devices the pros are buzzing about.

What was most notable about this year's massive Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was what was missing. And it wasn't only Apple, the industry leader whose elegant devices have come to define quality in both computer and mobile technology. Apple's Steve Jobs is legendary for his disdainful absence from CES, where so many other companies seek vainly to show they can match his product magic. But this year there was a broader absence-because it is no longer "electronics" per se that define or symbolize the state of the art in consumer technology. And the most important electronic device that was present at the show was confined to a corner and mostly unmentioned by the crowds of reporters and...

Marissa Mayer, the executive behind Google's search engine, now aims to help the company conquer social media and personalize your Web experience on mobile phones. She talks to David Kirkpatrick about her war with Facebook.

Over breakfast, Google's Marissa Mayer isn't shy when laying the dazzling innovations her company is planning-or has launched-in mobile and local technology.

Related story on The Daily Beast: Save the World in 10 Seconds

For 11 years, Mayer was in charge of Google's signature Web search product-and recently moved over to overseeing local products, a key growth area as the Internet's pervasive influence increasingly extends to wherever we are. In Google's lexicon, "local" includes its excellent maps as well as mobile search technology to help you understand what's around you on the go. Many of her group's projects also extend into the social arena, so she had interesting things to say about Facebook, too.

What most excites...

Far from turning up the heat for Facebook to go public, Goldman Sachs' $450 million investment, along with Digital Sky's $50 million more, may actually delay the social-networking giant's Ipo, says David Kirkpatrick.

Monday's eye-popping announcement that Goldman Sachs was investing $450 million in Facebook, now with a $50 billion valuation, has reinvigorated the attention of a Facebook-obsessed world.

Related story on The Daily Beast: Goldman's Facebook Voodoo

I think the deal is being widely misinterpreted. The article that broke the news in The New York Times suggests that the deal may increase pressure on Facebook for an Ipo. Its impact could in fact be quite the opposite. That would well suit CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Why do companies go public? Generally for two reasons: to raise capital to expand operations and to offer liquidity to hardworking employees who have been compensated in part with stock options. Yet both of those goals will be achieved for the time being,...

In 2010, the 26-year-old Facebook founder recreated how humans communicated. Company biographer David Kirkpatrick gives 10 reasons he deserves Time's Person of the Year.

Many ask whether at a mere 26, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg could possibly merit being named Person of the Year by Time magazine. For them it's like Obama getting the Nobel Prize in the first year of his presidency. Perhaps merited, but premature.

Related story on The Daily Beast: Time Picked the Wrong Guy

From my vantagepoint, having chronicled Facebook and Zuckerberg's story, there is irrefutable logic in recognizing Zuckerberg's uniquely historic impact on the world. A legitimate question remains-should it have been this year?-but only because I suspect that he will likely have even more impact next year. And perhaps more after that.

Still, 2010 was monumental for Zuckerberg. Here are 10 reasons why:

1) Facebook added 250 million new users, reaching more than 600 million in just seven years-an unprecedented achievement,...

Before 2010, Mark Zuckerberg, the 26-year-old co-founder and CEO of Facebook, was primarily known as a mysterious, sweatshirted figure, a Silicon Valley wunderkind familiar mainly to those in tech circles.But this year, Zuckerberg has been thrust into pop culture ubiquity, appearing on screens of all shapes and sizes, from "Oprah" to one of the year's most acclaimed films.On Wednesday, his public ascent was solidified by Time magazine, which named him its "Person of the Year." He's the youngest choice for the honor since the first one chosen, Charles Lindbergh in 1927.In a posting . where else? . on his Facebook page, Zuckerberg said being named Time's "Person of the Year" was "a real honor and recognition of how our little team is building something that hundreds of millions of people want to use to make the world more open and connected. I'm happy to be a part of that.

Buying the discount email company Groupon-for a staggering $5.3 billion, no less-would only reinforce the feeling that Google, the company to beat in tech, is suffering a crisis of confidence.

The astonishing reports that Google might buy Groupon for $5.3 billion or more have everyone in Silicon Valley scratching their heads. How could this immature company possibly be worth anywhere near that amount?

Related story on The Daily Beast: The Facebook Gaming Revolution

In an era when the Internet is increasingly about mobile and social, there are undeniable appeals to the Groupon story for a company like Google, which has utterly failed in social software. But if Groupon were to sell for the reported figure, it would be the second most expensive sale in history for a private venture-backed company, only exceeded by the bubble-driven sale of telecom technology firm Cerent to Cisco in 1999, for about $7 billion.

Groupon isn't so important that it merits such rarefied company.

With Facebook revealing details of its new messaging service, Tom Weber squares it off against Google in a 10-category smackdown to determine who will control the future of email.

Facebook, after great anticipation over its "Gmail killer," is finally showing what its new messaging system will look like. And Mark Zuckerberg et al. adamantly emphasize one thing: You shouldn't compare Facebook's new approach to Gmail.

Related story on The Daily Beast: Testing the New Google Killer

But we're going to do it anyway. A head-to-head comparison with Gmail is the best way to understand Facebook's new messaging features, which will be rolled out over the next few months. (And let's face it, both companies have a lot at stake, as The Daily Beast's David Kirkpatrick explains.) To get past the hype and give you a better handle on whether Facebook is about to become your ultimate communications hub, The Daily...

With the social giant's unveiling of its new messaging service today, Mark Zuckerberg has declared war on Google-and the idea of websites. David Kirkpatrick, author of the Facebook Effect, on what it means-and why Facebook may now go public.

Facebook launched a real messaging service today, replacing its clunky messaging system with something that foments a direct, head-to-head battle with Google for dominance of the Internet.

Related story on The Daily Beast: Don't Ditch Your Gmail

The new Facebook system consists of three fundamental innovations: It unifies instant messages, SMS texts, and email into one in box; it turns all your interactions-ever-with any correspondent into one continuous thread which you can use to look back over your mutual history; and it uses its knowledge of your social interactions and friends on Facebook to sort your email for you so you are more likely to see the messages you care about first.

Radically improved online searches, real-time updates of Facebook friends' walls-RockMelt, which just launched in beta, is an intriguing competitor to Firefox and Chrome. David Kirkpatrick talks to its founder.

A startup called RockMelt on Sunday launched the beta version of an entirely new type of Web browser with an impeccable pedigree. Its primary investor is Marc Andreessen, who helped invent the very concept of Web browsing. RockMelt co-founders Eric Vishria and Tim Howes are his longtime associates at Opsware, a company he earlier founded and sold. RockMelt's browser works differently from Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari. It is more than just an application on a PC or Mac. For one thing, it presumes users are on Facebook and offers a number of features to simplify the Facebook experience. Integrated with the app is an online service, or what is trendily known as a "cloud." RockMelt also applies several techniques to...

Erc Box Office: Jeff Bock confirms that awards-hopeful “The Social Network” took first place at the box office for the second week in a row, adding $15.5 million — or only 31% less than its opening weekend — to bring its cumulative gross to $46 million. The Katherine Heigl rom-com “Life As We Know It” came in second with $14.6 million, and “Secretariat,” the Disney horse drama targeted at middle America, rounded out the top three with a disappointing $12.6 million take. “Inside Job,” a doc about the financial crisis tha’s now in limited release, had the highest per-theater average of any release, bringing in $21,000 on each of two screens in New York.

Movies and Other Things: Julian Stark wonders if “Secretariat” still stands a chance as “a major Oscar player” following its aforementioned commercial setback. He speculates, “Disney might decide against pouring money into a campaign that might not get the film so far anyway,...

I think I can safely say that The Social Network is not the feel-good movie of the year – certainly not for Mark Zuckerberg, or for the dozens of exceptionally talented men and women who created Facebook. They were, and are, brilliant, hardworking and imaginative people who, mostly by design and occasionally by lucky accident, managed to survive the uniquely fraught early moments of an online start-up and the more established dangers of real-world Valley venture capital. It was a swirl alright, but not the way the film would have you think. There are, of course, exceptions to the exceptional: Eduardo Saverin and the Winklevii. (The goofy name that Zuckerberg stamped on the preternaturally entitled Winklevoss twins appears to be true. It delighted the audience.) The movie was based on Ben Mezrich’s book, The Accidental Billionaire, an entertaining read that was so breezily fictional that Janet Maslin of The New...

Prince Andrew, Duke of York, has reportedly been entertaining 25-year-old model Alexandra Escat in his private apartment. This summer, Escat caught our eye when she was spotted getting cozy with the Prince on a yacht. (We unearthed one of her old commercials, if you recall.) Suddenly, the Filipino beauty was the most sought-after interview in town, and poor Andrew reportedly implored her not to speak to the press. She hasn't breathed a word. (Looks like her new agent, public-relations heavy hitter Max Clifford, has been giving good advice.) A discreet beauty is hard to find—we have a feeling she'll be enjoying many a private dinner with the Duke of York. Photographs documenting the antics of Andrew's youngest daughter, Princess Eugenie, have hit the Internet. Originally posted on Facebook, the pictures show the 20-year-old royal in a series of poses that range from boozy-goofy to goofy-provocative. We feel for the girl.

In his new book The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World (Simon & Schuster; June 2010), veteran technology reporter and Fortune contributor David Kirkpatrick gains unprecedented access to the inner workings of the social phenomenon with full cooperation of founder Mark Zuckerburg, his quirky group of friends, and top executives. Below, Kirkpatrick describes how Zuckerburg and Facebook's founding president Sean Parker first met in the Silicon Valley in June 2004. (Kirkpatrick's profile, With a Little Help From His Friends, of Facebook's co-founder Sean Parker appeared in the October 2010 issue of Vanity Fair.) Listen to the podcast after the jump.

Metro Screen’s David Kirkpatrick has been awarded a the 2010 Dome Lab scholarship

Kirkpatrick is a sound and multimedia artist. He graduated from the University of Wollongong with a Bca in 2008 and his work includes an interactive installation at the Sydney Opera House.

Kirkpatrick said he hopes to “discover new ways of working with visuals that go beyond the television and cinema screen and to offer them to others in future collaborations.”

Dome Lab is Intensive workshop investigating this potential and the specific challenges involved in creating compelling live-action narrative content for large format and frameless screens. Reflecting its provenance, most fulldome content to date has been educational and comprised of computer-generated animation, data visualisation, or a combination of both. ”

The Dome Lab Scholarship is a nationwide initiative through Screen Development Australia [Sda]...

A new movie, The Social Network, promises to lift the lid on Facebook and its creator Mark Zuckerberg

In many respects, Suite H33 in Kirkland House, Harvard University, was just like any other student dormitory shared by four 19-year-olds. There were two bedrooms, each containing a bunk bed and a desk, interlinked by a hallway and a common room filled with the detritus of undergraduate life: half-empty cans of Red Bull, dirty laundry scattering the floor and crumpled brown paper bags containing the curling crusts of unfinished sandwiches. Occasionally, one of the roommates' girlfriends would get so fed up with the mess she would throw out al l the rubbish, but the bouts of cleanliness never lasted. Despite her efforts, there always seemed to be the pungent smell of male adolescence hanging in the air, that indefinable mixture of overactive hormones and unwashed clothes.

But in other ways, Suite H33 was different.

Sean Parker is already famous in today's Web-connected tech world, mythical perhaps. He was around at the start of Napster, Facebook, and more recently Chatroulette. But Parker's getting even more famous thanks to a profile in Vanity Fair, and the upcoming Facebook movie.

The movie is The Social Network, David Fincher's biopic about the birth of Facebook--already controversial because of its portrayal of CEO Mark Zuckerberg. But Sean Parker, a speaker at our Fast Company Innovation Uncensored conference, played an absolutely crucial role at several pivotal moments in Facebook's early history. One example: a huge argument in a branch of Silicon Valley Bank over whether or not his partner Zuckerberg should go back to finish studies at Harvard--Zuckerberg was unsure, Parker was convinced about Facebook's future (Mark stayed). So Parker gets a starring role in the movie too--played by Justin Timberlake.

Vanity Fair's David Kirkpatrick delves deeper into Parker's life,...

Over the weekend, the New York Times ran a story suggesting the powers that be at Facebook were unhappy with the way they and the founding of their company are being portrayed in David Fincher's forthcoming "The Social Network."

Monday, the NY Post's Lou Lumenick called the piece out for biased reporting (it quotes David Kirkpatrick, whose "The Facebook Effect" was a rival to "The Social Network"'s primary source, Ben Mezrich's "The Accidental Billionaires"), and Tuesday the Hollywood Reporter noted that one of the scenes that was apparently being argued over, taking place "at a party while two young women offer lines of cocaine from naked breasts," would not be cut.

"Honestly, I wish that when people try to do journalism or write stuff about Facebook that they at least try to get it right," Mark Zuckerberg apparently said in a recent onstage interview. But it's this...

HollywoodNews.com: It’s not good when an Oscar contending film, typically one that is biographical in nature, comes against criticism in its dramatization of the facts. Often times, critics forget that it’s a movie.

Some Oscar winning films have a Teflon resistance to this, i.e. 2001 Best Picture Winner “A Beautiful Mind” apparently diverged from some real-life events in its main character John Nash’s life. However, whenever history is muddled with on screen, it has cost some films the prime trophy, i.e. “The Hurricane.”

Weeks before its Sept. 24 debut at the New York Film Festival, “The Social Network,” the cinematic chronicle of the founding of Facebook, is already facing some criticism. This is ridiculous because apparently, per a New York Post blog, producer Scott Rudin isn’t even finished with the cut of the film yet.

However, the New York Times ran a piece where they...

HollywoodNews.com: In bringing the true story of Facebook to the screen in “The Social Network,” the film’s creators consulted with the social website.

Producer Scott Rudin apparently interfaced with Facebook executives Elliot Schrage, vice president of Communications and COO Sheryl Sandberg, giving them an early glimpse of the film and the script. Schrage wanted to see more content in the film from a Facebook tome by David Kirkpatrick, but the scripted material never came together.

Some of the edits they demanded, Rudin considered, others not.

The New York Times and the Hollywood Reporter had the news.

One dicey sequence cut from the film depicts Napster co-founder Sean Parker in an ill-light as he gives a speech while teenage girls offer cocaine lines on their naked bodies.

Rudin and “Social” creators were able to executive a biopic about the company while taking liberties as a number of scenes were...

Facebook executives requested changes to the upcoming film "The Social Network," some of which were granted.

Producer Scott Rudin told The New York Times that he made unspecified tweaks after giving Facebook execs early glimpses of the script and edit of the film.

But don't go thinking "Social" is corporate propaganda just yet; Rudin said he refused bigger changes Facebook demanded (also unspecified).

One scene in particular is described as a possible deletion from the film's final cut: A speech made by the character of Napster co-founder Sean Parker while in the background teenage girls offer lines of cocaine for partygoers to snort off their bared breasts.

"Social" producers have already acknowledged that the film takes liberties with the facts of the company's history. The film is expected to give a particularly unflattering portrait of Mark Zuckerberg, played by Jesse Eisenberg.

Zuckerberg isn't quoted in the article, which reports that...

In his new book The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World (Simon & Schuster; June 2010), veteran technology reporter and Fortune contributor David Kirkpatrick gains unprecedented access to the inner workings of the social–networking phenomenon with full cooperation of founder Mark Zuckerberg, his quirky group of friends, and other top executives. Below, Kirkpatrick describes how Zuckerberg and the major, if controversial, character Sean Parker first met in the Silicon Valley in June 2004. Listen to the podcast after the jump.

Morning, campers. While you were sleeping innovation was stealing a march on you. Here's what's been going on:

1. Catch Steve Jobs' WWDC10 keynote in its entirety here. Marvel at the picture quality of iPhone 4 and its "retina display." Wowzers. Then go download Safari 5, the latest Web browser out of One Infinite Loop. It's speedier, cleaner, and more secure, says Ars Technica.

2. Obama would have fired Bp's CEO, Tony Hayward, according to an interview with NBC's Today Show. There's speculation that the British energy giant may have to be carved up if it is unable to afford the cleanup. In Louisiana, one of the victims of the Deepwater explosion testified in front of a congressional committee but was adamant she didn't want to see an end to offshore oil drilling. It is, however, a truth universally acknowledged, that the regulations need tightening. We're about to see that happen on the other side of the Atlantic.

In recent weeks, tech pundits have been deleting their Facebook accounts and encouraging others to join them. Most are signing off in response to Facebook's ongoing bait-and-switch tactics that leave them not trusting Facebook. All of this is completely fair, but those who are signing off are not representative of the bulk of Facebook's users. And this act of resistance by a few -- or a thousand, or even a million -- is not going to reshape the company's practices. That said, growing public resentment and distrust creates a fantastic opportunity to begin a deeper dialogue about how these issues should play out.

I've been critiquing moves made by Facebook for a long time and I'm pretty used to them being misinterpreted. When I lamented the development of the News Feed, many people believed that I thought that the technology was a failure and that it wouldn't be popular. This was patently untrue.

Dear Mark Zuckerberg,

I'm writing to you (big fan of yours. Biiiiig fan) to suggest that, when the inevitable book deals from publishers come winging your way, you young thruster, you, that I ghostwrite it. Not your memoirs--let's leave that to Kitty Kelley, as she's a far, far better excavator of truthiness than I could ever be--but your guide to managing a billion-dollar startup.

Have you seen David Kirkpatrick's tome The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World? Here's a link to its fan page on your own site--not that I'm sucking up, of course. Just to digress slightly, might I suggest that you take a cue from someone famous--i think it was Madonna--who claimed that she didn't read her press cuttings but merely weighed them. Stick the book on the kitchen scales when you've got a moment. Alternatively, you could get Higgins...

I'm shocked by the incredibly long and in-depth and unsurvivable story and video (see below) from today's Boston Globe about David Kirkpatrick, the ex-Hollywood mogul who once upon a time was a big deal at Disney and Paramount until his 1991 firing which brought a smile to the face of a long list of enemies back then. I found him to be a prick of the first order. But I had no idea he'd come to such a miserable end in Massachusetts by dreaming big, promising big, and then failing big for a $650M "Hollywood East". According to the newspaper, he lost [...]...

The Producers Guild of America has signed a two-year deal with Plymouth Rock Studios to help present the annual PGA Awards and its new Produced by Conference.

The awards show takes place Jan. 24, and the inaugural conference will take place June 6-7.

Designed to increase the profile of the New England entertainment industry, Prs is a nascent Massachusetts-based film and TV studio complex scheduled to open in 2010. With 14 soundstages on a 250-acre campus, it will be the first environmentally friendly, Leed-certified studio complex.

"Plymouth Rock Studios' David Kirkpatrick and Earl Lestz understand the work our members do in the industry and recognize that content in all mediums begin with the vision of the producer," PGA executive director Vance Van Petten said. "This new partnership was particularly attractive because our membership base has grown tremendously on a national level, especially on the East Coast."...

Faith-based marketing strikes again. A Christian evangelical company will release today a 10-DVD version of the New Testament as a "Christian response" to The Da Vinci Code movie, set to open in U.S. theaters in two weeks. The WatchWord Bible is being sold nationwide by about 140,000 Christian churches through Christian Copyright Licensing International. The DVD also is being sold by the Promise Keepers, a national Christian evangelical ministry for men, and on the Web site www.seetheword.com. "We feel it is important to be able to open up a dialogue about faith that is positive, that looks at 'The Da Vinci Code' as a positive platform for discussion about faith and the roots of our faith," said David Kirkpatrick, president of Good News Holdings, a Christian evangelical company that is distributing the video Bible.

The characters in Don Roos' "The Opposite of Sex" never seem to know when to shut up, and that's their charm. They are compulsive commentators on their own lives, and again and again, the comments elicit explosive laughs.

When the firecracker dialogue subsides, the deliciously snide narration takes over, delivered (with a sneer we can hear) by Christina Ricci. Her character, Dedee Truitt, is a psycho bimbette with a bottomless fund of contempt for the gross stupidity -- especially in sexual matters -- of just about everybody she encounters. "Typically gay", Dedee groans, of the gleaming golden urn in which her half-brother's Bill (Martin Donovan) stores the ashes of his former lover.

Roos is a successful screenwriter ("Single White Female", "Boys on the Side") making his directorial debut. For a first-timer, his sure-footed craftsmanship is very smooth. This is a verbally bawdy movie, but visually, it's the soul of discretion -- nudity-free, even in scenes that seem to call for it. He offers lip service (pardon the expression) to sexiness, but Roos isn't a satiric sensualist like Pedro Almodovar; rather than reveling in naughtiness, he holds it at arm's length and squints at it quizzically, firing off bon mots. The focus is consistently on the mental and social side effects of sexuality, the impossibility of making sense of it and the unforeseen consequences of unleashing it.

Dedee is fleeing a hellish family situation when she ends up on Bill's doorstep, dribbling cigarette ashes on the potted plants. She zeroes in on her half-brother's housemate, the dim Adonis Matt Mateo (Ivan Sergei, making the most of every vacant stare), in part because the spectacle of a contented gay relationship drives her crazy. She sets out with brisk efficiency (and a skillfully deployed bikini) to seduce the handsome stupe.

Roos takes current assumptions about the fluidity of sexual orientation absolutely for granted and gleefully works changes on them.

It's been only a couple of years since Ricci headlined films such as "Casper" and "Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain." On evidence of this picture, and of her star turn last year as a barely pubescent temptress in "The Ice Storm", she will not be a TGIF icon anytime soon, not even as "Wednesday, the Teenage Ghoul". Ricci is an expert malevolent pouter, and the juxtaposition of her Cupie-doll face and her curve-a-minute physique is inherently unsettling.

But once she's served her initial plot function as a troublemaker, Dedee's role becomes peripheral. The focus shifts to the sensible people left behind to tidy up: Bill and his friend Lucia (Lisa Kudrow), a sharp-tongued colleague from his high school teaching job who has carried a hopeless torch for him for years.

Kudrow is a spectacularly crafty comedienne. Roos hands her many of the film's best lines, and, with preternatural timing, she nails every one. Kudrow can also floor us with nothing but a raised eyebrow or her tonal modulations when delivering a string of expletives. Her manipulation of dialogue is the comedic equivalent of scat singing. There's some amazing teamwork in her scenes with Donovan, who gives the movie a solid, subtle center.

Kudrow's lovelorn Lucia seems at first defined by an all-encompassing bitter disappointment. By the end, however, she has emerged as the movie's moral center, a pivotal presence in a film that often seems to relish cynicism for its own sake.

Probably only an openly gay moviemaker like Roos could get away with some of the elaborate slurs these characters (Dedee, mostly) thoughtlessly hurl at each other. His honed approach to dialogue, though a wizard wisecrack generator, begins to sound speechy when the characters have something serious to get across.

By roughing it up with eruptive anger, Donovan naturalizes a diatribe to the effect that gay men of his generation paved the way for the freedoms ungrateful young "grunge fairies" like Matt's snotty boy-toy Jason (Johnny Galecki) take for granted. But Lyle Lovett, who has to deliver the movie's other major philosophical pronouncement (sex is a form of "biological highlighting" designed to focus our attention on an individual), isn't able to cushion the blunt impact of the lines. In close-ups, Lovett does delightful tiny takes with only the squinchy muscles around his eyes; an infinitesimal facial twitch is often his sole response to tumultuous events.

The pervasively self-conscious tone of "The Opposite of Sex" is certainly no accident. Roos is a ironist through and through, and in Dedee Truitt, he supplies a narrator who knows she is one and snaps out comments on the craft of storytelling. When a previously cold-blooded but voluble character finally warms up, Dedee is appalled by her boudoir antics: "She turned out to be one of those talkers!"

Apparently, the habit of loquacity dies hard.

THE OPPOSITE OF SEX

Sony Pictures Classics

Director-screenwriter: Don Roos

Producers: David Kirkpatrick, Michael Besman

Executive producers: Jim Lotfi, Steve Danton

Director of photography: Hubert Taczanowski

Editor: David Codron

Music: Mason Daring

Production designer: Michael Clausen

Costume designer: Peter Mitchell

Color/stereo

Cast:

Dedee Truitt: Christina Ricci

Bill Truitt: Martin Donovan

Lucia: Lisa Kudrow

Carl Tippett: Lyle Lovett

Jason: Johnny Galecki

Matt Mateo: Ivan Sergei

Randy: William Scott Lee

Running time -- 100 minutes

MPAA rating: R...

Chronicling one couple's adventures in procreation, "A Smile Like Yours" starts out with a premise that is certainly fertile fodder for a '90s romantic comedy.

However, the end result, directed and co-written by Rysher Entertainment founder Keith Samples (with Kevin Meyer), is a dreary, labored affair that squanders the promising concept, leaving a response of widespread indifference in its wake.

At the boxoffice, given that and the fact Greg Kinnear and Lauren Holly have yet to prove themselves as bankable leads, moviegoers will likely opt for abstinence.

On the surface, Danny and Jennifer Robertson (Kinnear and Holly) would appear to have everything going for them, including a strong, passionate relationship and good jobs. He works in construction. She is co-owner of a burgeoning aroma-therapy business. The only thing missing in their lives is a bouncing bundle of joy.

While Danny isn't so sure the timing's right, Jennifer becomes absolutely obsessed with the idea. When all homespun methods fail to produce the desired result, they surrender their bodies to a fertility clinic as their marriage, too, is tested by a series of fresh stress loads.

To the script's credit, it doesn't shy away from all the invasive treats that await couples when their attempts at baby-making shift from the bedroom to the lab. The results will likely have some nodding their heads in empathy and others squirming in their seats, but that isn't the picture's problem. It's Samples' awkward freshman direction, which places undue emphasis on all the wrong moments, suffocating potential humor, not to mention lumbering pacing (the kiss of death for a romantic comedy) that makes the film's reasonable 101-minute running time feel interminable.

The other major problem is that Holly and Kinnear (last seen together in "Sabrina") make for a cute, if bland, couple. As likable and sincere as they come across, they simply lack the dynamic that would enable them to transcend the material and make it their own. Picking up the slack is the always terrific Joan Cusack as Holly's business partner, Jay Thomas as Kinnear's work buddy and Marianne Muellerleile who's a riot as a smirking, bullying fertility clinic nurse.

Even Shirley MacLaine has been recruited (obviously as a favor to Samples for Rysher's "Evening Star"), making an unbilled extended cameo at the picture's end, but her considerable comedic talents are unable to resuscitate a production that simply fails to deliver the goods.

A SMILE LIKE YOURS

Paramount Pictures

Rysher Entertainment presents

a David Kirkpatrick production

Director Keith Samples

Screenwriters Kevin Meyer, Keith Samples

Producers David Kirkpatrick, Tony Amatullo

Executive producer Robert Harling

Director of photography Richard Bowen

Production designer Garreth Stover

Editor Wayne Wahrman

Costume designer Jill Ohanneson

Music William Ross

Music supervisors Randy Gerston, Evyen Klean

Casting Jennifer Shull

Color/stereo

Cast:

Danny Robertson Greg Kinnear

Jennifer Robertson Lauren Holly

Nancy Tellen Joan Cusack

Steve Harris Jay Thomas

Lindsay Hamilton Jill Hennessy

Richard Halstrom Christopher McDonald

Dr. Felber Donald Moffat

Dr. Chin France Nuyen

Nurse Wheeler Marianne Muellerleile

Running time -- 101 minutes

MPAA rating: R...

It's akin to going to a family reunion and seeing people you haven't had contact with in 15 years and then filling in all the new boyfriends, kids and others. That's the feeling of "The Evening Star", the second coming of Aurora Greenway, whose life and tribulations captivated us in "Terms of Endearment".

With Shirley MacLaine reprising her Oscar-winning role to prickly perfection, this follow-up film will surely tug at the hearts of Aurora followers, but its episodic nature is not as likely to enthrall audiences as its heart-tugging predecessor. Unquestionably, this "Star" will shine brightest among an older, female audience who will savor Aurora's life adventures, but lacking the big emotional burst of the former, this soap-operatic sequel is not likely to negotiate "Term"'s popularity. More discerning viewers will be downright rankled by its strident tendencies toward emotional melodramatics.

Unlike the daily soaps, you can't pick this one up quite lickety-split. It takes awhile to learn the players. As you already know, Aurora's daughter (Debra Winger) has passed on with cancer, and what you perhaps didn't realize is that Aurora has raised her grandchildren, with decidedly mixed results.

"Terms of Endearment"'s mother-daughter rivalry is now a grandmother-granddaughter tug of war as Aurora struggles to keep her feisty granddaughter, Melanie (Juliette Lewis) from "doing everything wrong in life."

Then there are her grandsons: Teddy (Mackenzie Astin) who's not ambitious enough for Aurora, and Tommy (George Newbern) who, break her heart, is doing time in the penitentiary. Even Aurora's imperturbable front cannot mask the deep disappointment she feels in how her grandkids turned out.

Even worse, they resent her for it, especially Melanie, who has a much tighter bond with her mother's old chum, Patsy (Miranda Richardson) who, as a blond nouveau rich socialite, is everything that Aurora despises and is, as she readily admits, her worst nightmare.

Force of nature that she is, Aurora leaves everything in her wake: bad blood, broken hearts, big grudges, but, best of all, undying love. While some of the story's plot permutations fry a bit fast and are served somewhat slick-side up, screenwriter-director Robert Harling has done an overall solid job of cinematically shaping Larry McMurtry's massive, rambling novel.

Despite some crammed dramatics, "The Evening Star" radiates with many rich emotional moments. And, most of them, fittingly, are the result of Shirley MacLaine's splendid performance as the indomitable Aurora. She's the force to which all others react and, indeed, the drive of MacLaine's performance and personality has undoubtedly kindled the supporting players to their fullest dimension.

Supporting standouts include Lewis as Aurora's brittle and confused but resilient granddaughter; and Richardson who as the still-blond Texas socialite Patsy, is, indeed, a thorny yellow rose. A tip of the brim also to the late Ben Johnson for his solid-rock performance as Aurora's physician neighbor and to Donald Moffat for his spit-and-polish panache as Aurora's old-military ex-beau. Tooling into town for a quickie NASA reunion, Jack Nicholson briefly flashes the devilish grin that continues to defy all of Aurora's better sense and good judgment.

The outstanding technical contributions certainly put the eyes of Texas upon you: Bruno Rubeo's production design sharply delineates the contradictions between down-home Texas and modern-day Houston, similarly, Renee Ehrlich Kalfus' costume design captures the ground-level garishness of Texas garb. A particular highlight is Aurora's costumery, frilly and light-colored as befits a woman whose star will never quietly fade into the night.

THE EVENING STAR

Paramount Pictures

Rysher Entertainment

A David Kirkpatrick production

Producers David Kirkpatrick, Polly Platt,

Keith Samples

Screenwriter-director Robert Harling

Based on the novel by Larry McMurtry

Director of photography Don Burgess

Production designer Bruno Rubeo

Editors Priscilla Nedd-Friendly, David Moritz

Costume designer Renee Ehrlich Kalfus

Music William Ross

Co-producer Dennis Bishop

Casting Jennifer Shull

Sound mixer Douglas Axtell

Color/stereo

Cast:

Aurora Greenway Shirley MacLaine

Jerry Bruckner Bill Paxton

Melanie Horton Juliette Lewis

Patsy Carpenter Miranda Richardson

Arthur Cotton Ben Johnson

Bruce Scott Wolf

Tommy Horton George Newbern

Rosie Dunlop Marion Ross

Teddy Horton Mackenzie Astin

Hector Scott Donald Moffat

Jane China Kantner

Garrett Breedlove Jack Nicholson

Running time -- 127 minutes

MPAA rating: PG-13...