ericflieshigh

This episode is amazing, from Rick's relationship with Unity to Beth's relationship with Jerry, there is a lot to be explored. But the standout is the ending, where we get the realest scene in the entire show. We're introduced to a downtrodden Rick who we realize isn't so invincible after all, and it's incredibly powerful.

If you want to get motivated for college go ahead and watch The Social Network directed by David Fincher (it's on Netflix at the moment). The script written by Aaron Sorkin is witty, sharp and has an almost musical quality that makes you want to tour encyclopedias cover-to-cover while listening to drumbeat patterns. You can't help but hang on to every meticulously uttered word. The dialogue is spoken with confidence, unmoving and absolute, it makes real life seem dull in comparison. The soundtrack by Nine Inch Nails provides a haunting atmosphere that sounds like a combination of beeping computer hardware, the twinkling melody of innovation, and the crushing roar of loneliness under the guise of the ultimate popularity. The tone of the movie would be different if there were mellow, upbeat guitar twangs and drum crashes rather than this melancholy masterpiece. The immediately recognizable triplet of piano notes that occasionally weaves in and out of the score is haunting. The lack of stereotypical shots of glory where the music crescendos and the orchestra goes fortissimo makes for droning, electronically harsh sounds to fill up the background in such an omnipresent and subtle way that you don't even register when the music picks up, the marriage of sound to scene is so darn tight. It's surprising when you go listen to the soundtrack itself and hear the screeching blasts of audio that could only come from machine. Was that in the movie? Yes, it was quite loud too.

The lighting, set design, and cinematography are just magnificent. The warm ambient lighting of Harvard dorms and legal deposition rooms shroud the scenes with such a cozy intimacy that I myself watch this film when I'm sick and want to feel comfortable. The iconic campus of Harvard is majestic, you could very well believe that the cement holding the reddish-brown brick together contains the very foundations of knowledge itself. Prestigious Harvard banners litter dorm room backgrounds as drinking undergrads party the night away, reminding you that even students at the highest level of academia know how get loose as they gyrate half-naked on an ottoman to the hottest new pop track. Sick. The modern designs of furniture later in the film are not only a signal to the passing of time, they're the embodiment of current era tech - they're sleek, gunmetal grey, ergonomic, and downright sexy. Fincher's shots are gorgeous as hell, his preference for static camerawork means there are innumerable moments where you could pause the film and BOOM put it on a poster and nobody would question its validity. The acting performances are without flaw - I can't imagine any other actor in the place of Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake plays the role of a cunning and crafty entrepreneur a little too well, and Andrew Garfield is so much more than a webslinger in spandex. All these components of the film come together to form an immensely satisfying piece of art, a masterclass in filmmaking that keeps me coming back for more. Maybe feeling ill isn't so bad. As for the substance, well, there's a lot.

This film has a lot of themes, it depicts the rustle and tussle underneath the glittering waters of wildly successful enterprise and within that picture you get lessons on relatinships, class, betrayal, ambition, greed, jealousy, breakthrough, fulfilment, comradery, and a smorgasbord of other messages worth thinking about. There are so many different ways in which you can view this film and each angle is as riveting and as lucid as the rest. The Social Network is very much a modern film, yet it has themes that stretch back to the innovative Shakespearian literature. Looking past the more grandiose messages, you get my favorite element from the story. The Social Network is about living among an incredibly intelligent, high-achieving population and attempting the tough task of separating yourself from the rest of the lot. Mark Zuckerberg is FOCUSED on his pursuit of distinction. This film makes you want to go to college and not just get solid GPAs and internships, it makes you want to offer something far larger than that, something groundbreaking, something that changes the game. It makes you want to SPEND your youth instead of merely LIVING it. It makes you want to THRIVE instead of SURVIVING in college. The theme of how some wildly ambitious kids tromping near the eve of their primes managed to build a social network that promptly took over the entire world and permeated the thick barriers of billions of skulls, seeping into the know, is nothing short of inspirational. In the industry, there exists tons of feel-good films that seek to motivate you, but those motivational messages are lost when translated to reality, there's too much sunshine, too much rainbow, and then they have the audacity to tell us that there's even a pot of gold at the end. The Social Network is serious, it's not afraid of imperfection, of blemish, of the ugly, no, it assertively informs us of it. The invigorating message of The Social Network isn't something the film actively advertises, it sits prettily at the core, there for us to derive. It's an alternative take to the Scarface-esque neon-red inscription on a golden globe statue "the world is yours". Only instead of guns, cocaine on the tip of your nose, and Michelle Pfeiffer in a sleek dress, it's computers, coffee under your breath, and Rooney Mara on an LCD laptop screen. System.out.println("The world truly is yours");.

I'm recommending what's probably the most significant film of the past decade. Its social commentary, historical significance, and motivational inclinations, are all packaged up in an aesthetically pleasing format that we will look back at in awe later in the future, I guarantee it. It deserved every accolade it got, and more (lost respect for The Oscars after finding out The King's Speech won best picture over this). Do yourself a favor, and go watch The Social Network. Fincher you damn genius let me throw my money at you, respectfully.