Zuck Dynasty, Pt. 1 — The Social Network

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0:44 It's very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present.

0:49 Do you believe that someone out of the past can change?

0:53 Enter and take possession of a living being.

0:56 We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us.

1:03 Welcome to The Next Picture Show, a Movie of the Week podcast devoted to a classic film and how it's shaped our thoughts on a recent release. I'm Tasha Robinson, here with.

1:11 Keith Ips.

1:12 Genevieve Kosky.

1:13 And Scott Tobias.

1:15 We're here this week with two films fundamentally about Facebook's history and its place in our lives. So before we go any further, I've really got to ask, does Facebook currently have any place in your life at all?

1:26 Weirdly, yes. It's just become like sort of like my when I'm stalling for time, I will. It's just kind of like habitually I'll go through. Blue Sky, and then hit Facebook. I don't post to it, and I just basically read. When I read it, it's very, there's like two people who I keep in touch with via Facebook, and that's it. And yet, I look at the marketplace a lot for weird stuff that I never buy, but it's just become like a weird kind of, I don't know, almost like voyeuristic thing. It's like, oh, that's what they're talking about on Facebook now? But in terms of it being a central part of my life in any way beyond just kind of gawking, it really isn't.

2:03 Keith, where do you get your Q drops from? Do you go directly to 4chan or do you not go on Facebook like I do?

2:12 I buy black market Q drops on the dark web.

2:17 So, yeah, I don't use Facebook that often. It is a thing where relatives are on it, older relatives. And so there'll be some occasional photos posted probably once every six months or so of my kids, though that's kind of an uncomfortable area, I think. And there is also like a, Peloton related thing that I'm on there, but again, not very important. It's an interesting, it really feels old.

2:40 It feels old internet at this point. And despite, I think their attempts to try to make it current and it certainly is not terribly appealing to me. Like a lot of social media is not very appealing to me now. So that's where I'm at on Facebook.

2:53 Anyone who listens to the end of part two and hears me say week after week, I'm not really on social media. I won't be surprised to hear that I am not using Facebook these days. I think I've been more or less fully off of it since 2016, although my profile is still up there and I do occasionally use Marketplace. But I will say, I think I have the claim to having been on Facebook the longest time on this podcast, because Facebook actually came out while I was in college, and I signed up when it was still a for college students only thing. So I joined Facebook in like, what would have been like 2004 to I think late 2004, probably. And as a result, like, My Facebook as it exists today is just still very

3:45 college oriented, like the vast majority of the people on there are people that I knew in college that I have not spoken to or really even thought about in well over a decade. So it is very much a like a time capsule for me.

4:00 Guys, I'm going to stop you real quickly. I'm on Facebook Marketplace now, and I found a 1987 GMC van that's painted to look like the Mystery Machine from Scooby-Doo. It's only $ 2, 500. I may have to go take care of.

4:12 That right now.

4:13 Okay.

4:14 I mean, the competition for that's going to be fierce. Yeah, I'm kind of in the same boat as Scott. I've got a bunch of older relatives there, and that's how they communicate. They post pictures on Facebook, and if I want to know anything about what's going on in their lives, I pretty much have to find it there. Weirdly, I play a lot of little phone games that operate around ads.

4:35 And lately, a lot of those ads are dumping me onto Facebook. So I'm on my phone playing a game and suddenly I'm on Facebook. And weirdly, I find myself staying there from time to time, mostly because there are so many local gardening communities that are specifically talking about how to make this plant thrive, like literally in my neighborhood area or how to deal with this particular invasive weed.

5:00 I did not ever think of Facebook like for localized community things like that. To me, it's always kind of been, you know, my mom's social media. So doing some research for this podcast, I found out a few things that actually really surprised me about Facebook's current demographic. I checked its current market value, and it's currently valued at $ 1. 8 trillion.

5:25 It claims more than 2 billion active daily users and more than 3 billion active monthly users. But the thing that surprised me most was that its online stats say that its primary worldwide audience is around 24 to 35 years old, which is a lot younger than I would have thought. It is still an intimidatingly huge and influential network. Keith, can you tell us about this pairing and the movies that dig into Facebook?

5:50 Absolutely.

5:50 Based on Ben Mesrick's 2009 book, The Accidental Billionaires, 2010's The Social Network presents a skating picture of Mark Zuckerberg, the primary force behind Facebook's origin, in a dorm room at Harvard. Director David Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin intercut between two timelines. The first tracks the inspiration behind the site and the cloud of people who influenced it. In the second, several of those people are suing Mark Zuckerberg, played by Jesse Eisenberg, and he proves to be a contemptuous, uncorruptive defendant in boardroom depositions. In both timelines, Zuckerberg comes across as egotistical and difficult, though possibly also vulnerable, easily manipulated, and hungry for approval. Sorkin returns this time as both

6:27 writer and director for their new movie, The Social Reckoning. He's repeatedly said the film isn't a sequel so much as a companion piece. It's far less focused on Zuckerberg, now played by Jeremy Strong as a rigid, cold executive. It's far more about whistleblower Frances Hagen and Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horowitz, who expose some of Facebook's manipulative and socially catastrophic policies with 2021's Facebook Files.

6:48 So in this episode, we'll discuss the tech bro energy and booze-fueled recklessness of young entrepreneurs on the rise in the social network. And next time, we'll see what those ambitious young kids look like when they get the power to change the world for their own profit in The Social Reckoning. Stay with us.

7:02 I need to do something substantial in order to get the attention of the clubs.

7:05 Why?

7:06 Because they're exclusive and fun and they lead to a better life.

7:11 People want to go on the internet and check out their friends, so why not build a website that offers that?

7:15 Friends, pictures, profiles.

7:17 I'm talking about taking the entire social experience of college and putting it online.

7:21 Psych got 2,200 hits within two hours? 1,000. 22,000. This idea is potentially worth millions of dollars.

7:29 Millions?

7:29 He stole our website.

7:31 They're saying we stole the Facebook. I know what it said.

7:33 So did we.

7:34 A million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? A billion dollars.

7:37 You're going to get left behind. It's moving faster than any of us ever imagined. Let's sue him in federal court.

7:43 I can't wait to stand over your shoulder and watch you write us a check.

7:45 If you guys were the inventors of Facebook... You'd have invented Facebook. Is there anything that you need.

7:50 To tell me?

7:51 Your actions could have permanently destroyed everything I've been working on.

7:53 We have been working on it.

7:54 Did you like being a joke? Do you want to go back to that?

7:57 Mark!

7:58 At the beginning of David Fincher's 2010 Oscar winner The Social Network, there's a prominent credit that proclaims it's based on Ben Mezrich's non-fiction book The Accidental Billionaires. According to screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, though, that isn't quite true. When he started writing the script, he says, the book was still in the conceptual stage. Mesrick had given his publisher a 14-page proposal for the book, laying out the history of Facebook's early days and the lawsuits around it. The publisher was already shopping that proposal around for a possible film adaptation before the book was even written. Sorkin says he accepted the job three pages into reading that proposal, hooked by the drama surrounding Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who was,

8:37 at the time, the world's youngest billionaire. What attracted me to it had nothing to do with Facebook, Sorkin said in a Writers Guild of America interview. The invention itself is as modern as it gets, but the story is as old as storytelling. The themes of friendship, loyalty, jealousy, class, and power. This is a story that Aeschylus would have written, or Shakespeare, or Paddy Chayefsky. Lucky for me, none of those guys was available, so I got to do it.

9:01 If Sorkin were more like Zuckerberg, that is, if this was a case of the making of art imitating life, he would have read the proposal, said no to the publisher, then run off and raced to write his own social network script, beating Mesrick to the punch. But that isn't what happened. He signed a contract and started doing research and interviews of his own about the founding of Facebook, often with people speaking to him under a condition of anonymity.

9:24 While he was writing the script, Mesrick was writing his book. Sorkin says they only met a few times over the course of their projects to compare notes. In the end, Sorkin says, the screenplay was about 80% finished before Mesrick even finished writing. That independent development explains why Sorkin's version aims more towards satisfying fiction than frustrating fact. His version of the story is sensationalist and punchy, full of invented scenes and characters and dark, dramatic irony, all designed to make Zuckerberg both a larger-than-life villain and a somewhat pathetic, lonely figure. Messrick's version draws heavily from interviews with Zuckerberg's early Facebook business partner, Eduardo Saverin, and is largely told

10:02 from Saverin's point of view. Sorkin, however, saw more of a narrative in following the lawsuits Saverin and two other plaintiffs, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, brought against Zuckerberg, all alleging that it cheated him on his way to making Facebook a billion-dollar business. Looking at transcripts of their depositions, Sorkin says, he saw three different stories being told and presented as truth.

10:24 He felt that the best way to navigate that in a script was to present all three of their stories at once. In the social network's take on Facebook's founding, Zuckerberg, played by Jesse Eisenberg, is a prickly Harvard sophomore who's skilled at writing computer code and much less skilled at following moral codes. After his girlfriend Erica dumps him for being arrogant, condescending, classist, and inconsiderate, among other things, He salves his hurt feelings by getting drunk, raiding Harvard's internal websites for pictures of his female students, and building a misogynistic website where people can rank women's attractiveness against each other.

10:57 The site goes viral overnight, and Zuckerberg winds up on academic probation. But he also gains the attention of the Winklevoss twins, both played by Armie Hammer. These rich, privileged kids try to hire him to create a website they think will make money, a social page for college kids. Zuckerberg agrees, but instead he starts dodging them and coding his own social website, using seed money from his best friend Eduardo, played by Andrew Garfield. His page is enough of a hit to expand to other schools and draw the interest of Napster founder Sean Parker, played by Justin Timberlake.

11:28 While Sean seduces Mark with admiration, attention, and the sense of belonging to a cool kids club more exclusive than anything he could get into at Harvard, we also see the end result of all this. In a second timeline running throughout the film, Eduardo Saverin and the Winklevoss twins are both suing Zuckerberg for, as they see it, taking their money and their idea, respectively, and cutting them out of a company that expanded to worldwide social media dominance and became a billion-dollar payday. Saverin's perspective in The Accidental Billionaires is less about sex, class, power, and a desperate, awkward hunger for social acceptance, all the things that drew Sorkin into the story. For Saverin, and in Mesrick's retelling,

12:06 it's more about an investor cheated out of a share in the project he paid for, and a witness as history is made by a few 20-somethings who had no idea the product they were making could become a worldwide phenomenon. In that sense, Mesrick's fact-based book tells a far more realistic, complicated, quotidian business story. Sorkin's script, by contrast, plays up the Shakespearean elements of hubris and hatefulness, conveyed through dialogue designed to be so fast-paced and blistering that David Fincher shaved nearly an hour off the expected runtime for a 162-page script, just by timing Sorkin performing the dialogue the way he heard it in his head, then pushing the actors to perform it at the same pace. Sorkin's rat-a-tat script, Fincher's

12:47 taut direction, and a driving score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross all give the social network the sense of history, moving at such a relentless clip that even some of the people involved in the story can't keep up. What could be more appropriate for a script written so quickly that it almost outpaced the book it was meant to be based on?

13:08 Mark i'm not speaking in code erica you're obsessed with finals clubs you have finals clubs ocd and you need to see someone about it we'll prescribe you some sort of medication you don't care if the side effects may include blindness.

13:23 Final clubs at finals clubs and there's a difference between being obsessed and being motivated yes.

13:32 There is.

13:32 Well, you do.

13:33 That was cryptic, so you do speak in code. I didn't mean to be cryptic.

13:36 I'm just saying I need to do something substantial in order to get the attention of the clubs.

13:40 Why?

13:40 Because they're exclusive and fun, and they lead to a better life.

13:44 Teddy Roosevelt didn't get elected president because he was a member of the Phoenix Club.

13:47 He was a member of the Porcellian, and yes, he did. Well, why don't you just concentrate on being the best you you can be? Did you really just say that?

13:55 I was kidding.

13:56 So the social network, guys, have you read The Accidental Billionaires? Have you looked into the fact versus fiction? I'm mostly just curious here whether the true story interests you kind of more or less than the very slick, appealing story that Fincher and Sorkin are telling.

14:15 It interests me in theory, but not enough to seek out that book, I guess. But I mean, certainly it's one of those movies that make me want to learn more. And then I get distracted and watch it and do other things instead.

14:26 Or USA and watch a different movie.

14:28 Yeah, well, that too.

14:31 No, I haven't read or really looked into the fact versus fiction very much. And I think I experience this movie more as like entertainment. And it's also kind of a nostalgia piece for me. As I mentioned, I was in college at this time, I'm pretty much the same age as Zuckerberg. I was not at Harvard. You know, so my college experience was obviously different, but there's a lot familiar in there, especially sort of the social aspect that's kind of the motivating force behind its creation. And that is all a lot more interesting to me. I mean, I love this movie beginning to end, but the first act when we're at Harvard, and it's kind of seeing the social structure and social pressures that are wrapped up

15:20 in Facebook's origins is much more interesting to me than sort of the development of it as a business and all of the lawsuits and whatnot. I just relate to it more, I think, as a user, as a Facebook user.

15:33 Yeah, I think the film is just so dynamic. I mean, of course, I'm compelled by this film start to finish, but certainly that early stretch at Harvard in the entire sequence involving face mash and how that what it all means is just just incredible filmmaking but I think I think the really fruitful idea here and obviously this is something that Sorkin gets to create a little bit but also something that is fact-based as well given face mash and the Harvard connection and all those things that actually did happen the fruitful idea is a social network that is imprinted by the personality and the anxieties and the ambitions and the sociopathy of its creator I just I think like That connection that it makes is so strong

16:18 and rich and well-developed, I think, in the movie. It starts right from the beginning with that opening conversation at the bar, which is just really both Sorkin and Fincher operating at the top of their games. And then it really kind of continues to bring that theme home as it develops.

16:38 So the sequence at the bar sets us up to understand kind of who Jesse Eisenberg is playing, like who Mark Zuckerberg is and where he's coming from. But I would argue, you know, we've all kind of mentioned like the dynamism, the start to finish catchiness of this movie. I would argue personally that the heart of the film is the face smash creation sequence. There's just so much going on in it. And to me personally, The energy kind of like pulls you through the rest of the film, even during places that are kind of less interesting to me, where kind of repellent people are talking at length about kind of repellent things. So I want to kind of focus in on that sequence, how it's structured, how the

17:24 story is told, and how much more unique I suppose it feels than a lot of the rest of the movie. What is it about that sequence, the face smash sequence that stands out maybe most clearly for you?

17:38 Well, it certainly quickly establishes the character Zuckerberg, which is like this mix of brilliance and bald ambition and contempt. and resentment all bundled into one. And you can kind of see the face mash and misogyny as well. And you kind of see face mash being the, you know, all those elements smushed together and you get face mash, right?

18:02 Yeah. And him live blogging through it all too is a- The live journal. Yeah, the live journal.

18:09 I'm just so fascinated with the idea of Mark Zuckerberg on live journal, you know, chronicling his college adventures.

18:17 Yeah, like simultaneously while hacking, you know, and drinking a beer. And like, I don't know if that is actually accurate. I'd be surprised if it is. But again, like just in terms of setting up Zuckerberg, the character in this movie, just like drinking a beer, you know, got his laptop open. He's live journaling. He's talking to his roommates. And it's like there's no real division between the social life and the work. you know, whether it's schoolwork, or the work you're going to do the rest of your life, whatever, like, it's all kind of part of the same thing for him, you know, and I think that kind of sets up the idea of Facebook as a life on the computer, you know, like, that was still like pretty new, you know,

19:02 or it was very new socializing on your computer kind of, I guess, LiveJournal was a precursor to it. Obviously, there was MySpace and Friendster and stuff like that. But just like setting it up in the context of this party atmosphere, this to go back to the actual sequence, like the way it cuts back and forth between, you know, all these Harvard students out socializing in the real world at these final clubs at bars in their dorm room. But then you're cutting back to Mark in front of his computer. Eventually, you're seeing other students in front of their computer. And it's just kind of like erasing the line between the Internet and the real world when it comes to socialization.

19:42 which is kind of what this whole story is about in the end. you know, so it really sets up the way that line is getting blurred in this really fantastic montage.

19:52 I think it's also kind of setting the template for how this social world operates as well. Surely the invasiveness of it, like the idea, I mean, Facebook is kind of ingeniously built on the idea of people wanting to share information. things about themselves, putting their pictures and their information and everything out there for other people to see.

20:12 And however that's used then becomes kind of skeevy. But then there's also the fact that in this sequence, it's built by Zuckerberg feeling completely free and entitled to taking pictures that people surely don't want him to have and using them in ways that surely they don't want him to use. And that, again, kind of forms You know, the DNA for this social media site, you know, in which people have been made over the years to feel very uncomfortable with how the information that they offer willingly and sometimes not so willingly gets handled by the company.

20:48 It's not in hands that you can trust.

20:50 That's definitely a little more ominous now than it was when the film came out, isn't it?

20:55 Absolutely, yeah. I mean, there's a lot, there's so much that feels ominous. I mean, not, and of course you would, you know, you think about this too in terms of Ivy League culture and Cornell and all of that kind of plays into the way, you know, like the strata, the social strata of this world, the way women are treated in this world, that Zuckerberg's entire idea about how the order of things should go and what he's entitled to and what, say, you know, his girlfriend wants is sort of less than because she doesn't go to the right college. And it's like all of this stuff is sort of baked into Facebook, but also quite baked into the culture in ways that I think has aged this movie quite well.

21:33 It's also quite prescient, I think, without meaning to be exactly about just how Facebook and then meta and everything that came in its wake would change bullying, which I think wasn't quite the... topic is today, back in 2010. But this whole face smash idea is basically just an elaborate form of bullying on Mark's part compounded by his what he writes in his his live journal about her, you know, just as a tool for harassing people online, it really, really changed the game. And the movie really puts that in.

22:08 It really disrupted bullying, didn't it?

22:10 It really did. And the movie mostly, to its credit, kind of puts that in the framework of misogyny, which is, of course, a big part of it. But it's also kind of so much more than that, too.

22:22 To kind of lean away a bit from the place of Facebook, as intuited from this scene and towards the filmmaking aspect, I just kind of want to call out one of the things that I kind of re-notice every time I re-watch this movie is it provides a really solid introduction to our characters. And it gives us a side of Eduardo Saverin in particular that we just don't get anywhere else in the movie. I feel like without his place in this opening sequence, it would be very easy to see him as just kind of the hapless bumbler who happened to have money and therefore thought he was entitled to a huge chunk of Facebook. He put $ 19, 000 down, so obviously he deserved tens of millions of dollars, which I know that's how investing works, but There is

23:13 something to be said for, you know, the people who actually make something getting the bulk of the profits rather than the people who happen to already have the money. So the fact that he shows up in the middle of all of this and you actually get to see what his friendship with Mark Zuckerberg looks like before Facebook.

23:29 The fact that he's the one providing the algorithm that makes face smash work. The fact that Zuckerberg treats him like a, you know, a colleague with ideas instead of like a sort of a convenience or a step stool for maybe the only time in the movie. There are points where he says, I need you. But this is the only scene that really lets us see that that might be true. So I'm just I'm kind of fascinated with his presence and his involvement in this whole thing.

23:59 even though the scene is so much about kind of establishing Zuckerberg's skills in addition to his persona. I mean, this is a lot of technical stuff that from what I read online is very, very simple programming to a programmer, but it's basically Greek to me. And to me, one of the big things this scene does is establish that he really knows his stuff, that he's really good, and that this movie can be technical without losing a non-technical audience.

24:30 All that's important here is that he knows what he's doing rather than that we be able to follow the process that he's laying out. The things that he's explaining to us are not things we're going to have to hang on to or keep or understand on a deep level. He's just kind of revealing to us For the first time, how his brain works outside all of the other influences, which is going to be important because the first scene is about how his brain works in relation to somebody.

25:00 he thinks he's trying to impress and cares about. It does not do either of those things well. And the rest of the movie is how other people affect him and how that affects Facebook.

25:10 Just speaking of Eduardo's algorithm, he wrote it on the window, which is like another just great filmmaking part of that opening sequence is how much of it we're seeing through dorm room windows, not just Zuckerberg's, but you know, everyone else on campus. And It's just a way to make a scene that is fundamentally about looking at a computer, you know, active and dynamic and a little unexpected without being like really flashy about it. You know, we're not like zooming into the inside of the computer or anything like that.

25:42 You know, there's a text all over the screen.

25:44 Yeah, yeah. So we're just like kind of peering in windows and popping into parties, you know, and it makes it feel almost like inevitable that this happened, you know, where like, there's just a sense of like, of course, this would happen in this environment, you know, with this person that we have spent one scene with and already kind of have an idea of him. And it just, yeah, it feels really natural in a way that is, I can't quite articulate how or why it works. It just does.

26:16 I think it's almost like a sorcerer in the castle, right? I mean, the dorm here being the castle and Zuckerberg and his brothers being the sorcerers. But in the sense that we, the montage effect, and I mean, again, it cannot be stated enough just how much Fincher just directs the shit out of this film. You know, the film is able to kind of conjure that intuitive feeling connection between what is happening in real life and what is being put into the machine and how those two things, you know, interact, relate to each other, you know, set the table for, you know, a completely new era, really, of, you know, social life. And it's all very propulsive. And, you know, it's what, you know, you hope a good

26:59 montage sequence is going to do. It's going, you know, montage sequences are about image association is about putting together, you know, multiple individual images to create, you know, a separate idea. And I think this sequence kind of pulls that off on so many levels with such, you know, dynamic force between the music and the visuals. And, you know, and speaking of the visual, I think the film has a take on Harvard and what it feels like that's very filmic and not documentary-like. It's not like a noir exactly, but it has that sort of, moody aura and darkness to it and it all sort of seeps in to the material as well starting with the sequence.

27:41 I think also like whatever however closely it adheres to the actual facts i mean it really does capture what really did happen in the sense that that this idea in a dorm room completely changed the world in many ways and it just kind of started right in this in a small space and as for the technical speak i don't understand a word of it but there's a real musicality to the writing and delivery like when he's going on about the different security systems at various uh at various uh dorms or whatever various houses and it's like i don't get that but like there's kind of a beauty to the way to the breathlessness of delivery and the fact that this guy understands it so well yeah it's really impressive Yeah.

28:21 Even if you don't understand why they're distinct, you understand how they're distinct, you know, in terms of like the difficulty level for him is kind of like the filter we're getting through. Yeah, I also really like that detail.

28:34 The cutting back and forth between the party at the Harvard Club, the first party of the year, this big social event where attractive women are very clearly kind of being served up on a platter for a bunch of very entitled and anticipatory guys. And it all feels sort of like a sacrificial ritual. The cuts back and forth between that and Mark in his dorm room doing something that's going to affect all of these people. is pretty fascinating to me.

29:05 Specifically, something that is also just about objectifying women, you know, and women as a prize, you know, like it's FaceMash specifically, there's a direct line between the girls being carted into this party and this FaceMash project.

29:22 At the same time, you know, while he starts off the movie by telling Erica how important it is for him to get into one of these clubs, There's just never any sense throughout the movie. He says he's unmotivated by money. We don't see really much evidence that he's motivated by sex either. Eduardo is... far more interested in the groupies that the Facebook project eventually draws. It's not entirely clear at times, I think, what does motivate Mark Zuckerberg apart from wanting to be the smartest person in the room. He says he wants to be cool. He says he wants Facebook to be cool and that it's not cool if it has advertising. But when he is around women, it doesn't feel like he would want to be at that party, I think is what I'm getting at.

30:09 Though he says he wants to be at the club, though he keeps kind of circling back to Erica, looking for her to be impressed with him. Can you imagine Mark Zuckerberg at that party? like enjoying himself in any way whatsoever.

30:23 I mean, it's never the point for him. It's just, he feels like he belongs there and it's an annoyance to him that there would be any kind of restriction put in place given his, you know, genius and his stature. I mean, he's just, he's always kind of like, yeah, I don't think actually getting to that place would bring him any happiness at all. It's just like, he's not, he's maladjusted socially and never seems happy ever, basically.

30:47 I mean, we do see him at that party with Eduardo, like a Jewish student's party, you know, and like he clearly does not want to be there, is not enjoying himself in any way. I mean, I think he's just there to talk to Eduardo about the Facebook for the most part, but. Yeah, I mean, I don't think he wants to be popular so much as he just wants to be right, or, you know, or like the smartest guy in the room, the guy that everyone acknowledges is the guy, you know, he doesn't want to actually have to have the social interactions to make that the case.

31:22 It is hard to imagine based on this movie, the world in which he would be comfortable and happy. Like he doesn't seem comfortable and happy when he's programming. He just seems locked in. You know, he's process oriented, but I'm not sure he's goal oriented. And maybe that's one of the things behind the growth of Facebook is it just it's it's never big enough because there's always the potential for it to be bigger. No matter what he accomplishes with it, it doesn't seem like he's ever getting anywhere close to what he wants or where he wants to be because I'm not sure he's conceived of what that is exactly. And I think that might be a good explanation for what turns out to be one of the really important relationships in this movie. Why don't we

32:05 take a break and we'll circle back to that right after this. The next picture show is presented by Regal Unlimited, the all-you-can-watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits. Coming to theaters in just a few weeks is the 50th anniversary screening of Sylvester Stallone's breakout hit Rocky. And shortly after that is the theatrical release of I Play Rocky, Peter Farrelly's well-reviewed biopic drama about Stallone's push to play the lead in the movie instead of selling the script to producers and walking away. Together, these two movies make a perfect Next Picture Show style pairing, a cinema classic and a new movie about that classic.

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33:41 So, tell me about your progress.

33:43 Well, we're in 29 schools now.

33:45 We got over 75,000 members.

33:46 Tell me about the.

33:47 Strategy you're using.

33:48 Okay.

33:49 For instance, we wanted Baylor in Texas, but Baylor already had a social network on campus, so instead of going right after them, we made a list of every school within 100 miles.

33:56 We put the Facebook on those campuses first. Pretty soon, all the Baylor kids were seeing their friends on our site.

34:00 We were asking.

34:00 It's called the Little Bitcoin.

34:01 That's smart, Mark.

34:02 Oh, thanks. That was mine.

34:03 Easy.

34:03 Hey, you know what?

34:04 Settle an argument for us.

34:05 I say it's time to start making money from the Facebook, but Mark doesn't want to advertise here.

34:09 Who's right?

34:11 Neither of you yet. The Facebook is cool.

34:14 That's what it's got going for it. Yeah.

34:16 You don't want to ruin it with ads because ads aren't cool. Exactly. It's like you're throwing the greatest party on campus and someone's saying it's got to be over by 11.

34:22 That's exactly right.

34:23 You don't even know what the thing is yet. That's exactly right.

34:25 How big it can get, how far it can go. This is no time to take your chips down.

34:29 A million dollars isn't cool.

34:30 You know what's cool? You.

34:35 A billion dollars.

34:37 So this movie, I mean, with the depositions, Mark Zuckerberg's relationship to the Winklevoss twins and his relationship to Eduardo are central to the movie. But really, the influence on him seems to be from Sean Parker, played by Justin Timberlake. I did not recall if this was my first Justin Timberlake acting role, but it's certainly the one that made him stand out for me as an actor. Actually, I should look that up. Was this his first?

35:06 I mean, I remember him from the Mickey Mouse Club when I was a kid.

35:10 Yeah, he's perfectly comfortable in this film. It's not like he's, you know.

35:14 He was in, no, sorry. He was actually in a bunch of things before this. He was in Model Behavior, Alpha Dog, Black Snake Moan was before this.

35:22 Oh, Black Snake Moan I did see before this.

35:24 All right. The Love Guru. Hey, can you name the film he did immediately after this?

35:28 No, because I closed that window.

35:30 Yogi Bear. Remember Yogi Bear?

35:33 Sorry.

35:34 Sean Parker does seem to be the one thing that focuses Mark, that interests him. He cares very much about everything that comes out of Parker's mouth. Part of that is because Parker is so cool. You know, he's the success that Zuckerberg does seem to want to be. in terms of having created Napster and then, you know, giving it away for free, taking all of his music, arguably, and giving it away for free, even though it wasn't his to give away, not being ruled by commercial concerns, but also being kind of effortlessly cool, the kind of person who... the waitstaff knows his name and his tastes and, you know, seem to like him as a person. Emphasis on seem, I'm not going to say that they do, just that the fact that they make the pretense of

36:26 his regard being important to them seems to be important to Mark. What stands out for you about either Timberlake's performance or just about how Sean Parker is drawn in this film?

36:37 I would say that he is the club that Mark Zuckerberg gets to enter, right? I mean, he's the guy. He's this disruptor. He's this legend. He's somebody who does project effortless cool. And he also has an interest in Mark. He seeks him out. He is completely wowed by this technology and understands the vision in a way that nobody outside his sphere gets. And so all of that is so flattering and overwhelming to Mark. And then the other part of it too is like, he's right on a lot of things. I mean, on really important things.

37:19 He's mostly right. That's what I was struck by this time. It's like, there's really not a whole lot you can say he was wrong about, except.

37:25 For maybe, you know, all the stealing music.

37:28 I mean, the Facebook, obviously, you know, losing the thought is very good. But then just the idea of, of not putting ads on the site, of letting it grow, of discovering what it is. That's critical.

37:40 It's also very easy to say when somebody else's money is supporting it and you don't have to make a profit because you're just leeching off somebody else.

37:50 But growing it in value, you never want to put... That's been kind of a model for how Silicon Valley and businesses generally work. It's just like you never want to actually... have someone put a number on what your company is worth, you have to kind of build it into something that will get you these kind of crazy valuations.

38:08 And that is what makes Facebook Facebook. If it's like, here's what we're worth because we sell this much a year in ad revenue, it ends up being a much smaller number in addition to being uncool.

38:21 And it creates real tension with the character of Eduardo because he's a much more sympathetic character. He's definitely wronged, but At the same time, Parker's not wrong about how to grow the company.

38:34 At the same time, isn't he kind of a leech? I mean, he shows up, he kind of moves in on the house, and then he moves to edge Eduardo out, even though Eduardo is still providing all of the money. He arguably muscles him out of the company at the end. He comes across to me like a glad-handing shark who's, you know, pretending that he's just a friendly guy who wants everybody to succeed and definitely doesn't have a horse in this race, as he says.

39:04 Yeah, well, he's Sean Parker as a character is like the vector through which this becomes a Silicon Valley story. You know, it's a it's a college story up until this point. And he broadens out the world of the film, you know, split timelines aside with the deposition, like, it feels very insular when it's still the Harvard connection turning into Facebook part of it. And as soon as Sean Parker enters the equation, it becomes, like I said, a Silicon Valley story. And that turns it into a speculative prospect, you know, like the up until that point. the Facebook, everyone's thinking of it as a like a concrete product, like Eduardo is out trying to sell ads for, you know, they're not really thinking of expanding beyond this sort of

39:49 like Ivy League, you know, cluster that they've been focusing on. And as soon as it moves to Silicon Valley, and you bring the world of venture capital into it, it becomes like growth above all else. and it just changes into like i said this sort of speculative notion and sean parker in being kind of a glad-handing scumbag kind of personifies that to a certain extent it's like we're not actually making anything yet we're just talking about what the thing is going to be you know or how we can make it this thing and we're going to invest based on that so his ability to just like enter this situation and just totally kind of change its trajectory is a really good example of like the character driving the story in a really fundamental way.

40:41 Plus he makes really, you know, introductions to great people like Peter Thiel. I know, right?

40:47 Yeah, I was surprised.

40:49 Who I did not know in 2010, but I certainly know now.

40:51 And also like by virtue of him being played by Justin Timberlake, this like chipper, good looking blonde guy, in like taking the story to Silicon Valley where it's sunny, you know, like it really changes the feel of the film in a lot of ways. Of course, like the house they're working in, you know, it's still sort of reminiscent of the party atmosphere at Harvard in those opening scenes. But, you know, they're ziplining off roofs and putting holes in walls or whatever. But it still kind of maintains the same connection that the film is creating between like real life social life and, you know, our online social life.

41:27 But just like the vibe of it, the feel of it, the style of it is California instead of Massachusetts.

41:34 Yeah.

41:35 Mark Zuckerberg standing in the pool in that place filming one of his programmers zip lining into the pool. Maybe the only time in this movie. apart from the depositions and the date at the beginning, where we see him doing something that isn't direction-driven, that isn't related to Facebook, that isn't related to the business in some way.

41:55 Yeah, when you asked earlier if there was any situation where it seemed like Mark Zuckerberg was at ease or having fun, that's the one I thought of as like, well, kind of. He seemed to sort of be enjoying himself.

42:08 He's doing a leisure activity.

42:10 Yeah. There are a lot of examples, fun examples throughout history of Mark Zuckerberg pretending to be human or doing human like things. And, and, uh, just this week there was a, there's a clip going around of him, uh, pretending to enjoy a Guinness drink of Guinness. So you'll want to, you'll want to look that up because it did circulate of him just taking a sip and, uh, you know, really clearly not enjoying it, but having to kind of go through the ritual of being a guy who drinks beer and is casual and fine.

42:45 Let's talk a little less about Zuckerberg himself and a little about Eisenberg's performance. I was already a little tired of Jesse Eisenberg by the time we got here because I'd just seen You know, film after film where I kind of felt like he played the exact same character. And he was such a revelation in Squid and the Whale that then seeing him play what felt like pretty minor variations on that character in a bunch of other things, I was already ready to kind of mildly avoid films starring him because it just felt like they were going to be the same thing. And this film was just such a revelation for me, you know, because he... is still pretty noticeably Jesse Eisenberg, but with like an edge

43:28 that he never had, with a direction and focus he never had. And I think he, I don't know that he plays a convincing version of the Mark Zuckerberg we keep seeing on video, trying to enjoy again us or, you know, convince us all that meta avatars are a good thing. But he certainly comes across, you never doubt who this character is in his hands, I think.

43:52 No, and I think that I don't find him and the way he plays this character to be wholly unsympathetic, particularly when you have the encounters that he has with the Winklevii at the lobby or whatever, the entrance to their club that they won't let him any further into. The bike room. The bike room, right, and then at the table where they're there because they want a piece of it, and he's got that line that he has about like, Something about if you invented Facebook, you would have invented Facebook.

44:22 If you were capable of inventing Facebook, you would have invented Facebook.

44:25 Exactly. It's a great line. And I think its contempt feels warranted that the smallness of their vision, their inability to take this idea and develop it into something real and sophisticated and worthy. You feel for Zuckerberg in that moment. And I kind of wanted him to... prevail against those guys.

44:47 Yeah, I think despite how repellent some of his actions and some of the things he says are, he is a human being in this film, at least, as played by Eisenberg. You send someone with some actual emotions and some vulnerable points and some needs for approval and companionship, and He may be trying to suppress that, but I think part of what makes the performance so good is that he kind of captures those feelings leaking through anyway.

45:17 The stuff that Zuckerberg is trying to keep bottled up is still kind of coming out anyway.

45:23 I think that's all true. But then at the same time, you know, yes, he is a human being who wants love and respect and who ends up in sad places because he lets other people manipulate him. At the same time, he's the guy that told his best friend in the world, well, you probably just got into this exclusive club that I'm not in because of diversity reasons. And that one line You know, he says some awful, awful things in this movie, but that one line is the one where I'm like, nope, he's a soft, vulnerable, lonely human being. Yeet him into the sun and nothing will be lost.

46:03 Yeah, like it feels like sort of the central question of this film, at least as it pertains to this character, is like, was he born an asshole or did he have assholery thrust upon.

46:12 Him, you know?

46:13 And I don't think the film ever like comes down one way or the other. I think it's, you know, inviting you to wonder about that. And I think about the scene with Rashida Jones after one of the depositions where she's talking about how they're going to settle and, you know, says something to the effect of, well, jury selection is like what she does. basically makes the point that you don't want this to go. You don't you don't you can't be in front of a jury, you know, but she does seem to actually have some of this like sympathy for him that we're talking about, you know, like she talks to him as if she recognizes his humanity.

46:52 But she also recognizes how he comes off in any sort of like confrontation. Like he's someone who does not handle confrontation in any form well, you know, and that's what brings out his assholery. And I think she recognizes that while also recognizing that he's like a young guy in a crazy situation who does not have the emotional tools to work through this, you know, and is not ever going to get those emotional tools because he's about to be a billionaire, you know. So like I said, I don't think the film has an answer or even wants to make an answer, but it just kind of circles that question in a lot of really interesting ways as it pertains to the character of Mark.

47:33 The question of his, the ability to sympathize with him in scenes with the Winklevosses really brings up the fact, you know, there are tears. Everybody in this movie is badly behaved in some way, but there are tears and levels. Can we, I know Armie Hammer is a touchy subject character. And boy, he's just getting touchier. You know, I wrote extensively about feeling pretty conflicted about somebody's like secret sexual fantasies being outed by an ex for revenge. And then the Internet turning on him because I guess it's it's fun to make fun of what goes through other people's minds.

48:12 Ha ha.

48:13 But, you know, his comeback has been gross. So I recognize that he is a difficult subject, but he's great here, you guys. You know, he's great in being loathsome, which has been his stock in trade in a lot of movies. This kind of hard-hitting, aggressive, glowering, towering character who's always had a little bit of a predatory edge. But, you know, here he's playing twins as well, which, you know, bumps up the difficulty level a little bit. He is really, really loathsome. And I think it's great.

48:51 Just to clarify, there were actual legitimate accusations of abuse leveled at him. It was not just thought crimes for having fantasies about cannibalism.

48:59 Yes, this is true. But it's all very, very complicated and way more than we should get into here.

49:05 Yeah, I don't want to get into it here. But if anyone out there is thinking that Tasha is just saying he just had some bad thoughts and he was punished for those, that's not actually true.

49:13 I wrote extensively about all this, you know, kind of unpacking all of the accusations. And if you want to read that, it's something like The Man From U.N.C.L.E. has come to Netflix and now I have to decide how I feel about Army Hammer. I think it's on Polygon.

49:27 Well, but putting that aside, yeah, he's great in this movie. The acting was never the problem. I always, you know, I thought he was a really interesting presence and like, you know, he could play this character here, characters here who are loathsome and then like the soft side and like, call me by your name, et cetera, et cetera. But yeah, there is sort of a twinge of, oh, yeah, just as there is kind of a twinge when Kevin Spacey's name comes as one of the producers. It's not the most canceled movie. I think that might actually be The Lone Ranger, another Armie Hammer film. This isn't a canceled movie, but there's definitely some canceled.

50:01 Elements to it.

50:02 Don't forget Scott Rudin as producer.

50:04 Oh, yeah, that's the other one I was thinking of, Scott Rudin.

50:07 And Lone Ranger could also be leaded into the sun, and I don't think anything would be lost there.

50:13 It's got some elements. But it's not a Lone Ranger podcast.

50:18 Why is it a Lone Ranger podcast?

50:21 I'm not sure that the world is crying out for that. The topic of the film's move to California came up earlier, and I kind of wanted to address the David Fincher-ness of this movie, especially the first half of it, which kind of looks like one of his crime thrillers. Everything's dark and broody. There's a lot of dim interiors and like dark, shadowy exteriors to the point where the the move to California feels sort of like a happy interlude.

50:53 You know, it's the honeymoon period. It's not for Eduardo, who's literally left standing outside in the dark. But there is a degree to which this feels like a David Fincher movie, I think a lot more in the opening than in the rest of it. But, you know, still a Fincher thriller throughout in just its pacing, its editing, its kind of relentlessness. I would say just sort of its narrative ferocity in how fast it goes.

51:20 It's sort of like uneasy atmosphere that he creates better than almost any director working right now, I think.

51:26 And I think it is actually a It feels to me an interesting and somewhat compelling take on Ivy League culture. Certainly with a child who is now just starting college, I've seen lots of different spaces and you get different feels from different places. And one of the things when you get to these sort of super upper echelon schools is that there is an element of intimidation of college, not as this collaborative atmosphere, but an atmosphere of competition of clubs of greek life of strata that you sort of have to work your way through and it's an extremely intense atmosphere and it's a very austere and dark atmosphere too and in what in a way you know the tradition the sort of hidebound traditions of harvard reinforce

52:15 that kind of oppressive quality and i think that's kind of what comes through here in fincher's direction Well, apart.

52:22 From the direction, the other really big topic here is the screenplay and Aaron Sorkin and particularly how Aaron Sorkin does characterization and dialogue and drama. But given his much larger role in The Social Reckoning as director as well as screenwriter, we're going to save a lot of that to talk about in the next half of this pairing.

52:44 So to wrap up here, let's just look at the ending of this movie. The last shot of Zuckerberg just kind of like sitting there and endlessly refreshing his Facebook, waiting to see if his ex-girlfriend has friended him back. The ex-girlfriend who he has been told multiple times that she is not interested in him and not impressed by him.

53:05 And the idea that this accidental billionaire is still hanging on this hook. is both faintly ridiculous as something that's supposed to be real, and I think kind of relatable. In the end of the movie, I'm curious how you take that ending, but also, does any of what happens feel like, I don't know, justice? Do you care about who gets reparations and what they get? Do you feel anybody here is deserving? Or should we just have yeeted them all into the sun when we had the chance?

53:32 I want to note that that last shot of him refreshing the friend request comes immediately at the end of the scene, I just mentioned with Rashida Jones, where she tells him that they're settling because he can't be put in front of a jury, he's too unlikable. And so to have the button on that be him not being able to make a friend on this platform that he created because of that would be a friend is just some real poetic irony. But also the contrast between like this gigantic, multi-million dollar settlement, one of multiple ones he's in the middle of, and this very, very petty grievance that he still is holding onto that is kind of where this whole thing began. Just the irony of that contrast of something so big came out of such a

54:27 petty personal slight really drives that home and with that final shot.

54:32 I mean plus the idea is that you could be this kind of world-beating multi-millionaire or billionaire and still these very petty issues these these very personal slights uh these things that are that the little people should are the ones that are supposed to be essentially supposed to be you know concerned with can still you know break you.

54:53 I mean, the thing, I don't know if you all saw this or not, just to bring in another example from the real world, but did you see Elon Musk's exchange with somebody from chess.com? Did that come up to you at all?

55:05 I saw that.

55:07 It's an absolutely incredible exchange where he was trying to make some points about chess. The chess.com guy was schooling him. He's trying to make really stupid points too.

55:14 He's like, there are superior games because there is no fog of war in chess or something like that.

55:19 But the basic point I'm making here is like, At a certain point, Elon Musk is like, what am I even talking to this intern for or whatever? And the chess.com guy says, even my friends don't text me back that fast. And it's just like that is kind of the essence of this, that you cannot transcend something, this base, something so revealing about your soul. And I think with this movie, we end on Zuckerberg as this lonely, pitiable, figure behind a laptop who has no friends who has this obsession and is now waiting uh for this um bit of approval or connection that he's never that is going to elude him forever i kept being alone.

56:05 And finding it a little poignant too insofar as that we've sympathized with this character at all we realize just how lost he's gotten i mean in some ways this isn't this kind of his rosebud I mean, isn't this kind of the thing he can never reclaim? The last bit of innocence that will never be available to him again?

56:22 I think it's not just about him, though. And one of the reasons that that ending lands for me is, again, get him into the sun. He's an abominable human being, as we will see in the next movie. And he has done abominable things. But he kind of represents the loneliness of social media.

56:40 Yeah.

56:40 You know, he has created this tool that is bringing together at this point more than a million people. It's spreading into other countries. It's growing around the world. The moment where he, you know, a friend asks, is so-and-so dating someone? And he realizes he could put that information on Facebook and have people be able to tell at a glance who their friends are who are single and like the potential of Facebook for dating, to put it in a kind of nicer way than it actually gets put in the movie. He has created this tool for, theoretically, this tool for people to create communities and share information and find their people and all of these things. And yet that image just feels so much more real to me,

57:29 you know, sitting there hopelessly waiting for a connection that's not happening. And anecdotally, at least, given a million studies about social media, and especially how it affects teenagers. This just seems so prescient to me in terms of what social media has done to social life in America and around the world, apparently.

57:53 Something you would think the next movie in our pairing might get into more, but maybe that's a discussion saved for next week.

58:02 Well, we'll certainly find out next week. We will circle back to Facebook, loneliness, and certainly the impact it has on society. But for now, we're going to take another break and come back with feedback. Now it's time for feedback. But first, let us dive into what is happening elsewhere in the extended film spotting cinematic universe. At Film Spotting SVU, Matt Singer and Jordan Hoffman are talking about Prime Video's Mike Flanagan adaptation of Stephen King's Carrie. That is a mouthful.

58:35 They're questioning, though, less of a mouthful, whether we have hit Carrie adaptation overload yet. At the Movie Racket, Michael Phillips and guests explore past predictions that Hollywood was doomed in various eras, and dig into the current crisis around keeping film production in the U.S. And at our flagship podcast, Adam and Josh discuss Digger and preview the Chicago International Film Festival, which I am not prepared for at all.

58:58 How about you, fellow Chicago critics?

59:02 I never really go, and it's a good festival, but if I go somewhere else to a festival, I'll just go. I'm there at see movie after movie after movie, but in the festival here in my hometown, it just feels like going out to do more work. I don't know. It's on me. They put on a good festival, and everyone should go, but I have some sort of weird I go to some of the critic screenings around the festival, but the festival itself, I don't. And once again, great festival.

59:29 Everyone should go. I just don't go.

59:31 Yeah, I'm kind of in Keith's corner here. I'll see some, if they're screening some things around the festival, I'll leak out for those. And I've been involved in and out with that festival over the years, but I don't feel a massive attachment to it for various reasons I'm not going to get into here. Wow.

59:51 Well, if you're based in Chicago, you have the ability to be more prepared than the pros if you just want to head over to filmspotting.net.

59:58 Go to the Chicago International Film Festival if you don't want to see Scott and Keith.

1:00:03 Hey, hey, and me. If we want to hide out from the fuzz, then we'll be there. um because nobody will expect us.

1:00:11 You can you can not see an entire trifecta of next picture.

1:00:16 Yeah but you're not at.

1:00:20 A lot of chicago festivals now that i think about it all right you can check out the film spotting family podcast and catch up on the latest next picture show episodes at filmspotting.net now it's time for feedback where we address responses we've gotten to recent episodes Here's a call that we got from a noted friend of the podcast, Bob.

1:00:39 Bob has something to ask about our recent pairing with William Friedkin's Sorcerer.

1:00:44 Hello, Next Picture Show.

1:00:46 This is Bob with some ideas that were prompted by your excellent discussion of William Friedkin's Sorcerer. Many crime films climax when criminals get in trouble, try to leave the country and fail. Sorcerer starts with criminals who succeed in escaping their pursuers, but soon learn how little difference this makes.

1:01:04 because the village is almost as much a prison or a hell as the ones awaiting criminals who fail to escape. Sorcerer, therefore, acts as a kind of what-if coda you can substitute for the ends of classic films. The first that occurred to me was Sam Jaffe in Asphalt Jungle, who, as the trailer says, forfeits his loot for the cost of a jitterbug, in a downfall suspiciously like Roy Scheider's in Sorcerer.

1:01:27 Bruno Kremer's character, on the other hand, is a white-collar criminal. a schemer raising money in order to seem as successful as his wife thinks he is, expecting his father-in-law to backstop him and heedless of the human damage his schemes can cause. In all this, he mirrors William H. Macy's character in Fargo, and I can imagine the Coens creating him to be Bruno's backstory almost as easily as I can see Friedkin using Roy Scheider to extend Jaffe's flight.

1:01:52 Even if they got away at the end of their own movies, Sorcerer shows that their flaws and or fate would have caught up with them. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this and look forward to all your future episodes.

1:02:02 Bye-bye. He sounds like a handsome devil, that Bob.

1:02:07 Back off, you hussy.

1:02:10 So, you know, this was... I mean, I think Bob's call, you know, sort of triggers a lot of thoughts rather than necessarily directs them. But one thought that it triggered in my head when he was talking about the characters from Sorcerer All Escaping... One fate only to wind up in another sort of prison or hell was the Jim Jarmusch movie Down by Law, which has one of my favorite things, you know, kind of jokes ever in a Jarmusch film, which is that, you know, that you have these three characters who are in prison together in Louisiana, played by Tom Waits, John Lurie and Roberto Benigni. They end up escaping. It's a huge ordeal for them to finally find their way to freedom. And then they find a place to stay. And the place is literally exactly

1:03:08 like their jail cell. The sparseness of it, the bunk beds, nothing has changed. And it feels that way. What Bob was saying about Sorcerer and about them kind of escaping into this other hell really reminded me a lot of that moment from Down by Law.

1:03:26 Well, for myself, I mean, having William H. Macy's character kind of tagged in this question just has me thinking about what he would look like in Sorcerer.

1:03:36 I just, I.

1:03:37 Keep visualizing, oh no, we're coming across like yet another broken down bridge that is about to fall into a river. And Jerry just saying, oh, oh, oh geez, that, yeah, that bridge doesn't look stable at all. Um, You know, obviously he does not get away at the end of his movie. But, you know, there are a lot of very hapless criminals in movies that come to bad ends.

1:04:03 And I feel like it's kind of fun to imagine what would happen if they landed in this situation instead of a bunch of, like, very hardened, capable, incompetent men who have at least the potential to survive this situation.

1:04:18 It would be a short movie, Tasha. Very short. I think you really do need these guys to be able to handle their business because it is a tough situation they're thrown into in Sorcerer.

1:04:30 It might be short, but it would be pretty funny. Anyway, we always appreciate feedback from our listeners. We could use some more written feedback. But hey, you're also always welcome to call us and leave a short voicemail at 773-234-9730 or email us at comments at nextpictureshow.net. That's it for this episode of The Next Picture Show. In our next episode, we will discuss the social reckoning before returning to the social network. Look for that episode next Tuesday on your podcatcher of choice. For ad-free versions of the podcast and extra content, find us on Patreon at patreon.com slash nextpictureshow.

1:05:04 You can find us at nextpictureshow.net and on Blue Sky at The Next Picture Show if you want to keep track of when new episodes drop. Until next time, I plan to just keep refreshing Facebook. I friended Mark Zuckerberg during the show. You guys think he's going to friend me back?

1:05:20 That was a good movie. Yeah, seen here before once.