The way the film is structured is particularly impressive. I’m not necessarily referring to how it covers several timeframes and weaves them together seamlessly, nor how the screenplay deals with flashbacks — the Sorkin/Fincher team does a fine job of dodging expectations for an even bigger payoff. (One scene in particular left me wondering why Andrew Garfield was telling a story instead of showing it — and then the way scene paid off made it particularly clear.)

The way that certain characters are paralleled is similarly strong — it’s oddly reminiscent of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in the way that different characters’ interactions with one another echo or invert certain other interactions.

As Edward Champion’s review points out, this is in many ways a film about misogyny, and a dissection of what, exactly, emerges out of a certain mode of thinking; of what, specifically, can emerge from a distrust of women, paranoia, technical savvy, and social awkwardness.

One qualm: despite being a fan of both actors’ work here and elsewhere,  the Jesse Eisenberg/Rashida Jones scenes never quite clicked the way the rest of the film did (though there’s one exchange that’s something of an exception to that). Their final scene was one of the few times that the film felt conventionally structured to me. To an extent, the “social network” of the title is mirrored in the film’s structure, which never feels overly plotted and does, in fact, reflect a…well, you know.

That said: the last shot of the film is terrific, and perfectly done.

Also? There’s also something a bit unsettling about coming home from watching this film and immediately…going online. And then checking Facebook. There’s more going on in this film than I’d expected, and I suspect I’ll end up posting more thoughts here in the days to come, especially if I end up making a second trip to the theater to see it once more.

He is, unsurprisingly, a big book nerd—fine, the word he uses is “bibliophile”—loving them both for what they contain and what they are as objects. “We are animalistic creatures,” he said. “We need talismans.” He said he went into debt so that he could have an entire house that serves only as a place for his books, with seven libraries in seven rooms.

The whole thing’s great. You can read it here.

KNIFE PARTY AT NIKO’S episode one from Theo Travers on Vimeo.

Has working as a director affected how you have adapted your work for the screen?

I usually prefer not to adapt my stories. An adaptation is a reading of a text and a writer’s reading is usually less surprising and interesting. $9.99 was a great experience but I don’yt believe I’ll write any more adaptations in the recent future.

The whole thing can be read here.

Two: At Bleeding Cool, Adi Tantimedh discusses the influence of Andrei Tarkovsky’s work on science fiction. While I don’t agree with his take on the Soderbergh adaptation of Solaris, it’s a good and comprehensive piece; definitely worth your time.

Writer-director Cooper — here adapting Thomas Cobb’s novel — introduces the less savory aspects of Blake’s life with a heavy hand. That includes early scenes in which Blake handles a bottle of his own urine and drunkenly fishes his sunglasses out of a pool of vomit. Bad Blake is a mixture of admirable work ethic and disreputable habits, but the low vocal register in which Bridges suggests decades of hard living and unhealthy habits is much more striking than these small moments of degradation.

You can read the whole thing here.

In the works the last time I blogged about Almereyda was a film called New Orleans Mon Amour. From reading this article, it sounds like it’s done, and can be seen via iTunes, or the streaming services offered by Amazon and Netflix. (Amazon will also burn a DVD-R of it for $19.99.) All of which has me curious to see whether anyone out there has seen it — the one review I could find was on iTunes, and was on the brief side.

Also, a lot of things get smashed. Including a paper-mache head. Full of fake blood.

Also screened were excerpts from the pair’s next film, 60 Writers / 60 Places, which looks to feature both neatly composed shots and writers occasionally unnerving nearby people with their prose.