3 ms·

I actually think Zuck should just hire Eisenberg to be him anytime he has to appear in public. And get Sorkin to write his speeches. Goodness gracious, I could

by gruseom 16y ago

I actually think Zuck should just hire Eisenberg to be him anytime he has to appear in public. And get Sorkin to write his speeches. Goodness gracious, I couldn't disagree more. I thought Eisenberg played MZ like an angry cartoon character. And Sorkin's incessant zingers were classic bad "good" writing calling attention to itself, the writer trying to wedge himself in as one of the stars of the movie (which worked, judging by the attention he got for it).

corin_ 16y ago
I couldn't disagree more with you. Sure, Eisenberg being hired by Facebook would be completely ridiculous, and was clearly written as a joke, not as a serious suggestion. But as to Sorkin's writing, he's always written that way, right back to fairly unsuccessful TV writing in the 90s. Personally I love it, and have loved everything he's done, he is in my view the best TV/film writer currently working - and I know I'm not alone in that view. Obviously, his quality is subjective and therefore debatable, but having watched The Social Network a few times, I haven't seen anything that strikes me as anything but classic Sorkin. The reason he's "wedged in as one of the stars of the movie" is partly because the writing was so good that he's winning awards for it, and partly because many critics share my view of him, so they rave about him. To give some context, before Studio 60 On The Sunset strip aired (in 2005, I think), critics hyped it up SO much, simply because it was created by Sorkin. (And I think that was one of the reasons it was cancelled after one season - it wasn't too bad, but compared to expectations, and his normal work, it just wasn't good enough.) So, nothing new to how he writes, or to the fact that people pay a fair bit more attention to him than to the average screenplay writer.
redthrowaway 16y ago
Would you say that Juno had bad writing, or anything by the Coen brothers or Joss Whedon? All of those feature the kinds of conspicuously zippy one-liners that you seem to feel constitute bad writing.
- gruseom 16y ago
  Good question. I didn't see Juno. I loathed what I saw of Joss Whedon, so you're probably right there. But IMO the Coens are far greater artists than that. I don't have any unified theory of why, but I'll point out one thing. Lebowski has lots of zippy writing (different than Sorkin's, but I'll concede the point) but True Grit, to take the obvious recent example, does not. Neither did No Country. In other words the Coens have the discipline to subordinate their cleverness to the needs of the genre and the story. In fact this is one of their distinguishing features. Sorkin by contrast seems to have this adolescent need to prove how smart he is in every context, and is quite willing to turn his characters into caricatures in order to do it. It's a form of incontinence.
  - redthrowaway 16y ago
    "Lebowski has lots of zippy writing...but True Grit...does not." Did we watch the same movie? True Grit had some of the wittiest, zippiest dialogue I've seen in a long time. The writing was incredibly conspicuous, in a good way. I disagree with your notion that conspicuous writing makes for a bad movie, just as I would argue that conspicuous editing, or score, or cinematography, or acting can lead to an excellent movie.

by gruseom 16y ago

corin_ 16y ago

I couldn't disagree more with you. Sure, Eisenberg being hired by Facebook would be completely ridiculous, and was clearly written as a joke, not as a serious suggestion. But as to Sorkin's writing, he's always written that way, right back to fairly unsuccessful TV writing in the 90s. Personally I love it, and have loved everything he's done, he is in my view the best TV/film writer currently working - and I know I'm not alone in that view. Obviously, his quality is subjective and therefore debatable, but having watched The Social Network a few times, I haven't seen anything that strikes me as anything but classic Sorkin. The reason he's "wedged in as one of the stars of the movie" is partly because the writing was so good that he's winning awards for it, and partly because many critics share my view of him, so they rave about him. To give some context, before Studio 60 On The Sunset strip aired (in 2005, I think), critics hyped it up SO much, simply because it was created by Sorkin. (And I think that was one of the reasons it was cancelled after one season - it wasn't too bad, but compared to expectations, and his normal work, it just wasn't good enough.) So, nothing new to how he writes, or to the fact that people pay a fair bit more attention to him than to the average screenplay writer.

redthrowaway 16y ago

Would you say that Juno had bad writing, or anything by the Coen brothers or Joss Whedon? All of those feature the kinds of conspicuously zippy one-liners that you seem to feel constitute bad writing.

gruseom 16y ago
Good question. I didn't see Juno. I loathed what I saw of Joss Whedon, so you're probably right there. But IMO the Coens are far greater artists than that. I don't have any unified theory of why, but I'll point out one thing. Lebowski has lots of zippy writing (different than Sorkin's, but I'll concede the point) but True Grit, to take the obvious recent example, does not. Neither did No Country. In other words the Coens have the discipline to subordinate their cleverness to the needs of the genre and the story. In fact this is one of their distinguishing features. Sorkin by contrast seems to have this adolescent need to prove how smart he is in every context, and is quite willing to turn his characters into caricatures in order to do it. It's a form of incontinence.
- redthrowaway 16y ago
  "Lebowski has lots of zippy writing...but True Grit...does not." Did we watch the same movie? True Grit had some of the wittiest, zippiest dialogue I've seen in a long time. The writing was incredibly conspicuous, in a good way. I disagree with your notion that conspicuous writing makes for a bad movie, just as I would argue that conspicuous editing, or score, or cinematography, or acting can lead to an excellent movie.