A Movie Rant.

A quick preface: I am 95% accurate about my movie-enjoying experiences from the first trailer to the end credits. Whenever I see a trailer and I think it looks great, I almost always enjoy the movie. There have only been a small handful of exceptions to this tendency of mine because I normally have no problems emotionally committing to a film.

So when The Social Network came out this past October, I thought that the trailer looked okay, but I wasn't that excited to see it. And then I got onto Facebook, and everyone started to just RAVE about it. I thought, "All right, then it must be a good movie, but I'm still not that motivated to see it, so I'll wait until the DVD comes out."

And then... all of this insane Oscar buzz started surrounding it. And I usually enjoy a good Oscar contender, so I thought that perhaps the trailer misled me. So this Tuesday, when it came out on DVD, I stopped by Family Video and I rented it so I could see what all of the hullabaloo was about.

The direction was clean and precise, the screenplay was well-written, the film was well-acted, but... I didn't enjoy myself. I felt like I was watching the product of a machine, and not a human director and human screenwriter. The movie has no heart. I'm not saying "Oh, it's not heart-warming," because I fully recognize that it's not supposed to be heartwarming. But it should be in possession of heart. I should hate the characterization of Mark Zuckerberg in this film. But I didn't. In fact, I didn't feel any sympathy for any of the characters.

And more importantly, I felt absolutely ZERO satisfaction at the end of the movie. Not the Oscar kind of satisfaction, not even The Invention of Lying kind of satisfaction (you know, the kind where you think "I wouldn't give this movie any awards, but I enjoyed myself watching it"). The movie ended, and all I could think was, "The movie is over... That was it?"

I felt like I'd been had. And I honestly don't get the hype. Normally if something like this happens, I'll at least see that while I didn't enjoy it that much, the film has merit. But I don't, and I am very upset that I don't see it. Especially compared to the other contenders this year: Black Swan, The Fighter, The King's Speech, Toy Story 3 (yes, Toy Story 3)... All of them were just so. Much. Better.

I wouldn't be upset if I could understand it, but I don't. And now I'm done ranting... Unless it wins Best Picture at the Oscars. You might see another (shorter) rant then.