As a guy, I have a deep, dark secret…

One that I is sure to have people look at me as if I was some horrible person…

I do not like Angelina Jolie.

There, I said it and the world did not stop spinning.  While I know she has a lot of fans based on her acting, and even more based on her looks, she has not really impressed me with either.  The only two movies I have liked with her in them have been Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow; and Mr. & Mrs. Smith.  So it was no surprise that when I saw the trailer for Salt, that I was not interested.  Rich, to his credit, kept trying to talk me into seeing it, but I was resistant.

So I found myself leaving work on a Wednesday and wanting to see a movie.  After looking over the times, the only movie playing that seemed remotely interesting was Salt.  So, I bought my ticket and headed in.

Salt is about a CIA agent named Evelyn Salt.  A defector comes in and accuses her of planning to murder an important Russian diplomat.  What follows is a tightly-scripted/filmed cat-and-mouse game where nothing is as it seems.  As I watched it, I was reminded of the 80s flick, No Way Out, where Kevin Costner was in a similar plot.  I soon forgot I was watching Angelina Jolie on-screen and got more invested in the story.

My advice:  worth full price; I actually saw it twice – I just hope they do not do a sequel, even though the door was left open…

Back in 1995, I went back to college to finish my degree.  While there, I joined Alpha Phi Omega, a co-ed service fraternity.  Once I was finished with school, I continued to work with the students in various advisory roles.  Of course this meant getting up to spped quickly with an ever-changing Internet landscape.  Instead of problems being limited to in-person encounters or phone calls, people were now doing it through new tools such as LiveJournal.

As my responsibilities grew within the fraternity, so did my level of education regarding tools for students.  I started hearing about FaceBook from students who would report issues to me and say, “Well, the pictures are on FaceBook.”  However, to get into FaceBook, you had to have a .edu email address.  Then FaceBook was opened to the public, and the Internet and society has never been the same.  I still have issues with aspects of FaceBook, but I can not deny its overall positive impact.

So what does that all have to do with movies?

Well, The Social Network is a movie adapted from a book (The Accidental Billionaires) that loosely tells the history of the founding of FaceBook and the struggles within.  Jesse Eisenberg (Adventureland, Zombieland) stars as FaceBook founder Mark Zuckerberg.  The story starts off showing how an argument with a girlfriend led to computer hacking and the evolution of the idea of FaceBook.  What follows is a story with stereotypical “villains” and internal fighting.

The story is told as a series of flashbacks told during depositions for lawsuits.  It follows the typical trappings of the tragic hero tale: the rise, the temptations, the forgetting of friends, and then the fall.  Granted his fall only involved the loss of friends, but it was still a fall nonetheless.  The casting in the movie was good.  Justin Timberlake’s performance as Sean Parker (of Napster fame) was particularly good.  At no point did I feel like I was seeing Timberlake on-screen; I just saw the character.  If he keeps doing performances like that, Timberlake may make a better movie star than a singer.

The major downside to this movie is the ability to get repeat viewers.  I enjoyed the movie, but it is not one that I would necessarily sit through again.  That factor cuts into box office numbers and DVD/Blu-Ray purchases.  That being said, it is still doing ok in the box office race.

My advice: worth seeing at matinee or dollar-movie theaters; just keep in mind that a lot of literary license has been used in crafting this story…

When you think back, it all started with Meatballs…

Prior to the 70s, film and movie makers did not worry about catering to teenagers, much less their problems.  The general consensus was that as long as it involved a beach party or Elvis or both, that things were taken care of.  As with other areas of pop culture, things started changing in the 70s.  With the onslaught of several director icons-in-the-making (Lucas, Speilberg, Scorcese), studios were forced to start listening to what inspired those directors.  Grease was made as a way to reach the kids, but 70s teenagers could not fully identify with those of the 50s; not saying that the movie did not do well, just that it did not satisfy what they were looking for.  Then Saturday Night Live comes along with a need to use its stars in movies.  Yet even those movies were more adult and unrelatable.

Then lightning in a bottle.

Meatballs focused on the issues of a kid and helped a generation begin to work through awkward coming of age issues.  Of course none were taken seriously and considered raunchy like Porky’s and Revenge of the Nerds.  Then John Hughes came along.  With his movies, he captured the essence of what we were all going through.  From then on, people tried to copy that elusive formula.

In the 90s, studios tried again and again, but none were well-received except for 10 Things I Hate About You.  This launched a series of movies trying to use Shakespeare as inspiration, most of which were forgettable.  American Pie helped reintroduce the raunch of the 80s.

So we now find ourselves in 2010, and studios are still looking for that movie that will ring true with kids today.

I would argue that Easy A is that movie.

Easy A centers around a girl (Emma Stone) who manufactures a bad reputation to help some awkward boys and give herself a little money.  Contrary to the stories out there about our lead character, there is very little in the way of sexual encounters on-screen.  The A refers to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and is woven into the back ground as a solid through-thread for the story.  We get blatant nods to John Hughes and the character even comes across at times as a female Ferris Bueller.

At no point does the movie dumb things down for the audience.  In a refreshing change of pace, not everyone is given a happy ending, and the main character learns that not all of the damage she created with this stunt can be undone with a simple apology.

My advice: See it at full price and encourage your teen-agers to see it, then discuss it with them afterwards; for an apparent piece of fluff, there is a lot of substance to this movie…