Like many others, I saw The Social Network this weekend. I thought it was pretty captivating as a movie. It was the most natural-sounding Aaron Sorkin dialogue I've ever heard. I'm not sure why, maybe it was because he had actual primary sources (e.g., court transcripts) to draw from. Aaron Sorkin is to dialogue what Michael Bay is to explosions. Everything is big, in your face, and wholly unbelievable, but you love it anyway because it's a movie and it's ultimately there to entertain you. The truth is that, just like nobody can outrun an explosion in real life, not everybody knows the exact perfect thing to say at the exact instant they need to say it in real life. By ignoring this, Sorkin has given us all intellectual handjob after intellectual handjob, from Sports Night all through The West Wing and up to and including The Social Network. One of my favorite underappreciated movies is Charlie Wilson's War, largely because every character in that movie is heavily Sorkinized. The consensus about the movie seems to be that it's very entertaining at the expense of being true. I agree with the 'entertaining' part but I have no insight on the 'true' part. Nonetheless, I believe it's perfectly plausible that the characters depicted onscreen are not really how those people are in real life. FOCUS: When have you met somebody that you'd heard/read about earlier, only to find out that they were not at all what you had heard/read? Conversely, have you been that person about whom people have gotten the wrong idea? Howso? ANTI-FOCUS: When did the publicity turn out to be spot-on accurate?
I've been that person. While I have occasional bouts effusiveness, I'm usually a pretty quiet person. For some reason, all of my friends' stories about me are based on times when I'm being very loud and prolix. So when people first meet me, they expect me to be the life of the party. And like LatinGroove, I am a very disappointing blind date.
There was this girl in high school who everyone purported to be a huge bitch and a slut, because there was a rumor that she ran an amateur porn site. I never had the opportunity to talk to her, but it kind of just sunk in that yes, M must be a bitch. Cut to three years out of high school, I am hanging out with an old friend and two of her acquaintances. One of them was really bubbly and downright hilarious, having no qualms ripping on others and herself. She was, in short, very fun to be around, and the opposite of a bitch. So I was quite surprised when I asked her last name and realized she was the girl everyone had been talking about in school. She wasn't a bitch, but the porn site part did happen to be true (the nicest part was she was totally honest and without shame about her website. If you're gonna do it, do it 100%). As far as I go, I have yet to meet people without this exact conversation coming up EVERY TIME: "You know, before I met you I thought you were a cold-hearted bitch who just used people all the time. I guess I was wrong." It's just the best backhand compliment, and I get it all the time. Apparently dark hair + dark eyes + independent attitude = total bitch. A friend of mine looks similar to me, and she gets the same thing. Stupid preconceived notions.
With just about every girl I've ever dated I get the same conversation on about our 3rd date. "So you're actually a nice guy, I really thought that you were just a total asshole when I first met you." It really doesn't make much sense to me, because I always see myself as a pretty decent person, but I guess in social situations I turn into a bit of a douche. Sidenote: I'm an extra in The Social Network, they needed some rowers, and so if you remember the rowing scene, I'm in the pair on the far right. We had to do about 10 days of shooting for that tiny bit of film.