Movies

When Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes invented Facebook in their Harvard dorm room in early 2004, what exactly had they created, and why, only six years later, is that invention at the heart of a massively hyped new feature film, The Social Network? That is not a question the new film tries to answer. It assumes we understand that the social networking site reinvented (to an extent) how the internet works and how certain groups and generations interact. It doesn’t address how that invention may have fundamentally changed the college life, or socialization, or the way relationships form, or how bullying manifests, or how business networks expand, or any of the myriad ways that Facebook has altered the characteristics of our social bonds. This is because by definition, the movie about the founding of Facebook takes place in a pre-Facebook world, which is to say that only in the film’s final moments do we get a hint at what is truly epic about this story – that Facebook has changed the way some of us live.

Tonight, the Dallas Video Festival kicks off at the Angelika Film Center. For 23 years, Bart Weiss and his cohorts have been pulling together innovative and challenging programming for the festival that always makes this one of the most fascinating movie-watching weekends of the year. What I’ve always enjoyed about Video Fest is its efficiency. What you don’t get at the festival are the kinds of mid-budget, mediocre feature films that clog the programming of most full-fledge film festivals. Video Fest’s movies are nearly always medium-conscious, and as a result, no matter what screening you walk into, what’s on screen will be something entirely fresh in either form or content or both. Sometimes the experimental, self-conscious fare doesn’t quite work, but rather than a shortcoming, this makes the festival feel like a breeding ground for ideas, an arena of experimentation that keeps the festival relevant. There are a number of excellent films at this year’s festival. Jump to find out which selections are not to miss.

Despite its colorful characterizations and quirky, fresh sense of humor, there’s really only one idea bouncing around in Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini’s movie The Exrta Man: what if you took two literary dandies styled after the novels of the early 20^th century and dropped them in the contemporary world? That’s the premise of the new comedy, opening at the Angelika Film Center, which plays out like an elaborate English major’s joke.

No one can say the f-word quite like a Bostonian. Forget New York, Chicago, or even the cockney bullies of Guy Richie’s London. In Boston, the f-word pops from the lips, lilts and rises like perfect pizza dough. It mocks, spars, and attacks, always with the hint of wit and a wry sense of irony. Friends and enemies alike are subject to the same barrage of verbal abuse. Repeat it over and over, as it is in Ben Affleck’s bank heist thriller, The Town, and the f-word has its own beautiful resonance. Pair it with the colorful, albeit limited, vocabulary of New England insults, provocations, and other swears, and you have a vocal bouquet with a colloquial charm that wins your affection. The language and banter of the Irish, working class gangsters in The Town is what draws us into this well-crafted and exciting chase and shoot thriller, a movie built on the foundation of its appealing characters. Sure, The Town’s setup is conventional, and its central drama, a love story between the bank robbing mastermind and a hostage, is as familiar as primetime crime drama. But give second-time director Ben Affleck credit. He understands that the only trick a good movie needs to play is to create a character on screen you care about and action thrilling enough to keep you interested.