The Social Network, an entertaining but inaccurate recounting of the origins of Facebook, did not storm the Oscars the same way the website has stormed the Internet. Still, it won three out of the eight awards it was nominated for at the 83rd Oscar Academy Awards. While it did not grab the grand prize of Best Picture, three Oscars is definitely more than any movie about computer geeks has ever managed to earn.
The Social Network picked up these three Oscar Awards: Best Film Editing by the dynamic duo Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter, Best Adapted Screenplay by American screenwriter, producer and playwright Aaron Sorkin, and Best Original Score by singer-songwriter, composer, and producer Trent Reznor. Here are the five it did not win: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Actor. Both Inception and The King’s Speech won one more award than The Social Network did.
Facebook initially attempted to attack The Social Network (and the book it was based on, The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich). Eventually, however, the company decided to spin the PR in a positive way, and merely called the movie fiction, which it is. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly took some employees to go see the film, said he hoped it would inspire other youngsters to pursue careers in computer science, and even appeared alongside Jesse Eisenberg (the actor that portrayed him) in an episode of Saturday Night Live.
The voters in the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences clearly thought the movie was quite good, but they were not impressed enough to declear it number one. Have you seen it, and if you have, what did you think?
