Mr. Sorkin Goes Back to Silicon Valley: Why The Social Reckoning Falls Short
It’s 2026. The AI arms race is fully underway, and all the major tech players are rolling out new and better generative products. You hear that Aaron Sorkin, the Academy-trophied Tiresias who wrote The Social Network, has penned (and directed) a sequel of sorts that continues the Facebook story.
Then you find out it’s about The Facebook Files, what turned out to be an explosive but less-than-apocalyptic episode in the company’s history, and something within you deflates.
No one reading this has to imagine that scenario, because it is, of course, what happened.The Social Reckoninghas just hit theaters—and it’s a colossal misfire.
Ranking the Films of Pasolini
Last year marked the fiftieth anniversary of the death of one of the most important filmmakers of all time. In early November 1975, Pier Paolo Pasolini was murdered. Perhaps the killing was carried out by the militant right-wing group Banda della Magliana–or maybe by an overzealous fan. The case remains open in Rome after the original suspect retracted his confession more than twenty years ago.
I undertake to rank all twelve of Pasolini’s feature films. Of course, the scope of his oeuvre extends beyond these; I recommend in particular his street documentary Love Meetings and his excellent meta short film La Ricotta.
Richard Linklater’s Big Year: Nouvelle Vague and Blue Moon
This year, Linklater opened and closed the festival season with two films: Blue Moon, which hit stateside cinemas this past weekend, and Nouvelle Vague (to be released theatrically on Halloween and then streaming on Netflix, the film’s US distributor, by the middle of next month). Though radically different formally and thematically, both films freeze exquisite moments in time—evoking more than just texture and sound, but a feeling of living in a time and place divorced very much from our own.
