Correcting Myself. Again.

I ran my mouth about the comparisons between the movie "The Social Network" and the Ben Mezrich book "The Accidental Billionaires" from which the screenplay was based.  Ok, I still stand behind my mini-rant about the irritating hand-job sucking up the author spewed out in the early part of the book (the part where he calls Zuck a "god" and saying he has "god-like powers" and so on). 

But aside from that, the rest of the book does in fact get better as you move on towards the end.  So, where I originally gave it a thumbs-down, I would now give it a thumbs-up.  If you're at all, even marginally, interested in this subject matter, this is worth reading.  Ok, I said it.  I'm sorry I crapped on the book.  Are you happy now?  Here's some bonus perspectives from yours truly…

 

Some interesting deviations between the screenplay and book:

• Sean Parker didn't suggest dropping "The" from "TheFaceBook" until an entirely different "scene" much later on.
• Sean Parker didn't knock on Mark's door when he first moved into the party house in Palo Alto.  Sean was moving furniture for his girlfriend when Mark and his friends walked up from down the street.  Their houses weren't directly opposite of each others, they were down the street but very close.
• The movie makes no mention of project WireHog.
• In the movie, Mark forgets to pick up Eduardo from the airport and he has to get a taxi in the rain.  In the book, Mark picks Eduardo up at the airport in a junker car and they talk on the way to the house, but it was mostly Eduardo talking and Mark nodding.
• The movie skips over the period when all the VC's and potential buyers came around to hound them and wine and dine them in order to get them to sell Facebook.
• The movie doesn't make much mention of Dustin and Andrew.
• In the movie, Eduardo's psycho girlfriend Kelly burns her scarf while Eduardo is on the phone with Mark.  In the book he gets a call while he's in transit from California where Kelly is "sobbing" and explaining how she set fire to the coat he bought her and it almost burned the house down and the Fire Dept had to put it out.