ABOUT-FACEBOOK
Even if you're not one of the 500 million friends who watched the trailer while nursing a ten-dollar soda before Inception, scarfing Goobers with reckless abandon - easy, people, there are peanuts * in there! - or overdoing it on the butter-flavored topping right before Salt, you've probably got a creeping feeling that *The Social Network (aka "that Facebook movie") opens today.
But if you do happen to be one of those locked-in devotees who
wile away hours tending to Farmville, waging *Mafia Wars * or just snooping through other people's wedding pictures - this means YOU, all of our female friends - you're probably pretty stoked for this flick. If you're something less than stoked, if you're one of those virulently down-with-Facebook types, like, say, anti-social network writer AARON SORKIN, whose always catchy banter will be splashed up on the silver screen, there's something for you, too: Yet another reason to roll a "whole-ier than thou" eye at the increasingly isolated, self-congratulatory world Ivy-covered Harvard-ites like billionaire twenty-six year-old MARK ZUCKERBERG have let loose on mankind. So, really, it's win-win.
In honor of the most anticipated film to hit theatres since the last one, Out-Takes proudly presents a few STATUS UPDATES for that blustery, self-promoting social network that is the National. Football League. And what better place to start, self-promotional bluster-wise, than the Jets locker room in NEW GIANTS STADIUM...
MARK "SANCHIZE"* *is...well on his way toward 15-1! As long as I keep winning, I can shake my head and roll my eyes - on TV, no less - at the advice I'm getting from old-timey playoff coaches like MARTY SCHOTTEN-whatev and Hall of Fame QBs! (P.S. Made "Page 6" again!)
REX RYAN is...
(too easy)
REX RYAN is...downloading the *Jersey Shore *app for his iPhone! RR-Woww!
LOGAN MANKINS is...finding out what the "free" in "free agent" really means. (Also - playing Farmville. Help!)
Petulant REDSKINS defensive tackle (and famed head-stomper) ALBERT HAYNESWORTH is...playing the "slave" card less than a year after signing a contract for $100 million dollars. "I signed...and got paid a lot of money, but...that don't mean I'm for sale or a slave or whatever." (De-friended by too-many-people-to-count.)
BILL BELICHICK* *is...not sharing anything, and his Privacy Setting is Restricted. People who aren't friends with Bill see
. (Just not on Sundays.)
CHARLES ROGERS is...still amazed, along with the rest of us, that he got taken #2 overall in the '03 draft, just one spot ahead of ANDRE JOHNSON. Or, rather, he would * be amazed if he weren't so busy facing foreclosure on his million-dollar mansion in the *Harry Potter-ish sounding "Turnberry Estates."
DEVIN HESTER is...busy being better than anyone on that Dancing with the Stars show.
Patriots special teamer BRET LOCKETT* *is...dreading his trip into Coach Belichick's office to explain how it's possible for a bit player to feel comfy enough with his place in the organization to get in trouble with Providence PD at two in the morning while on injured reserve.
Broncos rookie "cover" corner PERRISH COX is...just now getting beaten for yet another Colts touchdown. (AUSTIN COLLIE and three others like this!)
NEW ENGLAND-BASED MESSAGE BOARD FAN is...pretty sure the Pats should sign FILL-IN-NAME-OF-ANY-NFL-PLAYER-WHO-JUST-GOT-CUT!
345-pound Bengal O-lineman ANDRE "THE BRO™" SMITH...had a salad! (j/k)
TOM BRADY is...tired of the "Justin Bieber haircut" nonsense, but prefers it to the "Yoko Bündchen" B.S.
ANTONIO CROMARTIE, Relationship Status: "It's Complicated."
Hot-headed ESPN knee-jerk contrarian SKIP BAYLESS is...in total, randomly furious disagreement with whoever's currently speaking.
ELI MANNING is...scrambling in the red zone, trying to remember, "Right-handed. I'm RIGHT-handed."
THE NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS DRAFT WAR ROOM is now friends with...the ARIZONA CARDINALS, 75% of the AFC WEST, and anyone else on Oakland's schedule. (SEBASTIAN JANIKOWSKI* *Friend Request: Pending.)
SEBASTIAN JANIKOWSKI* *is...wide left. And wide right. And still a former #1 pick. As a kicker.
MICHAEL VICK*has requested ASPCA's friendship (IGNORED)
MICHAEL VICK* has requested ESPN's friendship (CONFIRMED - and way too soon)
ERIC SMITH "poked" 2009 ANQUAN BOLDIN and 2010 WES WELKER. (And got fined nearly $60K for it over the past 12 months.)
JAY CUTLER has sent you a DRINK on "Cheers!!" (Again. And again.)
PLAXICO BURRESS is requesting more ammunition in Mafia Wars. Help!
T.O.*and OCHOCINCO* are in a relationship.
BEN ROETHLISBERGER is...headed down the barroom hallway with a tipsy co-ed. Who's on the door?!
DEZ BRYANT (and his $50,000+ dinner bill)...kinda wishes he'd just carried ROY WILLIAMS'sshoulder pads back in training camp.
And finally...
The NEW YORK JETS like DANNY WOODHEAD and suggest the NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS like him, too.
So there ya have it, folks. Out-Takes's kick-off to what we can only assume will be a blockbuster weekend - possibly the first of many - for everyone behind The Social Network: Sorkin, Columbia Pictures, director DAVID "Gwyneth Paltrow's head in a box" FINCHER and JUSTIN "something else in a box" TIMBERLAKE. Then there's impossible-to-hate "It Boy" JESSE EISENBERG, a kid we first cottoned to in a top-notch indie (Roger Dodger) back in 2002. No doubt he'll be generating Oscar buzz come 2011. As for Facebook, the NFL and What It All Means...
We're reminded of an underrated performance (in an underrated movie), courtesy of DAVID MORSE, as Jodie Foster's Dad-slash-Alien Ambassador in the touchy-feely sci-fi movie, Contact. (Younger readers will know Morse as the heavy from Disturbia, whereas older fans recall him from one particularly gruesome episode of St. Elsewhere. To spare the tender-hearted among us, let's just say Dr. Jack was at a prison, some inmates got loose and it could've gone better.)
TED
You're an interesting species, an interesting mix. Capable of such exquisite dreams; such horrifying nightmares. Technologically you've advanced very quickly - some think too quickly...and yet...you're so lost. So cut off...and so sad.
We've searched the cosmos...and after all the suffering, after all the chaos and desolation of the void - the one thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other. That's why I sent the message. That's why I made contact.
So here's to all that brings us together, be it Facebook or college reunions, church school or chat rooms, cell phones, barbecues or baseball games. Whether you're stuck in the office, home for the holidays or surrounded by buddies in a Vegas sportsbook - friends, food and football (fantasy or otherwise) bring us together, even when we're technically apart. It is in that spirit of community, of connection, of contact, that Out-Takes happily invites you to a twin-bill of upcoming Events:
The Facebook movie, opening today, and Pats-Dolphins, Monday Night.
Hope you like it.
John Cockrell is a writer for USA Network's "In Plain Sight," and a screenwriter, whose other work has run the gamut from "Sesame Street Parents Magazine" to Playboy TV's "The Weekend Flash." (He figures everything else is pretty much in-between.)
