Nah, we’re good man.
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lol this will be awesome. He is the single best screenwriter of this generation.
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I’ve seen 5 of his movies, and while I wouldn’t classify any of them as bad, none of them blew me away either.
(The Social Network is not one of those 5. I should watch that sometime.)
It’s arguably top 10 film of the last 20 years.
What are others in your top 10?
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“Nah,” he ain’t all that, “we’re good man.”
I’d prolly only watch that if I was a masochist.
Not sure. I’d have to think on that which I am now curious to do.
Easy number one is Before Sunset that just squeaks in as exactly 20 years ago.
I’ll compile the rest later for fun.
What’s yours?
I’ll think about it and put it in the movie thread.
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Sure, if you like wordy, pretentious, preachy, 20/20 hindsight writing of historical events that make it seem like he had his finger on the pulse before anyone else or that he creates a fantasy reality of what he wishes something would be vs. what it is.
More often than not, his writing is annoying and eyerolling. He’s a good writer, but his ego is alllll over everything he does and I almost never seek out anything he does intentionally. Sometimes I’ll like something (like a A Few Good Men), but I’d have to see a list of the other big screenwriters of his generation to see where I might rank him.
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Charlie Kaufman GOAT. Come at me.
This is a good joke but you’re all taking it seriously
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Thought I have a look what the ‘experts’ say:
Sorkin at 13 on a list with massive recency bias.
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I get it’s popular to hate on him but doing so you have to recognize the difference between form and style in screenwriting. From a form perspective, he is objectively among the best ever to do it. Fair enough to hate his style but I love his fantasy version of how the world should work. The only criticism of him I agree with is his writing of women is often weak.
On the side of his genius is
Sports Night
The West Wing
A Few Good Men
The Social Network
Moneyball
Jobs
I didn’t realize there was an objectively correct answer, I bet the guys who argued the other side are feeling pretty damn foolish right now. Thanks for letting us know clovis.
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One of the worst traits a writer can have related to historical events is writing as if the outcome is known inside the story and that the writer knew what it would be all along in the context of the historical event happening (smarter than everyone else which Sorkin is one of the biggest offenders of, as constantly evidenced in The Newsroom).
The best writing of a historical story, event, or time always takes an outcome you know is never in doubt and makes it feel like you don’t already know the outcome. Sorkin is a prime example of the former. Another bizarrely critical darling TV show that I thought was largely garbage that massively suffered from that kind of writing was The Americans.
I think most people would agree that the structural side is objective. In terms of how a screenplay works. I would guess most every screenwriter would credit him as being among the best from that perceptive.
It’s why I acknowledged it’s perfectly fine to hate his style, although I disagree.
It’s like saying Rodin was a bad sculpture because his subjects bored you. He clearly knew how to sculpt even if his subjects were not of your taste.
This is a fair criticism of Newsroom, and you’ll note I don’t include it in the list of his great works. That said, I think he is doing with Newsroom something very similar to what Tarantino did with Inglorious Bastards and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The latter are clearly far superior but I think they counter your point to some degree?
I’m gonna give you a great golf joke that typefies Sorkin. My mentor once told me this joke about golf great Ben Hogan.
One guy says Hogan was such a great golfer that every day he could land his ball in the same divot from the previous day. The other guy says if Hogan was so great, why couldn’t he land his ball outside of the divot?
That’s Sorkin. He’s a one trick pony. He writes fast paced all knowing dialog with some good characters, often with a compelling story behind it, but I haven’t ever seen him do anything outside of that. Also, he’s not really that prolific as a writer and probably the vast majority of stuff he’s done is based on other stuff or events in life that he’d like to see a certain way (A Few Good Men and The West Wing as his most prominent examples of that).
I can’t comment on Tarantino as I’m not a fan of his for a number of reasons (biggest one is because his movies are way too violent and filled with casual and non-casual racism for me).
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