Alex Johnson – Journalist at Large

David Carr has a terrific analysis of “The Social Network” in today’s New York Times, landing on a smart point about the complications that arise when a visuals-obsessed director like David Fincher shoots a script by a wordnik like Aaron Sorkin. It’s worth finding time to read.

If you do, you’ll also get classic example of a David Carr trope: the “Look at me, I’ve got an expense account and get to dine with famous people!” throwaway line.

It comes in the 12th graf today:

Mr. Sorkin acknowledged the odd couple nature of the pairing. “This is not intuitively the perfect marriage of director and material,” Mr. Sorkin said over a dinner at the Sunset Towers here.

That sort of construction pops up a lot in Mr. Carr’s work:

• Christopher Weekes, a writer-director who came all the way from Sydney to show “Bitter and Twisted,” a suburban seriocomedy that is one of the more talked-about features at the festival, said over a lunch of organic chicken and Kobe beef that New York had something all directors crave.

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