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Back in 2013, Sony Pictures Entertainment announced plans for its own elaborate, interconnected universe based around Spider-Man. Among the planned titles: Amazing Spider-Man 3 (which never happened), Venom ( which arguably shouldn't have happened), and The Sinister Six (which hasn't happened yet, though writer-director Drew Goddard would still love to tackle it). Instead, Sony went a different way, partnering with Marvel two years later to make Spider-Man part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, leading to Tom Holland's portrayal of Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Homecoming and other MCU films.

It was a concession that perhaps Marvel Studios knew how to best handle the marquee version of the character. But in spite of Spider-Man's successful MCU integration, Sony continued to work on many of its expanded-universe ideas. The most intriguing of the bunch was Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, an animated film meant not only to step away from the world of live-action superheroes, but to put the spotlight on Miles Morales, the character writer Brian Michael Bendis created in 2011 to take over the mantle of Spider-Man after Peter Parker was killed. With the project being creatively shepherded by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the duo behind The Lego Movie and the 21 Jump Street films, the project had the potential to offer a fresh, radically different take on the character, one that would actually warrant a standalone film in a sea of interconnected franchise titles.

The finished film is all those things and more. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a raucous, smart, self-referential adventure. The comics-inspired visuals are stunning, and the emotional coming-of-age story is relevant and inspiring, even as it acknowledges the many Spider-Man movies that have come before it. Sony is clearly looking for a way to launch its own distinct take on Spider-Man that can stand up to the live-action MCU version, and that franchise now has its first installment.

Unpacking the storyline in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a bit tricky, because the film is so fast-paced, and filled with so many meta-references, that it becomes a bit of an interconnected puzzle. But it starts off with Peter Parker (Jake Johnson) trying to dismantle a massive supercollider built by the Kingpin (Liev Schreiber). Spider-Man is killed in the battle, leading to all of New York mourning the loss of their hometown superhero. Then the film shifts to teenager Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore), whose artistic inclinations don't necessarily please his police-officer father (Brian Tyree Henry). One night, Miles' uncle Aaron (Mahershala Ali, from and the recent Green Room) takes him to a hidden tunnel in the subway system to spray-paint a mural, and Miles is bitten by a mysterious spider. Soon, he's developing Spider-Man-esque powers.

That's just the beginning of a story that pulls different iterations of Spider-Man from alternative universes into Miles' own. A flailing, middle-aged Peter Parker (also Johnson), the black-and-white Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage), and Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld) are just a few examples of the larger Spider-Man metaverse that Miles learns exists. Soon, they join forces to stop Kingpin, so Miles can harness his emerging powers, and so the other characters can use the machine to jump back to their own dimensions before it's too late.

For a film with such a mind-bending premise, Into the Spider-Verse is remarkably efficient in the way it sets up the various characters and the world's stakes, largely by relying on the audience's knowledge of comic-book movies and these characters. An opening montage, for example, tells the backstory of the soon-to-be-deceased Peter Parker, which essentially establishes him as the Tobey Maguire iteration of the character from the Sam Raimi film trilogy. The upside-down kiss with Mary Jane from Raimi's 2002 original, the train rescue from Spider-Man 2, the regrettable Spider-Man 3 dance sequence; they're all referenced, and when he dies, it serves as a clean break from all other iterations of the character.

The knowing meta-humor present in that opening montage never relents. The script from Lord and co-director Rodney Rothman is filled with the kind of irreverent takes on pop culture and movie tropes that pepper Lord and Miller's own films, and with each of the different multiverse characters embodying their own genres, there are plenty of different gags to play with. Cage's Spider-Man Noir is a parody of goofy film-noir clichés. The storyline of the anime-influenced Peni Parker is remarkably earnest, yet winking in the way it utilizes that particular animation style. The talking pig Spider-Ham (yes, a real Marvel character, voiced by John Mulaney) serves as broad comic relief, with the sheer absurdity of the character allowing the others - as heightened and bizarre as they may be in their own right - to feel relatively grounded by comparison.

That balance is essential, because while this is an animated film, Miles Morales is one of the most relatable, vulnerable lead characters to appear in a Spider-Man movie. His desire to establish his own identity separate from his father's, his awkward teenage clumsiness when he meets someone he likes in school, his frustration that he can't easily master his newfound skills with ease - his storyline echoes the struggles of any teenager battling to discover and establish their identity. These are themes present in most Spider-Man origin stories, but setting them against the backdrop of the multiverse - which allows Miles to learn that there are multiple interpretations of what he can be as Spider-Man, all of them valid - brings the point home further.

It also underscores the importance of this film choosing to focus on Morales in the first place. In movies, the Spider-Man franchise has for far too long focused on the same character doing the same things, often in the exact same way, no matter what strides the comic made in terms of diversity and representation. Into the Spider-Verse shows what a wasted opportunity that has been. In this film, Spider-Man isn't one particular person; it's an idea accessible to anyone, no matter where they come from or what they look like. And it's almost certainly no accident that the older multiverse Peter Parker who Miles teams up with - an out-of-shape, middle-aged white dude who's totally screwed up his own life, in spite of all the built-in advantages of being a superhero - ends up learning quite a bit from Morales about how to repair his own life and respect other people.

Along with the story insights and laughs, however, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is undeniably a visual powerhouse, with a style unlike any previous comics adaptation. The film pulls both from traditional 3D computer animation and comic-book aesthetics, mashing them up into a dazzling, kinetic style. In one moment, the film lays out multiple panels on the screen. In another, it uses written captions to mirror Miles' internal monologue. In yet another, it deploys familiar written sound effects to match the action. It allows the directing team - Rothman, Bob Persichetti, and Peter Ramsey - to litter every frame with as many flourishes and blink-and-miss-it gags as possible. (My personal favorite is when the phrase "Bagel!" is used as a sound effect. Trust me on this one.)

Sometimes the film does reach visual overload. In the final act, particularly, so much is happening on screen that the movie's style seems to undercut the narrative, turning everything into a blur of shape, color, and movement. But for the most part, the highly experimental style works extraordinarily well. It's a testament to Sony that the studio was willing to let the filmmakers go so far with the visual treatment, and it becomes one more element that distinguishes Spider-Verse as something completely distinct from other Spider-Man movies, or even other animated films.

That last aspect - the fact that it feels honestly, truly unique - is one of the most invigorating aspects of Into the Spider-Verse. Superhero movies clutter the cinematic landscape these days, and with rare exceptions like Thor: Ragnarok and Black Panther - they often look, sound, and act alike. They've become more consumer-friendly product than storytelling endeavor, with specific moments and stylistic approaches carefully honed to create films with the greatest possible chance of success. That doesn't mean they're all good, as many of Sony's Spider-Man releases prove. But what it does mean is that they're safe, and often extraordinarily similar.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is incredibly exciting because it eschews all of that. It's innovative, irreverent, and dynamic. It's hilarious but exceptionally earnest, with a lead character worth caring about. It's the kind of cinematic ride that invites more franchise installments - not just to learn more about the many, many characters it introduces and worlds it hints at, but just to see how Miles Morales' Spider-Man will grow and change.

If Sony really wants to find a way to separate itself from Marvel, DC, and every other comic-book adaptation out there, it wouldn't be a bad idea to jettison its upcoming live-action Spider-Man spin-offs and just work on expanding the Miles Morales Spider-Verse. The framework is already there, as are a multitude of new characters embodying different takes and new points of view. That's no doubt why the studio has already quietly started development on a sequel, as well as a Spider-Women movie that will focus on Gwen Stacey and other female heroes. There have been a lot of Spider-Man movies over the last 16 years, but Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is unique in a way none of the others can match.

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Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is dazzling, hilarious, and unique

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The film, creatively shepherded by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the duo behind The Lego Movie and the 21 Jump Street films, offers a fresh, radically different take on the Spider-Man, one that actually warrants a standalone film in a sea of interconnected franchise titles.

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apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction (tv genre)

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"The most-buzzed about novel of the season." -Entertainment Weekly An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization's collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

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VIDEO: Emily St. John Mandel discusses Station Eleven

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VIDEO: Emily St. John Mandel discusses Station Eleven

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Emily St. John Mandel discusses Station Eleven

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Emily St. John Mandel discusses Station Eleven Watch our video to hear the inspiration of her latest novel and the secrets of her writing technique Emily St. John Mandel was born and raised on the west coast of British Columbia, Canada.

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VIDEO: Emily St. John Mandel Talks about Station Eleven

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VIDEO: Emily St. John Mandel Talks about Station Eleven

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Emily St. John Mandel reads from Station Eleven at 2014 NBA Finalists Reading

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Emily St. John Mandel Station Eleven (Alfred A. Knopf/ Random House) ISBN: 978-0385353304 Was held on Tuesday, November 18 at 7:00 P.M. THE NEW SCHOOL, The Auditorium at 66 West 12th Street, New York City More information at nationalbook.org

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It's rare enough to experience the shiver of revelation that comes in the first few minutes of a great show; rarer still to be blasted above the ordinary the second time around. That's something great plays and musicals do: They expand with our consciousness. So it is with , which turns two on July 13. The original cast members, led in the title role by the show's author, composer and lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda, have long since departed on a wave of recognition and riches beyond anyone's imagining, topped by 11 Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, not to mention the highest price ever legally demanded for a ticket to a Broadway show. As of this writing, it has played 789 performances and 26 previews at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, which followed a three-month run at the Public Theater, all of them sold out. Also rare: arrived on Broadway a better show - sharper and more generous - than it had been downtown.

This weekend I returned to Hamilton for my fourth visit, the first since the turnover of personnel and the price hike. I was skeptical, because one of the secrets every reviewer knows is that while we haven't attended shows on opening night in decades, we do have a different experience than the paying customers. We get to cut to the front of the security line. We get the best seats. The houses at critics' previews typically are filled with supporters whose job is to make sure we know how wonderful this thing we're seeing is. And generally, when we return to a hit, it's a similarly stage-managed event.

On Friday night, however, it was just me and the paying crowd. I assume many had been holding their tickets for months, even among the high-rollers who'd come at the last minute (on the line outside the theater, someone was hawking $8,000 singles). And as with every performance, 46 extremely lucky lottery chancers were sitting up front in $10 seats.

Only the roar that greets Bette Midler's entrance in Hello, Dolly! compares to the explosion in the Richard Rodgers Theatre when Javier Muñoz sings the words "Alexander Hamilton" in the opening number that bears his name. Granted, when you have waited so long, heard so much, and negotiated the soul-killing obstacle course involved in attending any Broadway show, you really want a spectacular return on your investment. In this case, however, the fact that I knew what was coming at almost every moment did nothing to diminish the feeling I eagerly shared with the audience. It was the exhilaration of collaborating, as every audience does, with a company on stage in creating something indelible, something transformative and something almost indescribably pleasurable.

Hamilton is in great shape. In the case of Muñoz, it's not too surprising; he's been with the show from the beginning as Miranda's stand-by and performed the lead when the Obama family stopped by the Rodgers for a visit. Muñoz may be the better singer (Miranda is hardly shabby in that department). Miranda never let us forget the wince of an orphan's insecurity buried deep beneath his layers of determination and self-confidence; Muñoz conveys tougher armor. I'm not going to declare one better than the other; they're different and equally satisfying.

Indeed, it's generally an odious critical gambit to compare performances. Who cares how many Uncle Vanyas I've seen, tell me about this one. There may be slightly more justification here because the original Broadway cast album is ubiquitous and many theater goers are familiar with the voices that created Hamilton. In this case they really are significant, but again, more because of their stylistic differences than because of any diminishment in the stature of the performances. Hamilton's nemesis, Aaron Burr, is played by the exceptionally fine Brandon Victor Dixon replacing Leslie Odom Jr. The latter was steel cloaked in suavity, while Dixon is more severe in the opening number, which gives us both Hamilton's back story and the seeds of a rivalry that will only conclude in a duel on the New Jersey shore many decades later. Delivering what is, to my mind, the show's most astonishing number, "The Room Where It Happens," Dixon's another knockout.

The killer-comic dual roles of the Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson, created by Tony winner Daveed Diggs, are now played by Tony winner James Monroe Iglehart, who originated the Genie in the stage version of Aladdin. Where Diggs was sleek and carbonated with energy, Iglehart exudes a crafty jollity that's irresistible in its own way, not so much playing to the audience as coercing us into abetting his antics. Lexi Lawson and Mandy Gonzalez have the formidable challenge of replacing Phillipa Soo and Renée Elise Goldsberry as Eliza and Angelica Schuyler, respectively, and they're fully up to the task, singing gorgeously and plaintively. (I still wish someone would tell me what the hell happened to Peggy Schuyler, the Schuyler Sister Who Disappears, but that's an old gripe.)

One extremely felicitous cast change is the return of Brian d'Arcy James as King George III. He created the role but had to leave while the show was still running at the Public to go into Something Rotten!. (He was replaced by Jonathan Groff and others.) Now he's back and he's great, especially in some deft interplay with Iglehart as Jefferson.

The sole exception I must make to all this wonderfulness has to do not with any performance, but with the overall sound by Nevin Steinberg, which struck me this time as muddled and echoic. I'm relieved that so many folks come knowing the words, because you don't want to miss them and too often - especially, to my ear, with the women - they were tough to make out.

On the other hand, this fourth visit to Hamilton allowed me to savor even more the truly astonishing work of director Thomas Kail and choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler (both Tony winners for the show, with Blankenbuehler repeating a few weeks ago for his choreography of Bandstand). Like Miranda's score, which ranges restlessly from hip-hop to pop, blues to ballad to traditional Broadway belter, Hamilton itself is in constant motion, an organism whose multitude of parts (the company is fantastic) are seamlessly in synch in ways that just stop your breathing as one scene flows into the next, inventively, smartly, unexpectedly. That's one of the things that makes Hamilton a truly great Broadway musical. But only one of them.

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Review: 'Hamilton's Revolution Still Shoots Fireworks Over Broadway

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It's rare enough to experience the shiver of revelation that comes in the first few minutes of a great show; rarer still to be blasted above the ordinary the second time around. That's something great plays and musicals do: They expand with our consciousness. So it is with , which turns two on July 13.

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A Most Peculiar Trip: Searching for Miss Peregrine

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I went urban exploring in Belgium to shoot the trailer for my novel, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. It was an adventure, to say the least. You can order the book here, in either electronic or dead-tree format: http://tiny.cc/zw1tv Tim Burton is currently making a movie of the book and it comes out March 2016.

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Eight Habits of Highly Successful Young Adult Authors

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Eight Habits of Highly Successful Young Adult Authors

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Young-adult fiction, commonly called "YA fiction," has exploded over the past decade or so: The number of YA titles published grew more than 120 percent between 2002 and 2012, and other estimates say that between 1997 and 2009, that figure was closer to 900 percent. Ask a handful of young-adult fiction writers what exactly makes a YA novel, though, and you'll get a handful of conflicting answers.

At their core, YA books are for and about teenagers and pre-teens, usually between 12 and 18 years old, but sometimes as young as 10. Yet more than half of all YA novels sold are bought by older adults 18 or older, and certain titles published in the U.S. as YA are considered mainstream fiction for adults in other countries. Some authors believe the intent to write for young readers is a prerequisite of YA fiction; others don't even realize their books will be labeled as YA until after they finish writing.

The YA Experts

Rainbow Rowell is the author of Attachments, Eleanor & Park, Fangirl, and the forthcoming Landline.

Veronica Roth is the author of the Divergent trilogy, whose final installment, Allegiant, is out now.

Rachel Cohn is the author of Gingerbread, Beta, and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, which she co-wrote with David Levithan.

John Green is the author of The Fault in Our Stars, Looking for Alaska, Will Grayson, Will Grayson (co-written with David Levithan), and others.

David Levithan is Scholastic's editorial director and the author of Every Day, Boy Meets Boy, and others.

Kristen Pettit is an executive editor at HarperCollins.

Jodi Picoult is the author of 23 books, including The Storyteller, My Sister's Keeper, and The Pact.

Kathryn Reiss is the author of 15 YA books and teaches YA fiction-writing at Mills College in Oakland, Calif.

Many successful authors say there's no secret to writing for teenagers. Good writing is good writing; believable characters and compelling plots are crucial regardless of who's picking up the book. But many YA authors will also tell you there's something particularly fulfilling and rewarding about writing for teenagers, who often respond to stories they identify with more intensely and gratefully than adult readers do. I asked eight writers and editors how they create characters and stories that feel real to teenagers, even when their world-and the world of the YA books they read-can feel like another planet. Below are eight of their most successful strategies.

Think Like a Teen
Rainbow Rowell never set out to be a YA author. Her first book, Attachments, was for and about adults, and though Eleanor & Park is a teenage love story set in 1986, her approach to writing younger characters was the same. It was only after the novel was finished that she learned it would be YA, and even then, the decision was debated. Because Rowell got her start writing for adults-and because the story's relatability defied many adults' expectations of what a "book for teens" was-some readers and reviewers questioned whether the YA label was applicable.

But what clearly makes Eleanor & Park a YA book, a fellow author told Rowell, wasn't just that the main characters were teens. It was that the novel actually saw the world through their eyes. "The perspective was so firmly rooted inside of these teenagers," Rowell says. "You're not looking back or looking down. The narrator is not observing things the people themselves are not." It's the same quality-a lack of narrative distance-that's led many writers to call J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye the seminal YA text: Readers experience Holden Caulfield's version of events solely through his jaded, smart-alecky point of view.

"I think everyone's got a little teenager inside of them still, and you just have to work to help yourself access that teenager," says Veronica Roth, the author of the Divergent trilogy, whose final installment, Allegiant, is out now. "Every now and then I find myself having a character make a decision that feels very adult without having them earn it, and I have to go back and make sure I'm letting the characters make mistakes they would in real life at that age, like a parent."

When the adult perspective creeps its way into a YA book, readers notice, too. "It's a huge red flag," says Rachel Cohn, the author of the acclaimed Gingerbread series, who says she's vigilant about editing out the grown-up voice in early drafts of her writing. Cohn, who is often asked to review other YA books, calls this distance one of her biggest pet peeves.

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The 8 Habits of Highly Successful Young-Adult Fiction Authors

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Young-adult fiction, commonly called "YA fiction," has exploded over the past decade or so: The number of YA titles published grew more than 120 percent between 2002 and 2012, and other estimates say that between 1997 and 2009, that figure was closer to 900 percent.

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Qualities of Young Adult Literature | Education.com

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What is the purpose of young adult literature? This article discusses the qualities, criteria and purposes of young adult literature.

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Wreck-It Ralph Movie Review & Film Summary (2012) | Roger Ebert

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"Wreck-It Ralph," the latest Disney animated feature for families, begins with a creative brainstorm: The movie occurs mostly inside the worlds of several arcade-style video games, providing an excuse for the backgrounds, ground rules and characters to constantly reinvent themselves. The title is inspired by its hero, one of those clumsy, misunderstood big guys who dreams only of being loved.

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Video Game Review: The Mists of Pandaria

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Video Game Review: The Mists of Pandaria

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"Slow down!" the Pandaren tell you whenever you click on them. And you should heed their advice, for Blizzard's latest expansion for World of Warcraft should be savored like a Pandaren savors beer and fine food. The portly Pandas play their appetites and patience for laughs, but their laid back attitude quickly overtakes your playstyle. Blizzard has provided a diverse menu of MMO activities with Mists of Pandaria that's incredibly fun to feast upon again and again.

If epic stories and quests are your favorite parts of playing an MMO, MoP has got you covered. Blizzard raises the stakes for the Alliance, as they investigate the shrouded new continent while tracking down the White Pawn - the young Prince Anduin who started his life in vanilla WoW as a young boy. Meanwhile, the Horde has chased him to Pandaria, and the Warchief orders his forces to "paint this new continent red." Both sides come in contact with the indigenous races, and the land itself responds by releasing what are essentially bad emotions and feelings given physical form - the Sha of Doubt, Despair, Anger, etc. Underneath those broad strokes are touching personal stories in which characters overcome those negative feelings. There's no need to spoil the specifics, but you'll enjoy the quests because of excellent writing showing genuine wit, along with a clever blend of cinematics, a generous helping of in-game voice acting, and unique mechanics pushing the limits of the vehicle quest system introduced in Wrath of the Lich King.

The quests for any given zone continue the excellent design practices Blizzard honed through Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm. The content is skillfully divided into pods that feel like an episode in your character's ongoing story so you might visit one village under attack in the Jade Forest and save its denizens over the course of several quests. When you kill the slaver taking the village folk, you're rewarded with an achievement, the feeling that you've completed that story, and the freedom to pass on to the next pod of content. Each zone has 6-12 of these content pods, and they let you break up playtime like the end of a chapter does for reading a book.

Beyond leveling your character to 90 in Pandaria's zones, the new minipet battle system is a completely separate endeavor which will keep your character running around all the older content to collect 'em all. Minipets have been in WoW since launch, but they are no longer just cosmetic. You can pit them against pets you find in the world, other players or the NPC pet trainers you challenge during quests. The turn-based mechanics aren't any more difficult to figure out than Pokemon, but the battles are just as addictive. You can easily spend hours leveling up the right combination for your battle team to take down the Forsaken battle pet trainer David Kosse, for example, and his team consisting of the rabbit Subject 142, Plop the Magic Green Droplet and a giant maggot called Corpsefeeder.

Hopefully, that motley crew doesn't put you off your lunch, because in contrast playing Pandaria actually made me hungry with how much the characters mention food and drink. It's fitting in the expansion starring the gourmand Pandarens that the secondary trade skill of cooking is highlighted. Cooking has always been a fun diversion in WoW, but recipes have much more varied ingredient list than in previous expansions. Some of these you purchase such as rice, but a great many you collect by killing creatures in the wild such as most large birds dropping wildfowl breasts. You then level up individual specializations, learning the Way of the Oven and the Way of the Wok, for instance, to create dishes like spring rolls and stir fries. If you're a gamer who loves both the collection and crafting systems in MMOs, the cooking in MoP will entice you like a Chinese buffet tempts those with the munchies.

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"Slow down!" the Pandaren tell you whenever you click on them. And you should heed their advice, for Blizzard's latest expansion for World of Warcraft should be savored like a Pandaren savors beer and fine food. The portly Pandas play their appetites and patience for laughs, but their laid back attitude quickly overtakes your playstyle.

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The Social Network might be the best movie of the year

columbia pictures

The Social Network
Directed by David Fincher

Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield

PG-13, now playing

In the week and a half it has been since the release of The Social Network, I have raved about the movie to everyone I know, yet I hesitate to say anything too substantial about the movie itself. It is best seen with fresh eyes and no expectations - except, of course, the expectation to be entertained by a movie about one of the defining developments of our generation. Most people who haven't seen it yet refer to it as "the Facebook movie," and while it is indeed about Facebook (which, let's be honest, provides a good enough reason to go watch it), it is, above anything else, an excellent film, already dubbed "the best movie of the year" by numerous critics.

Based on the undoubtedly dramatized non-fiction book by Ben Mezrich, The Accidental Billionaires, the film revolves around Mark Zuckerberg, the entrepreneur who created Facebook during his undergraduate years at Harvard in early 2004, and the two separate lawsuits that soon surrounded him regarding the controversial management and founding ideas of the company. Perfectly played by Jesse Eisenberg ( Zombieland, Adventureland), The Social Network's Zuckerberg is a winning combination of brilliance and social awkwardness that translates into an almost endearing quality of douchiness. We see this immediately in the memorable opening scene between Zuckerberg and his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend, Erica Albright (a deliciously biting Rooney Mara, who is cast to play the lead character in hit-novel-turned-movie The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo), in which he effortlessly carries about five conversation threads at once, oblivious to her increasing disgust at his self-absorption until it is too late.

(I'm sure none of us at MIT can relate because here at the 'tute, brilliance and social awkwardness rarely exist hand in hand. As for douchiness, let's just say that Zuckerberg's jabs at BU, where Albright attends college, sound remarkably like jabs at Harvard often heard from the mouths of MIT students... But I digress.)

As comedic as it is intensely serious, the movie, directed by David Fincher ( The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Se7en) and adapted from Mezrich's book by Aaron Sorkin, triumphs with its witty script, impeccable acting, and breathtaking shots of Boston - shots that will delight any student who has ever fallen in love with views of Harvard Square, the Charles River, and other familiar landscapes. The pulsing soundtrack draws you in, whether it's accompanying a drunken Zuckerberg hacking Harvard's web system in his dorm room as glamorous girls line up for an exclusive Final Club party or a neck-and-neck crew race down the Charles. The spot-on acting seals the deal, with impressive performances from Andrew Garfield (as Facebook's original CFO, Eduardo Saverin) who plays the betrayed best friend heartwrenchingly, and from Justin Timberlake (as charming-but-not-to-be-trusted Sean Parker, founder of Napster). The two hours fly by incredibly fast, leaving you wanting more.

For Facebook lovers merely looking for tidbits on how our favorite procrastination tool developed, the movie doesn't disappoint there, either - we see how the infamous "relationship status" field came to be - "the wall" and photo tagging get mentions as well. But for those who have somehow eluded the addiction or are looking for more than Facebook trivia, the movie provides not only a great cinematic experience but an extremely resonating story as well, and one that will undoubtedly inspire future entrepreneurs. This is the movie of our generation - go watch it.

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FILM REVIEW The birth of Facebook | The Tech

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In the week and a half it has been since the release of The Social Network , I have raved about the movie to everyone I know, yet I hesitate to say anything too substantial about the movie itself.

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What would you tell your teenage daughter if you suspected her new boyfriend might be gay? Would you sit her down and explain complicated issues of identity politics? Would you pull him aside and ask him yourself (even if you realize he may not understand what it means to be gay)? Would you tell her nothing and hope she doesn't get hurt? Claire (Julie Bowen) faces this dilemma in tonight's episode of Modern Family (a rough cut of which I previewed last week).

Jay (Ed O'Neill) and Gloria (Sofia Vergara) are hosting a yard sale as a school benefit, and each of the families are pitching in. Alex, Claire and Phil's 14-year-old daughter, wants to invite her boyfriend Michael over to help. Claire is hesitant because, as she says, she likes him but she's "90 percent sure he's 100 percent gay" and that he "plays for the pink team." When Michael arrives at Jay and Gloria's in flames, so to speak, Claire seeks the advice of her gay brother Mitchell and his partner Cameron.

They assure her that the nature of masculinity has changed, something the story clunkily ties to Phil's endless pursuit to impress his father-in-law. Gay men are much more difficult to identify, Mitchell says, because "they care about their clothes, they groom, everybody's hairless..." but after Michael greets them saying only, "Hi," they abandon their new-world ideologies, "Yep, he's gay; we stand corrected."

Ultimately, Claire insists that Cam and Mitchell "teach" Alex how to spot a homosexual, and although she's convinced he's straight, she decides to take their advice and ask Michael herself. "Michael, I have to ask you something. I want you to know it's okay either way but, are you gay?

" What?! No, I'm not. I took you to prom. I kissed you. Unless you're a boy, I'm pretty sure I'm straight. Are you a boy? Right, so then I'm straight!"

Representing effeminate heterosexual masculinity in such a character could be a really transgressive move for ABC. But we know Modern Family; we're familiar with its tropes, we know where it's headed, and given that people like Ann Romney are watching, we know that ultimately, this kid is going to come out, and Claire will feel vindicated and right in challenging him on the basis of his sexuality. "If [Alex] wants to get her heart broken by a gay guy she can do so when she's 18 or 19 and can drink her way through it."

I want to preface by saying that I love Modern Family and although on the surface, this situation feels not unlike any other wacky scenario (moments of it are funny), it's also quite a dangerous scene for questioning LGBTQ youth because of the way it makes it okay to subpoena a young person's sexuality in the name of protecting one's family -- of standing your ground. Perhaps the scene is even more insidious given that it is funny.

Its danger comes from the ways in which it breathes new life to the old association between gayness and deceit... that homosexuals who are not out, open, and honest with themselves and with the public are living a secretive life that could pose heterosexuals harm, and that's where the buck stops. Our culture has a coming-out imperative. Just look at the way closeted gay stars were harassed and bullied by the news media until they came out (often before they were ready). But young, vulnerable teenagers growing up in homes that don't understand what it means to be LGBTQ -- very likely homes that are watching this exact episode of tonight -- will see it and be informed by the situation as if it were reality.

People are quick to tell media scholars that they're just "reading too much into things" -- but the programs that people watch every night are constantly informing their opinions and views about the world. You might feel as though you have an idea of how an emergency room works because of Grey's Anatomy or how the CBI works because of The Mentalist. We use television to color in what we don't know about the world around us, and television, in turn, changes the world around us, particularly when it comes to representations of LGBTQ folks (as with the discursive cultural shift that happened after Ellen came out). Given this awesome responsibility, I would think writers and producers would want to exercise extreme caution when representing gay youth in such a tempestuous time of bullying and suicide.

You can imagine my disappointment, then, when I recently asked Modern Family writer and co-executive producer Ben Karlin if the writers read or are concerned with the many issues queer viewers have lodged against the show.

It's kind of insulting to say that, we're going to depict a gay couple so therefore it has to speak for all gay couples. [...] Any member of a community that is underrepresented on television, sometimes their [...] sense of humor kind of ends at the shores of their own self interest. So, we don't really put too much stock -- the barometer that you use is really your own point of view and your own sense of decency.

This is the kind of pre-packaged response you'd expect from any currently working media professional: writers, producers, directors, etc. If you don't like the question, as the old adage goes, change it. Gay representations will always already be problematic, that much is true, and you can't please everyone, duh. But critiques of Modern Family by the LGBTQ community are not few; even Mark Harris over at Entertainment Weekly recently wrote how tired he was of TV shows trotting out the same trite archetypes year after year.

I think I would have just been annoyed if he had said they don't take the time to read critiques of the show. But to then insinuate that underrepresented communities don't have a sense of humor and in effect, really need to "lighten up" -- that was truly insulting. Particularly given that later on in his speech he mentioned that the gay writers in the room and the straight writers in the room had a heated debate over this particular scene given its cultural and social relevance.

It used to be that we, as a public, could hold networks accountable and responsible for the ways in which they represent minority characters. Indeed, historically the government has had to drag commercial American television past its bottom line when it wasn't serving the public's best interest. But given the way in which Reagan pounded the final nail into the coffin of regulation, can we still do that?

In the early days of broadcast, the airwaves were flooded with amateur radio enthusiasts eager to make their voices heard. To tame the chaos, the United States passed the Radio Act of 1927, which implemented a licensing, programming, and regulatory framework that contained broadcasters to their government-assigned frequencies and time periods. Because the electromagnetic spectrum over which broadcast is transmitted is a limited resource -- but one that belongs to the public -- the Radio Act included a provision that networks (radio and later television) had the duty to create programming that served the public interest since the public had surrendered control.

This "trusteeship" model of broadcast carried through to the 1980s when, with the advent of cable and satellite, networks began to be "let off the hook" in terms of programming responsibility. This was particularly salient with news media, which had been held to high standards of objectivity, reporting stories of serious concern for the country, that Reagan-era deregulation broke down, resulting in the commercial, sensationalistic news climate we are used to today.

Although what counted as the "public interest" was always contested, scripted programming was also responsible for what it broadcasted into America's living rooms. Networks had the responsibility of serving the public's interest, and although TV in the '50s, '60s, and '70s was far from a paean of progress, the public could always contest a character or a representation based on that "best interest" philosophy. But can we anymore?

Are writers of our current television fare no longer held accountable for the characters they create? Do writers of popular network television shows no longer have a social and cultural responsibility to serve the public's best interest? And with such representations, are we laughing at the LGBTQ characters or with them?

Toward the end of the episode, in order to console Claire, Cam tells her that the situation reminded him of his first girlfriend, and how he arranged a beautiful corsage for her, "It was gorgeous," he says. "'Til she pulled it apart and spelled homo on my porch."

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Modern Family 'Yard Sale': Do TV Writers Still Have a Social and Cultural Responsibility?

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What would you tell your teenage daughter if you suspected her new boyfriend might be gay? Would you sit her down and explain complicated issues of identity politics? Would you pull him aside and ask him yourself (even if you realize he may not understand what it means to be gay)?

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As Wikipedia has become more and more popular with students, some professors have become increasingly concerned about the online, reader-produced encyclopedia.

While plenty of professors have complained about the lack of accuracy or completeness of entries, and some have discouraged or tried to bar students from using it, the history department at Middlebury College is trying to take a stronger, collective stand. It voted this month to bar students from citing the Web site as a source in papers or other academic work. All faculty members will be telling students about the policy and explaining why material on Wikipedia -- while convenient -- may not be trustworthy.

"As educators, we are in the business of reducing the dissemination of misinformation," said Don Wyatt, chair of the department. "Even though Wikipedia may have some value, particularly from the value of leading students to citable sources, it is not itself an appropriate source for citation," he said.

The department made what Wyatt termed a consensus decision on the issue after discussing problems professors were seeing as students cited incorrect information from Wikipedia in papers and on tests. In one instance, Wyatt said, a professor noticed several students offering the same incorrect information, from Wikipedia.

There was some discussion in the department of trying to ban students from using Wikipedia, but Wyatt said that didn't seem appropriate. Many Wikipedia entries have good bibliographies, Wyatt said. And any absolute ban would just be ignored. "There's the issue of freedom of access," he said. "And I'm not in the business of promulgating unenforceable edicts."

Wyatt said that the department did not specify punishments for citing Wikipedia, and that the primary purpose of the policy was to educate, not to be punitive. He said he doubted that a paper would be rejected for having a single Wikipedia footnote, but that students would be told that they shouldn't do so, and that multiple violations would result in reduced grades or even a failure. "The important point that we wish to communicate to all students taking courses and submitting work in our department in the future is that they cite Wikipedia at their peril," he said.

He stressed that the objection of the department to Wikipedia wasn't its online nature, but its unedited nature, and he said students need to be taught to go for quality information, not just convenience.

The frustrations of Middlebury faculty members are by no means unique. Last year, Alan Liu, a professor of English at the University of California at Santa Barbara, adopted a policy that Wikipedia "is not appropriate as the primary or sole reference for anything that is central to an argument, complex, or controversial." Liu said that it was too early to tell what impact his policy is having. In explaining his rationale -- which he shared with an e-mail list -- he wrote that he had "just read a paper about the relation between structuralism, deconstruction, and postmodernism in which every reference was to the Wikipedia articles on those topics with no awareness that there was any need to read a primary work or even a critical work."

Wikipedia officials agree -- in part -- with Middlebury's history department. "That's a sensible policy," Sandra Ordonez, a spokeswoman, said in an e-mail interview. "Wikipedia is the ideal place to start your research and get a global picture of a topic, however, it is not an authoritative source. In fact, we recommend that students check the facts they find in Wikipedia against other sources. Additionally, it is generally good research practice to cite an original source when writing a paper, or completing an exam. It's usually not advisable, particularly at the university level, to cite an encyclopedia."

Ordonez acknowledged that, given the collaborative nature of Wikipedia writing and editing, "there is no guarantee an article is 100 percent correct," but she said that the site is shifting its focus from growth to improving quality, and that the site is a great resource for students. "Most articles are continually being edited and improved upon, and most contributors are real lovers of knowledge who have a real desire to improve the quality of a particular article," she said.

Experts on digital media said that the Middlebury history professors' reaction was understandable and reflects growing concern among faculty members about the accuracy of what students find online. But some worry that bans on citing Wikipedia may not deal with the underlying issues.

Roy Rosenzweig, director of the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, did an analysis of the accuracy of Wikipedia for The Journal of American History, and he found that in many entries, Wikipedia was as accurate or more accurate than more traditional encyclopedias. He said that the quality of material was inconsistent, and that biographical entries were generally well done, while more thematic entries were much less so. Like Ordonez, he said the real problem is one of college students using encyclopedias when they should be using more advanced sources.

"College students shouldn't be citing encyclopedias in their papers," he said. "That's not what college is about. They either should be using primary sources or serious secondary sources."

In the world of college librarians, a major topic of late has been how to guide students in the right direction for research, when Wikipedia and similar sources are so easy. Some of those who have been involved in these discussions said that the Middlebury history department's action pointed to the need for more outreach to students.

Lisa Hinchliffe, head of the undergraduate library and coordinator of information literacy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said that earlier generations of students were in fact taught when it was appropriate (or not) to consult an encyclopedia and why for many a paper they would never even cite a popular magazine or non-scholarly work. "But it was a relatively constrained landscape," and students didn't have easy access to anything equivalent to Wikipedia, she said. "It's not that students are being lazy today. It's a much more complex environment."

When she has taught, and spotted footnotes to sources that aren't appropriate, she's considered that "a teachable moment," Hinchliffe said. She said that she would be interested to see how Middlebury professors react when they get the first violations of their policy, and said she thought there could be positive discussions about why sources are or aren't good ones. That kind of teaching, she said, is important "and can be challenging."

Steven Bell, associate librarian for research and instructional services at Temple University, said of the Middlebury approach: "I applaud the effort for wanting to direct students to good quality resources," but he said he would go about it in a different way.

"I understand what their concerns are. There's no question that [on Wikipedia and similar sites] some things are great and some things are questionable. Some of the pages could be by eighth graders," he said. "But to simply say 'don't use that one' might take students in the wrong direction from the perspective of information literacy."

Students face "an ocean of information" today, much of it of poor quality, so a better approach would be to teach students how to "triangulate" a source like Wikipedia, so they could use other sources to tell whether a given entry could be trusted. "I think our goal should be to equip students with the critical thinking skills to judge."

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As Wikipedia has become more and more popular with students, some professors have become increasingly concerned about the online, reader-produced encyclopedia. While plenty of professors have complained about the lack of accuracy or completeness of entries, and some have discouraged or tried to bar students from using it, the history department at Middlebury College is trying to take a stronger, collective stand.

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faculty of the university of michigan medical school

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What the Internet is doing to our brains

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This resource discusses book reviews and how to write them.