Aaron Sorkin, creator of The West Wing and writer of Charlie Wilson’s War, is moving out of the political realm and onto the internet. His next project will be about none other than FACEBOOK! A wonderful killer of time and a sometimes (unwanted) portal into our past lives, Facebook has no doubt changed how we network and how we keep relationships.

Sorkin’s film will focus on the beginnings of the social networking giant:

‘I’ve just agreed to write a movie for Sony and producer Scott Rudin about how Facebook was invented,’ Sorkin wrote in his introduction on the group page. ‘I figured a good first step in my preparation would be finding out what Facebook is, so I’ve started this page.’

The film is likely to look at how, following its creation in 2004 by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg in his university dorm, Facebook quickly became an internet, business and social phenomenon with more than 100 million users worldwide. [Guardian UK]

Do I really need Facebook invading my movie world? One of the reasons I love movies is that I’m able experience and visit places that are not my computer..

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Tonight marks the starts of the 2008 Democratic Convention (DNC). No matter your political persuasion, this is an important event, just as the RNC will be next week. In fact it was the 2004 DNC that made Barack Obama a household name.

I’d have to think that Denver will be a crazy intense place for the next week with tons going on (including some awesome movie screenings) and I can only imagine what will be going on behind the scenes. I can’t help but remember the last season of The West Wing, when there was no presumptive nominee come convention week. In fact, the speech that Jimmy Smits gave (as Santos) in the convention epeisode seems to me to be a pretty great reminder about what political conventions are for:

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With Barack Obama’s Vice Presidential Nominees (along with John McCain’s Republican pick) about to be announced (there are even bar graphs predicting results…), I got to thinking about fictional VPs, along with a few real ones that were portrayed by actors in movies.

A selection of them are below:

1) Joan Allen in The Contender - she’s tough and in a day and age where a lady VP is a real possibility, this film speaks volumes.

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Armin Mueller who? While at MOMA a few weekends ago to see Laura Dunn’s powerful documentary The Unforeseen, I got into a conversation with a gentleman about the year in movies and we got to talking about David Cronenberg and his film Eastern Promises. The man claimed that the actor who played the head of the crime family did a really good job and he tried for a moment or two to remember who the actor was that played the old man.

After a moment I said - “It’s Armin Mueller-Stahl.”

The man shook his head, and said “no no, it’s not him”. I reasserted my position that it was in fact Armin Mueller-Stahl and the man again told me I was wrong. We talked about it until we got let into the theater and my friend decided to look up the answer on his I-Phone.

It was in fact Armin Mueller-Stahl. I resisted the urge to find the man and tell him I was correct and instead thought back to my introduction to the actor.

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Staying up till past 1am watching results come in for both the Republican and Democratic nominations in yesterday’s Super Tuesday voting, I couldn’t help but think of The West Wing. It seems to me that with the closeness in both party races, we are in for a intense few months leading up to November, proving that each vote does count and that we are still very much divided as a country.

What I enjoyed about The West Wing was how, despite one party being in the fictional White House, the show focused on the issues and often on people coming together to work to make this country better.

In that spirit, watch one of my favorite (more lighthearted) clips from The West Wing below and in the coming months remember to focus on the issues and not the mud that I suspect might be flung. And even though I posted this yesterday, if you haven’t already, please please please to register and vote!