In Chicago, Ronny Valentine (Vince Vaughn), a jiving, silver-tongued salesman, and Nick Brannen (Kevin James), a self-punishing automotive genius, are business partners and best friends with similar heavy jowls.

NEWYORKER: The Dilemma

At sites like Kicktraq.com, your Kickstarter fate is plotted out in real time, complete with nerve-wracking trendlines you can use to freak out over how awful your friends are, how nobody understands your genius, and how little access you really have to rich, famous benefactors.

FORBES: How Not To Fail At Kickstarter

The only thing that separates him from his friends is that he happens to be a genius.

CNN: Review: Genius is as genius does in 'Good Will Hunting'

We haven't played enough tracks yet to use the "picks" recommendation feature yet (Microsoft's Genius killer), but we usually prefer the recommendations of friends and critics to cold, heartless pieces of software -- and Zune has had that locked down with the Social for a while now.

ENGADGET: Zune 3.0 hands-on Hands-on

The Social Network, opening Oct. 1, is about the origins of the world's largest social network, Facebook, and its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, the Harvard tech genius who either came up with the idea or diabolically purloined it from his friends--depending on which version you believe.

FORBES