Mank (David Fincher, 2020) • Page 3

Really enjoyed this, I'm not the biggest Gary Oldman fan (and I know he's a piece of shit) but he's very good in this. Wish there was more Orson Welles.

Bill Nye as Upton Sinclair was a fucking weird surprise

 

I would love to know the story on how that cameo happened.

 

Mank (Original Musical Score) WITH EXTRAS, by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross

wow

 

this was very good

 

do they address the screaming bird in Citizen Kane? thats all I wanna know.

 

I just watched this movie (Citizen Kane) last night for the first time and that bird shot startled me and was wondering what the heck that was all about too.

 

yeah I watched it in a film class once and the whole room was startled lmao

 

As for the score, damn does Trent/Atticus continue to impress. After Watchmen I knew they had it in them to do something completely left field to their style but I didn’t expect an entire score like this, very impressed. Standout tracks for me after first listen: An Idea Takes Hold, Marion’s Exit, Look At What We Did and The Organ Grinder.

 

They also have “Soul” coming up, which is another great turn for them and Jon Batiste. Love how they’re branching out.

 

they do not, unfortunately.

 

I had no idea Reznor and Ross were doing the score for Soul, that's fucking wild. Imagine going back 20 years and telling someone the dude from Nine Inch Nails will be scoring a Disney movie

 

starting this

 

This was not very good

 

feel like i need to rewatch at least once for a final verdict. it's undeniably well-made, i'll say that

 

this is a fair point

 

gonna rewatch CK and then double feature it with this

 

I think one of the disconnects I have with this movie (that overall I think is solidly good) is how obvious the digital photography is when it's trying to use the aesthetic of the period. This is a project that has to be on film if you're trying to imitate that look, and like many projects that are steeped deep in homage to specific eras, it invokes a lot of movies that are way better than this, so I'm thinking about Citizen Kane and Joe Mankiewicz and Michael Curitz and just would get more out of watching something from the era than this. But I'd like to give it another shot down the road, maybe even before the end of the year, to reflect a little more on it.

 

I actually thought it looked better than I was expecting (I think a lot of digitally shot black and white ends up looking really cheap) but there were moments where the fake film “grain” just looked like static. I agree it should’ve been on film, but Fincher does like 500 takes every scene and that would just be a financial disaster.

 

I think as a digitally shot movie a lot of the film looked brilliant, credit to Erik Messerschmidt, but as an attempt to look like films of the era it doesn’t work as well. And I think you have to decide what you’re committed to, and Fincher chose his perfectionist 200 take style over a more authentic aesthetic that I think would have gone a long way. The digital aspect almost discredits the movie, looking more like a gimmick and overt homage than truly feeling like what it should feel like. But that’s after one viewing, I have shifting thoughts on it in the wake of my first viewing and I’m interested in giving it another shot to feel it out more.

 

Everything Trent and Atticus touch turns to gold.

 

Five years from now when all the “Mank is actually a masterpiece” takes come out, just wanna have my placeholder here right now where I already said that.

 

What is good about this? The more I think about it, the more I dislike it. I’m try to find any in-depth appraisals of it, but basically all of the acclaim I’m seeing is either somewhat empty (that it’s shot in a good/interesting way), or just general praise about things I found bad lol. I don’t think it was very funny despite Mank being painted as the kind of too-clever-by-half jester who talks before he thinks, the big dramatic scenes are extremely cliche (especially the big dinner scene climax, good lord), and Mank is simply not a compelling enough character to carry the whole thing. I found myself much more engaged by Welles or Hearst or Davies whenever they were on screen. It feels all style with little substance.

To the extent that this movie attempts to be this very all-encompassing look at the times — in the way it touches on media, and politics, and the ruthless business behind the studio system — it falls pretty flat. It seems that we are supposed to feel the weight of all of it crushing Mank as time goes on, but instead in the end it just seems confusing why he has such a bone to pick with Hearst specifically. Because he was a friend who slandered the political opponent Mank preferred? Because he was a hypocrite? Why does Mank even care so much about Sinclair’s campaign? I honestly couldn’t tell you. These ideas and their relationship are barely explored at all, despite it being the crux of the whole story.

 

if literally nothing else (there is plenty), amanda seyfried is very, very good in this.