Mank

[WorldForgot]

Please someone help me confirm how piff this sound design iz --

It doesn't merely stop at subjectivity OR replicating the era. Dialogue, how it bounces, becomes more distorted than the image at timez. Acoustics take the shape of Stagehalls/Auditoriums sometimes in EXT, sometimes in an office. Corridors, dining spaces, porches, can all become an expanse.

The scope of our arena iz not merely physical.

Our memory is as 'a' truth not 'the' truth, and history can go much the same at the hands of propaganda filmz.

[raptoroblivion]

This was bad. Might be Fincher's worst. I know the guy loves shooting digital because he's such a dreadful director that he forces his actors to do dozens of takes instead of, you know, just directing them -- but then why the shitty fake film grain? Just makes the movie look terrible. Fincher's visuals are the one thing from his films I expect to be good.

Also, what was Fincher Sr.'s beef with Welles? Pretty poor prop piece on the big guy.

[Alethia]

Really disappointed and baffled by the casual dismissal of this film. I do not for a moment agree with the assertion that the Finchers have anything against Orson Welles, or that Mank in any way attempts to credibly diminish his contribution to Kane as a whole. Orson's legacy will be fine. It is a fact, sorry, that Mank alone wrote the first two drafts of American, and did indeed fight with Orson early on over issues of credit - just as it is a fact that Orson extensively re-wrote American and eventually brought it to the screen with the aid of countless brilliant collaborators as the film Citizen Kane we all know and love - that the Finchers Jack and David chose not to cover this already well-established history doesn't discount it, it simply presents another, largely under-explored aspect of the truth through the unreliable booze-soaked POV of a dramatically embellished character based on Herman Mankiewicz, which has many parallels to Hearst/Kane (Mank also cleverly mirrors some of the structuring of the flashbacks within certain scenes in a fun way that I only just realized having watched Kane again last night)...I also think the digital phony-film look was a great and meaningful aesthetic choice. While I normally don't go for that kind of thing, here I thought it really effectively communicated Mank's one-cold-step-of-remove from the warm unreality of Hollywood POV. And the score is sublime.

I love Orson Welles. The Finchers clearly do, as well. Who y'all really ought to be mad at is Pauline Kael (for my money, the most overrated critic of all time). Her Kane book is dishonest, hypocritical, agenda-driven, yet, I must admit, darned entertaining. Yes, I own a copy.

[jenkins]

i'm like practicing social distance with you people but defending the criticisms is a million miles away from explaining how it's a good movie. this seems fine or whatever but let the haters thrive

[csage97]

This was bad ... I know the guy loves shooting digital because he's such a dreadful director that he forces his actors to do dozens of takes instead of, you know, just directing them

Same with Kubrick. "Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again." All that wasted film ....

[jenkins]

Kubyuck. Bresson or ill be in my room reading instead

let me asap it: just like Welles will be okay all the Fincher fans will be okay

[csage97]

Oh, I do like this movie. It's still a mile or two better than Zodiac, which is as boring as a daytime soap opera. If there's a forgettable Hollywood movie, it's Zodiac. Gone Girl was okay. There were maybe more standout moments in Gone Girl than in Zodiac, though I think Gone Girl is actually more like a daytime soap opera than Zodiac in many ways ....

David Fincher's best movies are Seven, The Social Network (nice score by Trent Reznor and co.), and Fight Club.

[wilberfan]

This didn't work for me at all.  Not a single moment of emotional engagement in the entire 2+ hours.  Couldn't believe how bored I was--which caught be completely by surprise. 

Not a Fincher-hater; liked Zodiac and Se7en and Social Network--although Gone Girl made me want to throw the remote at the TV, as I recall...

This was a beautiful corpse: dead on arrival for me.

[Alethia]

It's still a mile or two better than Zodiac, which is as boring as a daytime soap opera. If there's a forgettable Hollywood movie, it's Zodiac.

I'm not even a huge Fincher fan tbh, but I watch Zodiac at least once a year, and it never fails to completely grip me; in fact, I'm more and more taken with it with each viewing. Plus there's the added pleasure of seeing post-prison Robert Downey Jr in his last great moments before Tony Stark ate him up.

[csage97]

It's still a mile or two better than Zodiac, which is as boring as a daytime soap opera. If there's a forgettable Hollywood movie, it's Zodiac.

the hardest of hard disagrees. I'm not even a huge Fincher fan tbh, but I watch Zodiac at least once a year, and it never fails to completely grip me; in fact, I'm more and more taken with it with each viewing. Plus there's the added pleasure of seeing post-prison Robert Downey Jr in his last great moments before Tony Stark ate him up.

Yeah, that's why I said it in that fashion: I know most people love that movie. It just never did anything for me. I tried watching it again recently because, on paper, it should be a movie I love. I ended up shutting it off halfway through with disappointment that it was still like watching paint dry.

[jenkins]

it's rather universally acknowledged how bad the basement scene with Gyllenhal is. i can easily imagine a parody of the entire movie but that's cross-pollinating this thread. you could parody The Master without breaking a sweat too. i hear Fincher called the Hitchcock of now and that's pretty accurate in terms of how much i like Hitchcock

[nomorecoffee]

......it's rather universally acknowledged how bad the basement scene with Gyllenhal is....

I think it's a really great scene in a fantastic film....

[WorldForgot]

......it’s rather universally acknowledged how bad the basement scene with Gyllenhal is....

I think it's a really great scene in a fantastic film....

And you (obvi) probably think the same of most scenes in The Master. Maybe i do too! But what Jenkins iz getting at, if I may run with their last post, implies something interesting about drama -- or perhaps more aptly, of how we can draw shades within the all-too-stark prestige Hollywood melodrama. Fincher and PTAnderson are both aware of and toy with (especially, lets say, in Gone Girl or Punch Drunk Love) notions of ironic grandeur.

To me, by the time you're in that basement, you've seen Robert and Paul absolutely stripped of these notions objectively, though they aren't truly aware of it themselvez. But the film, its tone and air-of-prestige allowz them to maintain an energy that only exists in their obsession. That same is true for the killer as for directors in 'da Emperor's clothes.

[Alethia]

That's an energizing perspective!  I always just forgave that sequences tonal inconsistency as being perhaps a desperate push to inject the third act with a bit of the visceral horror flavor we get with the murder scenes early on - plus the enjoyment factor of it featuring Roger Rabbit in the flesh! I'd never call it 'bad', but if I were forced to nitpick, that scene would likely top the list.

[jenkins]

Punch-Drunk Love is a comedy you know. when pta talks about his movies as comedies i think he's making a good call. he calls Phantom Thread funny. really The Master is already fucking hilarious and you'd barely tweak it to create the parody. you know it's that classic saying, Life is too important to be taken seriously. you can bet your life Soggy Bottom will be funny. Inherent Vice is pure comedy and Boogie Nights nails it and TWBB is humorous about misanthropy. Hard Eight cracks me up and once a month i remember William H Macy wanting braces

i don't think Fincher is very funny. it's funny for an adult to be scared in a basement but he doesn't get it