https://youtu.be/aSfX-nrg-lI
My Twitter feed just blew up with frothy, enthusiastic praise for this film. Lot's of name-dropping Oscar.
We shall see.
I read the praise and I'm still pretty sure that I'm gonna be indifferent. Sounds like a movie filming how movies were.
Quote from: Drenk on October 29, 2020, 10:19:35 PM
Sounds like a movie filming how movies were.
You say that like that's a
bad thing.
https://youtu.be/J_NqUYwngr0
Succinct teaser, i prefer the momentum of this truncated promo. Mentioned it in shoutbox along with the NGE 3.0+1.0 teaser (https://youtu.be/jRcjFME4wis)
Quote from: Drenk on October 29, 2020, 10:19:35 PM
I read the praise and I'm still pretty sure that I'm gonna be indifferent. Sounds like a movie filming how movies were.
So like every PTA movie?
YEEEES
The only 2020 release I truly care about.
Looks stunning. I hope it doesn't do Welles too dirty though, Raising Kane has mostly been debunked.
I'm honestly not super hot either on the milieu of this (I like that Fincher is one of our few major directors that seems to set films in the present day) but I trust his consistency at this point
https://twitter.com/davidlsims/status/1322011415440445440
https://twitter.com/ezwrites/status/1322007231324319745
https://twitter.com/brofromanother/status/1326906635269320708
Quote from: wilberfan on November 12, 2020, 09:39:04 AM
https://twitter.com/brofromanother/status/1326906635269320708
That was a great read. For a film of this kind of subject, I expected more enthusiastic reviews general speaking tbh. But it looks more complex and demanding than the average modern critic can stand, I guess. We"ll see.
Well! Liked it! Some great scenes. His best movie since Zodiac, I'd say. Still some Hollywood narrative marshmallow bullshit, especially toward the end, but a lot to savor in this one.
I generally liked it too, need some time (and possibly another visit) to fully digest it.
The Welles controversy didn't bother me till the final scene him and Mank share, which is clumsy if not insulting and hurts the film imo.
Yeah. Bad scene. I wished it assumed being a sour movie instead of ending in that uplifting tone you expect from every « biopic » picture...But the movie isn't overall as frustrating as its final taste: I loved seeing the power dynamics coming from the « court jester ». And I enjoyed how messy writing physically looked; you can compare it to On the Rocks where the protagonist has tidy notes on her desk (and tidier notes once she finally writes after the third act), making you wonder if Francis wrote all his scripts isolated in a cabin...
Surprising casting choice for the wife, I was wondering why he was weirdly flirting with his daughter/maid. :ponder: She's on Sense 8. A Netflix series.
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.
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.
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.
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
Quote from: raptoroblivion on December 08, 2020, 07:56:27 PM
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 ....
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
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.
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.
Quote from: csage97 on December 11, 2020, 12:31:13 AM
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.
Quote from: eward on December 11, 2020, 09:39:09 AM
Quote from: csage97 on December 11, 2020, 12:31:13 AM
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.
:yabbse-thumbdown: 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.
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
Quote from: jenkins on December 14, 2020, 07:20:46 PM
......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....
Quote from: nomorecoffee on December 15, 2020, 08:27:03 AM
Quote from: jenkins on December 14, 2020, 07:20:46 PM
......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.
That's an energizing perspective! :yabbse-thumbup: 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.
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
I thought this was okay. I enjoyed watching it, really liked the pacing and flashbacks and found especially the scenes about the election and in Hearst Castle to be fascinating. Overall though I'm glad I waited a bit to see it having read some fairly negative opinions from quite a few people, it meant my expectations were lower so I had a better time with it. I think my main problem though was that I didn't really buy Oldman in the role, so it never really took off. Seyfried was great and Burke fairly striking as Welles until the final scene, which was underwhelming and pretty trite. Also I understand why Fincher uses digital but it didn't work for me here, and seemed counterintuitive.