Mank

A formally precise and linguistically exquisite picture about the writing of the screenplay for Citizen Kane. Unfortunately, apart from context of that period, it offers nothing new. Filming according to his father’s screenplay, Fincher nurtured all aspects of this heart-felt project and the way he presents the topic in the style of a forties movie is very appropriate. You can’t tell the difference. The actors are great down to the last one. The music is perfect: Reznor and Russ are brutally moderate, obediently serving the story. But it was strange to listen to Trent’s typical piano playing in a movie that clearly must have been filmed eighty years ago... (12/05/2020)

In the first minutes, if not seconds, I was amazed by how Mank looks - truly like it was filmed 80 years ago, a beautifully restored film that made it to Netflix this year (and, sadly, not to movie theatres where it REALLY deserves to be). The best part is that the amazement didn't leave me by the end of the film, and it is also great in terms of the script, the actors (Gary Oldman is even better than you think), actresses (the magical Amanda Seyfried and Lily Collins) and music (untypical but excellent Reznor and Ross). If you don't want to watch Citizen Kane before Mank, then after Mank you will. And then you'll probably watch Mank again. (12/04/2020)

This year, David Fincher gave me an early Christmas present in the form of a 100% movie-lover experience, thanks to which I was lost for two hours in the Hollywood machinery and political jungle of the end of the 1930s and start of the 1940s. Jack Fincher's screenplay flows harmoniously like a poem and there are strong intense speeches from the characters that I haven't heard in a movie for a long time. Cult movie making maybe, but absolutely breathtaking and shot right from the heart! (12/27/2020)

"WhY dOEsN’t FiNCher MaKe aNoTHeR Se7en?!?§" the movie. A work hardly applicable in a non-American environment (god, just the idea that it has Czech dubbing or subtitles in the usual Netflix quality), for which one can't be mad at Jarmila Střížkova here for absolutely not knowing where its head is at. In our confines, then, it's mainly a problem that among the mainstream cashless-market critics, there is no one who has the will to interpret and articulate the film to the local viewer, used to boredly clicking through the endless Netflix offerings in his sweatpants on the couch to see if there is anything else capable of engaging him. We all laughed at the Spáčilová until we discovered that there never was a Spáčilová, it was always just us. The absence of Mank from theaters is one of the most unfortunate things to happen this year. (12/14/2020)

David Fincher is one of the greatest directorial aces and has long since established a position where we know that anything he makes will be at least interesting, and Mank is no exception. However, I suffered quite a bit as a viewer with it. This trip to 1940s Hollywood is no doubt a good film, and the depiction of the era, the politicking of the studios, and the life of a screenwriter who, though he drank a lot, could be all the more honest, is definitely worth watching, even if I was bored from the halfway point on. All those objective and technical qualities I can understand and subscribe to, Fincher knows what he's doing and he does it damn well. It's just that this time he didn't hit the mark for me in theme or indeed form. I simply didn't enjoy watching his new film. And he didn't want to make it any easier. Great atmosphere, a perfect Gary Oldman, great sets and music, but behind all that is the all-too-ordinary story of an all-too-ordinary man. I expect something more progressive from Fincher. Maybe, since he was directing his late father's script, he wanted to keep himself a little bit in check. I could understand that, but I'm not sure it was worth it. (12/07/2020)