29 Comments
Dec 7, 2020Liked by Roy Edroso

I would rather read your film criticism than anyone else's. Your combination of informed, trenchant analysis and deep love for the genre is absolutely killer.

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Dec 7, 2020Liked by Roy Edroso

"...and the addition of a young Brit lady assistant played by Lily Collins reminded me so much of the relationship between Oldman’s Churchill and his assistant played by Lily James in Darkest Hour that I wonder if Oldman has something about it in his contract."

Better Q.: Did Oldman ever get his Lily's confused?

But anyway, at the end of the day, the only real Q is whether the movie was enjoyable because god knows it couldn't possibly resolve the issue of who wrote the script or at least who wrote which piece of the finished movie. (Which may leak over into having addressed the auteur theory. Or not, at least for Mank itself because we all know Fincher is the last great American auteur.)

Anyway, I enjoyed it a lot. As Roy noted, a bunch of lovely performances. Although I'm'a thinking now that maybe it should have been a light fiction like Kane. More appropriate maybe. And if people actually remembered Kane, this wouldn't have had to been produced by (or is that for?) Netflix.

And note that while I was watching this on the iPad, the Mrs. was watching Hillbilly Elegy which it turns out she really disliked.

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Dec 7, 2020Liked by Roy Edroso

The under appreciated J. Varney in real life was a fairly hip guy from Kentucky who was, by all accounts, articulate and fun to be with..He had done Shakespeare and created in the cheezy Earnest world an indelible character (much as it might pain us...), and justifiably won an Emmy for the kids’ show..

As with actors and musicians, you meet your author-heroes at your peril.

“ ..what did the famous spiritualist have to do with Sherlock Holmes?”-TS Eliot

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Dec 7, 2020Liked by Roy Edroso

To coin a phrase, that is entirely original with me: Damning with faint praise?

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Dec 7, 2020Liked by Roy Edroso

Well. You’ve done it again, Roy. Reading this tempted me to click on the Lily Link, then, in turn, click on the Dunkirk Link...and so on and so forth. I’ve just now climbed out of the Edroso Rabbit Hole. Now I want to watch Billboards and Dunkirk again. But, oddly enough (or not?) I’m running cold on Mank

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Dec 7, 2020Liked by Roy Edroso

I watched it last night. Gary Oldman is one of the best actors alive and it’s always delightful to see him do his stuff, and the production and cinematography were gorgeous. Beyond that, it was kind of meh. For someone who really loves the Old Hollywood era I can see how it would be very enjoyable.

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Dec 7, 2020Liked by Roy Edroso

So “Mank” isn’t quite “Hollywood Elegy”?

Also, Mel Gibson nailed down the Jesus pornography film.

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Dec 7, 2020Liked by Roy Edroso

Great review Roy. I felt about the same after watching it Friday night. There’s something fundamentally silly about the film, which for me at least had to do with the “writer as hero” bit you mentioned as well as the cheerful pretentiousness of the whole production, but it did draw me in and in the end I enjoyed the ride. Can’t ask for much more from a movie.

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Dec 7, 2020Liked by Roy Edroso

'There is for me no harder sell than a movie about someone who makes movies'.

Does that include 'the Player'? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpDDTS08wPs

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Dec 7, 2020Liked by Roy Edroso

Sounds like the movie should have been titled "Wank."

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Dec 7, 2020Liked by Roy Edroso

Thanks for mentioning the soundtrack. I was more than a little surprised when I saw it rocketing up the pirate charts last week. I'm trying, but I just can't imagine Reznor doing '40s music let alone anything with strings or horns.

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Dec 7, 2020Liked by Roy Edroso

“writers are also a dangerous topic for movies because for one thing, they’re written by writers, who are keenly aware of what an unglamorous trade they’re in” —This reminds me of someone’s quip from a few years back about “write what you know” leading in practice to creative writing instructors producing novels in which middle-aged professors get it on with lissome undergraduate cuties.

In 1973 the late R.V. Cassill, a middle-aged man who had in fact taught creative writing, and who was then on the faculty at Brown University, published a lighthearted piece in 𝘌𝘴𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘳𝘦 titled “Up the Down Co-Ed: Notes on the Eternal Problem of Fornication With Students.” Reading it, I was amused. The administration at Brown, apparently, was not.

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So I guess I'm going to have to watch Citizen Kane and then come back and read your last two articles again. I'm such a Philistine...

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I have notes! I've been dying to talk about this movie all weekend. I bought in for about the first two-thirds, and it seems funny that even in a script that bounced around in time, it still had a fairly formal three-part arc -- the last act, which took up about 3 minutes, threw me from the whole film. Maybe his character-driven "I want credit" take was there all along, hidden in his breezy bon mots (my favorite parts were with his old Algonquin buddies) and caustic explosions of self-destruction, but when it hit because Welles showed up for edits I kept thinking, where the hell did this come from? There wasn't antagonism toward Welles, or at least any more than there was antagonism for everyone else in his life, until his fit of ego was played as a redemptive reclaiming of Mank's talent or some shit. Welles, who was up against it and took real risks, was done dirty. And then the women in his life gave him completely unearned forgiveness ("not for me, Mank, but HEARST deserves your sympathy" -- get bent woman.) and then it was over.

Oldman was great, giving us olds a good look at how we can still play thirty year olds, and it was fun seeing him have to give sympathetic speeches about socialism knowing he'll have to go on Fox at some point to answer for his sins -- that's acting for you, eh comrade?

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Another take: https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/12/11/the-wrong-mank/

I found Proyect when the late A. Cockburn insulted him. So I had to check him out https://louisproyect.org/ I like Proyect more every time I read him. Almost as good as you, Roy.

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