David Fincher’s Mank finally gets a teaser – and it is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. Here is the trailer and screenshots. Into the fairly horrific atmosphere of what’s left of film criticism comes the story of Mank, the co-writer of Citizen Kane who had one shot at making something of his life. I know how Citizen Kane was greeted. How Mank will be greeted should be interesting. Taking a ride back to the early days of Hollywood into a story that those who know it care a lot about it, but those who don’t — how do they measure their interest? Well, maybe it will send a few into the arms of Citizen Kane to find out why that film has sustained itself these many decades later.
The film won’t be seen on Netflix or in theaters until December 4. Mercifully after the election.
My mouth waters just looking at it.
So with Mank confirmed for this season and Soul moving to Disney+, now all major streamers have at least one solid awards contender :
Netflix / Mank
Amazon / One Night in Miami
Disney+ / Soul
Apple TV+ / Cherry
HBOMax / Let Them All Talk
Hulu / Palm Springs
Holding down the fort for theatrical runs are
Searchlight / Nomadland
Neon / Ammonite
SPC / The Father
Warner Bros. / Tenet
And if they don’t get delayed, also :
Sony / Happiest Season
Focus / Promising Young Woman
Universal / News of the World
Paramount / The United States vs Billie Holiday
20th Century / Everybody’s Talking About Jamie
Long story short, while there is a strong possibility that streamers will dominate (I only listed the most likely contender of each), there are still plenty of theatrical releases to choose from, as well. For example Happiest Season, News of the World, The United States vs Billie Holiday and Everybody’s Talking About Jamie have been completely under the radar and all could easily have the goods to become the surprise of the season.
FINCHER FOR THE WIN!!
Makes sense to re-watch Citizen Kane before catching Mank – impressive cinematography, love the style and the atmosphere, but I´m notoriously sceptical in declaring Oscar wins based on nothing more than a teaser, even a very fine teaser.
“And the Oscar for the Best Cinematography of 2020 goes to…Erik Messerschmidt for Mank!”
I didn’t like it. Felt pretentious to me.
Please, tell us how you really feel.
Please, tell us how you really feel.
que milagro, el hater oficial de las cosas buenas jajaja,
sobrevaloradas… sé diferenciar ARTE de PRODUCTOS. No tengo problema, cuando el PRODUCTO se expone como tal, y tangencialmente se le da el valor añadido, de un formato artístico. Cuando se pretende que el PRODUCTO se tome como ARTE y no como PRODUCTO es cuando ya entro en conflicto… y Spielberg, Nolan y Fincher son especialistas en darnos gato por liebre.
Looks like a major picture.
Sight unseen I could see it score nominations in 12 categories :
Picture
Director
Screenplay
Lead Actor
Supporting Actress
Editing
Cinematography
Score
Costumes
Sets
Makeup
Sound
It could get to 14 if Charles Dance pulls an Alda / The Aviator and both Seyfried and Collins pop and get nominated. Question is will they be campaigned in the same category (supporting) or is Seyfried going lead ? She was rather prominently featured both in the first look photos and in the teaser.
We’ll know soon enough.
P.S. Visual effects ? I wonder.
I don’t know about “glorious”. It didn’t tell a whole lot and came off as very esoteric. Hopefully the full trailer will clear things up.
“It didn’t tell a whole lot.” That’s what Google is for, not trailers.
This does looks great. Love the style. I studied Citizen Kane in a university film class. This teaser has peaked my interest.
This is Fincher’s year. Mank looks like a technical tour de force and a tribute to the Hollywood of old that the Academy loves so much. Cinematography looks like a solid bet too.
to me, it looks like a stunt, deliberately trying to recreate the nostalgia for Welles’ masterpiece, predating on it. When I see it, I will judge properly, but this is shameless baiting so far, rather that – on paper – an honest tribute, or so it seems to me. And I don’t want to start a fight, but Fincher is a genius but also his career doesn’t impress me that much, artistically speaking, as to most. I have similar problems with Nolan or Spielberg just to name a pair of names.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Perhaps not relying on nostalgia so much as hardening back to older, classic methods of filmmaking? That’s how o saw it. As for your problems, well, they are just that: YOUR problems.
well, just look at the heading of the article, and check out where the problem is…
“Glorious Teaser for Mank Drops
First Look at Fincher’s masterpiece”
So, teaser trailer and Sasha already labels it as a masterpiece. Wow. Without even watching it.
Sorry, keep your Fincher, Nolan or Spielberg, while I will always look with attention the death-challenging projects of people, auteurs that actually take risks and have something to say… even if they are not as technically skilled as those master artisans that I mentioned before (and who depend heavily on screenplay… that was the biggest strenght of The Social Network, the dialogues making what otherwise would have been a showy but boring profile of one of the most detestable celebrities around, a truly great film, even more so than Fincher who somehow made Jesse Eisenberg an Oscar nominee for just playing an iteration of himself).
I rather have…
John Carpenter, John Waters, Frank Oz, Taika Waititi, Kevin Smith, Tom Hooper – extremely skilled at framing and composition WITH actual meaning, and able to throw himself off the cliff to fulfill his vision, if necessary, as it happened with Cats, which isn’t the trainwreck people like to think it is – or even the late Joel Schumacher… people brave to break rules and defy expectations, even if that ends making stains on their resume. I do not have a problem acknowledging that all these directors have misfires or even total trainwrecks… but Fincher? Come on… quick summary of his career in movies
Alien 3 *** / C – Blamed the studio, his director cut just slightly improves the original
Se7en ***** / A+ While at technical masterpiece, it is not because of his direction but because of the marvelous screenplay. Fincher goes too over the top in style continuously, becoming almost distracting from the actual story, paying too much attention from the story.
The Game *** / C – Vehicle for Michael Douglas, hollow and full of cheats. The film looks great, but it is hollow.
Fight Club ***** / A+ – Fincher’s best film, because of an amazing screenplay and the film reminds me too much of Boyle’s approach in “Trainspotting”. In this case, due to the very own nature of the story, Fincher’s direction totally works in favor of the story
Panic Room *** / C – Extremely hollow film in which Fincher again shows that without a screenplay, he just makes a visually stunning film but far from being memorable
Zodiac **** 1/2 / B+ Another highlight of Fincher’s career, a film that barely has depth beyond the whudunit scenario that is never fully resolved. But in this case, it works.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttom **** 1/2 / B+ This would have been a slam dunk, but it became overlong, with some minor pacing problems. Fincher’s first attempt of pure Oscarbait.
The Social Network ***** / A+ As I pointed out, this is Aaron Sorkin’s baby, even more so than Fincher’s. Still, a masterpiece (but not that year’s best film, ehem)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo *** 1/2 / C+ A stylish remake that was overhyped and certainly did not warrant the same team returnig to complete the franchise, if that is a sign of how overrated this film actually is.
Gone Girl ***** / A- Again, Fincher is given a great screenplay and a great story and THEN pulls off a great film.
As you see, I do like Fincher a lot. But I just don’t think he’s the second coming of Christ as many do around here… he’s a master artisan, but not an autor and his career has been playing safe continuously, and always servicing the studio that allows him to have big budget to his films (same as Nolan or even Spielberg).
I truly believe he is a way less interesting director (specially career-wise) than the other directors that actually choose their projects valiantly even if knowing that it may be an “all or nothing” bet.
Think of Paul Verhoeven’s career. Of Joel Schumacher and his blind rendition of Adam West’s Batman in a gay overbudgetted tone. Of Frank Oz attempting to make a comedy out of “The Stepford Wives” (and half-succeeding in it). Of Kevin Smith’s triple suicidal challenge with “Red State”, “Tusk” and “Yoga Hosers” (oh, my God, is that last one really one of the worst films I have ever seen). Of Tom Hooper daring to go all or nothing with “Cats”. Of John Carpenter daring to reimagine Kurosawa in Mars with a heavy metal cue in “Ghosts of Mars”. Come on, even Almodovar or John Waters.
But Fincher, Nolan and Spielberg? I think twice before getting to see one of their films… and find many of them extremely overrated, and downright mediocre or even bad beyond belief (The Dark Knight Rises in Nolan’s case, or Hook, The Terminal, Ready Player One or Saving Private Ryan in Spielberg’s).
It seems like you punish him for the scripts of some of his movies being bad and don’t want to praise him for intelligently adapting the screenplays that you consider to be good. For example just technical proficiency doesn’t bring The Social Network from what is most likely on page about the same as anything else written by Sorkin to something that plays incredibly well within Fincher’s filmography.
You’re also talking about Nolan, Fincher and Spielberg as playing it safe as if they don’t have their follies. Inception is a wild folly but since it was a hit and well-reviewed, people think that making an incredibly expensive dream police movie isn’t insane. Spielberg has made movies that make no sense as Spielberg movies (1941, The Terminal, A.I.) but the name “Spielberg” just for some reason forces movies into particular shapes. And Fincher, who is generally considered to be distant and cold and to mostly just make crime movies, is about to release his second somewhat big budget period drama that works as an incredibly personal tribute to his father. That’s not an outlandish narrative but it is absolutely Fincher working outside of his comfort zone and making a bold, personal film. Just because they happen to fall somewhat in the unclear realm of “Oscar movie” doesn’t mean that they aren’t relevant.
Also, I’m perhaps reacting too strongly to one word but I want to emphasize this since people on this site (even Sasha) often misuse the word so strongly: at least if we’re talking original definition, auteur status has nothing to do with “daring” (also has nothing to do with whether the director wrote the script). I don’t think Fincher is an auteur but studios liking him and the “safeness” of his choices can fit easily into an auteur narrative, for example Hitchcock mostly worked in the thriller genre and his movies made a lot of money. And in relatively recent comments (in the late 90s) Jacques Rivette, who was one of the people in the Cahiers du Cinema circles around the time of the creation of the auteur theory, called filmmakers like Clint Eastwood and Woody Allen “auteurs”. From what I’ve understood the idea that matters is a unified voice that manages to exist no matter what for example the script is.
I am punishing him for being an ARTISAN, not an autor. Same with Spielberg… which one was his last truly autor film? Close Encounters? I’d dare to say that he made AI also his baby, trying to finish what Kubrick couldn’t… but aside from that? Either Oscarbait or b.o.bait, mostly well crafted products… some are masterpieces (The Color Purple, Schindler’s List, Jurassic Park, Lincoln) but some are overblown beyond belief…
E.T. is a magnificent film but remove the technical aspects and it is quite simple and mediocre in its screenplay, the final impact being way far from the impact of 1982’s true masterpieces: John Carpenter’s The Thing, Costa Gavras’ Missing, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner or even Tobe Hooper/Spielberg’s Poltergeist. I rewatch Steven Lisberger’s groundbreaking Tron way more than E.T… it is sad, but E.T. is probably 5th on the best genre films of the 1982 awesome year, yet it was the one nominated for Best Picture, while the others have made an impressive legacy though the years that have followed… to put E.T. on its rightful place… make an exercise, and watch 1998’s best film, Javier Fesser’s El Milagro de P. Tinto (P. Tinto’s Miracle) in which he makes plenty of homages and spoofs E.T. in a number of scenes… and have your jaw drop at the risk-taking, balls out and DEEP analysis of a family screenplay Fesser created, mixing up Looney Tunes, Fellini, Spielberg, German Expresionism, Monty Python, Sci-fi and the old Franco’s regime propaganda documentaries to deliver a film like no other, fun beyond belief and both poignant and quotable to death. Fesser is a genius AUTOR, Spielberg is a genius ARTISAN. Spot the difference…
Saving Private Ryan… oh, my, God. Is it really BAD. Racist, xenophobic, clumsy on its depiction of war. Simplistic good vs evil message in which evil is just evil per se, so our good boys have to be saints and martyrs. That’s not war. That’s propaganda (and I have been living and working in a country of war). Faceless, nameless germans, the only one slightly developed is evil for doing what a soldier is supposed to do: take its chances to have the upper hand in front of the enemy. Thank God for films like Jojo Rabbit to remind us, that “the other side” was way more complex than just being evil, and truly exploring the nature of fanatism, but even more so, the mechanism of fear that imprisoned a whole country into the hands of lunatics… you don’t find anything like this in SPR, it is a propaganda film in which it is just said: “you’re welcome, Europe” and labels german as pure evil, as a people, and ignores or actually portrays other countries in a really demeaningful way (french: hysterical civillians… british Montgomery is bashed). Of course, Spielberg’s wannabe, Nolan, did the same stunt with Dunkirk, just more on the brit side… at least Nolan was more competent and the film is actually kind of good, despite, again, showing only one side of the conflict and thus portraying the germans as just pure evil, again (it gets tiring, really). If you are going to show a villain, or evil, please make a convincing portray of WHY it is evil… even slasher films DO.
I’m not really disagreeing with your Saving Private Ryan argument (because while I don’t remember having such feelings about that film in particular, perhaps due to how young I was when I watched it, I have had similar problems with a lot of other war films that seem to argue that war is bad not because it is absurd but because people on our side get hurt) but again with E.T. I find it weird that you’re blaming Spielberg for what you yourself say is the weakness of the script, that the problems of the movie are so deeply rooted in the basic elements of the text that nothing that Spielberg can do (shot composition, direction of actors, editing, meaning what you refer to as the “technical elements”) can save it. How exactly does this proof that Spielberg is a bad director other than that in your opinion either the script shouldn’t have been made or it should have been re-written before production. Bad taste in choosing projects is not the same as a bad director.
Also, my point about auteurism is exactly that you can’t have someone’s previous auteur movie be anything else than either their previous movie or nothing. Again, I don’t think Spielberg is an auteur (I think he has unity in patches at most) but I don’t think you can say that the movies that Spielberg has made have only been for studio or Oscar purposes. What if these are the movies he wanted to make (which is probable since he is Steven Spielberg after all, if he wanted to make a movie, it would happen at a big budget level)? You might for example say that Schindler’s List was Oscar-bait but wasn’t that the movie that he says made him excited about making movies again and led him out of a creative rut.
on ET I am not blaming Spielberg, but the film as not on par with better films as Missing, The Thing or Blade Runner who have extraordinary screenplays and also masterful directing and acting. ET was a revolution on some aspects, but the three other films I mentioned, almost 40 years after have stronger following (The Thing and Blade Runner) or continue to be poignant and relevant (Missing). ET has been overshadowed in memory with time, and probably when people think of Spielberg, they go to Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List or even Close Encounters before remembering “oh, this guy broke b.o. records with ET”.
For the record, my top 5 Spielberg films…
1. The Color Purple
2. Jaws
3. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
4. Lincoln
5. Schindler’s List/Jurassic Park (pending on the day)
Lots of people have seen Mank. How naive do you have to be to think Sasha is not one of them.
There is no “director’s cut” of Aliens 3, by the way. Fincher did not participate in the reconstruction. Why would he? He did not get to film it the way he wanted.
she should have mentioned it, shouldn’t her? Otherwise, it is clickbaiting labelling a masterpiece something that no one has seen beyond the first teaser. Is it naive that Mank hs been shown to Sasha BEFORE a first teaser has even dropped online? Come on, you are way better than this.
Go away, dude.
for you, I’m “Sir”
Saying someone’s career doesn’t impress you much artistically speaking doesn’t really mean anything and is completely worthless on its own. If you are going to make a statement like that back it up with reasoning. I am genuinely interested in why he doesn’t impress you.
Also on your first point, I doubt this will be pure tribute relying on nostalgia – with Fincher in charge I don’t see this being particularly optimistic at all as that isn’t who he is. This trailer shows off the style of the film and it looks beautifully created to me but doesn’t give much away about story which is why it is a teaser – I am excited but I wouldn’t read too much into what the film will actually be at this stage.
Looks like I’ll want to rewatch Citizen Kane before this drops.
Unfortunately my only copy is a videocassette, but both of my VCRs won’t play properly anymore.
No prob, I’ll put the film on my Netflix mail cue.
I feel so hopelessly old-school… 😉
I still have the VHS of the first movie I ever bought (Rashomon) and I treasure it as an object.
It’s not hopelessly old-school to have evidence that you’ve loved Kane twice as long as movie lovers who are only now discovering it.
At my age it is easy to love many movies twice as long as others only now discovering them… 😉