Mank

Mank certainly doesn't hide its Oscar ambitions and at the same time represents one among a number of films where (academic) form rolls over (audience-friendly) content. The black-and-white visuals, the fading blackouts, the vintage opening credits and the premise of the film take the viewer back to the golden era of Hollywood, a time of big studios, bright stars and screenwriting teams and solitaires. David Fincher's Mank is a skillfully made biopic, but for most of its running time it lacks any dramatic or deeper scene – it wasn't until near the end, when Mank's pours out of his heart while watching Citizen Kane, that I felt stronger emotions. A promising film in terms of acting and themes, but one that limps along on a lackluster execution. (18/04/2021)

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... (06/12/2020)

"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. (14/12/2020)

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. (04/12/2020)

A sea of name dropping, perfectly executed visuals, but emotionally speaking, Mank only barely whispered to me here and there, rather than speaking to me coherently. It is the completion of a homework assignment for me and David Fincher, saved from downfall primarily by its unintentional thematic relevance. (23/04/2021)