MANK Review

I must admit I feel like something of a fraud even attempting a critique of a film so steeped in not only cinematic history, but history in general. Yes, I've seen Citizen Kane more than once and I've listened to season upon season of Karina Longworth's You Must Remember This podcast and specifically the series of MGM stories that centered on Louis B. Mayer’s rise and fall, yet somehow director David Fincher's Mank still feels so drenched in the world it re-creates that it's difficult to imagine being able to gain all the film has to offer after only a single viewing. As it were, Fincher's latest is likely too inside baseball for anyone outside of those that worship at the altar of cinema, but what might prove to be the most fascinating aspect of Mank is whether or not the core struggles of the main character appeal to a viewer who has no idea who someone like Irving Thalberg - or for that matter, Herman J. Mankiewicz - was. Naturally, those who do in fact worship at said altar are largely going to adore Fincher's latest exercise in clinical cinema that this time not only executes itself with profound professionalism and skill a la all of Fincher's work, but does so as it examines the "golden age" of the industry. The difference will be whether the details included and the approach taken will be enough to enthrall those already on board for a "movie about the movies" or if, while appreciating all of those things, the admiration for what Fincher has accomplished outweighs what is genuine love for it. That is to say, those on the outside looking in who come across Mank as they scroll through Netflix will either continue to scroll past it based on the poster alone or become fully engulfed in the confusion of the time and place Fincher drops his audience into should they be brave enough to press play. As an individual who admittedly knows more than the average Netflix subscriber, but a lot less than a lot of other people about the history of Hollywood Mank feels akin to a highly-stylized and extremely well performed re-enactment. Fincher's film clearly gets everything it possibly could right about the history, the costumes, and the character traits yet there is little that resonates emotionally. Never mind the fact Herman Mankiewicz is the only credited co-screenwriter to Orson Welles on what many consider the greatest movie ever made as Fincher's intent wasn't to make a movie about the making of Citizen Kane, but rather to capture the essence of a process and a person and leave the audience with a little more context and insight than they might have had before. As Gary Oldman's "Mank" says early on in the film though, "You can't capture a man's life in two hours, all you can hope is to leave an impression of one," and while Mank may not necessarily provide the catharsis one desires come the time the credits roll it undoubtedly leaves a strong impression.   

AMMONITE Review

While Lyme Regis, a coastal town in West Dorset that lies in Lyme Bay on the English Channel, may very well be a beautiful place to visit and/or live Director Francis Lee (God’s Own Country) has made it seem as if it is anything but in his second feature film, Ammonite. It’s not only the location, but it's as if everything in Lee’s film was designed to match the color palette and tone of the fossils our main character, acclaimed self-taught paleontologist Mary Anning (Kate Winslet), found in the cliffs along the Channel in Southwest England: grey and dead. From the furniture and fixtures inside Mary’s shop she now supports herself and her ailing mother with to the weather that constantly seems to be sweeping up on shore. Ammonite is grey, cold, and dreary to a fault. It’s almost as if Lee was so hell bent on having the audience mentally inhabit the mind of Anning that he determined it best to have the pacing, aesthetic, and attitude mirror that of Anning’s daily routine which is to say it's all exceptionally tedious. Tedious that is, until the narrative finds it surprisingly convenient to usher in an actual plot that couldn’t feel less natural or organic to the aforementioned tone set thus far. Strangely convenient in that the type of story this film wants to tell is abundantly clear and thus everything that happens seems to cater to this very particular set of circumstances; the problem being that as such developments unravel it becomes clear the depths of the core relationship won’t generate a strong enough investment to make such conveniences forgivable. It would almost be easier to dismiss the film as pure Oscar bait had it more scenes featuring characters explicitly yelling at one another about their forbidden love, but Lee’s intentions are more honorable than this. Though I've yet to see the filmmaker's debut feature that put him on the map from 2017 it would it would seem Lee was very much interested in making a similarly compelling if not subdued drama for his follow-up. Still, outside a single night of passion, Ammonite remains a somber and sometimes even dull experience that never fully lands the complicated and conflicted heart at the root of the dynamic the film seeks to establish and explore.

BLACK BEAR Review

Black Bear may as well have been called Bat Shit because that's how crazy it is. Everything worthwhile that could be said about Lawrence Michael Levine's film almost can't be discussed for fear of spoiling any aspect of what lies beyond the title screen, but I'll do my best. For starters, Black Bear is seemingly about the creative process with the question of, "how far is too far?" looming over every facet. Levine is an actor, director, and writer himself as well as being married to fellow multi-hyphenate Sophia Takal which undoubtedly inspired certain details of the film if not having been based outright on actual conversations the couple has had. Add to the mix Aubrey Plaza who not only takes the lead role here, but the role of producer as her relationship with writer/director Jeff Baena (Life After Beth, The Little Hours) no doubt assisted in her understanding of if not being completely empathetic to the material and her character of Allison. What is then immediately fascinating about Black Bear is that despite the large possibility of self-indulgence or - as Sarah Gadon's Blair might say, "the large possibility of solipsism" - Black Bear somehow manages to steer clear of its own self-satisfaction by essentially becoming something of a satire not necessarily of the people, but more of the circumstances they've driven themselves to in pursuit of this creative endeavor they've put so much stock in. What's curious is that said creative endeavors and the process such require in order to fully produce them are, by virtue of the fact they're existence is only justified by an individual's existential need create them, essentially exercises in some form of narcissism themselves. Does that then make Black Bear Levine's attempt to try and suss out his own level of self-awareness and assure those in the audience that no matter the level of commitment and passion poured into his projects that at the end of the day he's blatantly aware his work could have as little an impact as it could a large one? It kind of feels that way as everything about Levine's third narrative feature would seemingly mark it as your standard indie hipster typically found at Sundance, but by nature of the exploration taking place Black Bear more intends to dissect what it means to exist as someone that constantly tries to subvert the mainstream while still appealing to it in real-life situations. How do we best embody and represent our beliefs through our actions? Why do we always want what we don't have? How far is too far? Levine asks a lot of questions (many more than he answers) with Black Bear and though the ultimate theme, intention, and even point of the film isn't all that clear it still makes for a fascinating experiment in introspection nonetheless.             

Tavern Talk: Video Review - FREAKY

It's been a while, but given original Initial Reaction co-host Charles Browder was able to return for a random review of one of the few new releases in theaters coupled with the fact I won't be doing a full write-up on Freaky, it seemed as good a time as any to re-vamp the video review posts. To add some perspective, the last post I wrote of this nature was back in March for the Disney/Pixar release of Onward which published on March 11th AKA the week the entire world shut down. This was honestly the day before major studios would announce delays in some of their biggest movies planned for the remainder of the calendar year and given this post focuses as much if not more on the box office results of the movie myself and my co-host had reviewed the week prior it seemed silly to try and talk about anything when nothing was coming out. Things have changed somewhat since the beginning of September when Tenet more or less forced theaters to re-open with a slew of low-key new releases premiering since and a lot of anniversary editions and restorations of older classics mostly being shown instead. That of course brings us to mid-November which saw the release of Universal and Blumhouse’s body-swap horror-comedy Freaky which has topped the box office for two straight weeks now (again, mostly due to lack of competition and no other new, wide releases), but while the film debuted to $3.6 million on nearly 2,500 screens in its first weekend the second week of the films release was plagued (pun intended) by news of COVID-19 cases continuing to rise across the nation resulting in an only $1.2 million haul for a total domestic cume just shy of $5.6 million. Not bad for a movie rumored to be budgeted at right around $6 million during a pandemic, but still pretty bleak in terms of theater-going prospects for the foreseeable future. Overseas, the film added $3.7 million bringing its worldwide total to $9.2 million. As Thanksgiving approaches, Universal’s animated sequel The Croods: A New Age is slated to hit theaters over the holiday weekend and there is still some hope that business will pick up, but with families largely (hopefully) remaining confined to their own households for the festivities this year the question is how many will risk going to the movies to see a seven year-later sequel to an animated movie? Time will tell, but hopefully we'll have more video reviews coming sooner rather than later. As always, be sure to follow the official TAVERN TALK by Initial Reaction YouTube channel as well as on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter where you can find all the latest content! 

MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM Review

August Wilson's 1982 play, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom , was one of ten-plays in the writer's "Pittsburgh Cycle" (Rainey being the only one of the ten not set in Pittsburgh) that chronicled the twentieth century African-American experience. Like most if not all of Wilson's writing Ma Rainey was meant to "raise consciousness through theater". Wilson's writing of the Black experience was something I first encountered my senior year of high school via Fences. As a Caucasian who attended a school with a student body that was more or less split right down the middle when it came to racial ratios the African American experience was something that was present without being particularly regarded as drastically different. Maybe it was simply my naïveté, but in my fifteen to eighteen year-old mind it was as simple as the fact that slavery, racism, and Martin Luther King had happened, what they had to deal with was wrong and terrible, but the actions they took had been worth it and upended those injustices for future generations. We as a society had grown past the ignorance of such things and while that statement in and of itself may now ring of more ignorance than ever I genuinely believe if one were to ask any of the Black kids I attended high school with that many would agree they felt the same way. Obviously, this isn't a diatribe against the need to highlight the many injustices that have been inflicted upon African Americans throughout the twentieth century and into present day, but rather a slice of insight into just how powerful, eye-opening, and - most importantly - how necessary literature documenting the Black experience is. This is all to say that director George C. Wolfe's interpretation of Wilson's material focuses largely on the theme of the burden Black people feel to do something with their time in order to ensure prosperity for future generations. The idea many of these individuals aren't allowed to lead a life where such issues don't impact their day to day drives certain characters present in Ma Rainey to purpose while pushing others to the edge. Wilson's exploration of contradiction in this American life through faith versus vindication or expectation versus the truth of the matter transforms the heated racial tension of 1920's Chicago into a pertinent commentary on how a system designed on the promise of possibility grants equal opportunities for repression; all of which is conveyed through the mood of the blues.