Mank (a movie review post)

I don't know that I've ever mentioned on here before that I almost went to film school. After The Empire Strikes Back came out, I was intensely interested in special effects and, for many years, that's what I wanted to do. When I say "almost," I mean it. I was accepted to USC but, even after a very sizeable scholorship, it was going to be more expensive than I could afford, especially considering that my parents took on a "no help" stance if I chose to move to California to attend. All of that to say that what was left to me at the college I did go to was one intro to cinema class.

But we did cover Citizen Kane in that class.

Orson Welles was a fucking genius. I wish I had half of the marketing savvy he had. A tenth, even. His genius was not the movie Citizen Kane but that he was able to invent a mythology that said he was soley responsible for that movie, which was a work of genius. And it's true that he had some very important roles in creating the movie, both directing and starring in it. But he would have us believe that the story came from him as well and so devoted himself to creating that mythology that people are still arguing about it today. In fact, when I studied Citizen Kane in college, Herman Mankiewicz wasn't even mentioned.

The fact is, though, that Mankiewicz was the preeminnet screen writer/doctor of the time. He shaped the way the movies of that time period were written and was responsible for creating the dialogue heavy, witty movies of his day, movies that became the stereotype of the "American movie." He was also responsible for the Kansas sequences in The Wizard of Oz being filmed in black and white.

And, most importantly, he was chums with William Randolph Hearst.

I'm not going to explain the importance of the connection. If you don't understand from me saying that, you actually need to know more about the time period than I can tell you in a movie review.

So... the movie.

The movie is excellent. By what I am sure is not an accident, it is remarkably timely, the main conflict dealing with a conservative push, led by Hearst, to keep a progressive candidate (Upton Sinclair) from becoming governor of California. Yes, you will get to see back into the days when California was unenlightened and the "coastal elites" where all Republicans. Republicans bent on protecting their wealth just as they are today. The movie suggests that it was this political race that caused the falling out between Hearst and Mank (easy to believe considering that Hearst caroused with Nazi sympatthizers and Mank was personally responsible for funding the escape from Germany of hundreds of Jews) and became the catalyst for Mank's writing of Kane.

In short, Citizen Kane was a revenge piece.

Gary Oldman is... well, what can you say about Oldman? He was perfect in the role. I have no idea whether or not he was accurately depicting Mank or not, but his performance was amazing.

Having now seen Tom Burke as Orson Welles, I can no longer picture anyone else as Welles. He may be a better Welles than Welles was. So, yeah, I have a Burke bias because of The Musketeers, a series which ended much too soon.

And Amanda Seyfried was endearing as Marion Davies.

It might even be the kind of movie that I would watch again, not that I think I will, because I don't often re-watch, just as I don't often re-read, but I certainly wouldn't plead "I've already seen that" as a reason to get out of a second viewing.

Also, just to say it, this movie has "best picture" written all over it. Not necessarily because it is the best picture of 2020 (how is that even a thing for this year? do "movies" even still exist? what even is a "movie theater"?), but it's about Hollywood, and we all know that the Oscars loves movies about Hollywood.

You Know You've Made It When... (part 2)

Sometimes it's good to ask questions. My last post on Lego minifigures inspired a friend of mine to go into research mode and look for figures that I may have missed, and he came up with some. It made me feel a little inadequate, actually, because I didn't even think to check for most of these guys.

First, though, the fails. The Lego fails, that is. Here are some ones that at least one of us checked only to find out that a very obvious character has never been made into a minifigure.
1. Sallah:

Despite being in half of the Indiana Jones movies, Sallah was never made as a minifigure. John Rhys-Davies does appear as this minifig, though:

Rhys-Davies did do the voice for this one, so I guess he can get partial credit for it:

2. Jane Foster:

Despite having more than a dozen Avengers related Lego sets, Jane does not appear as a minifigure.

Natalie Portman does appear as this figure, though:

3. Galadriel:

Explain to me how, exactly, Galadriel

does not get made into a minifigure while

Irina Spalko gets a figure in three different sets (while Sallah has none!). If I was Cate Blanchett, I'd feel robbed.

Also, a retraction. As I was working up this post, I realized that I was in error about Chris Evans.

The Fantastic Four have not, yet, been made into physical minifigures, although I could have sworn they had some sort of Lego set out several years ago with their flying car. When the FF re-boots, soon, it will no longer be Evans as the Torch, so it still won't count for him. He got robbed, too!

But there are a few new editions to the list of actors made into two different minifigure characters!

1. Ryan Renolds

2. Ben Kingsley

(Again, really? Nizam from Prince of Persia gets a figure but Galadriel doesn't?)

3. Alfred Molina

Another Prince of Persia figure on the list? Seriously? And he gets one from Raiders of the Lost Ark, too!

Which brings me back to my question of how the heck does Sallah not have a figure? Satipo, here, dies in the opening sequence of Raiders, but Sallah doesn't get one? I smell a conspiracy! Or a rat! Or Denmark!

But that's not all! Because there's also

Which gives Molina three different characters in three separate movies which may just make him the greatest actor of all time! Except, then, there's

4. Warwick Davis. Davis has been four different characters in two different movie franchises, though two of the movies from one of the franchises were 15 years apart. Who's greater, Davis or Molina? I guess you will have to decide. Here are Davis' figures:

5. Gary Oldman! And, really, how could I forget him the first time? I feel so bad. I love Gary Oldman! And he was by far the best thing about the Nolan Batman movies.

And he's also

Well, there you have it. The best actors who have ever lived. Or something like that. If I ever get a movie made out of any of my books, I'm going to make sure I'm some side character, some vital side character, so that if they ever get Lego sets, I will get to be a minifigure, too! Now that's the DREAM, folks!

Nolan Again Impresses...

...with his ability to obfuscate.

I do realize that I'm going to be in the vast minority with my stance on The Dark Knight Rises, but I'm used to that, so I'm just going to go with it.

I have one thing to say for Christopher Nolan: he's a magician when it comes to making movies. I mean that in a very literal sense. He uses flashy action to distract us from the holes he leaves behind in the story. We can't see them, because we're too busy looking in the other direction.

Or maybe it's just that Marvel has set the bar so high with their string of excellent adaptions that I'm just no longer satisfied with interpretations. Maybe if it was more explicit that these are interpretations, I'd be happier. DC/Warner Brothers could just slap their Elseworlds label on  these things, and I might be more accepting of them. As it is, though, there are so many things that aren't Batman in these movies that I have a hard time dealing with it. Like in Burton's Batman when Alfred brings Vicki Vale down into the Batcave. What?

Unfortunately, Nolan has plenty of those moments himself. Like in Batman Begins when Wayne allows Lucius Fox to know that he's Batman. Whereas that was almost acceptable in that movie, those inconsistencies with the source material have continued to snowball to the point that by the time we get to Rises, I can't accept them. I mean, by the end of The Dark Knight Rises half of everyone knows that Wayne is Batman. And we're just supposed to believe that some random cop walks up to Wayne and just knows? Seriously. I get that Nolan needs that for his story, but, give me a break, he knew because he saw it in Wayne's face? At least Tim Drake did the research to figure out that Wayne is Batman. And I don't want to give spoilers, but having his actual name be Robin? It just makes me cringe.

However, the big issue for me, the thing that set the big disconnect for me, is that we're supposed to believe that this is 8 years later. That Bruce Wayne just quit being Batman and went into seclusion. I get that Nolan is trying to give us a sense of Miller's Dark Knight comics in which Batman had quit and was in seclusion, but that was because he got old. He even gives us a cane like Wayne uses in Batman Beyond, but, again, in those he got old; Nolan wants us to believe that Wayne just quit. I can't buy it. I absolutely can not buy it.

This is where I understand the difference between me, someone that grew up reading Batman comics and was heavily invested in Batman lore for...well, longer than I should have been, and the vast majority of people out there that don't have that same investment. These details aren't important to them. I get that. I also get that I am not really the target audience for the movie. I was the target audience for Batman Begins, because that one was more focused on the fans of the comic, but these last two, after hooking everyone in, have been focused on the general consumer.

Even so, the idea with Nolan's Batman is that he is set in the "real world," and, as such, I still can not accept this 8 year hiatus. He wants us to buy into too many unrealistic ideas:
1. After 8 years of no Batman, people are still talking about him. Give me a break. Culturally, we barely hold onto anything for 8 days, and Nolan expects us to believe that people are still saying, after 8 years, "is he coming back?" Not to mention the fact that he has kids, like 10-year-old kids, talking about Batman as if he's a reality to them. Or was a reality to them. Yes, all of this bothers me, because none of it's how the real world works.
If he'd made it a year after the events of Dark Knight, maybe even two, it would have been plausible.
2. There's a Harvey Dent Day and people care about it. See point 1. No one would care after 8 years. Well, they wouldn't care beyond the fact that it was a day off from work. And it's not clear that they, the common people, do get a day off from work.
3. After 8 years, Wayne just puts the suit back on, and it's like he never quit. There are so many problems with this:

• There is an implication, a strong implication, that Wayne has been doing nothing to "stay in shape" during his seclusion (except, maybe, shooting some arrows). He's just been sulking about. Bodies deteriorate pretty quickly. After just a few months, he would have lost his edge and begun losing muscle mass. After a year, it would have taken considerable training to be able to get back into shape. After 8 years? 
• Aside from the staying in shape aspect of it, Wayne has definitely not been sparring or doing any kind of combat training in those 8 years. As an example of what not sparring can do, you can look at the Foreman/Ali championship fight. Foreman was unable to spar for the entire month leading up to the bout due to an eye injury, and just that one month of not training threw his fighting off so much that he couldn't compete. (Ali won and refused to ever allow Foreman a re-match.)
• On top of all the not staying in shape and not sparring, Wayne has suffered some sort of debilitating injury that has caused him to need a cane to walk. His body is in bad shape. No, it's in horrible shape. So... 8 years of lounging in seclusion and he can't even walk under his own power, but we're supposed to believe that a high tech knee brace returns him to fighting form? Are you kidding me?

While it is true that Alfred voiced concern over these issues, it was given in the sense that it would be a "bad idea" to get back into costume. In truth, it would have been an impossibility. Not to put the costume back on but certainly impossible to be Batman again just like that.

If Nolan wants us to believe that this is a Batman that could be in the real world, he needs to keep him in the real world. And don't get me started on the "fusion bomb," because all of that was just bad science. I'll buy into Wayne creating a fusion reactor, but not turning it into a "time bomb" in the way it was done in the movie. They're equating it to a meltdown in a nuclear reactor, and those things just don't happen on a schedule. Not to mention the last minute save after 5 months. It just doesn't get more cliche than that.

Nolan also uses sleight-of-hand to hide facts from us. I don't have an issue with this in a general sense, but it takes away from the enjoyment of watching it again. He did this very successfully in The Prestige, because, in that one, he gave us the clues to figure out what was going on so that when the reveal happened it was your own fault for not figuring it out. I like that kind of cleverness, and doing it that way does make for good repeat viewing, because you can go back and see where the clues were that you missed (like in The Sixth Sense). I dislike, though, when not only is the information hidden but the fact that there is information hidden is hidden. Of course, then, when you do see that coming because you have more lore than the average viewer, there's no surprise, so that twist didn't throw me at all, and that made the viewing experience... less than it could have been.

Having said all of that, don't take it that I'm saying that it's a bad movie. It's not. It's a good movie, and I'm glad I saw it in the theater. The acting is good (Oldman is still great as Gordon, Hathaway was good, Gordon-Levitt is quite good), and the action and fight sequences are spectacular. But the movie, if you look beyond those things, is not great.

Here's the way I look at it:
After I saw The Avengers, I wanted, immediately, to see it again. After seeing it the second time (opening weekend), I wanted to go back and see it again. I still want to see it again. I have no desire to see Rises again.
I had the same experience with The Dark Knight when it came out alongside Iron Man. I saw Iron Man three times in the first week and still would have gone back to see it. I could barely sit through my second viewing of The Dark Knight because I got bored even though I'd been on the edge of my seat during my first viewing. After 4 years, I barely want to re-watch Dark Knight and that desire is only related to the release of Rises (in fact, I have not seen Dark Knight again since I saw it last in the theater even though I own the movie). I've seen Iron Man numerous times in the intervening years and talking about it makes me want to go put that one in right now. That, to me, is what makes a movie great, the desire to watch it over and over again. I just don't get that from Nolan.

I've said that I'm not in favor of re-boots, and I'm not, but I would certainly be in favor of a Batman re-boot. As long it's more in line with the comics. I really don't want someone coming along and trying to continue on from the point where Nolan left things. Of course, that's part of why Nolan left things the way he did (by his own admission).

I'd say that maybe I'm just getting crotchety in my old age, but that's just not it. In truth, I've always been like this. Even in high school, my friends would be upset because I'd point out inconsistencies in movies. I'd enjoy them just fine anyway, but, then, I'd pop their bubbles of the movies by pointing out the flaws, and they would lose enjoyment of them. So... I like Rises. It was a good movie, certainly big enough to be worth seeing in the theater. It just wasn't great, and it wasn't great because it lacked in the story department. Anyway, I'm not trying to make anyone else not like the movie, but I would like to peel back the whitewash of "greatness" that has been slapped onto it so that people can see past the action smokescreen.

[And, remember! I have a contest going on! Check out yesterday's post for details.]