→ March 18, 2021
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Mank.

Mank led all films with ten Oscar nominations this year, and after seeing the film (which is on Netflix), my reaction is best summed up by the GIF of Ryan Reynolds saying, “but why?” I think the answer is actually obvious – it’s a talky black-and-white movie about Hollywood, all things the voters find hard to resist – but it doesn’t make it any easier to accept this adequate if somewhat boring movie taking home spots that could have gone to many more deserving films.

Mank is Herman Mankiewicz, a cantankerous screenwriter who was often called in to ‘fix’ scripts by other writers from the 1920s through the 1940s, and who worked with Orson Welles on the script for Citizen Kane, which won them both the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. The film tells the story of the writing of that script, with flashbacks explaining how Mank managed to become persona non grata in much of Hollywood, and his relationship with actress Marion Davies and partnership with her nephew Charles Lederer.

I really enjoy some of Orson Welles’ work, and appreciate Citizen Kane for its artistic merit and historical importance, and I can certainly get into some making-of stories, but I can’t express how little I cared about what was happening on the screen in Mank. It’s the story of a self-destructive white man handed one gift after another only to throw them away via drink, gambling, or just general assholery. It’s also told through a poorly-structured series of flashbacks that bounce around in time so often it makes it too hard to follow when things are happening, especially since Gary Oldman is 20 years older than Mankiewicz was in 1940, when the latter wrote Citizen Kane, and thus nearly 30 years older than Mankiewicz is supposed to be in flashbacks, with no real concession made to the age gap.

Oldman is busy chewing scenery when he isn’t throwing it back up, and it’s especially frustrating because it seems like he took the message the Academy gave him when they named him Best Actor for a lengthy Winston Churchill impression in Darkest Hour as a sign to go even further in this direction, forgetting the actor he showed he could be in Léon, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, or even Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, where he used his scene-chewing ability to far better purpose. Amanda Seyfried earned her first Oscar nomination for her work here as Davies in a role that doesn’t have a lot of screen time and is probably most notable for her accent here; I’m not sure she does much more than Lily Collins does as Mank’s amanuensis Rita, and really none of the women here are that well-written in the first place. The most compelling supporting performance might be Tom Burke’s as Welles; Burke absolutely nails Welles’ voice in a way I found thoroughly distracting (in a good way), although he loses it a little in a critical scene late in the film where he and Mankiewicz feud and break over the final edits and what credit Mank might receive.

Mank is just so self-indulgent and so insular that I couldn’t help but think back to The Artist, which won Best Picture a decade ago for being a black-and-white movie that told everyone how great movies are, as well as for its central gimmick as a mostly-silent film. They’re movies that appeal not just to the presumed interests of Academy voters, but to their identities: Both give movies an importance beyond reality, and, unfortunately, both rely on the assumption that viewers will care far more about inside-baseball stories about how movies are made than they actually do. The best movies about making movies are great movies first that happen to have elements of moviemaking within their stories – Singin’ in the Rain, ostensibly a story about the first talkies, is far more a tale of fakery and integrity, along with a slapdash romance and some great dance numbers; Boogie Nights, a movie about the golden age of porn, is really about this group of misfits and outcasts who form (and break) familial bonds while working in an industry that embraces them for their weirdness. Mank is a movie about a white guy who got more chances than he deserved and drank them all away. It made me want to pour myself a tall one more than it made me want to go watch Citizen Kane or any of the classic films of that era.

As for those nominations, David Fincher getting a Best Director nod over Regina King for One Night in Miami is just … it’s exhausting. And that latter film missing out on Best Picture with two slots still unfilled and Mank getting one of the eight nominations is baffling. I’d have given Gary Oldman’s spot in Best Actor to Dev Patel for David Copperfield, and I think it’s telling that Mank‘s screenwriter, Fincher’s father Jack, didn’t get a nomination for Best Original Screenplay, especially with the intricate flashback sequences making this story harder to follow. Fincher’s done some great work, and this project had to be more personal to him than anything he’s done before, but if this film had received a theatrical release, I bet it would have tanked, and perhaps taken some of its Oscar helium with it.

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→ March 2, 2021
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Judas and the Black Messiah.

Daniel Kaluuya’s Golden Globes win might bring some more attention to the superb Judas and the Black Messiah, available now on HBO Max, a biopic that focuses on the final months of Fred Hampton’s life by focusing equally on the man who betrayed him. It’s a different angle than a more typical biography, and I can see an argument that it gives Hampton short shrift, but the two lead performances absolutely drive this movie.

Fred Hampton (Kaluuya) was the head of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party when Edgar Hoover’s FBI decided he was a threat to the nation and, with the help of the members of the Chicago Police Department who weren’t busy assaulting protesters, executed him in his bed while his pregnant girlfriend listened from the next room. The FBI was able to do this because one of Hampton’s lieutenants, William O’Neal (LaKeith Stanfield), was an FBI informant who ratted out Hampton to avoid a felony charge of car theft. O’Neal not only provided information to his FBI handler, Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons), but slipped a sedative into Hampton’s drink the night of the execution so he’d be unable to flee or fight back.

Judas and the Black Messiah follows O’Neal’s story from his arrest to Hampton’s murder, bookending the film with footage from Eyes on the Prize II, in which O’Neal gave his only public comment on his involvement in Hampton’s assassination. The narrative focus shifts away from O’Neal to Hampton as needed, giving more time for Hampton’s character to develop, and more time for Kaluuya to show how a magnetic speaker like Hampton could develop such a strong following in such a short period of time – he first became active in social justice movements at 18, and the FBI had him executed when he was 21. (Kaluuya and Stanfield are both much older than the men they portray.)

Stanfield is the lead actor here, at least by how the film’s producers have submitted the pair’s names for awards, but most of the film’s strongest moments belong to Kaluuya. It’s unsurprising, given his superb performances in Get Out and Widows, but he is an unbelievably compelling Hampton whenever he’s speaking to any sort of crowd, friendly or hostile. Kaluuya was positively creepy in Widows as a remorseless, vindictive killer, and here he channels that same implacable calm in any situation, such as when Hampton speaks to a group of Appalachian whites, transplants in Chicago, who rallied under the Confederate flag but also shared some progressive views with the Panthers (a meeting, and subsequent alliance, that occurred in real life).

Meanwhile, despite a strong performance by Stanfield, the script doesn’t give us enough insight into why O’Neal was willing to betray Hampton, to work with the FBI and against his own community, even when he gets clear evidence that the Panthers were creating positive change. His initial willingness to sign up as an informant, avoiding what the film says would have been six years in prison, is easy to grasp, but as the demands on him grow, and he’s more entrenched within the Panther organization, why wouldn’t he balk? Where’s the hesitation beyond what the script gives us in a phone call or two where he threatens to walk away and then changes his mind when reminded of the charges hanging over his head. Stanfield is very good at portraying anguish, speaking through clenched jaws with his head slightly bowed, but there’s something lacking in the character’s portrayal here – although even the actual interview O’Neal gave shortly before his death (the same day that Eyes on the Prize II aired) fails to provide a satisfactory explanation, as he seems unwilling to confront the consequences of his own actions. It’s at least plausible that director Shaka King and writers Keith and Kenneth Lucas made an active choice to leave O’Neal’s character vague because of the paucity of information on his motivations and feelings after the fact.

Between this film and the contemporaneous The Trial of the Chicago 7, it’s a strong year for ACAB in movies (or perhaps ACCAB, since both films involve gross misconduct by Chicago police), which speaks to much of the present mood in large portions of the country even though both events took place over 50 years ago. The idea of our own government executing a 21-year-old citizen in his sleep, where the police fired 90 shots and the Panthers in the apartment fired just one, should still shock and horrify us, and Judas and the Black Messiah doesn’t shy away from the corruption and police-state authoritarianism that allowed these events to take place – and the men behind them to walk away unscathed. It’s infuriating without feeling manipulative, unlike Sorkin’s film, because Judas’ script hews far more closely to the true story. It’s a film-world crime that The Trial of the Chicago 7 got a Best Picture – Drama nomination at the Globes, and a screenplay win, when Judas received neither, something I hope is remedied when the Oscars come out with their own slate of nominees in two weeks, with Kaluuya also deserving of a nod. Judas is an imperfect film in a few ways – I could have done without some of the inside-the-FBI stuff too – but between Kaluuya’s performance and the sheer power of the story behind it, it’s one of the year’s best.

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→ February 22, 2021
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Nomadland.

Nomadland has been the front-runner for Best Picture for several months now, taking home the Golden Lion at Venice, winning Best Film or Best Picture from multiple cities’ film critics associations (Boston, Chicago, Toronto, San Francisco, Houston, DC, Dallas, Seattle, and London), and landing four nominations at the upcoming Golden Globes. It’s a very different sort of film than anything I’ve seen, layering a traditional, fictional narrative on top of a work of cinema verité, based on an acclaimed non-fiction book but with Frances McDormand delivering what might be her third Oscar-winning performance. The movie is now streaming exclusively on Hulu.

Nomadland is about vandwellers, people who have chosen, or been forced to choose, to live itinerant lives in their vans or RVs, traveling around the country and taking on seasonal or other short-term work, but avoiding the fixed lifestyle and long-term obligations of home ownership. The book, by Jessica Bruder, was non-fiction, and explored this subculture of outcasts, misfits, and nonconformists, and the movie brings in many of the same people who appeared in Bruder’s book as the backdrop for the fictional story of Fern (McDormand), who is forced into this life when her job and the company town where she lived all go away in the span of a few months in 2011. (She’s not a real character, but the town, Empire, Nevada, became a ghost town, and the factory shown in the movie is still shuttered, although the gypsum mine has since re-opened and there are about two dozen people living in Empire.)

Fran is widowed and has nothing to tether her to Empire, including, it would appear, no real ties to friends nearby, so she buys a van, refits it for nomad life, and hits the road, starting out by working at an Amazon warehouse for her first seasonal job, then connecting with a group of nomads who teach her a little about the lifestyle and offer some tips. Many of these wanderers are real vandwellers from the book – Swankie, Linda, and the evangelist of the vandwelling lifestyle, Bob Wells, whose history of failing to pay child support is not mentioned in the story. One who isn’t is David, played by David Strathairn, whose voice would give him away even if you didn’t recognize him through his unkempt hair and white beard. He’s smitten with Fern, and the two run into each other multiple times, with David trying to convince Fern to come along with him and, eventually, to join him when he decides to give up van life and settle down with his son’s family.

Director Chloe Zhao’s previous feature, The Rider, also used non-actors in most of its roles, with its protagonist playing himself, so she’s mining some familiar ground here, but it is hard to imagine this movie without McDormand in it. She is utterly essential to this film, not her story specifically but the way she inhabits this niche in our world and makes it entirely plausible that she is, in fact, Fern, a woman abandoned by fortune who is trying to avoid going over the cliff. Her portrayal of an anguished, grieving person looks so effortless and so delicate that it reminds me of when extremely athletic players (often players of color) are accused of showing too little effort when the truth is that they’re just that talented.

Zhao also films this in a way that empathizes with the vandwellers without patronizing or mocking them. This could easily be misery porn, or a screed about our broken economic system (especially around health care), or a sort of weird cautionary tale about how people end up living out of their cars. Instead, Zhao presents this world without judgment, giving us the people in it as they are, so that their humanity is at the heart of the film, not their choices, and not their misfortune.

Nomadland is also frequently gorgeous as Zhao gives us soaring landscapes across the American West and some close shots of forests or other natural vistas, including the view from what I presume was supposed to be Fern’s old house, now abandoned but still intact. The film doesn’t romanticize the vandwelling life, but there’s a certain romance in the idea of getting in a van or an RV and just driving across these great unpopulated swaths of land, without so much as a destination in mind, although I find it hard to fathom doing that alone – and that’s without the added concerns that a woman would have making the same sort of journeys by herself.

Right now, Nomadland is my #1 movie from 2020, and my wife’s as well. I’ll go out on the shortest of limbs to say it’s going to take at least four nominations at the Oscars – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Cinematography – and I can at least see why it’s the favorite to win the first one, because it’s a great movie and, in a roundabout way, speaks to the economic uncertainty of modern American life. It also gives Zhao an excellent chance to become the second woman and the first woman of color to win Best Director (Kathryn Bigelow won in 2010 for The Hurt Locker). We should see two women nominated in that category in the same year, with at least one of Regina King (One Night in Miami) and Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman) joining Zhao, which would be a first, although knowing the Academy’s history I wouldn’t be shocked to see them screw this up too and give one nod to, say, Aaron Sorkin instead.

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