Blank Check with Griffin & David - Mank with Sean Fennessey

Episode Date: November 19, 2023

Nerts! Are you folks ready to get MANK-PILLED? We advise that you start by “mankro-dosing” David Fincher’s 2020 exploration of the life and times of cantankerous screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz. The Big Picture’s Sean Fennessey joins us to chat about Fincher’s first Netflix feature, and we’re asking all the important questions. Would this film have a better reputation if it had been titled “manK!” ? Will there be a film made 40 years from now entitled “SORK” about Aaron Sorkin, David Fincher, Mark Zuckerberg, and the making of THE SOCIAL NETWORK? Is Mank the “Jabba the Hut of cynicism”? Will Griffin use this episode as another excuse to talk about The Offer? Guest Links:  Listen to The Big Picture This episode is sponsored by: Zocdoc (zocdoc.com/check)  Bombas (bombas.com/check CODE: CHECK) Uncommon Goods (uncommongoods.com/check) Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com or at teepublic.com/stores/blank-check

Manc Manc Manc Manc, Manc, Manc, Manc, Manc Manc Manc Manc, Manc, Manc, Manc, Manc I'm Gary Oldman

My name's Manc My name's Manc My name's Manc My name's Manc Amanda Seyfried She says nerds My leg is shot I drink a lot

Orson wants me to crack the plot Manking the bank. Blank check with Griffin and David. Blank check with Griffin and David. Don't know what to say or to expect. All you need to know is that the name of the show is blank check. This is a business where the buyer gets nothing for his money but a memory. What we bought still belongs to the man who sold it. That's the real magic of the podcasts.

And don't let anybody tell you different. That line is the crux of the movie. Louis Mayer. Still true today. Griffin. You ever think about that? Yeah. That's what they went on strike about.

Can I, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna come in with the hot takes right off the bat. Arliss Howard kind of underrated chameleon. Sure. In that, it's not like he transforms himself radically, but every time he shows up in a movie, it takes me a moment to notice he's Arliss Howard. Arliss Howard giving full balaban in this. He has a bit of a hear me out on this willy woolly you love to talk about willy woolly the the thing with the magnet pen i know what you're talking about where it's like he's got kind of like a good blank slate look where then anything you put on him it makes him look very

different even if it's not like a huge uh prosthetic schnoz or whatever so he's very good in this uh he's great in this yeah um i interviewed everyone involved with this movie partly why i'm teeing you up for this um and uh and sean do you have a arliss howard take you can talk yeah i love when the show starts and it's you guys and then like 38 minutes go by and someone's like, uh, hey, what's up, boys? I want to be clear. We're not going to introduce you for a while, but you can start talking. I just want to say that I love Arliss Howard, too, and I especially love his role as the demon in Natural Born Killers. You know, when there's like cutaways to the devil. So I interviewed everyone who worked on the crew, you know, all of Fincher's big collaborators for this movie, including his casting director,

who I should look up her name, but she's a legendary casting director, Griffin. Do you know who it is? I'm trying to remember who it is. And I was talking to her about, you know,

how does it work to cast a movie like this? And how does it work, you know, how do you work with Fincher? And then I brought up, like, I love, personally, just FYI,

I love Arliss Howard. And she's like, David, Iid i've had like a crush on arliss howard basically since like the 90s she cited this movie that he's in as like a romantic lead i think now he's become he's boss or he's villain or whatever but he used to be you know i think uh men don't leave oh sure yes the paul brickman movie with jessica lang yeah where she's just like i saw him in men don't leave and arliss howard has always been on top of my list since then wow yeah and of course he's in the killer yes and both of you have seen the killer i haven't seen it i haven't seen it have you seen it wow that's kind of wild that neither of you because they only showed Because they only showed it at Venice. Yeah. Every day I send a solemn email, please show me the killer, please.

And they say, maybe. I was saying to David yesterday, it is weird the degree to which it feels like Netflix is already treating that movie as an afterthought. I would agree. And like in this weird nether realm where they're like it's not really an Oscar movie and it's not really a popcorn movie do you think that's because of this movie and what this movie turned out to be

to the world I don't know because I do think I think this movie ended up having basically as I think it benefited from coming out in the weird non-oscar year i think so too as much as it maybe hasn't lingered but then it also kind of didn't within its year it landed about as hard as it ever could have landed do you think that worked against it in the the

its reputation now though like the fact that it got a bunch of oscar nominations and then people watch they're like this fucking movie what's this? Here's the thing I want to talk about a lot in this episode. And to be clear, this movie is good. Yes? What 2020 Oscar movies have not fallen into that trap? Well, now I just need to pull up a year. I'm going to say, I'm going to give a verdict on the Best Picture nominees.

Sure. No Man's Land certainly fell into that trap, I think. Absolutely. Mank, Judas and the Black Messiah. Yeah. Promising Young Woman. And the king of this category, Trial of the Chicago 7.

Yes. I think The Father and Sound of Metal are doing fine. I think those are both regarded as well-acted dramas that stayed in their lanes. The Father? The Father is hurt by him making The Son. are doing fine i think those are both regarded as like well-acted dramas that were like you know stayed in their lanes the father the father is hurt by him making the son but that's not hurt by the pandemic but the father also kind of benefits from the fact that no one had seen it when it won the oscars it doesn't really come out until 2021 when things are starting to reopen a bit right what were you gonna say well the father still hasn't been things one i'm like i'm on i'm

alone on i hate the father island i really don't like that movie at all and I felt like when the son came out I was like you see this is what this man does yeah but also I think that I really like the father but I'm worried you're right but yes go ahead I think it's also marred by the you know the ending that ceremony yeah with what was supposed to be the Chadwick Boseman win and then Anthony Hopkins won he wasn't even at the ceremony and then that left that movie in a little bit of a complicated reputational state too I'm very pro-Judas I like that movie I am too but like I think that movie got really hurt by the pandemic and I think that's a good movie yes and that like kind of would have been a hit I think it would have been a little bit of

a crossover at the box office released under normal times it is weird that i feel like most people forget or don't know that daniel kaluuya someone that's basically accepted by everyone as one of the most exciting young stars is an oscar winner right it's the lebron asterix you know championship as well it's the same thing so this is my pandemic oscars this is why I was like I was thinking on this in the way that like in February 2021, it felt like such an embarrassing boondoggle to restructure the show around what seemed like the Chadwick win catharsis. And then it ends up being this Anthony Hopkins twist. If the Oscar had gone to Chadwick, I think people also would kind of forget that had happened. Maybe it would have been emotional in the moment. And I think it would have kind of been that had happened. Maybe. It would have been emotional in the moment, and I think it would have kind of been lost to the sands of time. Yeah.

I think people would remember that a little bit. But that movie is also... They would definitely remember it better than... Was it Joaquin? Joaquin gives it to Hopkins. But, like, not. So just Joaquin standing on stage being like, uh, all right, I'll'll see you and then the camera

pans over to quest love because the show had no host and he's like well that's been the oscars i really thought it was like now soderbergh like being the producer of that that it was one of the great strokes of genius that the academy has had and and i still love soderbergh so much but boy he kind of biffed that one it just didn't't work. I stand by those Oscars being good. I think they're really good, except for the end. Was it Mythistic? I also think they were always going to be weird, and he made them compellingly weird.

Glenn Close did the butt. She did the butt. Do you remember, Sean, do you remember that Glenn Close did the butt? I do remember that. That was funny. And then she did the butt. And that was the Hillbilly Elegy year? Yes. We really have to stop thinking about 2020 but not this week this is the problem

i will say i had a weird sensation uh firing up this movie last night on netflix and i what i experienced was closer to deja vu than rewatching a movie. Because, like, I was just remembering watching this movie previously in such a daze. Sure. You know? Yeah. Where it didn't feel like, well, I'm revisiting a film. It felt like, why do I feel like this has happened before? Right.

It almost felt like an out-of-body experience. Because today we're talking about a 2020 film. I don't know how often 2020 movies are going to come up on this podcast as a weird lost year. This is what we're talking about. There were some 2020 releases we covered in

2020. But it was a year that a lot of major filmmakers skipped. A lot of movies got held off for. Maybe we do Chloe Zhao someday.

If we ever do Spike Lee, Five Bloods, which I think is the best film of that year. I'm looking at these Oscar nominations and I'm like, is there a single

blank check director amongst this crew other than David Fincher? I think we might do Charlie Kaufman one day, maybe? Oh, sure. Oh, I love that movie.

Me too. I think that movie is a little divisive too. That's a great movie. I agree. But that, what, Five Bloods gets the score nomination?

Yeah. So it got one, and Thinking of Ending Things got zero. Sad. Yeah. Greengrass? Would you do Greengrass? News of the World? Fuck, talk about a movie I forgot.

You know what? That movie is not bad. I agree. Yeah. But truly, yes. This is the curse, though. Forgotten. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. And I, like, my fond memories of 2020 movies are almost exclusively the couple of things that came out in the first 10 weeks. Right. I mean, Tenet. Yeah. Well, we love Tenet.

That happened. And we'll re-Tenet someday, probably. Maybe we should re-Tenet. Re-Tenet? Yeah. Do another Tenet? Why not? Okay.

I don't even know what to say about that. Listen, this is a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. And if you play this episode backwards, you'll find out we were friends all along. It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce.

Baby, this is a miniseries on the films of David Fincher. It is called The Curious Pod of Benjamin Buttcast. Correct. Today we are talking about not his biggest check, but maybe in a certain way his blankest and the one he was trying to cash for so long. And it is a movie about one of the greatest blank check situations of all time.

Yes, sort of. Which is interesting. That's true. You're right. The situation is blank checky. We've covered very few movies about blank checks. We covered blank check.

Yes. Which is, in fact, about... You know, a blank check. A very blank check. Yes. No, you're right. You're right. It's about Citizen Kane, which was a blank check. It was. It was RKO wrote him a blank check. A very blank check. Yes. No, you're right. You're right. It's about Citizen Kane,

which was a blank check. Yeah. It was. It was RKO wrote him a blank check. And not only that, but people were like, this is unprecedented.

What do you mean you're giving him complete creative control? Right. He has a green light for any subject he chooses. Right. Yeah.

The film Mank. We're talking Mank. We're Mank in the Mank. One of three David Fincher films that has been nominated for Best Picture. Right? Yeah. And his legacy is that

two of his three Best Picture nominees people tend to put at the bottom of the list. Right. Right? Sean, would you agree? I'm not saying you agree personally. Is that a Benjamin Button question? Yeah, Button. Yeah. We like Button. We did a very pro-Button, Button. Yeah. We like Button. Just so you know. We're very pro.

We did a very pro Button episode. I haven't heard it yet. I look forward to hearing it. You know, I'm still not really sold on Button. It's a weird movie. When's the last time you buttoned up, Sean? I've been unbuttoned for a minute. It's been a long time.

Was it seven years? But it feels a lot longer. You did like Long Island Medium there. I did bad. That was like Linda Rich time. Was it seven years, but it feels a lot longer? You did like Long Island Medium there. I did bad. That was like Linda Richmond. Do it. Go on. Go on, Griff.

Seven, but it feels a lot longer. There you go. He's more like a bayou creature from Princess and the Frog. That's what he sounds like. Introduce our guest. Our guest today, of course, from The Ringer, from the ringer from the big picture the great sean fantasy returning to the show to mank the mank hi boys one of america's preeminent mank defenders this was my favorite movie of 2020 yeah was it really sean it was god i don't remember

that yeah and um having revisited it to spend some time with you guys, I feel actually even better about it in many ways. Wow. Hell yeah. So I'm really excited to talk. Now I'm looking at your top 10. Yeah.

Like, Sean, do you still have Nomadland in your top 10? I do, and I really believe in it, but where was Nomadland? That movie suffered for me slightly on rewatch.

I do like that movie. It did for me too. I have it at five, but I would have redo this list if I could, honestly. I mean, that's always true. There me too. I have it at five, but I would have redone, I would redo this list if I could, honestly, but I,

there's just, I got a lot of personal stuff in Nomadland. You know, sometimes you get a movie and you're like, you know what, there's a lot of personal

stuff that I associate with that movie and I'm just, it's going to stay where it's going to stay in my mind's eye. That's my thing. I think I really felt.

Damn, Sean, you watch a lot of shit. Jesus Christ. And I'm a professional film critic what are you looking at the hell is some of this stuff oh that i saw well that year i mean that year you could watch every tough year what else was a tough year this was also the last time i

didn't have a kid so that's that's the other yeah and also we were kind of inside a lot yeah we were yes we were all bo burnhaming out of control that year. Sean, you did on Big Picture, you took like a little summer break and your feed was taken over with, do we get to win this time? And there was the episode where you came back and you and Amanda were like doing a roundup on things you had seen while the show was on hiatus. And I was like, oh, they'll cover like five movies. And you listed like 15 new releases you had seen. Yeah. You're supposed to be taking a vacation i have a disease you're putting up real numbers but if you guys are if

you guys are mocking me about that then i actually feel bad i'm not mocking you i saw some dog shit i saw plenty of bad and stupid movies and look it looks like I watched 108 movies in 2020, new releases in 2020. So, yeah, I'm the same as you. I watched, I think, 450 episodes of The Simpsons in 2020. You sure did. And tried to avoid movies because they depressed me. What were you going to say, Sean? I just, I don't watch as many movies as I did at this time.

That being said, like, I don't do drugs. I do movies. You know what I mean? Like, I don't have addictions. Speaking my language. This is my thing. So, you know, I don't do drugs. I do movies. You know what I mean? Like, I don't have addictions. Speak in my language. This is my thing. So, you know, I feel good about it. I don't have any regrets.

I saw Saw X at 10 o'clock in the morning yesterday. I felt good about that. Sean, Saw X, good. Yeah, I was not expecting the Jigsaw empathy game, but we got there. We got there. The ultimate trap. They dared give Jigsaw a cute kid sidekick. Ten movies in,

he has a Mexican ten-year-old soccer-playing sidekick in that movie, who he literally just kind of gives a high-five after subjecting people to traps and death and all that. The final shot is hilarious. It's like a Malick movie. The final shot is

hysterical. Does he let the kid ride the tricycle he should he only brings out the tricycle halfway through because the whole thing with saw x is he's there the whole time right and the tricycle is sort of his uh usually it's his proxy so when he wheels out the tricycle you're like wow they just didn't realize they didn't know how to do this yeah So they just have him wheel it out at some point. It's not integrated into the plot. They should have Jigsaw ride a huge tricycle. That'd be good. Yeah, himself.

Put the makeup on. Little suit, yeah. Yeah, Saw X good. I've seen Saw X twice, Sean. I saw that TV. What the hell? What do you think of that? Was that necessary?

My friend really wanted to see it, and we binged all the saw that TV. What the hell? What do you think of that? Was that necessary? My friend really wanted to see it, and we binged all the saws together before this one came out, but he couldn't make the press screening with me, and so I was like, don't worry, I'll see Saw X. This was, by the way, coming, Sean, after we had to do a semi-serious reshuffling of record schedule to allow Sims first crack at Saw X.

So I could write about it. He wanted the first screening possible. I compared him to like Elaine Stritch or whatever. We had a bunch of recorded set. We had to move things around in such a complicated order. In almost a Saw X chronological

disfigurement. But if anybody understands, Griffin, it's you and I, that David's little mission to watch all those movies again, you know, that's normal stuff. That's okay. That's like, that's what

cool movie guys do. That's who who we are super super normal uh yeah no people were like that's so weird they're gonna do saw on patreon that's so many films i'm like you don't think that david just does shit like this saw is good we'll never do it on patreon too many us watching those in this room we would actually go go insane. We'd lose our mind. Our studio, look, the Czech Republic, our offices, they serve our needs very well, but you spend too much time and they really do feel like a sawdra. The walls start to close. The walls start to close.

All right, Sean. So you loved Mink in 2020. I did. You've rewatched it for this podcast. I did. Had you rewatched it in between then and now? I watched it four times in the oscar season of 2020 to 2021 because i okay because i felt a little bit like i was going insane where all of my people honestly except for you david were like this isn't good and and i didn't

understand that and i felt like in many ways it was kind of a summation of the fincher project not necessarily from a genre perspective but like how he sees the world and i got to the end of that and i was like i'm really just i really get this it's imperfect and there are things about it that i don't think work and you can talk about those things but um revisiting it and especially like hearing some of his comments about the world in the last couple years um i really feel like this is a guy who feels stuck between two ideologies the way that mank feels stuck between two ways of seeing the world in the movie and so it really it feels like a very realistic summation of his dad's influence on him and him as a as a as an artist yeah let's take another thing that i think has to be like talked about

i think the thing that gives this movie to be like talked about i think the thing that gives this movie a certain weight that it didn't have three years ago or additional a different weight go ahead fincher is like one of the people partially responsible as like an architect of netflix's dominance sure he really let them not he knew what he was doing. Yeah, making House of Cards, yeah. But he set a precedent, a template. He lent them Caché. He got Frank. He got Frank.

He was like the first guy to cash out on the, you'll make a lot more money if you sell to Netflix than if you did it at a quote-unquote normal place. And your name will be, your name is everything that they desire. Right. They need to point to WeWorkWithSeriousArtists to lure in more people. Right. And need to point to we work with serious artists to lure in more people. Right.

And it's true. And when that was announced, the response was, what do you mean Netflix is buying a show? Yeah. Well, you're right.

Yeah. That's why, yeah, that's why I do think it's amazing they made this movie about art and commerce in Hollywood for Netflix, of course.

We can talk about that uh when i at the point when the studios are like i don't know if we fund your movies anymore those fuckers um when i saw this in 2020 i felt like you sean i watched it multiple times because i was doing a big story on it but i was like i love this was so afraid to re-watch yeah its reputation is not improved no no people have basically been like mank mid you know to mid to bad yes i fire and i'm like you know and plus we set this schedule this recording kind of late and so i had to kind of like throw mank on in the evening and i was like ah god is this gonna be like boring yeah the minute mank starts i'm like i'm hooting and hollering. This movie is fun. Am I insane for thinking this movie is an airy delight?

But Griffin, I don't know what, I honestly, I don't know what you think of this movie. I'm pointing this to Griffin because I don't know how he feels. Yeah, I mean, I was like trying really hard to not get stuck in this rut. But I did like watch this movie and have the flashback to how i felt in 2020 where i'm like i cannot stop thinking about how angry i am that i never got to see this in a theater and this was my problem sean when we were in like 2020 and i like opted out of most of the oscar films and when we did our awards at the end there was like a list of like 20 major quote-unquote major movies that i hadn't seen when i'm usually so compulsive about like checking all those boxes. And I did watch this at the time, but so many of

them, I was like watching the thing I would have wanted to see in theaters depresses me more than if I'm just watching things that I maybe would have otherwise waited to see on an airplane, which then started to get prioritized for me in 2020 streaming. And I watched this movie in a better mental state than when I saw it in like November, December of 2020. But I just kept on getting hit by like, I don't feel like I had a proper first watch of this movie and I was struggling to engage with it fresh. I've been told it would have been amazing in a theater. That's all the crew guys told me. So you were saying, David, like this movie didn't get any theatrical release. And I know that is false because it is a regret of mine that when New York, which was the last state to reopen theaters in America. It was one of the last for sure. Cuomo was very uninterested in reopening theaters. opening theaters but new jersey reopened in like november we of course ended up going to the curasotes theater to see tenant um but uh there was a point where the studios weren't feeding any

new movies in and there was a theater in new jersey right that was only playing like the six netflix it was small rainy it was this right and i was just like Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. And I was just like, fuck, do I, like, get a $60 Uber to go to New Jersey to see Mink by myself? And I chickened out on it. And I wish I had. Sean, I'm assuming you did not see this movie in the theater either. I didn't. I'm trying to think of, at that time, I saw... They just put it on my Netflix.

I saw Trial of the Chicago 7 at a drive-in. And Netflix did do a couple things like that out here. I saw Nomadland at a drive-in as well that was sponsored by the Telluride Film Festival, which that was supposed to be the big film at Telluride that year. And so they did a drive-in thing at the Rose Bowl, which was cool. But they didn't do it for Mank. So that's a bummer. Yeah. Not to foreground the pandemic of it all.

Like, I like this movie i feel like i'm sort of dead in the middle between you guys and the people who totally dismiss it yeah and i wish i was like totally mink pilled mink and i don't know if it's just the like try mangrove dosing okay mangrove that's mangrove dosing five minutes of mank a day yeah you know just sort of let him seep into your system right because sometimes it's harder to portion mink out with edibles my friend carolyn came up with that that's really funny um have to shout her out okay let me give you guys some material from the dossier because of course this film is the longest period fincher goes without making a movie is between gone girl and mink six years right painful right painful i mean obviously it is you know it is it completely

sucks now the first thing he did really get stuck on though of course was utopia yes which i think was going to be a tv show i mean obviously it ended up being a no he comes out of uh gone girl and sets up a deal with hbo yeah and sets up two tv shows immediately i think with a plan for a third uh yes right but he's doing the utopia adaptation which rooney mara was going to star and he's going to do for hbo yes and then eventually moves to amazon without him or rooney mara video synchrocy which was his uh series about the rise of the music video industry that's the one i really wanted that is the one which filmed several episodes before they pulled the plug carrie condon paz vega corbin bernson yeah come on give me corbin yeah you think he would have done coke in that show no of course not impossible

um so yeah that got shut down for no good reason really they right that it was like 2015 they just were sort of like we need to work on the scripts this isn't working has killed so many things that seem interesting yeah and like things like you know that legendary what's it called seven miles a bad road or it's like that's in the can like that's the lily tomlin no one ever saw it no but it was like you know fincher was coming off of three films four consecutive films that were basically crossover hits at the box office, were Oscar players to one degree or another, and then suddenly it's like Hollywood's like,

this guy's too complicated. It's not worth it anymore. He goes to HBO. It was sort of like, before streaming was the threat, it was like, why is this guy going there? And it felt like not only is he going there, but he's doubling down, setting up multiple projects.

And then all of them get stuck on the runway. Utopia, I think he said basically boiled down to a difference of like $8 million. Yeah, that's what he said. And to be fair, he's always the one being like, I wanted a few extra million dollars. And the other guys are like, he wanted $100 million or whatever.

I think that's it for all of these shows. And think that that is why the netflix thing happened is because they were like you know what okay every time on the budget obviously steve jobs was something that he was the first choice for but they they shut him out because apparently he wanted too much money for it i think he wanted 45 and they ended up making it like 30. Yeah. Like, Amy Pascal really wanted him to make the Angelina Jolie Cleopatra movie. A movie that's definitely going to happen. That would have obviously ended up just like, they would have like, I don't know, Egypt would have sunk into the sand if they tried to make that. Like, he'd still be making it today.

I forgot about this. He and Gillian Flynn were going to remake remake strangers on a train with affleck with affleck and the farley granger i think it was gonna be a pretty loose adaptation i think they were sort of gonna use it as springboard uh any thoughts on that sean i you know i don't i think that he's been doing a great job of being a reasonable heir to hitchcock so the idea of him kind of reconstituting hitchcock is kind of boring to me, honestly, as much as I desperately want him and Affleck to do something again. Yes. Because that would be fun to work together.

I agree with that. This is also the era, though, where outside of the HBO stuff getting set up, every movie he's attaching himself to is like more IP. Yes. He's trying to find. Look, he's obviously been in a bestse ip yes he's trying to find look he's obviously been in a bestseller book which he said to me when i interviewed him this is like he was like right i just would find bestsellers because that would be enough right and then that stopped being enough if i find ip that already has my thematic interest and it's a bestseller so i can convince the studio and then they stopped caring about that yeah of, the strangest thing that he almost made is World War Z 2.

Right. Which I have heard he was like really close to doing. And people I know who were like kind of in the loop on what he was developing were like, look, he was using that as a way to get the money to play around and do what the fuck he wanted. But his ideas were really cool and interesting. I'm sure they were. Can I ask you a question about that? I didn't see him doing that. If there was not so much public knowledge of the kind of crisis of the making of the first World War Z, do you think that he would have made the second World War Z? Because I feel like normal moviegoers were like, I heard this movie was a fucking mess.

Yeah. Yes, that movie became notorious. Although it did okay. It was a big hit. It did. Right, it made money. I do think even normal people were like i heard this yes was sort of a calamity production yeah but i think it was that weird

thing where you're like the movie ended up doing well i guess people kind of liked it there's not a burning desire but also like why not just make another brad pitt zombie movie if everyone's down you can kind of sell that like it's its own thing. I just think World War Z 2 is a terrible title. It is. They would have had to think of something else. Obviously the things he does make

are Mindhunter, which cements his relationship with Netflix, and that thing Love, Death, and Robots, which I'm going to be honest I've never seen. No, and I know people love.

It's okay. I've watched it. Yeah, do you think it's okay? I mean, that sort of is him finding a way to do what he always wanted to do with heavy metal which he kept on trying to get off the ground as an omnibus sort of platform for people like tim miller and a lot of his protégés and then uh no the other two projects that like he kept on trying to go back to were rendezvous with rama right which is the Arthur C. Clarke book.

Yes, now Denis Villeneuve is obsessed with making that. But that Morgan Freeman had the rights to and was always trying to get Fincher on to do. And they always were like, look, it's an expensive movie that doesn't sell toys and it's not for kids. It's very adult sci-fi. It's hard to sell.

Right. But anytime he had a hit, he'd like kind of push it again and people would say no. Right. And then the other one was him trying to do the Disney 2000 uh two thousand leagues twenty thousand leagues under the sea right two thousand leagues would be terrible poor barely get under the sea that's the prequel yeah that's if you're really slicing the salami very thin um but that was stephen knight supposed to write that for him i don't fucking know it's not even in here his thing but because that was like a 15 year

decades right he was trying to do it with brad pitt and i think brad pitt passed and disney was like we'll only green light it if you get brad pitt or someone of his level yeah and his thing was he was like i was obsessed with empire strikes back i wanted to see if there was a way to make a blockbuster that's that dark right and i think they would only green light it if he got cruiser pitt or clinton i'd always thought about trying to do an what if episode of the big picture like an unmade movies for all the great directors but then you guys just showed me that that's not a good idea because it's just like well it didn't happen like what can you even say

problem is it didn't happen yeah is but always the answer right i guess you could like fantasy cast some of them but obviously some of them had people attached uh will smith was attached to that at one point apparently sure that's like a caliber you know and a columbia guy obviously i feel like in this era of like dune and the creator and all these other movies though isn't it time for him to do a 200 million dollar adult sci-fi movie like let him fucking do it but i do think he's not gareth edwards it will cost 200 million Right. But it'll be good. Yes. So let him do it. Yeah.

I would love for him to not make a Netflix movie. I'm sorry. Like, I like Mank and I'm excited for The Killer, but I would love for him to make a studio film again. I think that would be nice. Really badly. Okay. We all know David Fincher.

Yes. Did you know he has a father? Jack Fincher! I thought it was Anthony Hopkins. That's the only father I've heard of. So Jack Fincher, a journalist, worked for Life magazine for many years, was obsessed with Citizen Kane in the way that many people are, I guess. He showed his son a 60mm version of it in film appreciation class

when he was 12 years old, I guess. And, you know, I think Fincher's a big influence. Jack is a big influence on David. Exposing him to stuff. Yeah, showing him big movies when they're teenagers, you know. Sean, I saw that you recently logged a rewatch of Citizen Kane on Letterboxd.

Have you guys seen Citizen Kane? Oh my God. Pretty good. Here's the thing with that movie. I think the last time I rewatched it was probably in preparation for make, the first time. I rewatched it this week.

Cool. I think it is incredibly well made. Yeah, it's good. Cool. I think it is incredibly well made. Yeah, it's good. But the filmmaking in it is really strong. Oh, boy. What were your Kane thoughts on this rewatch, Sean? It's on the short list of movies I've seen well over 20 times. I've seen a lot.

To David's point about Mank,k i'm like this thing moves man like this thing is so fun it's on it's on rails like it's just really exciting and funny and looks amazing obviously and it's 80 years old and as you guys know there are not a lot of movies that are 80 years old that have that pace so i've i was into it i think there are i think 40s movies are fun but that one particularly still feels entirely modern in a way that is astonishing and like you can re-watch it every couple of years and be like it's still kind of ahead of the curve it's the one movie like that where people who are like yeah i know i should watch that homework and i'm like you're gonna have fun enjoy yourself um so apparently jack reads pauline kale's infamous raising cane essay uh which is the essay that sort of starts the debate on who deserves the

most credit for citizen kane's screenplay it's a very slanted and uh factually inaccurate i would say sort of the take these days, right? A take on Herman Mankiewicz being sort of like the primary author of Citizen Kane's screenplay. Right? Like, now I feel like everyone agrees that Kale's maybe a little too slanted towards Mank. Right?

Okay, here's my question about that. Why? Like, why what is the origin of the axe grinding in raising cane like what wait why did where did this kale want to take down wells yeah kale and whatever john houseman's influences and like ultimately why does wells become the target because it's core it's very related to what this movie is and how people receive this movie and i so it's a little bit of a mystery to me why she was like you know what we gotta take wells down a notch it's a book-length essay have either of you read raising

yes i have i read it for this film i i read it i think yes back when i was prepping to interview fincher i had maybe read excerpts of it before then. And she was a huge, you know, Cale is the non-auteurist in a way. Like, you know, if Andrew Sarris is the king of the auteur critics,

you know, auteurist critics, she's the other opposite and she's, you know, I think coming at this as like screenwriters are like the most abused class in Hollywood, like especially back

in the 30s or 40s where people barely even got credit for their work, right? Most of of manquist's most famous screenplays he's not even credited for in the 30s and 40s because it was just like you know yeah you know come on do a polish you know and um she meets with john houseman uh that's his name right yes yep uh in the 60s and he is very much like you know no one ever gives manc credit like he's the one who fucking pumped out 300 pages and then wells rewrote it sure but like it's all it all came from manc well i the personal ties that manc has the material is

obviously the thing that makes it kind of alluring to be like well this makes more sense coming out dramatically fascinating right yes obviously and um but is is part of it sort of the i don't know like i'm interested in what you're getting at sean which is like i love orson welles filmography right uh there is this narrative of like he was the boy wonder and they gave him the blank check and then he kind of never got it again. And none of his movies ever really connected in the same way. Hollywood abused him. They took Ambersons away from him. All that stuff. And I think he made several.

Masterpieces. Yes. But also there's no other movie he made that is like Citizen Kane. There is a unique like voice to it. Sure. That is clearly the influence of like collaboration um the thing obviously the essay comes out it's huge sean go ahead well just the thing i can't wrap my head around is one i agree with what you just said griffin two did kale who is not really

a journalist you know kale is a critic no but she's attempting to kind of you know formulate this kind of critical journalism around this idea this kind of discovery that in fact mankiewicz is the primary author of this movie that we many people consider like one of the five most important american movies ever made if not number one yeah and she's like i'm a journalist i got the real story because i talked to the producer of the movie and she presents this in a way that it's like a finding. But there's a definitive, right? Yeah, there's no forensic analysis really here. It's just like, I heard a story once and I'm a really, I'm the film critic of my time.

So I'm just going to argue it. But what motivated her other than just having a lunch and being influenced by someone? I'm kind of fascinated by that. The other main voice, UCLA professor Howard Su suber who had done a lot of research on kane and is relating a lot of stuff to her sure but yes i think it's mostly like her fervent defense she has long said i mean she's dead now i hate to break this to you guys but she's not still saying this she's not saying anything like pauline kale is kind of like a total G who rules. And you'll read her like, you know, ripping fucking Raiders of the Lost Ark like a new asshole. And you'll be like, she's wrong, but like, I'm loving reading this.

It's a sample of a thing I think more people could benefit from keeping in their mind, which is like, you don't need to agree with someone to find value in what they're saying. Especially in the world of film discourse i am a new york critic and at this point even like the famous paulettes like david edelstein or owen gleiberman or whoever you know like her acolytes are quite old paulie paulette from ncis go on uh but you still kind of feel her influence yeah and which is crazy yeah and i kind of long a lot of shit posters just trying to be... Yeah, it's true. They wish they were Pauline. And you kind of long for those days you hear about in the 60s

where they're having parties and being intellectuals and getting shit-faced and whatever they were on to. Throwing verbal haymakers at each other. Right, you know, like throwing drinks at each other or whatever they were doing.

So here's another thing, though. But she calls him... Yeah. Cale calls him yeah uh kale calls him basic mankiewicz uh like a person who wrote about 40 of the films best films of the 20s and 30s a key linking figure right in the kinds of movies i love the linking figure thing is the interesting thing and also because so much of his like work is hard to fully trace back to him you can kind of make this argument of like was he just to some degree

touching everything that was getting made either directly or indirectly right especially with like the cabal of other literary guys he was recruiting into hollywood and sort of like building in his model um raising cane to be clear is not if not entirely discredited essentially seen as not rigorous enough for it's like how definitive it is peter mcdanovich famously wrote a big rebuttal essay jonathan rosenbaum later alleged that orson welles wrote that whole essay and published it under mcdanovich's name um but you know in which he he contested a lot of this stuff the ultimate fact is in my opinion manank is basically giving you what we know, which is, Mankiewicz definitely holed up in a house,

wrote a gigantic screenplay called American that was a zillion pages long. Having been commissioned to do so by Orson Welles. Right. Welles then takes it and starts working on it.

And it's almost an act of self-sabotage. Yes, where he's like, I'm going to fucking lay it all out there and I'm going to make fun of my pal, you know, William Randolph Hearst and all that. Yes, where he's like, I'm going to fucking lay it all out there and I'm going to make fun of my pal, you know,

William Randolph Hearst and all that. Write a script that's basically unfilmable, that's basically declaring war against the most powerful people in the media. He gives it to Wells.

Wells is like, great, I have a blank check. I'm now going to start working on, you know, I'll tinker with this. Yeah. And as he's doing that, Mankiewicz is like,

I actually want credit. I never have done this before. I've worked on a million things, but I do want credit for this one. And he gets it and he wins an oscar yeah and he's credited with wells but wells definitely also worked on the script of citizen kane yeah he didn't just like put it in his pocket and go like now i'll film it and take all the credit ha ha ha right one day i'll voice a planet in a transformers movie. Yes. His best performance. I think, I'm curious if there's another, obviously, there's

like the Kale anti- auteurist, right? Like, this is a hill for her to die on in order to make a larger point. Right. Which is like, we shouldn't buy into the idea that the director is the author of every movie, so why not use this as an example? I also think there's...

Andrew Sarris writing about citizen kane also basically invents right her theory or helps in the 50s like he's the one who quote unquote rediscovers citizen kane is there something to this being like a film world analog to the the shakespeare conspiracy theories thing where it's just like we just don't want to accept like this guy one guy was amazing this was his first movie right right right not even like well actually orson welles was like a fucking con artist and a fake and had no substance but just the idea of like we can't believe he was just kind of like touched by god and made this perfect object right yeah there's something humbling of like the idea of like well he had a

drunk in a bed typing shit out sean what do you think well it's important to look at it in in this context and and in the context of what you were describing griffin about his other movies which are all kind of masterpieces but almost all of them especially in that middle period where he's a little bit on the outskirts of hollywood are adaptations they're adaptations of novels the trial shakespeare they're you know he was gonna do hearts of darkness heart of darkness instead of kane and you know so in a way this is him adapting an experience that herman mankowitz had like mank being inside the hearst inner circle and then iterating on that story as a story about power influence media vanity

whatever kane is about all these other things it's just him adapting his version of shakespeare so like both things can be true i think you're right that's why kale is arguing the case because she's like we need to demythologize a tourist theory that this is a thing that is overstated but she she goes too far and then that leads to a lot of controversy to me i would be like i would tell encourage people to read the making of citizen kane by robert carringer that's the book that is like the definitive text that debunks kale's book and also gives you all the info that you need around how that movie was made battle over citizen kane is also the the excellent documentary that then was remade i rewatched both of those for them.

You did? I did a lot of fucking prep this week. RKO 281? Yes. How is that movie? I haven't seen it, you know, in 20 years or whatever. It is very watchable.

It is really funny to watch as a chaser for this movie because they present Mank as, like, such a cuck. A pain in the ass, right. Who plays Mank in that? Malkovich. Oh, wow.

Yeah, I mean, I could see it. He's just playing, like, ineffectual Malkovich oh wow yeah i mean i could see it he's just playing like ineffectual malkovich where he's like orson come on we shouldn't write this movie and orson's just like shut up and drink more right and it's liev who's just kind of doing liev just being a different intense handsome guy with a deep voice right there's two ways to play orson welles that's one the other one is what you're doing here where it's like pinking the brain voice on a guy who looks like Orson Welles.

Which I think Liev Schreiber is pretty solid in RKO 281, but Orson Welles is so distinctive that if you're not doing him, it's actually distracting.

It's more distracting than trying to do him and missing it. I think it's also just fun to do him. Yeah. Like, what's more fun than doing an Orson Welles impression? I believe Schreiber should now do a movie

about the wine commercial. What were you going to say, Sean? Who does the best Orson, do you think? Well, I mean, to me, like, Vincent D'Onofrio in Ed Wood with Pinky and the Brain Voice is the best Orson Welles. I do like the performance in that fucking Linklater movie.

Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Christian McKay is pretty good. McKay, yeah, yeah it's really good that movie is kind of whatever but he is great but he's playing young wells so he can kind of get away with not being totally you know the movie guy yet right you know i think burke's wells is very good he's good i think he's really good but the movie isn't that interested in him in a way where he gets to cook in the way that other guys playing well. Wow. Schreiber lost to Lemon for Tuesdays with Mari. Wow.

He got his ass kicked by Mari. Wow. Oh, man. That is the worst. Tuesdays with Mari, I think, is the worst piece of art ever filmed. Have you seen that fucking thing? Make the case. Make the case.

Make the case. It just sucks. I'm not going to make the case. Didn't someone, didn't, what director, didn't a real director make that yeah uh let's see is it mark reidel let's see who made with who saves with mari you're right though sean it's one even better than mick jackson the guy who made the bodyguard among other stuff volcano la story temple grandin with mari yeah he made threads yeah yeah mick jackson is fascinating weird yeah because i think he's he's english right i think he's one of those guys like Yeah, he made threads Mick Jackson is fascinating Weird career Yeah, because I think he's English, right?

I think he's one of those guys like, I'll shoot this piece of shit for you He gives a shit, you know Fucking Maury, sit over there You know, whatever Right, the kind of journeyman director who thinks his job is annoying Yeah, my hang is there He's like, what's my motivation? It's fucking Tuesday Seeing Maury again

Look at the calendar and fucking exit off wednesday's tomorrow yesterday was monday that's your fucking direction the coast used to be toast i was making volcano movies the coast was toast so jack fincher apparently wrote a lot of spec scripts. Okay. Fincher, David says that, this is going to be confusing, David says that Jack, apparently, Rock Hudson was interested once in a spec script he wrote, but it fizzled out. Weird, okay.

In like the 60s. Yeah. His dad retires from journalism in the early 90s, and he, you know, is doing, like, you know, he'd written, I think, a novel that he'd never published or whatever. And he says to David, like, I'm thinking of writing a script. Like, what would you be interested by? Like, what's a story?

And Fincher, David, is like, I've always been fascinated by the friction between Mank and Wells. No one's ever told that story. So that's why Fincher was so hung up on this script and not trying to make any of his dad's other unmade screenplays right i mean it would be funny if his dad wrote a screenplay about like you know a brain that takes over los angeles like some like completely goofy shit i don't know please make my dad's brain script and david says the script that jack presents to him is limited in scope it's about a great writer who's obliterated from memory by a showboating megalomaniac. Like, David is very upfront that, like, Jack's script is way less pro-war.

It's way more pro-Mank. Yeah. Like, it's Eric Roth who really wrote this movie. No offense to Jack Fincher, R.I.P., who died 20 years ago. And he came in and put a lot more nuance into it, I think. But it's like an anti-Mink situation. What do you mean it's an anti-Mink situation? Well, it's sort of like the opposite

of what this movie is depicting. Oh, sure. This movie is arguing, like, here's the guy who built the foundation of the script and someone else kind of came in and took a lot of the credit for it. And this is Fincher being like, Eric Roth, do me a solid.

I'm not going to give you the screenplay credit. Right. Well, I'm sure Eric Roth was gentlemanly and was like, I would never take your debts. I'll give you like a producer credit or whatever he gets in EP credit. I'm sure he got taken care of. Right.

But it's like, it's the opposite of this movie, which is not only do I want this made, I want the credit and I want to go down in history. Every five minutes in Eric's Roth life, a man appears with a bag filled with gump money and just hands it over. Here's your newest delivery of gump money. That's the story too on Killers of the Far Moon.

It's like Scorsese had him come in, he writes this script, it's a very strict adaptation of the book, and then Scorsese's like, you know what, this isn't a good idea, we're going to reframe this completely, and Scorsese rewrites it. We're literally tearing almost all of this out.

Rip it up. Do you think Eric Roth gets a commission on every shrimp? Every Bubba Gump shrimp? Yeah. He should. On every individual shrimp sold? That's my question. Or do you think he doesn't want to be acknowledged as the creator of Bubba Gump specifically?

It says on the menu, written by Eric Roth. Right. So Fincher says, I had just finished making alien 3 i've handed this script that my dad wrote about all powerful directors ruining storytelling and fincher gave this one interview early on and then everyone got mad at him and sean do you remember the details of this because like i feel like he came off in one interview as being too pro-mank and anti-wells okay right early on the the cycle, you mean?

Yes. Yeah. And then a lot of film nerds yelled at him. And he was like, I'm not, like, you know, I'm not so simple-minded about this. I promise. Like,

because I remember when I interviewed him, he just stayed on the phone and he was like, I need to relitigate a bunch of shit I said in the Vulture interview. Interesting. Or something like that. I want to say it was New York Mag.

I feel like it was. Yes think it was new york magazine yeah um but uh you know fincher eventually as he's revisiting this idea he's like i'm really interested by this character who's like a pinball who gets bounced around hollywood right you know he's connected to a bunch of stuff he thinks it's beneath him and then there's this one crazy moment where he actually gets to do his best best because, you know, Orson Welles. Has this blank check. Yeah. And, you know, it's like the crucial dramatic idea in this movie, I think, is why does he finally go like, actually, I want credit.

Please once. Can I get the credit? No, maybe I'm about to be corrected on this. Okay. Because Lord knows, Reddit's wrong about a lot of things. Great. But I feel like I saw someone on our subreddit,

a hive of scum and villainy, say that Fincher is the first director we've covered who does not have a single writing credit on one of his movies. I mean, I'm not sure. We'd have to go through and really get everything. He certainly never has a writing credit on his films. Right.

Even though I think he, you know. And even though we've covered a lot of directors who are not primarily writers or write a lot of their things. And Fincher's obviously very hands-on in developing his scripts and commissioning scripts. Did Bigelow ever write a script? She did, right?

I think she gets at least story-by-credit on a few of them. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, largely you're right. We do cover... Well, Burton never really... But he gets story-by-credit. He gets a story-credit a couple times. On Scissorhands and Nightmare.

Right. And Fincher could probably... Bigelow wrote a lot of movies. Fincher, if he wanted to, probably could have fought for story-credit on a lot of his films because he's so often commissioning scripts or developing them very hands-on, but he never fights for them. That's an interesting thing to consider in this movie

for a guy who is seen as such an auteur that's really revelatory about the show you guys are making too that you're so drawn to bizarre those kinds of artists i mean i'll be honest i i don't think i had realized that was particularly the case and i know that in a case of like i didn't either andrew kevin walker for example i'm sure that fin particularly the case. And I know that in the case of like Andrew Kevin Walker, for example, I'm sure that Fincher is co-writing some of that stuff that they've done together. But that's a big reason why I have such an obsession with Fincher personally is he's the ultimate studio hand and he's the ultimate auteur at the same time. He's for hire genius.

And I love those for hire guys from the 70s so much and from the 40s too like i just think that that's a really in applying your artistry on something that is like forced on you is a fascinating idea to me and maybe that says a little bit about me too well there's something very telling about the fact that in this period of time he's like yeah i'll fucking make world war z too right yeah sure um i bet you'll make a good movie this isn't beneath me this is me trying to dig myself out of movie jail. If you want to give me $200 million to make a zombie movie, I don't care what it takes to get that green light.

And like, he's never made films apart from maybe this and Button where they have a prestige sheen to them. Yeah. Like that's why when people were like, I can't believe he'd make World War Z 2. I'm like, dude, he mostly makes... Most of his movies are commercially minded.

...genre films. Yes. Like, you know, usually the genre is like crime or, you know, whatever. But still, like, he is not the guy where it's like, okay, one year from now, Oscar predictions. Well, the Fincher movie for sure.

Right. People are never like that about a new Fincher movie. Except maybe... He got into the run where... Yeah. This movie has a prestigious sheen,

but isn't it really at its heart not really very prestigious? Go on. Well, I mean, it's about like a drunk who picks fights.

You know? Like, it's not... Sure, it's about Hollywood and politics and these things, but,

you know, it's kind of a scummy little story about a guy stuck in a bed writing while trying to get second all in his body. It's also not a Magic of the Movies movie that tends to go over well with the... Like, I think this would have been an absolute footnote

in any other Oscar season. Almost certainly. It would have been seen as a bigger disappointment. I agree. And the only question to me is if someone else had released it. So if this wasn't on netflix if it was a fox search you know maybe then it has a little more heft because people are but yes no i do think the only reason this is such a big oscar hit is is the year yeah

it came out not to say that i don't like mink i love me you love i love the man and i love the movie uh david fincher just to wrap on this uh original script that his dad gives him you know the script does also have a lot of this upton sinclair stuff and fincher's like who cares you know in the 90s he's like who gives a shit if there was like this you know gubernatorial you know fighting going on and then like years later he's like this stuff is very feels very relevant now like all the fake news stuff you know all the like hollywood is tipping the scales let's also say netflix had said to him you get an automatic green light on any picture you can work bill nye into in a primary role so once he realized i have

a great opening for nye here that That's such good casting. Very true. It's so exciting when he shows up. Yeah. Okay. Eric Roth does a bunch of rewrites of it. After he makes Seven, Fincher tries to make this movie. He says it was just seen as too expensive at the time. Hold your horses.

He really wanted to make it in black and white, and people in the 90s are not interested in that. Like, Ed Wood has just bombed, basically, around this same time. He had Kevin Spacey and Jodie Foster lined up for the lead roles in 1998. Polygram were maybe going to do it, and they got cold feet,

mostly because of the fucking black and white. Because they were like, then we of the fucking black and white. Because they were like, then we can't sell the rights internationally. Then we can't, well, video is dead, right? You know, that was how they felt. And then Jack Fincher dies in 2003 of pancreatic cancer. And the movie's on the shelf. And I think Fincher probably is like, well, that probably never gets made.

And how does it finally happen? It's when he's like stuck making Mindhunter which cost a fortune to make and I think was a very long and involved process and he's like, you know, I'm a little sick of this.

Netflix is kind of like, we kind of can't make a third season of this. It's too expensive. Is there something else you want to do? And he's kind of like, make? Like, pulling it off the shelf. and this is kind of the end of the period of netflix being

like anything you want pitch us the movie that everyone else has turned down right bring us your mutes yeah right manks yeah i'm trying to think of a third example but but no that was a lot of the like the unmakeable movie that's been in development hell forever. What are the others? There are other good examples, I think, right? Well, Five Bloods has certainly kicked around for a long time. Five Bloods? Yeah.

Ridiculous 6? Yes. That was Sandler's first. He put it in the drawer and he said, someday I'll have the cachet to get ridiculous time six i'm trying to i mean roma was acquired but it was kind of a similar thing where it was roma felt similar right i'm trying to think of the ones though where it's like this was turned down everywhere else for years i don't know i mean they like when movie that slate of blockbusters they had last year that all went nowhere like slumberland yes

those were all projects that had died in development elsewhere sure that got brought over yeah that was kind of netflix trying to be like can we just auto invent a netflix blockbuster gray man yes yes all had failed to make it out of the studio system alive i wonder why i don't know too good velvet buzzsaw was that one of them uh what no is that what it was called the dan gilroy do you remember that movie yeah that movie was very disappointing it was that's the dan gilroy has he made something since no he really needs to make another movie wild how many netflix movies are like that where you're like why isn't that good why isn't velvet that should be good yeah um rum j israel rules though it does

how do you feel about rum and j israel sean you know we did a denzel uh draft on the show recently and uh there were no one selected that one and uh i would have i remember liking it at the time but feeling like it was a very self-conscious attempt to do something that would have been made in 1978. A little bit, yeah. I'm not against that in general. I feel like that's kind of what the holdovers is to me too. But it didn't hit as hard as I wanted it to.

I'm in on Team Gilroy though. Whatever they're up to, I want to know what they're doing. So Fincher starts to make Mank. He casts Gary Oldman. Gary Oldman is 20 years older than Mank was at the time. Now, I... People clown on this a lot. People clown on this, although I want to read, because I love this.

Yeah. Lorraine Mayfield, the casting director, when I talked to her, because I asked her about this. I had to, obviously. And I was like, you know, why is he casting? Because Mank is what, like, late 30s? He says he's 43 in the movie. 43.

Yeah. And LeRae's like, look, I know Oldman is older than Herman was when he died. He's an old man. It's right there in the name. But then she says, but look, Herman was beat to shit. Like, people during that time period, they could be 20 or they could be 40 and you wouldn't even know. Yeah. It's like, I mean, you watch like Dog Day Afternoon and you're like, Charles Durning's 15 in this?

There's a lot of that with like that era of hard living men. I just love the idea of beat to shit. Beat to shit, yeah. How do you feel about the casting? I mean, Oldman is just one of those guys where Fincher has always like just wanted to work with Oldman, I think, as part of it, right? Yeah, it's odd that it took this long. Yeah. That he cast Douglas Urbanski

before he actually cast Oldman in something. Douglas Urbanski is his manager. Yes. How do you feel about Gary Oldman, Sean? In the movie or in general? In general first, and then in the movie. In general, he's one of the most electrifying actors of our lifetime. In the last 15 years, he's been doing a different kind of thing than the everyone guy.

You know, the like psycho person that I think tantalized us. In this movie, I think he's perfect if we stop worrying about whether or not mank is historically accurate i agree i agree he's great for a rumpled guy who's got like a sharp tongue and can't kind of help himself being like both sad sack and class clown it's just he's a bit oddly old so can i throw out my big thesis on why this movie's reputation is so like kind of wonky you know what woman was good it was abenheimer he's great what a one-scene performance yes go ahead um fucking love abenheimer what a great movie uh yeah good good picture also another film where i found that the filmmaking is quite good.

I'm so excited for Oppenheimer to just like roar to the Oscars, which I have been predicting since April. I have been like on this train, but I am worried that people are going to get bored. I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think so. I think it's a fucking freight trip. Sweep coming. Sweep coming? I think so.

Picture, director, actor, screenplay. What do you think? I think supporting actor, yes. I'm not sure about actor. I think that's Picture, director, actor, screenplay. What do you think? I think supporting actor, yes. I'm not sure about actor. I think that's a really good choice. Who do you think's got the heat for actor right now? It's a good question. It is a good question.

And I haven't forgotten my point. I'm going to make my point. But maybe it's a point I saved for a little bit. Because I was... Some Cooper excitement rising here. I think that movie is excellent. But the fact that I... The reasons I love it might be the reasons Oscar will be. Excitement rising here. I think that movie is excellent, but the fact that I... The reasons I love it

might be the reasons Oscar will be frosty to it. But yeah, because I'm looking at a list here and it's like, Giamatti and the holdovers. I'm like, good, I love that performance.

I love Paul Giamatti. I don't think that's like, you know, winning an Oscar. When you actually look at the contenders list, it's hard to think about someone beating killian cooper's probably the closest partly out of a sort of like okay jesus you have a zillion nominations like let's let's see an american fiction yet david i have i think that's a great performance but it's it's it's a locked down performance yeah jeffrey wright he's a guy though who it's like well he's just been

amazing for 20 years. A hundred percent. Like, I would love him to sneak into a nom at the very least. Killian also has the weird thing where it's like...

Killian has that too, obviously. Right. It's not like there's ever been a major snub where people thought he was going to get nominated,

but this feels like it's functioning as a lifetime achievement thing. The whole press tour around Oppenheimer was like the other actors being like, right, this guy's always been great, and he's never totally been thrown the ball and allowed to run with it it's just you know too internal but we'll see we'll see what's your point about mink

my point about mink is uh i said that on the mink podcast yes no no of course when we're talking about like is this film representative of what mank was really like as a guy? Is this film representative of the actual developmental process of Citizen Kane? Right. this episode is zuckerberg in quotes the character as depicted in this film which i was saying like sorkin is kind of using that story the way that like shakespeare riffs on the previous emperors and kings right and i think like uh the finchers and eric roth and old men are all doing the same thing here but i think when you're doing that with film history, and the film is so narrowcast to film dorks, it starts to feel really touchy for people. That's exactly the problem. Yes.

Where then they're like, why is he 20 years too old? Why is Orson Welles a little bit of a dilettante? Why is like all this shit? I'm watching this movie with my wife, and I'm like, what's going on? And I'm like, well, Citizen Kane. And she's like, brain is off, not listening to you. Only Citizen Kane nerds really care about this, and they have way too many opinions on all of this. They're the exact people this movie is made for

and you're like, no one cares about you damaging the reputation of Facebook or Zuckerberg or the Winklevii. Who gives a shit? Tell me the best story you can, you know? I can parse what statement you want to make from this story from what actually happened. I give you that latitude. Well, I think this movie's just

made too much for hyper literal dorks. I'm trying to figure out who it's actually made for because I had a little bit of a meltdown about this, you know, probably a straw man argument with the imaginary Wells defenders. But I love it. The idea that the Wells defenders were like this movie is a pox on Wells's legacy always felt strange to me because Wells actually is what they want him to be. He actually is one of the granddaddies, one of the most celebrated artists of the 20th century. His reputation is encased in stone. Yes, it is concrete.

Yeah, there is nothing talking with that. One thing that is not encased in stone is the legacy of the writers' rooms at Paramount and MGM in the 30s and 40s. And the production model of those studios at that time. And the way that the star system worked. And the way the power operated. And Upton Sinclair's, you know, governorship candidacy. Like, none of those things are really memorialized in the same way that Kane is, the way that Wells is.

Like, none of those things are really memorialized in the same way that Kane is, the way that Wells is. So I always found it was a little bit of a, like, you, Wells defenders feel like they're being bullied, but in fact they are bullying. And maybe I'm just imagining who I was opposed to while celebrating this movie. But that always felt like such a phony aspect of the rejection of the movie. Your argument is that, like, it's a little bit like the Marvel fans getting angry at scorsese it's like you're winning what are you upset about yeah but it would be like if marvel fans were getting mad about um nomadland or something you know what i mean like it's like it's nomadland it's not it's not even in the race like what are you worried about yes yes and again i think you watch this movie and you're like i think if you watch this movie

you're coming away with herman mankowitz contributed you know hugely to the film citizen kane yeah even if he could be a bit of a sort of fatuous difficult guy you know at the end when he says like i wrote this thing in absence with orson yeah you know the absence of orson you're like you little bitch like which is what he said obviously but like you're not like that's right Mank you tell him right you're like oh you're you know you're a little fucker to the end like you can't help yourself yes uh I'm gonna I'm gonna uncork the big question of the episode and David is gonna sigh so loudly with his entire body when I ask this because he's gonna fear what happens to the next 10 minutes of the podcast sean sean fantasy yeah did you ever watch the offer oh god i think we have to create a dialectic between the offer

i think we must. We definitely don't. I think we have no choice. Did you watch The Offer, Sean? I not only watched it, but I completed it. I watched all 10 episodes of the Paramount Plus series, The Offer. All 10 hours? The most insane TV show ever made.

The Offer was kind of the winning time of movie shows, right? It was the same idea where they're like, we're going to tell you the story as you've never heard it before. And I'm like, I'm reading Wikipedia right now. I'm watching people read Wikipedia. I know Offer is slanted towards Ruddy, right? It's insane. Offer is like, yeah, Francis Ford Coppola, yeah, that guy was a

journeyman. He had a couple notes, but Ruddy was the guy. Wood Austin has one of the greatest writing credits of all time, which is based on the experiences of Albert Ruddy producing The Godfather. Okay, what do you have to say about The Offer? Sean, what was your experience with The Offer? Well, on paper, I'm like, this is porn. Sean, what was your experience with The Offer? Well, on paper, I'm like, this is porn.

Like, you know, an extended TV series examining the making of one of the greatest movies ever made. And also inside the studio that I am personally obsessed with, that run at Paramount. Yes. That is the pinnacle. And not just because Evans is so cool and, you know, the ownership and all that. So on paper, loved it. Watching the movie, it was like having the blood slowly drop from my body. I think of it as like a 10-hour movie. Yeah.

I'm sorry, Sean. David is pulling up different character posters for the offer and showing them to me, so I'm just having a great time. I think the offer is so compellingly bad. It's brutal. I think it is one of the most gonzo things ever produced. But I think there's this weird thing of...

David, you have to stop showing me Offer. Mario Puzo got a character poster. Get this episode done. How about this Nyad poster? Look at this one. Well, here's the thing. The Offer does a similar thing where it makes Coppola and Puzo

both out to be putzes. Right. Which is sort of a bold move. Right. Who like donuts more than they like making movies or writing things. And it's like only Ruddy was there to like goose them along into making a masterpiece. Food hungry morons. Okay.

Who are like eating cakes in a swimming pool is like how they're depicted. cakes in a swimming pool is like how they're depicted but i think part of what i find so fascinating about the offer is that it's like it's so bad and it's so bad built as a monument to the best piece of filmmaking in the latter half of the 20th century it's like using the medium itself poorly to try to explain a better use of the medium and the gap between mankid citizens kane is much closer right but in a certain way i think when the gap is closer the movie starts to suffer a little bit more i think it's showing me the niad poster what poster do you see he's showing me i'm texting it to you sean i'll just text it to you. He's just showing me posters. What were you about to say Sean?

I mean they're similar in one other way which is that the offer is written and created by Michael Tolkien who wrote arguably the single best movie about working in Hollywood based on his novel and just like David Fincher is like one of the signature thinkers about what

control a director has over a movie. And he made a movie about how maybe the director was not as important to the making of a movie. And there's a kind of inherent dissonance in that that is interesting. It's just that. And his father Mel Tolkien also a writer, you know, in a golden age of Hollywood, working on your show shows and stuff and having that lineage. Stop talking about the offer! I told you I was doing it. I think there's something to the fact that the offer is so junky, and the...

Mank is more elevated, but as we were saying at the beginning of this episode, Citizen Kane is just, like, so fucking undeniably enjoyable. Whereas this movie is, by design, a little bit thornier and meaner. Yeah. As much as Sis and Kane the movie has a very complicated relationship to its lead character, this movie is more mirroring

the attitude of Mink, the guy. It's like spiky and sort of hard to love in a way, I guess. Yeah yeah it's a movie that's like half about a drunk in a bed yeah he is in a bed for half the movie yeah mumbling at you know assistance like his his sort of a little cadre of assistance it is undynamic yeah i cannot deny this and a lot of the early part of the movie is about him just desperately trying to get some booze in his system. Mank. We're talking about the plot of Mank now.

Okay. Mank is about Mank. I mean. It's a titular role. Yeah. Let me proffer a theory. Throw it out there. Has the movie been designed and shot in this fashion?

movie has the movie been designed and shot in this fashion which is to say in black and white with fake cigarette burns in the top right corner and yeah all the kind of the cutting style of the era crunchy sound yes the fade in fade out and the blending transitions all that stuff that he's doing is the point of that to show that it's not just the glamour of hollywood that can reveal something by being framed in this way but actually like the gross ugly weirdness of common life at this time that also reveals something by shooting the movie in this way or is it just fincher like was like i have a cool idea and i want to be able to have fun in this way technically like what is underpinning his decision to shoot it and make it look like this it's a good question he obviously as we said always wanted to do this in black and white but now it's being shot in this sort of unusual like crisp digital black and white right but then with this sort of sound mix that sounds like

a 40s movie yes this kind of echoey tinny like dialogue in a good way in a cool way but also it's jarring the the framing and the editing rhythms of this film even if the the sort of quality of the cinematography is too digital yes he is moving away from his traditional visual language yeah it's like fade out on a line like you know you know mankel say something kind of wry and then we like fade to black and fade also like sort of like sustained deep focus well so master shot sequences playing out i talked about talk to messer so eric messer schmidt shot this movie won an oscar for it yeah he had done mind. It's the first time he's working with Fincher film-wise. And he said, like, I was just so...

I'm looking at my notes. I actually found my notes of all these interviews. I don't want to do a noir movie. Because, like, that's not what Citizen Kane is. Sure. And, like, that's the pitfall of every film... The cinematographer now doing black and white where they're doing noir photography like

it's all shadows yeah and you're opening and closing the blinds or whatever he's like no i want to do low to the ground lots of deep focus evoking citizen kane like you know that's that's our sort of concept and like semi-theatrical blocking yeah right right but with the camera in mind yeah uh you know not like big contrast Like, this isn't a gumshoe mystery. Like, I wanted, you know, like, like Thalberg, for example, he's kind of framed like a villain when he's at the desk.

But it's in a more old-fashioned way. Like, not in like this sort of like, you know, he's casting a big shadow. He's like Sidney Greenstreet or something. Right. And they shoot in a modern aspect ratio, right? They don't shoot this in like academy or anything like that and uh they yeah like you said it's a lot of you know big old

fashion wide uh photography the camera doesn't move more i feel like i mean part of this for me is just like you know and i i just re-watched or watched the first time RKO 281 as well. And you guys ask if that movie is good. And I'm like, it's watchable. It is like cinematically so kind of like point and shoot HBO movie. But it's like a compelling story, well acted and all of that. And I do wonder if he took this script, this story, this material and made it with more modern sensibilities. If it feels more rote.

You know? Yes. It would totally feel rougher. How much of it is thematic meaning of what's accomplished by him making this film in the style of the Hollywood machinery of the era and how much of it is just like,

you need to filter it through something else to make it feel less conventional. Fundamentally, it's set in, like, you know, a ranch, and then, like, a bunch of back lots. Right. And then the Hearst Castle stuff is the most probably impressive visually. You know, but, like, there's not much of that. It's a talky movie, but a talky movie without having the kind of, like,

wildly entertaining dialogue of a social network. Um, yeah. Right, right. With this more sort of like old-fashioned i think this i think there's a lot of good jokes but it's not as quippy a movie especially for a movie about a guy who is quippy he's got some quips he's got some quips because the whole point of man because people like his quips but like social network is shot like a like a courtroom thriller right you know like yes know, a lot of his other films feature high stakes crime and murder. And when they don't, they often feature like elegant moments of beauty like in Benjamin Button.

Like if he just shot Mank with a red camera in color, would it be cinematic enough for him? would it be cinematic enough for him? Like, is this just a way to get him intellectually excited about actually shooting a script that doesn't have all the things that he usually needs to do the Fincher thing? And, and is that, is that a strike against it?

Cause like I'm, I def I would happily defend the way that it looks. I don't, I'm not bothered by the fact that it's like wide digital photography attempting to imitate a much more narrow 1940s movie but i do know when people are like that didn't work for me i'm i'm kind of i'm not gonna argue with them you know if they just think it looks weird i i accept that here's a quote from fincher about this very topic this is interesting he says i've always been the mind that you bury

your exposition but my my dad loved movies from that period where they talk in an expository way like you know in old-fashioned movies like you know mank this is rita alexander she types 100 words a minute you know takes dictation like a clairvoyant fincher's like you need visual context for that to work my way of thinking is there's no faster way to transport you to the 30s than using black and white so i guess it's what you guys are saying he knows this would just not work in the same like this would just not translate uh if it was you know shot like he shot freaking whatever he did shoot it on a red camera to be clear i do think a lot of it comes down to performance style too though because i i think the performances across the board in

this movie are incredibly good and are a less awkward modern actors try to evoke a different acting style thing. Do you know who rocks in this movie? Amanda Seyfried? Well, yes, she really does. She really is fantastic in this movie. But do you know who else rocks? Who? Fucking Tuppence.

I love her. She's so good. I love her. She's so good. Like, why am I not getting five tuppences why am i not getting 10 pence a year a tuppence for my middle yeah every freaking year i should have 10 tuppences five whatever yeah instead it's like she was in possessor and mank since then the only thing she's been in is fucking down to nabby too yeah but that was good though i like that movie it's

another movie about making movies, by the way. I need to watch that movie. I've only seen the trailer, and the trailer is so good that I didn't like the movie can't top this. I need her in everything all the time.

I really would love more Tuppence. Like, there's no Tuppence going on. I heard from someone that she's a big stop-motion animation nerd. Oh, my God. Wow. Yeah.

So now you just want to marry Tuppence, is what you're saying. Well, apparently she has a child With Swedish horror director Mans Marlind Well I can see it So you're gonna have to Shove him out of the way

I'm not doing any such thing Can I Tuppence Middleton I have respect for the family Can I just cite something Before we get too far away From the black and white thing I don't know if you guys

Really thought about this I guess I hadn't either But Maestro partially In black and white Blonde Yep Black and white, partially in black and white. Blonde, black and white. Passing and Malcolm and Marie, black and white. Roma, black and white.

Mank, black and white. Not only is Netflix the place you go to for your script that nobody else wants to buy, but it's where you go when you want to make your black and white movie. It's very true. That is wild. Yeah. Especially when so much of studios' opposition to black and white movies was it doesn't play on tv yeah right it doesn't sell well on vhs dvd you know like there was that thing uh when um alexander payne did uh nebraska and they shot that movie in full color

right and then he regraded it to black and white because part of paramount's deal was we need to be able to sell the color version of this movie in foreign territories oh i don't know what the color i didn't know the version's like that's interesting it aired i i think maybe they didn't end up doing it but they had contractually the option to do it right and then at some point maybe on epics they announced that they were playing the color version of nebraska and alexander payne heard about it and shut down correct yes that is true but it was maybe on Epix, they announced that they were playing the color version of Nebraska and Alexander Payne heard about it and shut it down.

Correct. Yes, that is true. But it was announced as airing at one point. Did you guys see Johnny Mnemonic in black and white? Clips and pics you can see. No. Ben, this is a Ben question.

I did not get a chance to see that. It's streaming now, right? I can watch it streaming? I believe it's on the Criterion channel. I think that's right. have seen johnny mnemonic several times in my life so i've always been like do i really need to but everyone says it's better it actually makes a difference and you can tell it was always yeah i thought it really played yeah i don't know i don't know why that is true like i also never saw nightmare alley in black and white and that was a movie everyone really liked the black and white version and i don't remember really like why that was hitting

for people i never saw there was something cool about modern sci-fi black and white yeah yeah versus like using black and white in this way to evoke a different era of film but of course nightmare alley is like trying to probably that probably is why it works in black and white it's like yeah i'm in the past i feel like i'm in the past more yeah you know the but that but that movie has wildly different performance styles in it right yeah i think mink does like everyone across the board because you have like seafreed playing marion davies where it's like well she has to evoke a star we know had a specific energy and voice. But Mank is, Oldman is playing Mank like the 40s movie character version of Mank.

Right. Yes. The old curmudgeon. Right. Mank. You know, he's always shuffling around. I don't know if that performance works in color.

Maybe not. Like that might be just the simplest reason for this movie to be shot in black and white. It's clearly, I do think it's kind of the right call. But I think the thing that really freaked people out more is the sound. I honestly, because this movie is mostly dubbed, because they're doing that kind of old-fashioned, you know, like, let's someone like do the lines later,

you know, and we'll dub it over just to sort of summon that spirit of like the old talkies. And I think people are watching this movie and like, it sounds off to me. And I'm where, you know, it's, it's crazy.

I love it, but it's crazy. But how much of that is a streaming issue versus like, if you see that in a theater, you probably quickly accept it as intentional whereas if you're watching a movie on netflix you're living with that fear of like are my settings wrong look is my wi-fi being throttled like ren klyce i talked to the sound mixer you know a legend of skywalker sound or whatever and you, you know, he said, David, like, you know,

we put all these hisses and crackles and pops and it sounds so cool in a giant theater. Like, the idea is you're seeing it in a giant old movie hall with, like, the sort of booming echo. You know, we design movie theaters not to have an echo now, but they used to be built for performance and they would have these crazy acoustics. And, like, we wanted to kind of evoke that um the uh they had a giant music scoring

room in skywalker and they would like project the movie and set up microphones and record the echo and then mix it into the movie they filmed this movie in 19 uh or 18 19 okay 2019 yeah yeah because all of post-production was done during covet right like and the score was recorded during covet each um uh musician individually recorded their part in their house yeah with a microphone they were sent and then resner and ross put it all together isn't that insane it's. I do hate thinking about it. Yeah, but it's also kind of cool that they were like, let's... And also, of course, Reznor and Ross

write this, like, 40s-style, old-school Edward Herman score. Only use period-appropriate instruments. That's right. That's actually the number one reason I'm sad I never saw it in theaters, is I think this is, like, among their best scores. It's obviously, like, a self-conscious

recreation of something, but to just be like, yeah, I'm doing Max Steiner, I think this is like among their best scores. It's obviously like a self-conscious recreation of something. But to just be like, yeah, I'm doing Max Steiner. I'm doing Nicholas Rosa. Like that's insane that they could recreate that. And that score really like it plays if you listen to it on Spotify. It's beautiful. Yeah. So, yeah.

Yeah. I interviewed the two of them. They were the people I was the most scared to interview. Trent Reznor was. I was so scared to interview him. Well, he has nine inch nails those are sharp and Atticus Ross pushes them into you there's a lot of depth

to which they can go they were both on the call but they were in different places and Trent Reznor's like hello this is Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is like hi David this is Atticus how you doing mate I'm in London are you in New York you know he's like the opposite like so clearly they are some kind of like

Was he doing the bit Yeah he was doing the bit So clearly Atticus is the fun one And Trent is the serious one Should we Attempt to go through the plot of this movie So I told you It's about Mink

Well we wrapped it up What's the plot of this movie It's a bifurcated plot There is Mink. Okay. Well, we wrapped it up. No. Okay. What's the plot of this movie? It's a bifurcated plot. Yes. There is Mink in 1940 in Victorville, California, in a little ranch house, recovering from a car crash that happens near the start of the movie, writing a screenplay for Orson Welles about William Randolph Hearst. Yes.

And then there is sort of Mink throughout the 30s, his developing relationship with Hearst as the 34 California gubernatorial election happens, in which Upton Sinclair ran as a socialist and, you know, the studios united behind the Republican, right? Am I missing anything? No. Like, those are the two plots, right? In the, what's it called, the battle over Citizen Kane. Yes. There's a quote they cite, which is someone interviewing him, profiling him, whatever, or maybe it was off the record, in a personal anecdote related later,

asked him why he chose to william randolph hearst why he chose to go into journalism rather than build a movie studio sure use popular entertainment to win his battles right and his line apparently was you can't destroy another man's reputation with a movie sure which is really interesting very ironic given that Citizen Kane successfully destroyed his reputation. Exactly. Right? Like, we can all agree. Yes. Like, Mank sees himself tilting as a windmill here.

Right. And what he doesn't realize is, like, they know they will actually kick this guy when he's down and blow up his, like, reputation forever. Inextricably tied forever. Yes, right? Yes. Can we deny this? No. If you guys could Mank make someone would you do it yeah oh absolutely but wait i would not hesitate are we talking about like someone who like stiffed

me out of 50 bucks or whatever about like elon musk i think you have to make responsibly it's probably it's it might be hard to make someone now right like if someone tried to write a movie about elon musk being crazy there would be some inexplicable amount of people who'd be like i love that about him can i make a pitch it's great can i make a pitch you're only making me like him more what's your pitch 40 years from now i want someone to make sork about sorkin but the film about fincher hiring sorkin to take down zuckerberg oh sure yeah it's a great call and it's him just like eating shrooms right it's sorkin just laid up in bed yeah biting on meth rocks right like and fabricating conversations that never happened in an effort right being like zuckerberg had an ex

girlfriend yeah she's like what are you talking about sork you're crazy and then they're flashbacks and you realize that sorkin had an ex-girlfriend. That's the big twist. Wait, Aaron Sorkin had an ex-girlfriend? He was the one with an ex. That is legitimately a good idea that could happen in 30 years. Thank you. Thank you. Like, 100%. It hit me yesterday and I was like, that would be a compelling

movie if you gave it 40 years. Sorkin is a great dramatic figure to center a movie around and Fincher is a good foil. In the shadows yeah and and then zuckerberg it's like of course right someone will finally win the oscar for playing zuckerberg 40 years from now i guess so if movies still exist they definitely they're going better than ever okay come on mank you're not gonna lure me into that trap movies we're we're kicking ass right now with movies we're kicking ass yeah we're! We're so back. And Mank is why.

Mank, so Mank is, he's in, all right. Well, which, should we just, like, should we tackle the flashback plots earlier? I mean, first? Or, you know, are we hopping between here? What do we think? It's hard, because it is kind of four narratives colliding at once. What's the most interesting aspect of it to you? Is it the writing

of the screenplay is it the the gubernatorial race and the way that mgm works is it marion marion davies is it what like what is it it's more the way that mgm works and the way his relationship with hearst works like to me that the tragedy and the fascination with which, like, my general fascination with the 30s and Hollywood where all these pros and artists who are, to be fair, drunk off their ass, are flying into Hollywood and writing fucking Frankenstein movies and shit. Right. You know, in this, like, brand new media. We're prostituting ourselves to get rich. With how they themselves thought of it. We're prostituting ourselves to get rich.

With how they themselves thought of it. But then they all, or at least some, including Mank, will occasionally like flirt with like, can I make great art here? Like, is it possible to squeeze it both through this medium and through this business? Yeah. Also, Frankenstein movies fucking roll. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Like, and that's what that early scene where they're like pitching ideas, I feel like is about, right? Mm-hmm. But then, and it's like, he becomes friends with hearst i would too yeah like oh this like sort of fancy

powerful man wants me to come to his parties and kind of be a little you know a little fucker if you're a guy like mink who's like fascinated by people right right and great dramatic figures you're like how are you not going to spend as much time as you can in this guy's orbit just to study? And then whether or not it results in the greatest screenplay ever written or not. Like just the sort of like slow poison that's happening to Mank. Mank. Mank. Mank.

Mank. Mank. I just can't stop saying his name. Is it the most fun movie title to say? Remember that trailer that was just everyone going, Mank! Mank! And we were all like like this is gonna cure covid um would this movie have a better reputation if the title had an exclamation point definitely mother style like lowercase going lowercase m capital bold exclamation uh underlined italicized capital k yeah mink it's got it up yeah uh that that like he's going from oh i'm inured to this i'm a cynic yeah they can't fucking get me hollywood is terrible i don't even

care at all right to the end of him being like, my friends are dying. Like, this business is actively like keeping, you know, like sort of good politics out of this country. Like, I'm at the beck and call of capitalist freak pigs. And I'm just their little play thing. You know, watching that whole arc is so fascinating to me and i think oldman plays it really well like this sort of like the the way his little deflections get less and less sort of effective you know as as it's wearing on him now to answer your question the whole thing what's the guy called the the newsreel guy the invented character shelly uh shelly you know the whole way he's handling that where you can tell like mank immediately knows like he's trying to be like I'll get him it's fine you know like but he knows like this is like this is brutal like this you know this guy made a movie because he wanted to make a movie and then he read in the

papers like Upton Sinclair being like these movies fuck my fucking candidacy now to answer your question I think that him writing the movie is the least interesting part of the film a little bit a lot of that is because they present it as Orson Welles being pretty fucking checked out and then at some point just taking what was handed to him and turning it into something else. Sure. Right?

Right. Whereas, whether correct or not, RKO 281 makes it more of an active process. Uh-huh. And most of the times we're going back to man quote unquote writing, it's him in bed begging for alcohol, answering calls and saying i'll fucking get to it right you know people being like you owe us 40 pages and he's like you'll get them when you get them until it's finally come out of the system yeah when people are like reading it and being like it's pretty weird dude are you sure about this and he's like and also like don't shoot yourself in the foot like this. What about Lily Collins? She's so charming. I mean... See, I'm a sucker for that.

This stuff doesn't totally work for me. I'm a sucker for the plucky assistant. I usually am. And her kind of being like, I won't let your cynicism get to me. Like, you know, I'm rooting for my husband in the war, and what we're doing here is important. And he's turned into the Jabba the Hutt of cynicism.

He's just laid up in bed, bed like constantly in triple chin pose right you know like sort of horizontal like looking this way he's trying to convince her to convert her into being his salacious crumb right because sitting on his tail because he's literally just like and then you know kane does this and he's filled with bitter regret and she's like writing it all down yeah uh i i like their dynamic okay yeah sean where are you on lily she's i i think she can be quite charming as a as an actor um i just think that that frame of the movie is just the device and it's not yeah the movie is so alive when it is multiple people in rooms, particularly at Hearst parties, talking at each other. You can really feel Fincher excited about making something like that energetic and interesting.

Or the writer's pitch meeting or whatever. That's the stuff I love. Yeah, me too. I mean, that's the best stuff. I like the stuff in the machinery of Hollywood development. And I like all the the hurston davies stuff charles dance so great yeah so charming to see fincher work with dance after how many years it had been 28 27 yeah like almost 30 years and does the dance again

at this point dance has become famous to a new generation because of Game of Thrones and shit. Doing a great American rich guy accent, I think. He's really good. He's really good. I love that there's never really a crack in his facade. You never see him turn into fucking Charles Foster Kane. Right. This thundering kind of egotist.

He feels bulletproof. Yes. Even when Mankundering kind of egotist. Like, he feels bulletproof. Yes. Like, any time, even when Mank is like, you know, prattling on at him. Cromwell plays him in the RKO movie. James Cromwell? Yes. And plays him a little more.

He plays up the like sad vulnerability that he's hiding. Right, right. He kind of brings that to the forefront. Whereas Dance is just playing the kind of public perception. Right, all of that in this movie comes through Marion. It's Marion who is the one who's being like,

this is a person. Like, you know, and I've come to realize he's a person. I love Marion Davies, the portrayal of her in this movie. It feels like it's happening in a different movie,

but a movie I like about what a young woman teaches an old man. And there are very few... Mank gets to talk to women in this movie and nobody else does which is a very interesting decision where he is talking to lily collins he's talking to his wife played by tophans middleton he's talking to poor sarah or manda seyfried he's and he had even though he is this rumpled alcoholic with a bad attitude, he is given this kind of narrative treatment, this warmth that was granted to him that may or may not be factually accurate.

I don't really know. But it's the constant reminder that he is our hero, that women are interested in him and they feel for him and with him in an interesting way. in him and they they feel for him and with him in an interesting way well it's that sort of thing of like he's he's such a a beaten down uh a cynic because of an overabundance of empathy right like the feeling is it's not that this guy doesn't give a shit it's that he actually like is capable of caring too deeply where he's built this defensive wall of like fuck you all what are you laughing at did you know that so mink didn't do westerns sure and apparently at one point the studio a studio tried to punish him and assigned him a rintintin movie and he turned in a script that began with a dog frightened by a mouse and had the climax of a house on fire

and the dog took a baby into the house this is good like he really does seem like he was the most amazing pain in the ass like owns rent in 10 like where is that ipp sitting right now ipp rent in 10 ipp so the rent in 10 movies were warner brothers so i have to imagine they they hold on to those rights is todd phillips gonna reboot Rin Tin Tin? Todd Phillips Phillips? Oh, boy. Rin Tin Tin. Rin Tin Tin, he's like a German shepherd, right? That's like a real active dog.

He's doing stuff. He does shit. What is a non-active dog franchise? Well, he's not like some cute little, he's not a Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Rin Tin Tin is hefty. What do you want to say about the Beverly Hills Chihuahua Oh You know, Rin Tin Tin is hefty What do you want to say about the Beverly Hills Chihuahua? When you say active, you really just mean the physical build of the dog

I don't know, he can like drag things around I don't know what Rin Tin Tin does I think he saves people Yeah, saves people, fine Saves cinema I guess so Kept theaters open during the Great Depression Did he? Is that true?

He was the biggest fucking... Susan Orlean wrote a whole book on Rin Tin Tin, basically, like, he was the fucking Jacob Tremblay of his day. Show some respect. He's in the mid-budget movie, Alive on His Shoulders. You guys should do a Rin Tin Tin series.

His four dog shoulders. We should. David, that's probably a quick 27 movies. Rin Tin Tin died in 1932. Alcoholism? Yeah, Rin Tin... He in 1932 Alcoholism Yeah, he drove his car into the Alley River Mank-like symptoms He died of early onset Mank

Rin Tin Tin Jr. was seen as not as talented as his father Rin Tin Tin III mostly did war movies And then they did have Rin Tin Tin IV But he really blew the screen test And was replaced by a different dog called Flame Rin Tin Tin III mostly did war movies. Okay. And then they did have Rin Tin Tin IV, but he really blew the screen test and was replaced by a different dog called Flame. That sucks. It's pretty good. Sucks for them, though.

So all of the Rin Tin Tin nepo babies failed to live up? Yeah, none of them could be as good as Rin Tin Tin. The nepo doggies. Oh, my gosh. Who knew about the Rin Tin Tin, like... There was no Rin Tin Tin David Washington Who actually kind of carved his own way But imagine if they did like a legacy sequel now

That's what I'm saying I'm astounded it isn't happening Um Zaslav must have like 40 writers In a room chained to death trying to crack Rin Tin Tin Do you guys know the story of Rin Tin Tin? He was rescued from a World War one battlefield by an american soldier jesus called him rinty my goodness right he was like yeah

that talk about a screen test was he in wonder woman was he in that season when she was a character he's in wonder he's part of the squad he's part of you know ewan bremner plays rintin tin they just changed the character a little bit there was another dog called strong heart who was also really popular both of these were german shepherds and they made german shepherds really popular in america okay like they made the breed popular but was he sort of like the steven sickle no no i think strong heart was kind of like the you know fucking who's like but you know he's the buster keaton and rintin 10 is the charlie okay okay it's the earlier can i provide a Rin Tin Tin is the Charlie Chaplin. He's the earlier. Can I provide a real segue here?

Please. So I grew up with a German Shepherd. That was the, our family dog was a German Shepherd. No lie. Hell yeah.

This dog's name was Kane. K-A-N-E. Wow. Really? Was he named after Citizen Kane? I highly doubt it.

Why was he called Kane? I genuinely don't know. My dad named him Kane. Was he named after the wrestler? No, he predates the wrestler. Although, is the wrestler named after

Citizen Kane? That's a good question. Who is the wrestler named after? Apparently, he initially was Is it just a riff on Kane and Abel?

Because of the two brothers, the Undertaker and Kane? Did you know that his original character, the man's name is Glenn Jacobs, was a Christmas-themed monster called the Christmas Creature, who wore a garish costume featuring a green mask, candy cane, striped sleeves, and tinsels. That is good. And then he was called Bruiser Mastino uh and then he was called doomsday that's pretty cool okay and then he was called oh boy unabombed oh dear well it's a real mid his next one is is legendary though uh mike unabombed after that. Isaac Yankin DDS.

Where he played an evil dentist. What? Man, wrestling is so insane. I still don't. Emergence of Kane 1997 meticulously built up by the WWE as a horror-themed juggernaut. And that's basically the beginning of the Kane we know today. Yeah, so my guess is it is kind of a reference to, like, the biblical character of Cain, just spelled differently. But it also feels like it has some root in the candy Cain,

if he starts as a Christmas guy. Well, maybe that's true, because the idea is he is the Undertaker's, like, long-lost brother who died in a fire and has emerged. Yeah. I do see him as maybe he's kind of a Cain-enabled thing. Sure. Not a Manc-like homage, unfortunately, in the WWE.

Someone should know. Fincher should make a movie about Kane. Yeah. Also, WWE should introduce a wrestler named Mank. There is a detail in the RKO movie.

I have no idea if this has any basis in reality, but I feel like it needs to be shared on this podcast. There's a scene where, like, Lo schreiber as wells is like come on i need a subject for my movie man come up with something right and then like he finds out that mank had this whole history with hurst and davies and was like wait you know them uh-huh so you have all this intel and he's like yeah and i wrote a whole novel about him i never published it anyway he hands the book to wells and wells is like reading this book

about hearst okay and there's an exchange where he's like wait a second he called it rosebud and mank is like yeah but you can't put that in the movie, Wells. You can't have characters in a movie talking about what a guy calls a woman's pussy. Right. And now this movie explicitly states that that's not true. Yes. They actually call that out. Yes. And Mank's like, I never heard that before.

I would have used it if I knew. And that conversation with his brother. Yeah. With Joe. Yeah. Do you think that's just directly responding to a 20-year-old HBO TV movie? Or is that like a more popular theory that I didn't know needed to be shut down? Oh, that's a really popular theory.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's really famous. Okay. That it's, you know, you know. And then when the Sopranos watch Citizen Kane, one of the best scenes in the history of the Sopranos, all the girls watch Citizen Kane in their movie club. The lights come up and one of them's like,

so is a sled. And then, is it Ida Totoro? Janice. Janice says about Bobby Bacala that she never found his rose, he never found her rosebud. Sure, and they make fun of Uncle June for going sledding. Do you know Uncle June sleds? But no, this movie...

I only sled on your birthday. This movie does kind of poke at that odd dynamic of Mank writing this movie that is a screed against Hearst, but that makes Marion Davis look like this awful hanger-on that was only propped up by him. Which he has to say is not his reflection of up by him, and that's not true. He has to say it's not his reflection of her. Yeah, and he's really... This man... Clearly feels bad about it.

Now, do we think that's mostly dramatic license for the movie? Like, just, you know, to add to the sort of weird tragedy of it? Or do we think that's true? Or, like, just sort of the idea of, like, when you make a movie, you kind of lean into archetypes,

and, like, it'll end up burning people. It's what helps the story. Right, but if you're making it about real people. And this movie leans into archetypes and like it'll end up burning people it's what helps the story right but if you're making it about real people and this movie leans into archetypes about everybody i don't know this is the thing with this movie is i watch it and i'm just like i have no idea what i think actually happened sure right you know yeah it doesn't sway me in any direction i think some people like got angry by this movie and as you said dug their heels in and wanted to like push back against it i don't know how many people this movie convinced uh not that the movie was even trying to convince anyone of anything uh but i just like i i almost watched this movie and go

like i don't know i guess we'll never know uh yeah which is fair i don't really feel like that's the point of the movie though no and i i don't i was always confused why people got so hung up on that and kind of who was responsible and not responsible obviously the film ends at a moment before production begins and so it elides like a critical question which is like you know wells modernized how filmmaking operated and we don't see that in the movie it's not about that but it is about a guy who's stuck between the polarity of his own brain. You know, he's like, I'm an embittered cynic, but also I think I can make a change in the world if I create something. And I don't know, I just find that like tremendously fascinating for Fincher to want to dig into. The fact that he sees Mank as this portal for like, I'm a fucking scumbag who made Seven, and also I'm a really sincere person who believes in the artistry of filmmaking

and how it can change people's lives. And he always talks about, as I'm sure you guys have mentioned many times, like the perversion of American life and what we're interested in and the Prairians, but also made ben benjamin button you know like that he is he's mank that's how i always saw the movie benjamin button is mank benjamin button is made the twist at the end of benjamin button is that he was man there's definitely a moment in benjamin button's adolescence where he gets pretty manky i would say right he's about 14 i'm seven but i look a lot older

pukes during dinner on the floor that scene is great him just walking into the whatever it is the circus themed party and just ranting for 10 minutes and then spewing everywhere i mean it's really good yeah and it's like that's right? You know, that's the culmination of post-governatorial race where he's like, I didn't make the stand, right? I didn't use my ability to change things

in any way, right? I just kind of waved it all off as like, well, you know, what are you gonna do?

Hollywood's in charge. And I felt prey into like, mink, fuck up, self-destructive shit where everyone could kind of

write me off as like, that guy's just a mess. He just says shit. I'm the fucking organ grinder's monkey, right? Now I'm realizing like, I'm the mascot for these fre me off as like, that guy's just a mess. He just says shit. I'm the fucking organ grinder's monkey, right? Now I'm realizing, like, I'm the mascot for these freaks who are, like, toasting in their castle.

Yeah. And, uh... The other scene I think is really good is... That's spurring him on a few years later. Isn't that also about Fincher and Netflix, though? Isn't that also what that scene is kind of about? So, all of the meta stuff here right we have to at least we have to engage with it right because to some degree the rise of Netflix

like he took the easy money from Netflix right he took the bigger number to have house of cards land over there yeah and then in the process he watched like the studios and HBO turn their back on him right and like the entire type of thing he wanted to do kind of falls prey to what Netflix is doing he watched, like, the studios and HBO turn their back on him. And, like, the entire type of thing he wanted to do kind of falls prey to what Netflix is doing and the studios limiting what they do in reaction to that. But not that Fincher is, like, an apolitical filmmaker, but I don't think of him as a pointed political filmmaker at all. No.

Right? Like, and I have no sort of notion of what Fincher's, you know, sort of politics or beliefs really are. Right? I have some readings. For a moment, he just commented on the WGA strike in a way that I think upsets some people because he kind of tried to both sides it a little bit. Yeah, I felt a little bit like he was just kind of giving a non-answer there and people leapt on it because it was a very charged moment. I think you're right. He had that tossed off line of kind of like, yeah, I can see both sides of it or whatever.

Right. Yeah. People were upset. I think that indicated like one of two things. I think your reading of it is right, which he was trying to not like say anything too crazy in the moment and that actually worked against him. But I think he was also came off too equivocal. Especially in in interviews i feel like he often likes to say come up with the funny quick line totally but i think he was like a kind of like gen x rebellious kind of point of view which is like i don't you know very groucho like i don't need to be like throwing myself at the wga

here in the same way that i don't have to throw myself at the studio like i you know i've seen both sides and i'm trying to you know hopefully this works out but it doesn't benefit me to have some openly liberal or openly conservative point of view on anything that is happening in the world because that would jeopardize my ability to see mysterious and or an independent person and it's yeah this bank is kind of the same way mank is kind of like vacillating between those two poles throughout the movie where on one hand he's like wow upton sinclair he's incredibly important but also i love drinking at hearst castle that's an awesome time right i think fincher also fundamentally is like distrusting of most people's motivations on all sides right definitely like he's so obsessed with,

I mean, he always, uh, there's the line of his, I always think about that. Like he thinks people mainly use dialogue to, um, human beings mostly use words to lie.

Right. Right. That he's like the way I approach dialogue. Isn't that it is revealing information. It is revealing character and what they choose to say versus what they're doing or how they justify what they're doing uh and i think that is something he feels pretty apolitically on all sides that having been said there is such a strong through line in all of his films of this like distaste of old money and old institutions right and always having a little

more respect for the people pissing on the side of the castle you know yet he understands that there's like some cycle that needs to exist with both things in dialogue with each other you know and like mank is one of these guys it's it's part of like he has chosen an art form that is incredibly expensive and requires a lot of infrastructure people and a lot of people and he like has to get in bed with shit right and there's also this technical disruptor side of him where he is like i have no preciousness about film let's embrace digital all this shit right where i'm sure there's a part of him that loves like yeah fuck you i put my show on netflix i'm doing shit on netflix and he thinks that netflix are like the rebels throwing stones at the old castle and then within 10 years it's like oh, oh, Netflix is now peak MGM.

They're a behemoth. Right. And they are so that fucking Louis Mayer line of like, this is the only business where we get to sell people something we already own and we don't have to give a thing to them. And I think the other big scene is Louis B. Mayer making the speech asking everyone to take the half pay cut. Which is a real thing that happened. Right. And you hear a couple people call out like, well, of course the movie stars can make the pay cut, but what about the grips and the electricians and whatever? And they just quickly get drowned out by other stars in the MGM stadium.

Like, I'll help you, Louis. Right. Yeah. Until everyone is overwhelmed by the magic of the movies, basically, and breaks out in applause. And then, like, an hour later, Joe Mankiewicz is like, he never gave us the money back. Right. Which he claimed he would. Right.

And Herman, again, has to be like, eh. But that's in part why I thought of his Fincher comments recently, because I'm like, this movie is about the Writers Guild of America. It's a huge part of this movie. Yes. And, like... He's thought about this a lot, is my point. Yes.

And, like, I'm reading my interview with him uh not again not to brag i'm just i hadn't checked in a long time i point out to him and i think this is intentional but he was like oh i don't think so the movies you know this is look lots of movie makers have made their movie about movies right and this is his it's funny that this is his yes like that after all these years i'll make a movie about hollywood it's about this embittered drunk who got fucked by the industry until he like retired retreated and like wrote this screed some annoying director who took credit for it yes yeah um but i'm like the movie is you know we have this crane down you know the back lot there's animals walking around there's people in fucking gladiator costumes or whatever you're like oh the magic movies cut to a bathroom a guy sits down in a

toilet and drops his pants yes and like that's where the writers all are in the shitter yeah and then later in like you know this smoky room with like the the naked woman taking you know it's like this is where all the stuff is actually happening like magic of the movies my eye like there's no magic of the movies in this. Like, when they're filming that scene later where Marion's on the bonfire, and then you cut to, like, Louis Mayer in the tent, and he's, like, there's smoke in his face,

and he's like, blech. You know, like, he doesn't, you know, he doesn't care about that. No. Babylon, a movie all three of us defend. We all love Babylon, yes. And is also a pretty dark cynical movie has far more magic the movie shit in it than this i think the thing with babylon and then

sean you should definitely remark on babylon because i know you're a fan go off on babylon babylon highs is like chazelle is like i love this stuff so much it's so magical to me but i know it was made in this like pit of evil and it's like always been right there's maybe something innately exploitative and inhumane about but he can't help but being like fucking terminator so good though bro like you know at the end avatar yes i feel sean well this movie is a good counterweight to that movie not just because there's a there's a lot more sweetness at the end of babylon with the reflective moment that the character has at the end, but I think that both of those movies

are about the people who are effectively in decision-making roles in Hollywood are scum. Like, they are, even Irving Thalberg, who is, you know, remembered very fondly historically because he was associated and produced so many great movies. You know, like you said before, David, like, he's portrayed as a villain in this movie and mayor is deplorable i mean he is like uh really

scum of the earth the way that he's characterized whether it's like disregarding the rise of nazism whether it's you know just having disrespect for the artists and you know like fighting with who is he who is he meant to be fighting with is it's not errol flynn but it's someone at the beginning of the movie um when he when joe first meets him and they go on that walk wasn't charlie chaplin a character it might have been charlie it is a character i think it's chaplin there's a lot of you know cameos from you know of real people type but in the back but like all of those guys and just just like the you know the executive figures in babylon these are the bad guys you know these are not the creative people these are the people who ask you to take a pay cut and then don't you know repay you these are the people who manipulate creative people

people like fallberg obviously are like lionized as geniuses and they were obviously smart and calculating people like it's not like I'm like Thalberg with some hack. But like, they, you know, they were, you know, standing atop a mountain of people. And this is an industry that has always and perhaps always will treat the people who work within it as machinery. Right. There's this line that Fincher had to me, like, where it's like, you know, the idea of credit, right? Because like, that's what Mank fights for. He wants credit, which is

something he's never wanted before, and so there's sort of something interesting about that. Is, like, he calls it credit is the distilled version of importance. The notion of importance is a ten-pound bushel of amoebas that you

can't get your hand on. I just like that phrase, amoebas. But he's like, credit is, like,hel of amoebas that you can't get your hand on i just like that phrase amoebas but he's like credit is like the only way in hollywood that you actually get to like you know to be acknowledged as the maker of something that mattered right like if you can actually like get your name up on the wall yeah sure pauline kale wrote a big book about mank later being like you don't know it but this guy wrote 20 movies you love. But no one knows who Mank is. Well, now they do.

Well, now they do because of Netflix. Yeah. Mank. America's favorite movie. I mean, how many people watched Mank?

I mean, this is the question. I understand that, of course, we don't know the answer to that. Right. I don't think very many.

But like, would more have watched it in the theater? No. I don't know. I'm sure that it'd be on Netflix when it was on Netflix did draw eyes to at least the first 20 minutes of Mank. Right. Probably before people stepped out. Like, have, like, 20,000 people watch Mank in full.

Ben, did you watch Mank? I did, yes. What'd you think of Mank? Mank did us. Mank is fun. You like Mank. Oh, Ben loves Mank. I like Mank in full. Ben, did you watch Mank? I did, yes. What'd you think of Mank? Mank is fun. You like Mank? Oh, Ben loves Mank. I like Mank a lot. I like seeing people talk old-timey.

Okay. And this is a movie for Mank. I like a Mank, a lot of ding-a-ding-ding-dong, you know? I like that repartee. It's fun. Sure. I mean, what else? I love seeing a drunkunk guy Just pop off

On some rich people No shortage of that Mank's got that I mean And they all are Dressed so ridiculously Mm-hmm Okay

All true Mank's good for all of this You don't see drunks In waistcoats that much anymore You don't Rarely it's one or the other You dress nice Or you have a good time

Imagine being that stinky A drunk And then having to put on A three-piece suit every day To walk around three-piece suit california yeah that doesn't fit by the way the only air conditioning was a fan yes like they had like one wooden fan yes he's such a clammy looking man throughout this entire film i think is the genius of casting someone older is like he just feels like the industry is like seeping in out of his pores yeah but if you look at pictures

of the real mank like it's not like he actually looked like tom cruise i mean he did he he looked old for a man in his 40s he looked quite old city miles yeah he had he had more than city miles he yeah he had highway miles i don't know i don't know he had highway miles. I don't know. He had state miles. Like, look at this guy. Yeah. I mean, that guy does not. And that's his high school graduation photo you're showing? Poor man.

We'll post it. We'll post it. We'll post it. It is funny that his brother, who was, you know, sort of similar looking in a way, but a little more dynamic, yeah has this like long career way after mink dies yes i don't know how he lived so long he lived until the fucking 90s and like really knows how to exist within the hollywood system without going crazy i do like that his brother is played by a you know tom pelfrey who is really cute and is 20 years younger

than gary oldman yes like which i don't think joe mankiewicz was well let's let's look it up he certainly lived a lot longer 12 years man i love to also hear uh all the old slang okay there's some just some great quotes can we talk nerds for a second please yeah please we should be saying that all the time and i know you've done your part david i know you try to say it whenever it counts. Yeah. I wrote down, uh, I've been a little sixes and sevens recently. Come on. A great one. Fun. Yeah. There's also the funny moment where they're, uh, pitching Frankenstein and they go out on, maybe you should show movies in the streets. and it's kind of like a joke of like how do you get like an audience to show up yeah anyway i love this era uh how drink was used okay of like the man's a demon to drink okay he's been known to get caught up in drink right

what's the um i don't say drunk you. You don't say he drinks a lot. We like the true grit line. He loves to pull the cork. He loves to pull the cork. Do you remember that one? One of my favorite things. It's a good one. So good.

It's good. I rewatch that scene every night before I go to bed. Every night? Every night. A lot. This is Dakin Matthews, I think is the guy's name. Dakin Matthews. Of course, Dakin Matthews.

Yeah, the rude headmaster from Gilmore Girls. And he takes a second to think it over, and then he does love to pull the cord. Okay, the other thing is the piano accompaniment to them all being kind of witty and having repartee. Do you know what I'm talking about? It's my favorite scene in the movie, Ben. It's so fantastic.

Do you know what I'm talking about? It's my favorite scene in the movie, Ben. It's so fantastic. And I just, I feel like that form of like entertainment. Sure. Like I want to do that at my next Christmas party. Pay a piano player to just accompany me being witty and cool. Do you have a grand sitting room in your home? I mean, Ben's got a very nice living he has it's just it's a new

york city he has a proper living it's a little less grand than hearst's yeah i don't think i could i could get you live on the second floor piano right yes you don't have a fireplace that like you could stack two people under there are like 38 people in that room it's really something i mean i love the idea of being so rich and powerful that when I throw a party, I have to specify who I want sat near me this time. Yes. Because I'm like, look, I'm not going to talk to everyone.

Like, you know, there's too many people coming to this thing. So can I get some mink this time? Can you give me mink like table, you know, table D? Isn't the line that his estate is half the size of Rhode Island? That's pretty good. That might have been an RKO. i watched them both in the same night so they're mushing together in my brain jesus who else is an rko to anyone uh melanie griffith plays davies yeah i'm always fascinated in like alternate castings of fixed figures where you're like who are different actors apparently roger Allen plays Walt Disney.

Sure. Small part. Oh, Scheider's in this? Scheider's in it? Yeah. Scheider plays a fucking, he's the archaic.

Yes. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. Is he good? Yeah, he's good. Does he grumble at all? Kind of have a low voice.

What are you talking about? How dare you do that? This is a stacked cast. Liam Cummings is an odd cast. Onion Knight is Greg Toland. Killer cast. Onion Knight is Greg Toland. Do you see Onion is an Onion Knight. Is Greg Toland? Onion Knight is Greg Toland. Do you see Onion Knight? I know you haven't watched Game of Thrones,

but he played a character in Game of Thrones called the Onion Knight. His character's name is the Onion Knight? He's awesome. He's my favorite character on the show. He is also my favorite. Him and Stannis are my favorite Game of Thrones characters. Do they call him that because he cries

every time he slices something? That would be great, but no. It's because he famously smuggled a bag of onions into a castle once when they were being uh under siege and they were really hungry that's what he's called the onion knight yeah he's like kind of like a real salt of the earth guy he plays man-at-arms in the motu cartoon okay represent he's got a great i mean liam cunningham is an amazing actor i wish he was in mank honestly i should throw him in yeah you should just walk in but we don't get to see any of citizen kane being made obviously no like i think maybe that's partly why people are also grumpy where they're like you cannot discount the revolution in cinema that was citizen kane which

has nothing to do with its story yes like obviously the story is very crucial and the way it's presented in these like flashbacks you know and and the structure of the plot is sort of unusual. Like, yes, that's important, but no one's talking about digging holes in the floor or deep focus or, yeah, you know, any of that fun stuff. But that's obviously not what this movie's about at all. This movie's about like one man's like last creed occur

against like, you know, the system he lives. Is there other shit we need to hit before we talk Oscars and the non-box office game? The montage is just weird to me. Which montage? The montage I wrote down, the election montage. Yeah. When he's getting hammered in the party. It's very jarring.

Well, it's when he's really, like, spiraling. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's, like, not just that his side is losing obviously he's sad about that but it's like the sort of nasty garishness of this party and like you know the way everyone is dressed and like he's kind of like the world is ending and they're just all like thank god we didn't let that fucker in like it's so crazy to imagine an election in california where like a million people voted like california's still this kind of, like,

podunk state back then. Yeah. Yeah. It feels very reminiscent, almost self-consciously reminiscent of The Lost Weekend. You know, the Ray Moland movie, or the Billy Wilder movie, where he's just getting increasingly drunk.

And the way that that movie's shot, and the way that it, like, represents his point of view slipping into confusion, because he's so hammered. And the same is true there. But the stakes are weirdly much higher in Mank because it's about the election.

But, yeah, but you know what? There aren't enough movies these days about guys who get hammered drunk. No. And that is what Mank is about. Yeah. You know, like,

Leaving Las Vegas came out. I remember when I was a kid. 25 years now. I was like, what's that about? My mom was like, it's about a guy who just gets really drunk. Yeah. And I was like, what do you mean? My mom was like, it's about a guy who just gets really drunk.

Yeah. And I was like, what do you mean? And then she was like, that's kind of it, man. That's the vibe of that movie. What happens the next morning when he wakes up? Kind of does it. Like we don't have, you know, now it's, you know, lots of movies about all kinds of, but like we don't have old fashioned drunks in movies enough anymore.

Yeah. Well, David, I direct your attention over a little hangover trilogy that really shows you the wacky things. Those guys can't handle their liquor. These guys. I need someone where it's like, he's had a fifth of vodka before 8 a.m. I guess the way back was a good version of that.

Oh, way back is so good. Because the way back had the, what I love in these kinds of movies is the business of him getting drunk. Yes. The fucking thing in the freezer, the shower beers. The shower beer. Like where it's like, had the what i love in these kinds of movies is like the business of him getting drunk yes the the fucking thing in the freezer the shower beer shower beer like where it's like yeah this guy has to work at being this buzz it's a professional drunk right yeah you like the way back shirley sean uh yeah speaking of covet films right that was released like right at lockdown it's like

the second to last movie i saw before i think it's excellent and also like way too traditional to have made sense in 2020 to anybody probably yeah it's like great it's like a 1987 robert duvall movie that somehow came out in 2020 yeah yeah that movie rolls that was the second last screening i went to in the last was the hunt right which i saw like two days before like that like that last weekend at the box office Is like The Hunt and Way Back and Onward Onward's in there for sure

And Invisible Man, those were like the last four movies Emma Oh, Emma, good movie, fun Josh O'Connor Birds of Prey too, right? Birds of Prey had like a proper month As did Sonic Those were the movies that got like

Less than three weeks in theaters Yeah Yes is there anything else we need to hit about Mank Sean I guess I'm curious how you guys think it will be I feel like it's kind of Remembered as like a blunder on Fincher's part It will be seen as a blunder

I think For a very long time I do not think its rep is going to get saved anytime soon because it's sitting there on netflix gathering dust sure and fincher has already pivoted into back to sort of his more traditional genre and probably will sort of stay there so it'll feel increasingly glaring like remember when he made mank what the hell was that i will say in in talking to people since we've announced this series people who have been listening along and have been like throwing their fincher takes at me um the thing the sentiment i hear more is not oh mank's a blunder it's the sort of like

quiet tones am i allowed to say that i think mank is boring i don't think people view it as like a blunder as much as they're just like that movie did nothing for me sure you know and some of that might be the like 2020 memory hole a couple people have like raised their hands and said like i think this is like important rosetta stone of like how finch reviews himself and his statement on the film industry and all that sort of shit but i I think more people are like, am I wrong in thinking that's boring? Where even if the majority opinion on this movie still kind of thinks they're the minority. It's probably because it got all the Oscar noms.

So people are like, oh, well then that movie was beloved. I don't think so. It's supposed to be taken seriously. Yeah, right. So let's play the box office game for Mank unless there's anything else you want to say. I threw the Oscars quickly.

All right. It gets basically every major nomination and the only thing it wins is cinematography? And production design. Okay. That is correct. It loses everything else. And I think the Seyfried nom

is probably the closest it came to another win. You called on Mike that you thought she was going to win at some point in that first year. Just because it's all my fault. No, it's not your fault. No, it came to another win. You called on Mike that you thought she was going to win at some point in that cursed year. it's all my fault. No, it's not your fault. No, it's all my fault. I didn't say you cursed her.

I said the year was cursed. Obviously, Yoo Young Jung wins for Minari and that's a good performance and such an interesting win. But Seyfried is definitely

the only of those five where you're like, yeah, that's kind of like a performance Oscars usually respond to. Glenn Close was nominated that year for Hillbilly Elegy. No, she was in fact nominated for Hillbilly Elegy. Well, it seemed like it was the only way to kind of recognize Minari in that.

Yes, exactly. There were other ways to recognize Mank. Although it's super, super funny that everyone hated the cinematography of this movie and it won Best Cinematography. That's really funny. It's kind of embarrassing cinematography. Where you just feel like, were you paying attention

outside of it being in black and white? I don't think this movie looks bad, but as you said, there's like, you know, there's... Well, the nominees were

Judas and Black Messiah, Sean Bobbitt. Remember that looking pretty good. And Bobbitt's a great DP. Sean Bobbitt, that's like McQueen's guy, right? It is. And it was his first,

I believe it was his first nom. Like it was like a late nom. Darius Walsky for News of the World, which is like a cool looking movie. Looks really good. Yep. Most people don't get to see it on the big screen.

Joshua James Richards for No Man's Land. That's the one. I don't understand how that movie wins picture and director and you don't give it cinematography. Because Oscar voters are lazy and they think the small movies should win those things

and the, you know, higher production value movies should win the other things. That movie's 70 cinematography i agree 99 yeah it's 99 cinematography one percent fran mean mug of francis fern if she mean mugs you're getting an oscar now what i mean fern um yeah so it won two oscars it never really felt in contention though like it was the classic good shepherd thing yes it got the noms and good shepherd didn't but that thing where like a year out people were a little bit like well could make you know movie about movies like you know and then it gets some you know cursory attention but it felt like all these netflix movies like irishman and roma uh where

you're like they somehow biffed their way into third place here like i don't know how yeah like they kind of had front-runner status and they had unlimited fyc funds and yet you know everyone got sick of it and irishman's a masterpiece and i think this is good and roma's pretty good yeah like i'm not saying every movie is the right like they they sort of got tons of noms and mostly And Irishman's a masterpiece, and I think this is good, and Roma's pretty good. Yeah. Like, I'm not saying every movie is the same, but, right? Like, they sort of got tons of noms and mostly ignored. No, it remains...

Roma won big Oscars. It remains absurd that Apple won Best Picture before Netflix did, and Netflix kept only getting to Best Director and then whiffing on the final one. The Koda win is one of the... It's one of the weirdest Oscar biffs ever. Can I share with you guys um

well i want to ask a question but by way of asking the question i'll share a very brief anecdote my big hobby horse for a couple of years now with the academy especially in best picture is i want to do the countdown i want to know what came in 10th place so what came in this on your show i pitched this many times that Over the course of the show, they will be like, and now it is time to announce Mank is out of the race. And there's nine left.

You do it like that. Now, there's no way they would ever do it because they hate to be garish. Right. But I would love it. We would love it because we want to know how things rank. I want the data.

I want to know how they make it. I want there to be a countdown feeling. All the reasons why I think that would be great for the telecast and just fun for geeks like us. I actually got to pitch this idea to somebody at the Academy recently. And I was like, I know you'll never do it, but just think about it. Just tell me you had a meeting in a room about this idea, especially when I know the ABC deal is coming up in a few years. And you guys got to make, you know, you really got to make a case for why you deserve a lot of money to put this show on TV. They, no, they don't. They should

fucking tell ABC to go jump in a lake, take the thing to stream. They probably will do that, but nevertheless, um, but the reason I asked the idea of them being like, we will not have a meeting in a room. We'll walk and talk. Maybe outside. What was their response? Well, the person that I was talking to, I think was titillated by the concept but also knew that it was impossible because you could never be like here is the margin between this victory and that victory right you can't have losers it's only winners um right yeah but my question is what do you think was running in second place this year in best picture behind nomadland um i think at the end

of the day promising young woman was probably running in second place really it is crazy i 100 agree obviously it's a weird year yeah you know like that's undeniable yeah and i think nomadland kind of ran away with it yes but i do think promising young woman had a little bit of juice nomadland might have had a higher percentage of the vote than any other best picture winner in the last 20 years and i also think to go back to our original topic of discussion i would argue for better and worse even if some of it is like still strongly maintained negative opinions, Promising Young Woman has the longest tale culturally of all of those movies. I think it's the only one that still kind of feels a little in the convo.

David's pouting. Am I wrong? You might be right. I think I'm right. I don't like that movie. But I think the people who dislike that movie are still holding on to it in a way that the anti-Nomad Latin people have kind of just forgotten and moved on. That movie dared have Amazon in it. God damn it.

I don't even want to rekindle that. That was the dumbest shit I've ever seen. Kindle it? You want to rekindle at Amazon? They're the best places to kindle. Can I throw one final crazy stat out before we move on from this? I threw my Kindle out. I got an NDE ringer. It's fucking bad remember when

i bought an amazon fire tablet and it was like made out of shit low point for you sucked the fucking horrible company just read on my ipad yeah yeah great company has never done anything wrong a crazier stat than the fact that netflix has never won best picture which i feel like we all think about and know right sure? Yeah, sure. Is that basically every other streaming company won a series award before Netflix? Right, because Hulu won Emmys before Netflix.

And Amazon won for Maisel. Right. And Apple won for Koda. And the year... Yep. The year that Netflix finally wins a series Emmy is whatever season,

three or four of The Crown, which is the same year that Ted Lasso wins for the first time. So Apple tied that. That charming motherfucker, Ted Lasso. He taught us to believe. Is there an argument that The Father was the number two because it won two major Oscars? One actor and screenplay? But it didn't get the director nom.

Never Old Finnell did. Well, that's true. Yeah Well that's true Yeah that's true Have you guys seen Saltburn yet? No I haven't seen it yet I'd like to discuss Promising Young Woman After you guys have seen Saltburn Yeah I haven't seen Saltburn yet

I guess I'm excited But part of my argument for why that movie has at least lingered a little Is it is really selling it on from the director of Promising Young Woman. It's true. In a way that kind of is a conversation point. From Midge. It's from Midge. From Midge.

From acclaimed filmmaker Midge. Academy Award winner Midge. Mink came out. We're doing the box office game on November 13th, 2020. Okay. There was a film released in theaters by a major studio that's opening at number one, a horror film. Is it The Empty Man?

No. The Empty Man came out in like the summer. I thought it was October. Was it not October of 2020? November 13th, 2020 is what I'm seeing here. Okay. Where are you getting October from, Sean? Was it not October of 2020? November 13th, 2020 is what I'm seeing here. Okay. Where are you getting October from, Sean? Was it Halloween?

No, I meant October for The Empty Man. Oh, yeah. I know. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, I'm not sure about Empty Man. I can check Empty Man. I know you're Empty Man high. I am, for sure.

Like me? For sure. 100%. So, a horror movie from November of 2020. Correct. Freaky? Freaky. Oh, good. Nice pull. Not a bad movie. No, a horror movie from November of 2020 Correct Freaky? Freaky! Oh good, nice pull

Not a bad movie No, a good movie Opening to three million dollars Yeah Good Yeah, Blum cites that as his like fucking waterloo You're right, Empty Man came out October 23 You're totally right, Sean

I guess nothing was coming out in the summer No You guys should do Christopher Landon series He's gotta do like one more Yeah To be interesting to me He's pretty good He's done a couple of good ones I guess nothing was coming out in the summer. No. You guys should do Christopher Landon series. He's got to do like one more. Yeah. To be interesting to me. He's pretty good.

He's done a couple of good ones. His last one I didn't like that much on Netflix actually, but his Blum stuff is good. Oh, the weird ghost one? We have a ghost. I didn't even see that. I really didn't like it, but I really like Freaky and Happy Death Day. That looked like some real Brian Robbins shit.

I want him to get to do Death Day 3. Me too. Happy Death Day 3? Yeah. Yeah, I want that. Would to do Death Day 3 Me too Yeah I want that Woodwatch What's his next film does he have something lined up He does Is it a legacy thing I think so kind of

I remember there being some announcements Christopher Landon His next movie Oh of course his Scream 7 Right he got the Scream 7. Right, right, right. Okay, number two at the box office.

It's an adult drama with a big movie star. Is it the Costner one? Yes. With Diane Lane. What's it called? I always get this title wrong. Oh, I like this movie.

It's from the, I believe it's from the guy who made... The Family Stone guy. The Family Stone. Thomas Bekuza. It's from the, I believe it's from the guy who made. The Family Stone guy. The Family Stone, Thomas Bekuza. It's not called Let Me Go. Bezucha.

It's called Let Him Go. Let Him Go. You saw that, Sean? You like that? Yeah, I really liked it. A friend of mine produced it. But it's a, I still am like, this movie about like did it presage i don't i don't i'm a movement in america like i don't i i'm not totally sure what that movie is about is it

is it about what happened to america like what how we became this like tribalistic angry group of people or is costa playing america in that movie yeah kind of kind of yeah dot s of a that's his character ulysses ulysses s of america stevens america it's kind of him doing a liam neeson thing but with a lot of prestige around it you know where he's like i guess i gotta go shoot a bunch of guys to get my grandson right yes yes number three at the box office is another film about what happened to us as americans what happened to this country there was a war on grandpa there was a war with grandpa uh robert de niro uma thurman one of those movies that was shot in like you know 1992 or whatever right yes it starts on colin caulkin as the kid yeah everyone was kind of

like oh de niiro's eating in this And it's like bro this was made during the fucking Like Bush administration Anyone writing a review On that movie saying De Niro's Eating on this is really Illustrating how bad the collective Psyche was

During the pandemic Did you guys see it? Did you? Do you know who else is in that movie? Harvey Keitel. Cool. Reunion. Yeah.

Does De Niro shoot up his pimp house? Correct. Number four, a horror film from Focus Features with one of the most unfortunate titles in the history of modern movies. It's like a spooky kid movie, I think. It's a spooky kid movie? It's got one of the worst titles.

Is the title bad enough that I will remember this? I assume the movie has no lasting legacy, right? You know, look, it made 13 mil on a budget of nine in 2020. It's not bad i have no idea it stars a person you've told me has listened to our show it stars a person i told you has listened to our recently told me that she has she told you she likes the show whether or not she was being nice we don't know uh fuck uh what what is what is the title of this movie film stars gillian jacobs jillian gillian yes i fucked it up on the episode i was on with her it's called come play

now here's the thing i have only read that title i've never heard it said out loud it never struck me wrong reading it. It's called Come Play. Well, now I hear it. Come Play. Come Play starring Gillian Jacobs and John Gallagher Jr. Two wonderful actors. Yeah, I haven't seen it. I have no idea how it's regarded.

Did you see this film, Sean? I know you love a horror film. I do. I haven't seen it. I'm looking at Wikipedia. It says the original title title of film was dick cheese which is surprising weird they made a change and i'm seeing here in france it was released under the title sticky fingers i'm just like i know it was the pandemic guys but did no one sit down and say it aloud this is truly the answer no no one said loud. This title was approved solely via email.

Number five at the box office is, or is it the good people at Focus Features are like, America is not that crass. Sure. They will say that title. Right. Number five is an actioner from Open Road, the great people at Open Road,

starring a slightly grizzled older actor. Is it about a marksman? Or is it an honest thief? It's an honest thief. It's an honest thief. I've seen the marksman, have not seen an honest thief. I haven't seen an honest thief. What's an honest thief about? It's Lee Neeson, obviously.

Let's see. A brooding former bank robber turns himself into the FBI and then is set up by corrupt agents the promise that i want all of these to be good robert patrick's in it hey do you think robert patrick looking uh looking young and vigorous in that one i think he's aged into a really good look yeah he looks like a tree um so uh honest thief uh sean i. Sean, I think you were with me that the last Neeson movie, I already forgot what it's called. Retribution?

I actually haven't seen that one. That's your worst movie of the year, right? It's so bad. Yeah. I really need him to stop. I'm worried about him. I will say Blacklight was the worst movie I saw in 2022. Oof, okay.

So, yeah. But I think Memory is halfway decent. I saw him in the new Ethan Hawke-Flannery O'Connor movie recently. And he's in it for like three minutes, but he is incredible. He's a great actor. As an Irish priest,

which of course is the role he is born to play. But I was like, man, I forgot. Liam Neeson, holy moly. It's frustrating how easily he can turn it on. So when he's phoning it in, you're like, man, I forgot. Liam Neeson. Holy moly. One of the greats. It's frustrating how easily he can turn it on. It's crazy. So when he's phoning it in, you're like, this is purely a choice. The rest of the box office. Tenet.

Week what? Week 11, it's made 53 mil. Which compared to the rest of the box office is obviously quite strong. It's huge. And then it's hilarious because it's like Guardians of the Galaxy, Toy Story. Yeah. The New Mutants. Remember that?

Yep. Remember when Disney was like, can we not release this? And then the pandemic happened and they were like, oh, why don't we just release this right now? Yes. And 20,000 screens. The only movie playing in America. And they were like, we did put it out. We told you we would.

The Empty Man is up there the the movie ammonite remember that one oh yeah not very good no really sunk yeah it did that one sunk like a that was that was a real this is a that was a true this had oscar buzz situation that really yeah did not fly. And just those movies where it's like, you don't know the most famous gay Victorian fossil collector in Northern England? Like, this is her story. And I'm like, what's her

story? And they're like, I mean, she was pretty grumpy. She sat on the beach a lot. Tug up a lot of fucking fossils. Do you know how unexciting that movie is? It has a gay sex scene Between Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan And you have not seen it Right, yes

Yeah Ammonite Yeah I did, I think I saw it And I was just like Get out of here It's so boring It is very boring

It's remarkably boring What's wild is that they put that pull quote on the poster Get out of here Says David Sims of the Atlantic. It's the best we could find. Look, at least he felt something. He told us to leave. All right.

Okay. We've got to be done. Sean, we've kept you for far too long. My God. It's been a long day for us. Yeah. I appreciate it. I like being on the back half of a two-pod day.

Oh, you like us loopy? Yeah. I get Chris Ryan usually on the back half of a two-pod day. Oh, you like us loopy? Yeah, like usually I get Chris Ryan usually on the back half of a two-pod day. I'm always number two. And there's something just a little sexy about it. Something a little unusual. Something a little goofy. It's good. Chris at his punchiest is Chris at his best.

Yeah. Question. Will our appearance doing a draft on Big Picture will come out before this episode comes out? Yeah, this episode's coming out mid-November. I think that's coming out late October, right? So that has not been recorded yet. We're recording it next week, but I just want you to know, Sean,

as sort of a backwards advertisement for that episode that will be out at this point. Earlier this morning, Sims and I were fully yelling at each other about it. And me and Marie as well. All four of us were yelling, truly yelling at the top of our lungs. No, no, you were yelling at us. Strategizing.

Because we kept being like, well, did you think of this movie? And then you two would be- Of course we thought of that movie! Of course! It's on the list! Right. And I don't want them suggesting titles that I think David might not have thought of or whatever.

I'm just getting very worked up about it. This is the magic of the draft. I feel like Louis B. Mayer walking through the lot with you both side by side i'm gonna teach you how we i'm gonna be going into that being like i this is no big deal i am just here to have fun and then like one second in someone will take a movie i want and i'm just gonna melt down yeah everyone's gonna be really nice at the beginning of the recording it's gonna be very polite and then it's gonna get there people want the knives will be out yes i also just i i told you this sean right before we started recording but like the last couple of months i've been going so hard on big picture and it's moved up to like top of my podcast rotation and now this has the

pressure of like i play jeopardy at home and when i got if i was there at the podium i would kill this it's not about being good at drafting it's just about hurting other people that's the thing but that's what I'm thinking about the thing with your drafts is the victor barely seems to matter you never even announced that on the show but this is why I was angry at Ben and Marie

citing titles because I'm like I need to defeat David we can't be sharing notes but are you sure you don't want to team up against us and me? Because you know that me and Amanda and Chris, we will not support each other. Like, we will not. Should we, like, have a soft alliance and kind of like, let's let these guys devour each other? This is interesting.

It can be done. It has been done in the past. Retroactive plug for that episode, which people can listen to and see how it turned out. And Big Picture in general, which is one of my, which people can listen to and see how it turned out, and Big Picture in general, which is one of my absolute favorite things to listen to. And The Ringer, the many podcasts and articles of TheRinger.com. Thanks, guys. Let me just say, you know I love your show.

I've told you many times before. That's very nice. Very kind, man. And I had been waiting a very long time for Fincher, so I really was very honored to be asked, and I think this is such a special thing. I hope you were happy with Mank. Well yeah I feel like

you know David's you and I on Mank Island you know we've got our umbrella out you know we're drinking a Corona and thinking of Mank and Griffin you almost got there.

I'm circling the island I'm in a little rowboat doing laps. You're shouting to us. You guys need anything? Yeah yeah you guys are sipping coconuts though oh yeah definitely uh thank you for being here sean uh and thank you all for listening please remember to rate review and subscribe thank you to marie bardy for our social media helping to produce the show and yelling out legal titles

that I didn't want David thinking about in our draft prep. Thank you to Lay Montgomery and the Great American Novel for our theme song. Joe Bowen, Pat Reynolds for our artwork. AJ McKeon and Alex Barron for our editing. JJ Birch for our research. You can go to blankcheckpod.com for links to some real nerdy shit including blank check special features where we do commentaries on film series.

We're doing the Bros and Bonds now. We recorded one of them earlier today. They are loopy. Yeah, they're pretty loopy. If that's what you like out of us,

you'll get a lot of that shit. Mm-hmm. Tune in next week for the last episode in our Fincher series, The Killer. Yes. His second and hopefully final film for Netflix.

The only David Fincher film I've never seen. Same. I'll see you soon. Yeah. What if we don't? What if we show up to the episode and we're like, you know what? Skipped it.

Yeah. Fuck it. Here's our rankings. Couldn't be bothered. Not really our style. Ben is throwing away food waste. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

And as always, Mancue next.