Between Anachronism and Pastiche: The Look of "Mank"

by Cláudio Alves

After months of great anticipation and even greater expectations, David Fincher's Mank is here. For some, the picture's a rousing success, a politicized look at Old Hollywood's insidiousness through the eyes of Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz. For others, it's a disappointment, history and fantasy mushed together with pretension and aggrandizement. I find myself in the middle of these reactions, though my immediate feelings were probably more inclined to the latter than the former.

Still, a good way to consider a film's power is to see how it lasts in one's memory. For me, Mank has aged oddly in the last week. It's not that my perspective is warmer but that I can't shake it off. As the days go by I find myself ruminating on David Fincher's formal conception of this manky flick, its weirdness and intrinsic contradictions…

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Cinema Eye doc nominations

by Nathaniel R

"Time" keeps racking up the honors

The Cinema Eye Honors are now in their 14th year and considered an influential prize for documentary films. Prison sentence justice movie Time leads the nominations with six but two competitors for the top prize, Romania's political corruption doc Collective (Romania's Oscar submission) and Norway's farm doc Gunda aren't far behind with four nominations. 

Outstanding Nonfiction Feature
“Boys State”
“Collective”
“Dick Johnson is Dead”
“Gunda”
“Time”

The full list of nominations and links to our reviews are after the jump...

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Review: "The Prom" on Netflix

by Nathaniel R

I first saw The Prom on Broadway during its sort of sleeper success run (I believe it broke even? but for a Broadway original without stars, that's a success!) and I loved it as much as Principle Hawkins (Keegan Michael-Key) reveals that he loves going to the theater. I relate to Hawkins, okay? And I know what that says about me. Consider if you will, these potentially cringe lyrics about seeking escape through art in  "We Look To You"... 

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Showbiz History: Sam Cooke, Jean Marais, and William Shakespeare (in love)

7 random things that happened on this day, December 11th, in showbiz history

1936 King Edward VIII abdicates the throne to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson. Many years later Madonna will make a movie about it by the name of  W.E. but the royal scandal is covered and/or referenced in multiple other movies too.

1964 Singer Sam Cooke is shot and killed at a hotel where he was staying. Leslie Odom Jr plays Cooke in the Oscar-bound One Night in Miami, which is a fictional story about four real life black icons, which takes place earlier that same year...

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Michael O'Connor and the costumes of “Ammonite”

by Cláudio Alves

As L. P. Hartley famously wrote, "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there." When looking back at times gone by, filmmakers often find themselves as the intermediates between the audience and that strange land. Most try, in some regard, to be interpreters, translating foreign tongues to recognizable idioms, adapting what came before to contemporary sensibilities.

Others, like Michael O'Connor are more pedagogue than translator. In his work the oddities of the past are shown naked, and it's the audience that learns how to comprehend a new language. The British costume designer has made a name for himself with great feats of period couture. While purposefully austere, the Victorian wardrobe of Francis Lee's Ammonite is one of O'Connor's best creations yet…

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