2020 films (so far)

Mank (David Fincher, 2020): 2/5

Greatest film ever made about the 1934 California gubernatorial campaign. The Welles vs. Mankiewicz authorship kerfuffle that's being used to hype this movie is a dead horse; Robert Carringer's archival scholarship has conclusively demonstrated how Welles's revisions significantly improved Mank's draft.  And, thankfully, the film largely avoids that issue, as it's really about how Mank arrived at his script titled "American."  But the characterization of Mank is mostly a one-note repetition of cynical Hollywood insider schtick, which isn't half as clever as Fincher et al think it is.  Perhaps this would play better in a theater, but on TV the photography and score look and sound like standard episodic Netflix fare.  The fake cigarette burns signifying reel changes and Fincher's appreciation of film culture only highlight how flat, grey-scaled, and "digital" this looks compared to celluloid.  A disappointment all around.

Sound of Metal (Darius Marder, 2020): 5/5

An alt-rock art-metal drummer loses his hearing and must cope with how it upends his life.  Here's a movie that really benefits from quarantined viewing in silence, as the story is told as much with sound design as words and images.  One could quibble with some gaps in plot or perhaps a predictable resolution, but lord knows we could use some fucking resolution these days.  Holding it all together is a stunning performance by Riz Ahmed (mesmerizing in the HBO series The Night Of and as the hapless sidekick in Nightcrawler), who has a vulnerable intensity and expressive eyes rivaled only by Chiwetel Ejiofor.

I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020): 3/5

I couldn't agree more, Charlie.  The argument in the car featuring a verbatim recitation of Pauline Kael's review of A Woman Under the Influence was priceless.  This being a CK film and all, I didn't give a shit about figuring it out, and just enjoyed it while it lasted.

Hillbilly Elegy (Ron Howard, 2020): W/O

I attempted a hate watch but couldn't make it past 20 minutes.  But I'm sympathetic to Ron Howard's frustration with the source material.