And here's where we are in COVID-19 - 2020. You await the Oscar buzz to propel you not to the movie theater on a Saturday night but your living room couch. Because, sadly, that's where the movies are playing these days.
"Mank" would have been one of those films I would be seeing at the Arclight Hollywood while gobbling down some of their delicious caramel corn. It had been dubbed one of the award contenders...well, at least, whenever they figure out how to give out Oscars again. And hence lots of intrigue for me who's sadly missing the movie experience.
I mean, the subject matter is perfect for me. A biopic about Hollywood screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz and, specifically, his collaboration with wunderkind Orson Welles on the legendary "Citizen Kane." Shot by director David Fincher in delicious black and white. Bolstered by an Oscar star turn by Gary Oldman.
To entice me even more, there are tons of famous people sprinkled through the story. Marion Davies. William Randolph Hearst. Irving Thalberg. Louis B. Mayer. You name the Hollywood figure from the 1930s. They're in this movie.
How could it go wrong?
Well, it did. Go wrong. Significantly.
Amid all of the above is dialogue where each character tries to sound smarter than the last character who just tried to sound smarter than the previous character.
Yawn.
Now if I'm missing this movie in a theater the way I was supposed to, my reaction might be a bit different. I would be alert and listening to every word and bon mot. I'd be relishing it all on the big screen.
Watching "Mank" at home and stretched on a sofa, it was.....
ZZZZZZzzzzzzz.
Twice, I had to rewind the film to catch up on the fifteen minutes I had just snoozed through. Perhaps, in reality, "Mank" is a good film. But it might need that theater experience. Because, at home, that Oscar buzz can sound an awful lot like...well...snoring.
LEN'S RATING: Two-and-a-half stars.
Dinner last night: Leftover Chinese food.
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