Amanda Seyfried Archives

Review: ‘A Mouthful of Air,’ starring Amanda Seyfried and Finn Wittrock

October 30, 2021

by Carla Hay

Amanda Seyfried in “A Mouthful of Air” (Photo courtesy of Stage 6 Films/Sony Pictures)

Directed by Amy Koppelman

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City in the mid-1990s and briefly in the early 2020s, the dramatic film “A Mouthful of Air” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Latinos) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A children’s book author/illustrator, who has lifelong issues with depression, tries to fight suicidal thoughts after she has given birth to her first child.

Culture Audience: “A Mouthful of Air” will appeal primarily to people who want to see tearjerking issues about depression from a female perspective, even if those issues are presented through a very privileged and glossy lens.

Amanda Seyfried and Finn Wittrock in “A Mouthful of Air” (Photo courtesy of Stage 6 Films/Sony Pictures)

Amanda Seyfried’s heartbreaking and complex performance is the main reason to see the depressing drama “A Mouthful of Air,” which at times gets a little too trite in this story about a young mother who’s struggling with suicidal thoughts. Although the movie is being described as a story about post-partum depression, viewers learn from watching “A Mouthful of Air” that Seyfried’s Julie Davis character, who’s in her early-to-mid-30s, has been depressed and thinking about committing suicide ever since she was 6 or 7 years old.

“A Mouthful of Air” is the feature-film directorial debut of Amy Koppelman, who is one of the movie’s producers. Koppelman also wrote the screenplay for “A Mouthful of Air,” which is based on her 2003 novel of the same name. In the book, Julie is 26, but Seyfried and Finn Wittrock (who plays Julie’s loving but often-frustrated husband, Ethan Davis) made this movie when they were both in their 30s, and they both look like their real ages. By having actors in their 30s (instead of in their 20s) in these roles, it gives “A Mouthful of Air” a lot more emotional gravitas. People in their mid-20s aren’t expected to have their lives on track and settled as much as people in their mid-30s.

“Settled” might be how someone would describe Julie and Ethan’s domestic life in New York City, where they are living in a comfortably middle-class apartment, sometime in the mid-1990s. “Settled” is not how someone would describe Julie’s state of mind. Julie is a children’s book author/illustrator who works from home, while Ethan works outside the home in an unnamed white-collar business job. The movie never states how long Julie and Ethan have been married, but they’ve recently welcomed their first child into the world: a son named Teddy (played by Olivia Kutz and Christian Kutz), who’s 9 months old when he’s first seen on screen.

Julie seems to be a blissful and loving mother to Teddy in the movie’s opening scene, until it becomes apparent that she’s actually very unhappy. Julie starts off cheerfully feeding her baby and telling Teddy that his cousin Ellie will be coming over soon for a playdate. Gradually, Julie’s sadness begins to show, until she can barely hold back her tears. While Teddy is placed safely in a baby chair, in the living room, with the TV on to distract him, a sorrowful-looking Julie goes into the bathroom and takes out a syringe and begins crying. Does she have a drug problem? Is she about to shoot up with the needle?

The movie doesn’t actually show what happened in the bathroom, but it does reveal that Julie ended up in a hospital because she tried commit suicide by cutting her wrists. A flashback reveals that Julie’s sister-in-law/Ethan’s sister Lucy (played by Jennifer Carpenter) was the one who discovered Julie after this suicide attempt when Lucy came over to visit with her toddler daughter Ellie. Because Julie had been expecting this visit, Julie knew that Lucy would find her soon after making this suicide attempt.

The hospital psychiatrist who meets with Julie is named Dr. Sylvester (played Paul Giamatti), who is compassionate but firm in his ongoing treatment of her. During this first meeting, Dr. Sylvester asks Julie how long she’s been having suicidal thoughts. She tells him that she’s had these on-again/off-again suicidal thoughts since she was in the first grade. This suicide attempt was her first.

It’s soon revealed that Julie has been diagnosed with having anxiety and depression, but she stopped taking her medication for an unspecified period of time before her suicide attempt. It’s a frustrating cycle experienced by people who take medication for mental illnesses. The medication can work, but that leads to the patient thinking that the disease is under control, so the patient often stops taking the medication, which leads to the disease being aggravated all over again.

Julie confides in Dr. Sylvester that part of her anxiety has to do with feeling that she’s a horrible mother. She’s also constantly worried about Teddy getting hurt. This leads Dr. Sylvester to tell her a story about when he was a kid, he heard a widespread false rumor that Bubble Yum bubblegum had spider eggs in it.

Even though he says the rational side of him knows this rumor was debunked years ago, Dr. Sylvester said he had an irrational, knee-jerk reaction to not let his young daughter get Bubble Yum when she picked up a packet of the gum at a store. Dr. Sylvester uses a metaphor when he tells her, “I guess we all need to learn where the spider eggs are. And, perhaps more importantly, where they are not.”

The aftermath of Julie’s suicide attempt is felt and expressed in different ways by her adult family members. Ethan is more determined than ever not to let Julie go off her medication, even though she tries to persuade him that therapy is all she needs to handle her mental illness. Ethan is careful not to scold her or blame her, but the stress of worrying about Julie has taken a toll on their marriage. Julie is very insecure and sometimes accuses Ethan of being disinterested and being emotionally distant with her. In actuality, this could be Ethan’s way of coping with having a paranoid and moody spouse.

Meanwhile, Julie’s mother Bobbi (played by Amy Irving) tries to avoid talking about the suicide attempt when she visits Julie, who is her only child. Bobbi is an upbeat and doting grandmother, but she’s got her own personal issues. Bobbi has never quite gotten over her divorce from her ex-husband Ron (played by Michael Gaston), whom she hopes will reunite with her someday. When Bobbi mentions to Julie that they should have a birthday party for Teddy when he turns a year old, Bobbi also blurts out an ulterior motive for why she wants to have this party: “It would be easier for your father to come back.”

It seems that mental illness runs in Julie’s family. Through conversations and Julie’s flashbacks to when Julie was 8 years old (played by Cate Elefante), it’s revealed that Ron was physically and emotionally abusive to her. In one harrowing flashback, Ron angrily yells and chases after Julie as if he’s about to physically attack her, while Bobbi stands by and says and does nothing. It explains why an adult Julie seems to have a somewhat uneasy relationship with her mother. Bobbi also mentions to an adult Julie that Ron frequently disappears and is unreachable, while Julie somewhat coldly answers, “Maybe he doesn’t want to be found.”

Julie’s unhappy childhood has been haunting her in ways other than her low self-esteem. One of the things that Julie has an irrational fear of is living in a house, probably because houses remind her of her childhood. Ethan has been wanting to move out of their New York City apartment to a house with more space in upstate New York. However, Julie doesn’t like the idea. It’s one of the things that she and Ethan argue about.

One night, after Julie has been discharged from the hospital, she and Ethan decide to spend time at a bar with his sister Lucy and Lucy’s husband Kevin (played by Darren Goldstein), who is a good friend of Ethan’s. It’s one of Julie’s first nights out since the suicide attempt. Julie tries to make pleasant small talk at the table, but Lucy is fuming because Lucy thinks everyone is avoiding talking about the problems caused by Julie’s suicide attempt.

Lucy starts off expressing her irritation that Julie’s problems have to be the center of the family’s attention. Lucy then unleashes her anger at how Julie didn’t properly acknowledge how traumatic it would be for anyone to find her dying after a suicide attempt. It’s a reference to how Julie tried to kill herself with the knowledge that Lucy would be coming over soon to visit. Lucy also bitterly tells Julie that Ethan had to continue to clean up Julie’s blood in the apartment when Julie was recovering in the hospital.

Ethan and Kevin, who were expecting a relaxing night out, don’t think it’s appropriate for Lucy to bring all of these issues up in the conversation, and they try to get her to stop. However, Lucy won’t be silenced. Carpenter’s role as Lucy in “A Mouthful of Air” doesn’t get much screen time, but it’s a pivotal and well-acted performance. Lucy’s rant is the first time that a family member other than Ethan is shown expressing anger at how a family member’s mental illness can cause resentment because of all the time, energy and heartbreak involved in taking care of and worrying about the person with the mental illness.

Julie’s empathetic response to Lucy’s tirade is an indication that Julie isn’t completely self-absorbed. However, because Julie is deeply unhappy and paranoid, she goes back to her familiar patterns of thinking that she’s a loser and that her family would be better off without her. Meanwhile, a visit to her obstetrician/gynecologist Dr. Salzman (played by Josh Hamilton), who knows about her suicide attempt, results in another turn of events for Julie and Ethan.

Julie’s claim to fame as a children’s book author/illustrator is creating a fairy-tale character called Pinky Tinkerbink, a girl who copes with challenges while learning some life lessons. “A Mouthful of Air” has some of Julie’s whimsical drawings (which have a lot of rainbows and clouds) that come to life in animation. When Julie does a book reading to some kindergarten-age kids at their school, she essentially admits that she created the Pinky Tinkerbink character to be the kind of heroic friend that she never had as a child.

Seyfried gives a very emotionally nuanced performance as someone who realistically shows the gamut of what people with mental health struggles often experience. She’s stubborn when she resists taking her medication, but she flip-flops on how much attention (including pity) that she wants from her loved ones for her problems. Julie is neither a saint nor a villain but someone who finds it difficult to get outside of her own head.

Wittrock also gives a believable performance as a spouse whose patience is tested by his wife’s struggles with her mental health. As much as Julie feels inadequate about being a good wife and mother, Ethan feels his own angst about his role in the family, since husbands and fathers often feel like they have to be the biggest protectors of their families. Ethan feels powerless to help Julie in boosting her self-esteem, which can be very difficult for a suicidal person. The power to change must come from within that person, and it’s a lot easier said than done.

And that’s why “A Mouthful of Air” can sometimes veer into superficial platitudes when depicting these serious problems. For example, in a scene where Julie is getting an exam from Dr. Salzman, she tells him how she’s been doing since her suicide attempt. She says, “I was walking through a world that was black and white, and now I’m just starting to see color again.” Who talks like in such a hokey way when discussing their mental illness? It might be excused that Julie talks like that because she’s a children’s book writer, but it’s still a cringworthy line of dialogue.

“A Mouthful of Air” also falls into very familiar tropes of movies about women with post-partum depression issues: These movies are almost always about middle-class or wealthy white women with supportive spouses/partners, thereby ignoring the fact that women from all walks of life can have the same issues too. The focus on this specific demographic of white women who are middle-class or wealthy is probably because filmmakers want to show that even women who seem to have a lot of advantages in life (white privilege, financial stabilty, access to good health care) can still be miserable.

However, it’s a huge blind spot when any movie fails to acknowledge that women from all races and social classes have these mental health struggles too. Julie is never shown doing any group therapy, nor is group therapy is ever suggested to her. And if she has any friends who are not family members, these friends are not shown in the movie at all. “A Mouthful of Air” tacks on a short public-service-announcement type of statement as an epilogue to encourage anyone with these struggles to get help. But it completely ignores that “getting help” and the quality of that help are often determined by someone’s socioeconomic status.

There’s also a “trigger warning” briefly flashed at the beginning of the movie, to let viewers know that the movie might be upsetting to people with the same issues. The filmmakers seem to have the right intentions. “A Mouthful of Air” fortunately does not exploit these issues with explicit scenes of what Julie does to harm herself.

Seyfried’s admirable performance elevates the material, which at times feels overly polished in how it glosses over these very messy issues. The movie’s biggest flaw is that it takes for granted that Julie is someone who has the time, the health insurance and the ideal support system to get the treatment that she needs. “A Mouthful of Air” could have used more of a reality check that depression issues that are worth making a movie about don’t just affect people who have the advantages to get the proper treatment for their depression.

Stage 6 Films released “A Mouthful of Air” in select U.S. cinemas on October 29, 2021.

Review: ‘Mank,’ starring Gary Oldman

February 6, 2021

by Carla Hay

“Mank”

Directed by David Fincher

Culture Representation: Taking place from 1930 to 1942 in Southern California, the dramatic film “Mank” features an all-white cast of characters who are are involved in some way in the movie industry.

Culture Clash: Alcoholic screenwriter Herman J. “Mank” Mankiewicz has personal and professional conflicts while trying to complete the “Citizen Kane” screenplay, the 1941 classic film directed by and starring Orson Welles.

Culture Audience: “Mank” will appeal primarily to people interested in dramatic depictions of Hollywood film history from the 1930s and 1940s.

Tom Burke in “Mank” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

A lot of visual flair, technical precision and above-average acting went into the creation of the dramatic film “Mank” (directed by David Fincher and written by his late father Jack Fincher), but it’s the type of movie that will still leave some viewers cold. The movie certainly has compelling performances, snappy dialogue and impressive cinematography by Erik Messerschmidt. “Mank” is a feast for cinephiles who appreciate the art that came from the Golden Age of Hollywood. But “Mank” is a famine for people who want to see movie characters with relatable emotions that are not motivated by greed or ruthless ambition.

Any disdain or apathy for “Mank” might come from people who don’t care about what the movie industry was like in 1930s or 1940s, or who don’t want to be reminded of how racially segregated America was back then. And people could also be turned off from “Mank” because they don’t want to see this part of American history glorified in a movie that recreates the racist and sexist bubble of Hollywood willing to give an alcoholic, difficult screenwriter so many chances to work on prestige projects because of his white male privilege. These are all valid reasons for people not to like “Mank,” which doesn’t try to rewrite history, but the movie also doesn’t try to make any insightful commentary on the rampant racism and sexism in Hollywood and society at large that didn’t allow anyone but white men to be the top filmmakers during this era.

“Mank” is filmed in black-and-white and in a style that emulates exactly how a biographical film about Mankiewicz would have been made in the 1940s. That’s the decade when Mank (who died in 1953, at the age of 55) was at the height of his career, as the co-writer of director Orson Welles’ classic 1941 drama “Citizen Kane,” which is often named in film historians’ lists as the best movie of all time. The “Citizen Kane” original screenplay, which was loosely based on the life of media tycoon William Randolph Hearst, was the only Academy Award won by the movie, which was also nominated for Best Picture and Best Actor. (Welles starred in the film as Kane.)

The Best Original Screenplay prize for “Citizen Kane” was also the only Academy Award won by Mankiewicz and Welles, who died in 1985, at the age 70. “Mank” essentially tells the story of the tortuous process of getting the screenplay completed and the clashes over creative control. It’s a story that could apply to how numerous other movies have been made under similar circumstances, but “Citizen Kane” just happens to be what many film experts consider to be a masterpiece.

“Mank” depicts Mank (played by Gary Oldman) as a talented and experienced screenwriter but also a hardcore alcoholic. He’s under pressure to finish the “Citizen Kane” screenplay by his deadline. However, his alcoholism and his conflicts with Welles threaten to derail the project. At first, Mank was willing to give full screenwriter credit to Welles for “Citizen Kane.” Much of “Mank” is about how and why Mank changed his mind and demanded co-writing credit.

The opening scene of “Mank” shows Mank checking in as a guest at the North Verde Ranch in Victorville, California, in 1940. His intent is to retreat to the ranch so that he can finish the “Citizen Kane” screenplay in relative solitude. Welles (played by Tom Burke) has given Mank a deadline to finish the screenplay in 60 days. Even though Mank is told that North Verde is a “dry ranch” (no alcohol is allowed), that doesn’t stop Mank from having a suitcase full of liquor delivered to his room.

Mank’s discomfort isn’t only because he’s told that the ranch has a ban on alcohol. He also has to use crutches, because he broke his right leg in a car accident. He’s introduced to the female typist who will be working with him: A British immigrant named Rita Alexander (played Lily Collins), who tells Mank that her husband (who’s not in the movie) flies Firebird planes for the Royal Air Force. Rita’s character, like all the female characters in “Mank,” are written to have only one purpose in the film: to be dutiful, passive, and willing to please the men.

Mank’s long-suffering wife Sara Mankiewicz (played by Tuppence Middleton) sometimes talks some sass to her philandering, hard-drinking husband. But ultimately, she caves in to societal pressure to be a wife who’s completely dependent on her husband. Later in the movie, Mank becomes infatuated with Hearst’s mistress Marion Davies (played by Amanda Seyfried), a famous actress who is all too aware that her good looks and her connection to Hearst are the main reasons why her acting career is thriving.

In an early scene in the movie, Sara is helping a very drunk Mank get into bed. She mentions their past courtship of him being a war correspondent who “ruined” her home. It’s a reference to when Mank worked for the American Red Cross News Service in Paris in 1919 and 1920, the year that he and Sara were married. There are not-so-subtle hints in Mank’s interactions with Sara that Sara knew she was marrying a “bad boy” and made the mistake of thinking that he would change after they got married.

In “Mank,” he spends more time with Davies than he does with his wife and children. It’s a commentary on what the filmmakers think his priorities were at the time. Davies is portrayed as a coquettish charmer who isn’t passionately in love with Hearst (played by Charles Dance), but she’s fond enough of him to let him treat her like his trophy girlfriend so that she can enjoy all the benefits that come with it.

Davies was born to a working-class family in Brooklyn, New York, so Seyfried really plays up these roots with a heavy Brooklyn accent in “Mank.” In real life, by all accounts, Davies had lost her Brooklyn accent by the time she became a Hollywood actress. But the accent that the Davies character has in “Mank” is meant to put a lot of emphasis on the fact that she came from a working-class background and she now hobnobs with the rich and famous.

The Brooklyn accent is also apparently an excuse for the “Mank” screenplay to have Mank utter a cheesy line of dialogue when he’s flirting with Davies. Mank sees her at a birthday party for actor John Gilbert (played by Nick Job), and Davies begins telling Mank some stories about when she used to live in Brooklyn. Mank says in a remark dripping with a bad pun/double entendre: “Your Flatbush is showing.” Mank’s lusty facial expression and tone of his voice leave no doubt what he meant by that comment.

In a scene that’s a flashback to 1930, “Mank” shows the misogyny of treating women only as sex objects. The scene takes place in a writer’s room. In the room are Mank, his younger brother Joe Mankiewicz (played by Tom Pelphrey), George Kaufman (played by Adam Shapiro), Sidney Pearlman (played by Jack Romano), Charles MacArthur (played by John Churchill), Shelly Metcalf (played by Jamie McShane) and Ben Hecht (played by Jeff Harms).

There’s a secretary in the room too, but she’s topless, except for pasties covering her nipples. It’s obvious that she’s expected to look this way and to do things such as sit on a man’s lap when he tells her to do it. The men act as if it’s perfectly normal for a woman to be treated this way in a work environment.

It’s easy to see that the screenplay for “Mank” did not want to rely on showing repetitious scenes of a drunken Mank struggling to finish the “Citizen Kane” screenplay on time because he procrastinates. These types of scenes are in the movie, but at a bare minimum. The movie is filled with flashbacks of how he got to know Davies and Hearst and how Mank was tentatively invited into their social circle. Toward the end of the movie, there’s a big costume dinner party scene where, in true Mank fashion, he shows up very drunk. And you can imagine what happens.

If Hearst was the inspiration for “Citizen Kane,” then Welles was the movie’s visionary creative leader. But the person who had the most influence on Mank’s career was MGM Studios co-founder Louis B. Mayer (played by Arliss Howard), who at times was like a exasperated mentor to Mank, if you believe what’s presented to this movie. Mank spends more time on screen with Mayer than he does with Welles.

The movie has several flashbacks to how Mank’s business relationship with Mayer evolved. In a scene that takes place in 1934, Mank introduces Joe to Mayer, who quips: “We only have one star here: Leo the Lion [the MGM mascot]. Many stars forget that. And now, they twinkle elsewhere.”

Mayer is depicted as someone who’s a control freak and only concerned about himself, but is skilled at deceiving people into thinking he has their best interests at heart. This duplicitous nature is shown in a scene, also in 1934, where Mayer is on stage at an auditorium and speaking to an assembly of MGM employees. Mayer explains that the Great Depression has negatively impacted the movie industry. And he tells the employees that he needs them to volunteer to take a 50% pay cut for eight weeks, for the good of the company.

At first, the MGM employees are angry with the news that their salaries will be reduced. Mayer tells them the other option would be to make staff layoffs. And he assures the employees that if they take the pay cut, when President Franklin Roosevelt opens the banks again, Mayer promises that he will pay all of the employees the compensation that they lost out on during this eight-week period.

The employees go from a potentially angry crowd to cheering for Mayer, who’s convinced them that he’s a compassionate boss who really cares about them. Mank is watching this from the wings of the stage and somewhat awed at how Mayer was able to turn the situation around so quickly. But when Mayer leaves the stage, he tells Mank that the speech was all for show and that he has no intention of making the salary reimbursement that he promised on stage.

As a way to seemingly fill up time in this 131-minute movie, “Mank” also takes a few detours into politics, with an entire subplot of how Mank was perceived as a Socialist and how it affected his career. The movie shows that Mank refused to sign an agreement stating that he would never join a writer’s union. The union was opposed by Mayer and MGM head of production Irving Thalberg (played by Ferdinand Kingsley), who put pressure on Mank to side with MGM. The way it’s shown in “Mank,” Thalberg was ready to accuse Mank of being a Communist if Mank didn’t comply with what MGM wanted.

And as if to make it abundantly clear that Mank was a left-wing liberal, there are some unnecessary scenes of him getting caught up on in the 1934 election for California’s governor. The race came down to conservative Republican Frank Merriam versus liberal Democrat (and former Socialist Party member) Upton Sinclair. Mank refuses Thalberg’s demand to contribute to MGM’s anti-Sinclair fund, Thalberg says in a threatening tone: “I hate to think what L.B. [Louis B. Mayer] might do if he finds out that you’re the only holdout.”

Mank replies defiantly, “You don’t need my donation! You don’t need anybody’s donation. You can make the world swear that King Kong is 10 stories tall and Mary Pickford is a virgin at 40, yet you can’t convince starving Californians that a turncoat Socialist is a menace to everything they hold dear. You’re barely trying.” Mank then walks out of Thalberg’s office like a future rapper who just dropped the mic.

On election night at the Trocadero nightclub, where a crowd is gathered to listen to the election results, a drunken Mank makes a $24,000 bet on who will win. It’s the kind of money that he knows could ruin him financially, but he bets it all anyway. Viewers of this movie who know who won the election in real life can easily guess which of the candidates got Mank’s support and how this scene ends.

There’s a minor subplot of how his younger brother Joe feels overshadowed by Mank. Joe is also the more cautious brother who expresses concerns to Mank about the repercussions that Mank will get from Hearst over the “Citizen Kane” screenplay. “Self-preservation is not politics,” warns Joe. Mank doesn’t seem to care. He replies, “I’m washed up, Joe. I have been for years.”

Despite this scene where the Mankiewicz brothers have this candid talk, the brotherly dynamic is often shunted aside, since this movie is just what the title says it is: It’s ultimately all about Mank. His wife is treated as a marginal character, while his children Don and Johanna have no bearing on the plot and are briefly in the movie.

Throughout the movie, Mank seems proud of his disruptive reputation, with the type of bravado of someone who knows he is not the target of racism and sexism. Mank was Jewish, but it’s implied throughout the story that because most of the major Hollywood studios at the time were owned by Jewish men, Mank didn’t get the type of anti-Semitism that he would’ve gotten if he worked in an industry that wasn’t controlled at the time by people who weren’t Jewish.

The movie is intent on making Mank look like a lovable rogue, without any real examination of how his awful actions might have damaged other people. “Mank” gives him somewhat of a “see, he’s not that bad” redemption arc when it’s revealed that he did an act of kindness to help his German immigrant employee named Fraulein Freda (played by Monika Grossman) by sponsoring her German family to live in the United States. When typist Rita is ready to quit in frustration over Mank’s heavy drinking, Freda tells her about Mank’s immigration assistance and that he’s a “good man.”

However, it can be argued that an act of kindness is truly noble when the person committing the act won’t get anything out of it in return. Would Mank have gone to the trouble of helping Freda if she didn’t work for him and if he didn’t need to use her services in some way? Viewers can make up their own minds about Mank’s character by other actions he takes in the movie.

Although “Mank” doesn’t goes as far to say that Mank and Davies had a sexual affair, the movie shows that the two did have some kind of intimate emotional affair. After all, Davies is shown as the one who gave Mank a lot of personal information about Hearst that ended up being used for the Kane character in “Citizen Kane.” As for why Sara stayed married to Mank, she tells him what she thinks of their marriage: “It’s never boring. Exhausting? Yes.”

People watching “Mank” might be surprised by how the character of Welles doesn’t have as much screen time as expected for a movie about the pre-production of “Citizen Kane.” And it’s too bad that Welles is only in the movie for about 15 minutes, because the showdown between Welles and Mank is one of the best scenes in the film. The two men have an explosive argument when Mank tells Welles that he wants co-writing credit for the screenplay.

It’s a battle of egos and power. Welles was a hotshot filmmaker at age 24 when he was given complete creative control over “Citizen Kane” in his contract with RKO Pictures. And he was very arrogant about it, by all accounts. Mank, who was 42 or 43 when he completed the “Citizen Kane” screenplay, had the advantage of being more experienced in Hollywood.

Mank declares to Welles during their argument: “I may be a loose cannon, but you, my friend, are the outsider.” Welles shouts back: “Who’s producing this picture? Directing in it? Starring in it?”

One of the better aspects of “Mank” is it that perfectly captures the tone, pace and voice cadence of movies from the 1930s and 1940s. It looks like a movie that could have been made back then, except the pristine technical aspects (such as the film editing) make it clear that the movie benefited from modern technology. “Mank” uses an eye-catching technique of identifying the year and location of each new scene by showing this information on screen as typing on a paper script with one of the era’s typewriters.

“Mank” director Fincher has immense talent for his attention to detail, when it comes to production design, costume design, a film’s visuals and getting the best that he can out of the cast members in the movie. Those superb qualities make “Mank” worth watching for people who want to immerse themselves in Old Hollywood. However, many of Fincher’s films have main characters who are selfish and/or obsessive to the point where much of their humanity is lost. And that is one of the main reasons why some people will want to avoid watching “Mank.”

Netflix released “Mank” in select U.S. cinemas on November 13, 2020. The movie premiered on Netflix on December 4, 2020.

Review: ‘Scoob!,’ starring Will Forte, Frank Welker, Zac Efron, Amanda Seyfried, Mark Wahlberg, Gina Rodriguez and Jason Isaacs

May 16, 2020

by Carla Hay

“Scoob!”

Directed by Tony Cervone

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in California’s Venice Beach and other parts of the universe, the animated film “Scoob!” has a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans, Asians and Latinos) representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: A villain is out to kidnap Scooby-Doo, the lovable, talking Great Dane that’s the best friend of one of the four young people who’ve started a detective agency called Mystery Inc.

Culture Audience: “Scoob!” will appeal primarily to fans of the original “Scooby Doo” TV cartoon series and to people who are looking for lightweight animation for entertainment.

Dick Dastardly (voiced by Jason Isaacs) and Scooby-Doo (voiced by Frank Welker) in “Scoob!” (Image courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)

People who loved the original “Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!” TV series should brace themselves if they see the animated film “Scoob!,” because the uncomplicated charm of the TV show has been turned into a overly busy, often-mediocre film that has a serious identity crisis. The “Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!” TV series was essentially a detective show, with each mystery solved at the end of each episode. The “Scoob!” movie tries to be too many things at once—a comedy, a mystery, a superhero story, a supernatural horror movie and a sci-fi adventure. But the worst change in the “Scoob!” movie is that Scooby-Doo and the four young detectives at the heart of the “Scooby-Doo” series are split up for most of the “Scoob!” movie.

“Scoob!” begins with showing how the talking Great Dane known as Scooby-Doo ended up with his best friend Shaggy. In the bohemian beach city of Venice, California, a homeless Great Dane puppy is being chased by a bicycle cop and hides out in a mound of sand on the beach. It just so happens that a lonely boy named Norville “Shaggy” Rogers (who’s about 9 or 10 years old) is nearby on the same beach and discovers the dog.

Shaggy names the dog Scooby Dooby Doo. And when the bicycle cop catches up to the dog, Shaggy convinces the cop that he’s the dog’s rightful owner. Shaggy takes Scooby home with him, and they become fast friends. As a token of their friendship, Shaggy gives Scooby a dog collar with a tag engraved with the initials “SD” on it.

Shaggy’s favorite superhero is Blue Falcon, who has a canine sidekick named Dynomutt. Shaggy keeps action figures and pictures of them in his room. Shaggy is such a fan that, for Halloween, he dresses up as Blue Falcon and Scooby as Dynomutt. While they’re out trick-or-treating, some kid bullies steal Shaggy’s candy and knock him and Scooby down on the sidewalk as they run away.

It’s here that Shaggy and Scooby first meet the three young people who will become their close friends: brawny Fred, compassionate Daphne and brainy Velma. For their Halloween costumes, Fred is dressed as a knight in armor, Daphne is dressed as Wonder Woman and Daphne is dressed as Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Shaggy mistakes Daphne for trying to be someone in a “Harry Potter” movie.

Fred, Daphne and Velma offer to help Shaggy after seeing him get knocked down, but he says the only things that are bruised are his “ego and tailfeathers.” (This line is one of the many signs that this movie was written by adults who can’t write realistic kids’ dialogue.) As soon as Scooby and this quartet of new friends start to bond, they encounter their first big mystery together, as they enter what’s rumored to be a haunted house.

They’re immediately terrorized by a menacing ghost in the house. Instead of running away (which is always Shaggy’s inclination), they band together to fight the ghost, which turns out not to be ghost, but a thief who has kept a houseful of stolen electronics and appliances stashed there. And, of course, when he’s arrested, he snarls that he would’ve gotten away with it if it weren’t for those meddling kids. It’s the first real mystery solved by the four friends and Scooby.

Fast forward about 10 years later, and the four friends are now in their late teens/early 20s. They’ve started a detective agency named Mystery Inc., and are trying to figure out how to raise money to keep the business going. While they have a meeting at a diner, Velma (voiced by Gina Rodriguez) thinks that they should find investors.

And lo and behold, Simon Cowell (voiced by the real Cowell) randomly shows up unannounced at the diner, sits down at the table, and says that he’s willing to invest in the detective agency—but only if they get rid of Shaggy and Scooby, since Cowell thinks they’re useless. Cowell cynically adds, “When you get in trouble, friendship won’t save the day.”

Shaggy and Scooby are so insulted, that they don’t wait around to hear how Fred (voiced by Zac Efron), Daphne (voiced Amanda Seyfried) and Velma react to Cowell’s ultimatum to get rid of Shaggy and Scooby. Leaving in a huff, Shaggy and Scooby end up at a bowling alley, where they encounter bowling balls and bowling pins that turn into minion-like robots with chainsaws for hands.

The robots chase Shaggy and Scooby around a bowling alley. Just then, a blue light beams down. It’s the Falcon Fury spaceship owned by Blue Falcon (voiced by Mark Wahlberg) and navigated by pilot Dee Dee Skyes (voiced by Kiersey Clemons), who rescue Shaggy and Scooby from the robots. Dee Dee tells Shaggy and Scooby that the robots are from a villain called Dick Dastardly (voiced by Jason Isaacs).

While on the ship, Shaggy meets his hero Blue Falcon. The superhero is really a guy named Brian who’s taken over the Blue Falcon superhero persona from his retired father, and he hides his insecurity by putting up a blustery brave front. Dynomutt (voiced by Ken Jeong) has the power to extend his neck to great lengths and he’s a loyal and enthusiastic sidekick to Blue Falcon.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Velma has found out through research that Dick Dastardly is wanted by authorities for stealing archeological artifacts from Peru (including a giant skull of a dog) and for taking genealogical records of dogs from the Global Kennel Club. It’s pretty easy to figure out at this point that Scooby is the target of Dick Dastardly’s evil plans. But why? The movie answers that question, but there’s a lot of filler action, as the movie zigzags from genre to genre the way that the characters zig zig from Earth to outer space.

“Scoob!” has four screenwriters—Adam Sztykiel, Jack C. Donaldson, Derek Elliott and Matt Lieberman—and the whole movie gives the impression that the screenplay had “too many cooks in the kitchen.” It tries to be a comedy, but the jokes aren’t very good. When one of the characters calls athletic Fred “a poor man’s Hemsworth,” Fred asks, “Chris or Liam?” And the “mystery” in the movie is very easy to solve, even for young children who might be watching.

As for the animation, when there are Pixar movies in the world, many other animated films look inferior in comparison. The best action sequences in “Scoob!” are with the fearsome Cerberus (the three-headed hound of Hades), which has to do with the supernatural horror aspect of this messy film. There’s a chase scene through an abandoned amusement park that ramps up the action, but nothing in this movie is awards-worthy.

Although the actors do a good job with the screenplay that they’ve been given, it seems as if the Blue Falcon character was added to the world of Scooby-Doo just to jump on the bandwagon of superhero movies and to create a possible cinematic universe with various Hanna-Barbera characters. And the celebrity cameo from Cowell just seems weird and out of place. Cowell’s son Eric even has a voice role in the movie. (Did someone on the “Scoob!” filmmaking team owe Simon Cowell a favor?) Tracy Morgan has a cameo as Captain Caveman on Mystery Island, but his wacky character is very under-used in a script that needed more originality instead of a derivative superhero subplot.

And since Shaggy and Scooby are separated from Fred, Daphne and Velma during most of the movie, this estrangement ruins the original appeal of the “Scooby-Doo” series, which is all about the teamwork and camaraderie between this lovable dog and his four human friends. Another travesty: Mystery Inc.’s 1970s-style van the Mystery Machine is literally destroyed in the movie, which is an apt metaphor for how this movie wrecks the spirit of the original “Scooby-Doo” series. If “Scoob!” had stuck to a well-crafted story about a good mystery that needed solving—instead of trying to be too many things to too many people—then it would have turned out to be a much better movie.

Warner Bros. Pictures released “Scoob!” on digital and VOD on May 15, 2020.