Pop Style Opinionfest: Movie Talk – The Controversies Surrounding “Mank” and “The Prom”

Pin

It’s an (almost) ALL-MOVIE TALK PSO this week as we review two big Netflix drops and the controversies that sprung up around each of them – because this is 2020 and literally every single thing must become a controversy at some point because we’re all bored and stir-crazy and miss talking to humans in the same room whose mouths we can see.

In fact, before we jump into all things cinematic, we had to spend five minutes crankily ranting about one of those dumbass controversies: Nigella’s cute (and clearly deliberate) mispronunciation of “microwave.” We have some theories as to why everyone couldn’t shut up about a passing joke, some of which gets rather expansive and brings up larger issues in media, politics and culture at the moment. Because of course we had to get grandiose about it.

Then it’s off to the virtual cinematheque, as we first tee up David Fincher’s Mank, about legendary screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz and the story behind the writing of the Citizen Kane script.

Except it’s barely about that at all, honestly. Which is why the controversy surrounding the question of the authorship of Citizen Kane springing up among the film literati is so odd to us. We talk a bit about what works and what doesn’t in the film and why we think it’s a mistake to think the film – and by extension, Fincher – has a point to make about who authored what.

Next, we put our Big Gay Pants on and tackle the Big Gay Musical that dropped today on Netflix, the Ryan Murphy-directed adaptation of the Broadway play The Prom:

Of COURSE we have much to say on the film itself and on the performances of each of its leads, but we zero in on the controversy surrounding James Corden’s portrayal of a flamboyant, somewhat stereotypical gay man, which opened up a whole new round of questions regarding straight actors playing gay and whether it’s problematic, with examples pulled from the recent Kristen Stewart-starring Happiest Season and the upcoming Falling, written and directed by Viggo Mortensen, who plays the gay lead character as well.

Thanks for listening, darlings!

[Photo Credit: Netflix – Video Credit: Netflix via YouTube]

• Amanda Seyfried
• James Corden
• Mank
• Movie Reviews
• Netflix
• Pop Style Opinionfest
• Reviews
• The Prom
• Viggo Mortensen