And speaking of screenwriting credits, the writer, Jack Fincher, has been dead for 17 years he was David Fincher’s father, and the script was written in the 1990s, though the director wasn’t afraid to ask his dad for rewrites to make it less anti-Welles: “The first draft,” he recalled recently, “just felt like revenge.” The film stars Gary Oldman as the title character and Tom Burke as Welles, and deals in part with the controversies over how much each man contributed to the script. Mank (December 4): What’s it like to be the less famous writer on the most famous film of all time? Superstar director David Fincher is betting we’ll want to see a feature film addressing that question: the title character is Herman Mankiewicz, a screenwriter and wit who was part of a famous Hollywood family, but who is best known today for the screenplay of Citizen Kane, for which he shared an Academy Award with the film’s producer/director/star Orson Welles. Amy Poehler executive-produced the special and contributes a brief introduction.
Natalie Palamides: Nate – A One Man Show (December 1): New York magazine dubbed this comedy show “The Most Astonishing Special of 2020,” and it may turn out to be the latest in the line of deconstructive Netflix comedy specials that started with Nanette: Palamides does the whole show in character as a very toxically-masculine, moustached man named Nate, whose interactions with the audience are often uncomfortable and invasive, turning the whole hour into an interactive comic exploration of issues like consent and the relationship of performers to their audience.