"Today, it’s Netflix and other major streaming services that play the role which studios did in the nineteen-thirties and forties..."

"... like the studios, streaming services control the spigot of viewing, and, like the studios, the major services are vertically integrated, controlling both the means of production and the means of distribution. Netflix both produced 'Mank' and is the place where the film will be seen—the company, in effect, owns a thousand-screen multiplex, present in every subscriber’s home. If Fincher, in 'Mank,' looks so ruefully at the intersection of media power and political power, it’s because, in the age of streaming, the reign of behemoth studios and their monopoly has, in effect, returned."

From "'Mank,' Reviewed: David Fincher’s Impassioned Dive Into Hollywood Politics" by Richard Brody (The New Yorker).

The movie is about Herman J. Mankiewicz, who wrote the screenplay for "Citizen Kane," and the story is told in the same manner as "Citizen Kane." 

Now that I have at long last subscribed to Netflix, I have to consider whether to watch these things that are only on Netflix. Before, I was saved a lot of trouble. Some of these shows feel like assignments. And before I was a subscriber, I was able to look on calmly and know that I'm not taking that course. I don't have to do that homework. 

I did watch the first 5 minutes of "Mank." Yeah, this bed frame is way up in my face and I know why — because it's something like what Orson Welles did in "Citizen Kane." And, oh, yeah, that's Gary Oldman in the bed, and he's supposed to be such a great actor. And who are all these other characters bustling about the room supposed to be and why should I care... or just answer the second question first and if you can't answer you don't have to answer. It's like a bad dream where you can't do the work and then wake up and realize you don't have to do that work. It was never your work to begin with. So let's just watch another episode of "The Crown," the show I subscribed to Netflix because I wanted to keep watching.

But if "Mank" were a movie in the theater, I'd only be watching the first 5 minutes because I got motivated to leave my house and to buy a ticket just for that one thing, and now I was in my seat and settled in for what I'd made a tangible commitment to. So I'd do the work of paying attention and trying to get interested and figure out why everything happening is important and meaningful. That's nothing like Netflix.