It’s hard to remember now, but there was a time when we were not tethered to our smart phones. A new film, “BlackBerry,” starring Jay Baruchel and Matt Johnson, and now playing in theatres, vividly recreates the scrappy story of friendship, betrayal and hubris that began our obsession with our phones.
Baruchel and Johnson play Mike Lazaridis and Doug Fregin, founders of small tech company Research in Motion. When we first meet them it’s 1996 and they are about to pitch a new kind of pager to hotheaded executive Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton). He’s the kind of Art of War-style boss who snaps at an assistant who reaches for a bottle of water. “Thirst is a display of weakness.”
Too busy trying to backstab his way to the top of the corporate ladder to give the tech nerds his attention, he dismisses the awkward pitch before they even get to the end. But when his latest grab at a promotion gets him fired from his cushy corporate job, he reaches out to RIM with an offer.
Under his aggressive leadership, coupled with Lazaridis’s uncompromising search for perfection and Fregin’s clever engineering and heart, the Waterloo, Ontario storefront start-up soon debuts “the world’s largest pager.” Or is it “the world’s smallest email terminal?” Either way, it is a handheld game changer that combines a phone with the capabilities of a computer.
The odd little phone, with a QWERTY keyboard, encrypted messaging and low data cost, becomes a status symbol, used by some of the world’ most powerful people. In the hands of everyone from President Barack Obama and Justin Timberlake to Katy Perry and Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour, the phones helped the world communicate in a whole new way.
The halcyon days of BlackBerry lasted a few years until shady business dealings, ambition and lack of vision relegated RIM’s products to the scrap heap; the “phone people had before they bought an iPhone.”
“BlackBerry” isn’t just a business story or the story of innovation. Instead, it is an underdog tale that emphasizes the human foibles that led to RIM’s downfall, not just the financial ones.
Baruchel and Howerton, as the characters who provide the story’s yin and yang, hand in strong performances.
Baruchel, topped with a shock of white hair, goes deep to play Lazaridis as a socially awkward man with a rich inner life, a perfectionist who can’t help himself from fixing a buzz on the office intercom in Balsillie’s office on the day of their big pitch.
As Balsillie, Howerton is all bluster, a thin-skinned man who covers his weaknesses with a thick veneer of bellicosity. From attempting to buy a hockey team after a rival slights the game to his wanton manipulation of RIM to suit his own ambitions, he is simultaneously the best and worst thing that ever happened to Lazaridis and Fregin.
As director and writer (as well as co-star), Johnson concentrates on the human side of the story, amping up the anxiety with a terrific sense of pacing and claustrophobic close-ups of his cast as their lives and business unwind.
“BlackBerry” is an interesting slice of recent history, made all the more interesting by the study of hubris that makes this tech story so human.
Just in time for Mother’s Day comes the new Jennifer Lopez Netflix movie “The Mother.” A twist on the 1994 thriller “The Professional,” it is the story of a cold-blooded assassin whose heart is warmed by a young innocent caught up in a dangerous situation.
When we first meet The Mother (Lopez) she is a pregnant ex-assassin making a deal with the FBI to turn on her former crime partners, gun runners Adrian Lovell (Joseph Fiennes) and Hector Álvarez (Gael García Bernal). Their business began when she was stationed at Guantanamo Bay, but soon spun out-of-control and now, even the morally compromised Mother wants out.
Trouble is, Lovell and Álvarez will do almost anything to keep her quiet. “You burned down our entire world,” says Lovell.
One barrage of bullets later, Mother is hospitalized. In recovery, she has the baby, but is told by a stern FBI agent (Edie Falco) that not only is she in danger, but the threat from Lovell and Álvarez extends to the newborn. “What you are to that child is a death sentence.”
Mother reluctantly agrees to put the child in foster care while she goes into hiding in the Alaskan wilderness. “You put her with good people,” she says. “Keep her safe. If there’s trouble, let me know.”
Cut to twelve years later. Mother gets word that her daughter Zoe (Lucy Paez), who has grown up in a quiet, leafy suburb unaffected and unaware of her biological mother’s past, is once again in danger. “They’re using her to get to me,” Mother says. Working with FBI agent William Cruise (Omari Hardwick), Mother comes out of hiding to protect the daughter she has never met. “I’m a killer,” she says, “but I’m also a mother and I will die protecting her.”
Hiding out in the wilderness, Mother homeschools Zoe in the ways of tough love and warfare. “Do you hate me?” Mother asks. “Good. Use it. You’re going to work harder than you ever thought you could work. Then you are going to run out your reserve tank and find out you have more. And then you’ll run that out too.”
“The Mother” has echoes of “The Professional” and “Hannah,” but pales by comparison.
New Zealand director Niki Caro kicks things off with a far-fetched, but promising set-up, only to allow it to flounder as the running time increases. A compelling twist on a mother – daughter relationship is wasted by a script with paper thin characterizations, a pair of lackluster villains and no real twists after the first fifteen minutes.
Lopez brings a steely, studied deep freeze to the deadly character, punctuated by moments of familial concern. Lopez is no stranger to action or intrigue, and the “Bourne” style -up-close-and-personal fight scenes have some punch to them, but the clichéd dialogue feels left over from a 1990s direct-to-DVD flick. “I’m whatever I need to be to keep her safe,” could have been said by any number of b-movie heroes, and here, as the words spill out of her mouth, it feels like an echo from another, better movie.
Big points, though, to costume designers Bina Daigeler and Jeriana San Juan, whose fur-trimmed looks for the on-the-run Mother, are runway ready.
Even worse is Fiennes as the blandest bad guy to come down the pike since the forgettable Max Lord in “Wonder Woman 1984.” We know Lovell is evil because he does terrible things, but Fiennes plays him as a vessel for some heavy prosthetic make-up and nothing more.
“The Mother” is serviceable, a big action movie that fits the small screen.
The world is a different place for Diane, Vivian, Sharon and Carol, the avid readers and best friends played by Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen since we first met them in 2018’s “Book Club.”
Pre-pandemic they used the racy novel “Fifty Shades of Grey” as a textbook to reinvigorate their relationships. Now, in “Book Club: The Next Chapter,” currently playing in theatres, the foursome have weathered the pandemic’s economic downturn, retirement, the loss of a beloved pet and health issues. “Life is like a really great novel,” says Diane. “You never know what the next chapter will bring.”
The bulk of the action takes place abroad when Vivian finally allows a break in her emotional armor and announces she and longtime beau Arthur (Don Johnson) are planning to get married.
“You know what that means? Bachelorette,” says Carol. “I think we should all go to Italy.”
Once there, commitment-phobe Vivian grapples with her decision, while the others embark on unexpected adventures. “Life is unpredictable,” says Vivian, “and it is the surprises that make it worth living.” Among those surprises is a romance for Sharon, a retired judge with a dead cat and a zest for life, and a reckoning on the past for the recently widowed Diane.
Before you can sing “Mambo Italiano,” they see the sights, make wisecracks—”What’s the protocol here?” asks Vivian, surrounded by nude male statues. “Where do I stuff the dollar bills?”—and find ways to take control of their own destinies.
“Book Club: The Next Chapter” gets the job done with a collection of mom jokes, bubbly chemistry between the leads, a fashion show, a sprinkling of romance and some inspirational late-in-life lessons.
There is no conflict to speak of, no real dramatic arc, but the quartet of stars elevates the material. Bergen is the MPV, displaying the razor-sharp comic timing she honed for a decade on “Murphy Brown,” and earns the bulk of the movie’s laughs.
“Book Club: The Next Chapter” is not groundbreaking or terribly original—the “Golden Girls” did it first and better—but for its target market, it’s an amiable enough time waster after few mimosas at a Mother’s Day brunch.
It’s hard to remember now, but there was a time when we were not tethered to our smart phones. A new film, “BlackBerry,” starring Jay Baruchel and Matt Johnson, and now playing in theatres, vividly recreates the scrappy story of friendship, betrayal and hubris that began our obsession with our phones.
Today, we going to focus on that story, courtesy of the film BlackBerry, which opens in theatres on May 12.
There was a time when the Canadian made, odd little phone, with a QWERTY keyboard, encrypted messaging and low data cost, was a status symbol, used by some of the world’ most powerful people. In the hands of everyone from President Barack Obama and Justin Timberlake to Katy Perry and Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour, the phones helped the world communicate in a whole new way.
They were the original smart phones, which makes their Canadian creators Mike Lazaridis and Doug Fregin, visionaries, the men who gave us the future.
Recently I sat down with BlackBerry co-writer, co-star and director Matt Johnson, and Jay Baruchel who stars as the awkward genius behind the BlackBerry tech, Mike Lazaridis.
Matt is the director of The Dirties, which won Best Narrative Feature at the Slamdance Film Festival, Operation Avalanche, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and mockumentary television series Nirvanna the Band the Show.
You know Jay from his voice role as Hiccup Haddock in the How to Train Your Dragon franchise, and for roles in Knocked Up, Tropic Thunder, The Trotsky, Fanboys, She’s Out of My League, Goon, This Is the End, and the action-fantasy film The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. You can also see him as the host of We’re All Gonna Die (Even Jay Baruchel) on Crave.
BlackBerry is the story of the company Research in Motion, Jim Balsillie, the hotheaded businessman, played by Glenn Howerton, who was there for the rise and fall of the iconic company.
“BlackBerry” isn’t just a business story or the story of innovation. Instead, it is an underdog tale that emphasizes the human foibles that led to RIM’s downfall, not just the financial ones.
We began the interview with the idea of talking about the film, but were soon sidetracked by a discussion inspired by the lessons learned from the film, about what it means to be Canadian, why we don’t celebrate our own stories and much more. Stay tuned, it often doesn’t sound like an interview as much as a conversation we might have had over a drink or two. Like the movie we were supposed to concentrate on, before the conversation took a few left turns, the interview is passionate, patriotic, funny and not quite what you might expect.
Each week on the nationally syndicated Richard Crouse Show, Canada’s most recognized movie critic brings together some of the most interesting and opinionated people from the movies, television and music to put a fresh spin on news from the world of lifestyle and pop-culture. Tune into this show to hear in-depth interviews with actors and directors, to find out what’s going on behind the scenes of your favourite shows and movies and get a new take on current trends. Recent guests include Chris Pratt, Elvis Costello, Baz Luhrmann, Martin Freeman, David Cronenberg, Mayim Bialik, The Kids in the Hall and many more!
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“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” the new sci fi action comedy from director James Gunn, brings the hip needle drops, off-kilter humor and mismatched, misfit superheroes you expect, but adds in unexpectedly heart tugging sentiments about family, second chances and personal growth.
The action begins on a downbeat note. Rocket (Bradley Cooper), the smart mouthed genetically engineered racoon, is feeling down, wallowing in the maudlin sounds of Radiohead’s “Creep.”
Star-Lord, a.k.a. Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) is using booze to grapple with the change in his girlfriend Gamora (Zoe Saldaña). She was killed by Thanos, but, courtesy of an alternate timeline, a version of her returned, but different, with no memory of her adventures with the Guardians or her love affair with Quill. “I’ll tell you something,” he says. “I’m Star-Lord. I formed the Guardians. Met a girl, fell in love, and that girl died. But then she came back. Came back a total d**k.”
Their world is given a shake and bake by caped supervillain Adam Warlock (Will Poulter). He is a powerful cosmic entity, with a third eye jewel embedded in his forehead, working with the man responsible for creating Rocket’s unique genetic makeup, a Dr. Moreau type known as the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji). The ultimate plan is to kidnap and study Rocket to use the chatty racoon as the basis to sidestep the evolutionary process and create more hybrid species. “My sacred mission is to create the perfect society,” he says.
During the invasion, Rocket is severely injured, revealing to his co-Guardians—Star-Lord, Nebula (Karen Gillen), Mantis (Pom Klementieff) Drax (Dave Bautista), Groot (the voice of Vin Diesel) and Gamora—the extent of his genetic modifications.
As the racoon wavers between life and death, the film cleaves into two parts, Rocket’s origin story and the rescue mission to save his life. “Are you ready for one last ride?” asks Peter.
“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” succumbs to the usual superhero movie pitfalls. By the time the end credits roll, it has become a loud, slightly over-long orgy of CGI, but James Gunn brings something most other superhero movies don’t have.
Within the wham-bam action overload is a genuine sweetness that overrides the bombastic action. Under his watch the movies provide the expected wild ride while grounding the otherworldly action with poignant relationship drama. These movies are about logical, not necessarily biological, families, and that connection, above all else, is what makes these movies so effective.
If Gunn (and Bautista) can make a character named Drax the Destroyer loveable, then anything is possible.
“Acidman,” a new family drama starring Thomas Haden Church and Dianna Agron and now playing in theatres, is a quiet, and sometimes disquieting, essay on a broken father and daughter relationship.
Maggie (Dianna Agron), a thirtysomething engineer on the verge of divorce, hasn’t had much contact with her father Lloyd (Church) a.k.a. Acidman, for decades, ever since he abandoned his career and family when she was a teen.
A reclusive, he lives rough, in a rundown trailer in the Pacific Northwest. “It’s a good place to be left alone,” he says. When he isn’t writing and recording discordant industrial music using the junk that fills his place as instruments, he is attempting to make first contact with UFOs. “Technically,” he says, “they are IFOs because we’ve identified them.”
Maggie travels thousands of miles by plane, train and automobile to reconnect with her father, to check in on him—“When is the last time you went to the doctor?”—and to gain some understanding of his reasons for leaving her behind. In understanding his abandonment, she also hopes to gain some clarity on her dissolving marriage.
“How long are you planning on staying,” Lloyd asks. “I guess I could have picked up a little, if I had known you were making the trip.”
As they get reacquainted on UFO sighting trips with Lloyd’s dog Migo, Maggie comes to realize the depth of her father’s alienation, but finds cracks in his hardened veneer that reveal the man she once knew.
“Acidman” is the study of a relationship in progress. Lloyd and Maggie are strangers, tied by biology and faded memories.
Their tentative attempts at making a true connection are poignantly played by Argon and Church. There isn’t an ounce of sentimentality on display, just two broken people searching for a path forward. This isn’t a story where the characters emerge at the end of the movie radically changed. Instead, the way they grapple with the past, pushes them into the future.
Director Alex Lehmann keeps things simple. The melodrama is on the downlow, which allows the chemistry between the two lost souls in the leads develop slowly and naturally until their fractured relationship finds its comfort zone. It’s an intimate two-hander that takes patience from the viewer, but pays off with a feeling of gentle authenticity.
“Carmen” borrows its name and main themes from 19th century works by romantic novelist Prosper Mérimée and composer Georges Bizet, but is set very firmly in modern day. A loose and often surreal adaptation of the novel and the opera of the same name, this movie begins with a tragic event that shapes the rest of the story.
When a bullet from a drug cartel member kills defiant flamenco dancer Zilah (Marina Tamayo) in the Mexican desert, her daughter Carmen (Melissa Barrera) is left alone and vulnerable. Fleeing to safety with the help of a smuggler, she heads for the US border and Masilda (Rossy de Palma), her mother’s best friend.
On the American side in Texas, Aiden (recent Oscar nominee Paul Mescal), a discharged Marine suffering from PTSD, reluctantly takes a job patrolling the border.
The journeys intersect when Carmen and other immigrants attempt an illegal crawl under the fence dividing the two countries. Spotted by Mike (Benedict Hardie), a racist guard with a quick trigger finger, they are met with a hail of gunfire. Carmen escapes with Adreian in tow. On the run, the pair begin a passionate affair as they plot their next steps.
“Carmen” is a musical odyssey but it isn’t exactly a musical. It is a gritty and timely story told with magic realism, where contemporary dance and music are part of the story’s language. Directed by French dancer Benjamin Millepied, who choreographed the 2010 movie “Black Swan” and the “sandwalk” in “Dune,” goes for a dream like feel that stands at stark contrast to the gritty reality of Carmen and Adrian’s situation.
This approach does make for some jarring transitions from scene to scene, as the movie shifts from pragmatism to avant-garde fever dreams, and it can be confusing, but the sheer beauty of the dance sequences and the music goes a long way in keeping the experience compelling. Millepied’s dance sequences are, unsurprisingly, visually stunning, and often worth the price of admission alone.
Barrera and Mescal’s smoldering chemistry is “Carmen’s” touchstone to reality, but this isn’t about realism, it is about pure emotion. Often more beautiful than cohesive, it’s geared to make you think and feel, and on that level it succeeds.
I join Jim Richards of NewsTalk 1010’s “NewsTalk Tonight” and classical guitar superstar Liona Boyd to tell an amusing story about meeting the late and legendary Gordon Lightfoot.
