Blackberry

Posted on May 11, 2023 at 3:14 pm

B +
Lowest Recommended Age: High School
MPAA Rating: Rated R for language throughout
Profanity: Constant very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs: None
Violence/ Scariness: Tense confrontations
Diversity Issues: None
Date Released to Theaters: May 12, 2023
Copyright 2023 Elevation Pictures

We used to get movies about knights, cowboys, soldiers, usually with a lot of highly simplified clarity about the good guys and the bad guys. These were exciting in and of themselves, but they were also origin stories, those foundational, profound, and defining sagas that tell us who we are: the descendants of courageous people who triumphed over evil. many of the best had some depth and complexity. It is not necessary to abandon moral clarity to the point of “both sides-ism,” but to be honest and meaningful the stories should recognize the losses, the compromises, and the consequences of conflict.

Our recent cinematic origin stories look back at our most recent history with heroes in boardrooms, not battlefields. Instead of jousting with lances or dropping bombs from airplanes we have people typing code on keyboards and making presentations in bespoke suits. The hero of the “Tetris” movie is not the man who created the game; it’s the man who sold the game. Michael Jorden, one of the greatest athletes in history, barely makes an appearance in “Air,” the movie that mentions his extraordinary ability but makes as its central characters the men who made the deal to sell his branded sneakers. The upcoming “Flaming’ Hot” is the underdog story of the janitor who came up with the idea of extra-spicy Cheetos. And “Blackberry” is the rise-and-fall cautionary tale of the mismatched pair, the genius engineer and the Harvard-educated business powerhouse who joined forces to create a transformational new technology that ruled the world — until it was overtaken by another transformational technology. “Flamin’ Hot,” coming soon, is the origin story(ish) of a popular spicy snack. Maybe some day they’ll make a movie about the Betamax.

Mike Lazaridis (Jay Bảruchel) and Doug Freigen (played by writer-director Matt Johnson) make an inept pitch to executive Jim Balsillie (“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s” Glenn Howerton) and he tosses them out. But when he is fired, he remembers something they said. Lazaridis quoted his high school shop teacher: “The person who puts the computer inside the phone will change the world.”

He makes a proposal to the young entrepreneurs — he wants to be the CEO and have 50 percent of the stock. Lazaridis is willing but Freigen is not.  They think they’re in good shape because they have a lucrative deal for modems already. But engineers are better with soldering guns than PowerPoint, and they realize they need each other.

There are a lot of vivid, telling details in the film. When we first see Lazaridis, he is so bothered by a hissing sound of a machine in the office of someone he has not even met that he cannot help opening it up to fix it. That moment ties in very well with the movie’s conclusion. When Lazaridis and his team have just one night to produce a sample, they race through a store to pick up the components, including an early children’s Speak and Spell toy (like “ET”), creating a sort of Franken-phone. We see the difference between the engineers’ faith that if they build it everyone will want one and the marketing expert’s understanding that what sells new technology is not the functionality but the prestige, and especially the FOMO.

We know when the engineer and the MBA have a conflict early on: Balsillie says “Perfect is the enemy of good enough” and Lazaridis replies, “Good enough is the enemy of humanity,” we’re going to see that come back at them. And before it happens, we know that Lazaridis, with his hippie friend in the headband and the nerdy engineers who goof off and watch movies on one side and the demands of a suddenly mammoth company with huge technical and operational demands on the other will have to make some painful choices. Some will be the right ones, if the priority is the business over the friendships and the “perfect.” Some will be the wrong ones with the biggest conflict not within Blackberry but between his idea about what people want and Steve Jobs’ idea when he introduces the iPhone — no buttons! open source apps!  Coolness (again prestige).

Bảruchel plays a very different character than the slacker-ish but endearing roles we’ve mostly seen before. He does a good job of conveying the prematurely gray Lazaridis in the early years as someone who is passionate about his work but uncomfortable talking to people instead of tinkering with technology, and then showing us the more polished version years later. We do not know all of the turning points where he was forced to compromise on issues he had previously considered non-negotiable, but we can see what those compromises, or, as Balsille says, sacrifices have done to him. And Howerton is on fire as Balsille. We can see in his posture and in every gesture the fury that fuels him.

This is not the kind of movie that is going to give you glimpses into the private lives of the characters. While we get a glimpse of one character’s conflicts when he is trying to buy a different business at the same time he needs to be at a crucial Blackberry meeting, we never find out if they have families. This is a rare movie about top-level achievers without a scene of loved ones complaining that they don’t get enough time. This is a story about business, but it is also very much in the classic mold because it is about passion, innovation, and hubris.

Parents should know that this film has constant very strong language, along with some tense confrontations and breaking the law.

Family discussion: What kinds of sacrifice are necessary for greatness? How did Mike change? What will be the next disruptive technology?

If you like this, try: “The Social Network,” “Steve Jobs,” and “Tetris”

Related Tags:

 

Based on a true story Comedy Drama movie review Movies -- format Movies -- Reviews

Air

Posted on April 5, 2023 at 5:45 pm

B +
Lowest Recommended Age: High School
MPAA Rating: Rated R for language throughout
Profanity: Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs: Some alcohol
Violence/ Scariness: None
Diversity Issues: A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters: April 7, 2023

Copyright 2023 Warner Brothers
A good movie will capture our attention even when we know, because it is a true story, how it turned out. How it happened can be an engrossing story itself, especially if it was a shift with consequences so pervasive we can hardly remember when things were different. Today, dozens of celebrities, even the biggest box-office actors and platinum-selling singers, make more money from their lines of cosmetics, fragrances, clothing and shoes, housewares, books, phone plans, liquor, and perhaps, someday, steel-belted radial tires and vacation time shares. But it began when a man named Sonny Vacarro, working for Nike, made a deal with an athlete who had not yet played his first professional basketball game. His name is Michael Jordan.

Matt Damon plays Sonny, with director Ben Affleck as Nike founder Phil Knight. As the movie begins, In 1984, Nike was known as a running shoe company. Converse and Adidas had most of the market for basketball shoes. Nike, with only 17 percent, was considering giving up entirely. Vacarro, whose life could easily fill a few more movies, wants to change the division’s approach, a poor (in both senses of the word) imitation of the vastly more successful competition. They would pay the top athletes a set fee to appear on posters and ads, representing the brand. Sonny and his colleagues discussed the lower-tier athletes they might be able to afford but no one thought that pursuing the same failed strategy would produce a better result. They just did not know what else to try, and the old system might not work, but it was safe.

Nike was an upstart company, and, as Sonny reminded Phil Knight, before they were a public company, with all of the bureaucracy and high profile disclosures that requires, they were the opposite of safe. The film cleverly uses the company’s real-life principles as commentary or chapter headings. “Our business is change” is number one.

Sonny decides that instead of hedging their bets by picking three basketball players and hoping one of them would excel, they should spend their entire budget on Michael Jordan a #3 draft pick rookie who has not yet set foot on a professional court. He has to persuade his colleagues (Chris Tucker and Jason Bateman, both excellent as always). He has to persuade Knight. He has to persuade Jordan’s ultra-alpha agent, David Falk (Chris Messina, nailing it like the real-life Jordan buzzer-beater). And when Falk refuses to give Sonny a meeting, Sonny has to persuade Jordan’s parents, more specifically, Jordan’s mother Deloris.

She is played by the magnificent Viola Davis because that was real-life Jordan’s one request for the film. And she is on fire. A scene near the end has a phone conversation between Deloris and Sonny that will be in the highlight reels for both stars forever.

Affleck is a fine actor and a better-than-fine director. As an actor since childhood, his skill at selecting the right actors and allowing them to do their best is to be expected. He also has an exceptional sense of narrative structure. The script from first-time screenwriter Alex Avery was chosen as Best Unproduced/Blacklist Screenplay of 2021. He gets sole credit, but Affleck and Damon, Oscar-winning screenwriters in their 20s for “Good Will Hunting,” worked with him on the final version. It is the way the story is shaped that allows each of the characters to make a contribution and keeps us somehow wondering how it will come together.

There is also a deeper meaning, a medium is the message connection. It is the first film from a new company formed by Damon and Affleck that hopes to do for the people who work on films what Sonny did for Michael Jordan, recognizing the contributions of below-the-line crew like cinematographers, designers, and sound technicians with a chance to share in the profits of the work they help to create. Let’s hope they all do as well as Jordan, who, according to the film’s ending updates, makes $400 million a year from the Nike products bearing his name.

Parents should know that this film has constant strong “locker-room” language

Family discussion: What made Nike different from its competitors? Which of the Nike principles do you think are most important? Would you buy something just because it had the name of a celebrity on it?

If you like this, try: “Sole Man,” the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary about Sonny Vacaarro and some of the interviews with Vacarro on YouTube, especially the ones concerning his reversal from creating marketing programs that exploited amateur athletes to leading the Supreme Court challenge that recognized their right to be paid for the use of their images and names

Related Tags:

 

Based on a true story Comedy Critics Choice Seal of Distinction Drama movie review Movies -- format Movies -- Reviews Sports

Moving On

Posted on March 16, 2023 at 5:50 pm

B +
Lowest Recommended Age: Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating: Rated R for language

Copyright 2023 Roadside Productions
Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin are back for the second time in two months, following “80 for Brady,” and if there is ever a Jane and Lily movie-of-the-month club I will be the first to sign up. The screenplay of “Moving On” is not up to their level, but hardly anything is. Despite the unevenness of tone and some sags in the narrative, the two of them are a delight and their way with a line is so irresistible.

Claire (Fonda, looking gorgeous in white hair) and Evelyn (Tomlin looking like an aging flower child) were close friends in college but have been estranged. They meet at the funeral of another college friend. Claire announces to the friend’s mourning widower, Howard (Malcolm McDowell) that, now that her friend is dead and cannot be hurt by it, she intends to kill him. That weekend. And her next step is to try to reconcile with Evelyn to bring her on as an accomplice. The rest of the film takes place over the next few days, as we learn something about the past that separated the friends, what they have been doing since, how their various plans to carry off this homicide develop, and spend time on another reunion. Claire’s ex-husband Ralph also attends the funeral, and he is played by Richard (“Shaft”) Roundtree, so you know there will be some romantic sparks.

Speaking of reunions, this film reunites Tomlin with Paul Weitz, the writer/director of her underseen film “Grandma.” That film did a better job of juggling a very serious theme, a teenager asking her grandmother for help getting money for an abortion, with drama (there is also a complicated reunion of a formerly married couple) and some dark humor. This one sets a tone at the beginning that, even with the threat of murder, is off-kilter with the trauma of what happens later.

But on the way there, we get the truly enjoyable performances of two veterans at the top of their game, who, after seven seasons of “Grace and Frankie” are exquisitely attuned at bringing out the best in each other. Evelyn, a retired cellist in an assisted living facility, has most of the best lines and Fonda has most of the character work, and both are never less than sublime.

Parents should know that this movie has very mature material including the plotting of a murder, with references to rape. There are sexual references and a non-explicit sexual situation. Characters use strong language and drink alcohol.

Family discussion: Why didn’t Claire tell Ralph what happened at the time? Why didn’t Evelyn tell Claire the truth? What advice would you give Claire?

If you like this, try: “9 to 5,” “Grace and Frankie,” and “80 for Brady”

Related Tags:

 

Comedy Drama movie review Movies -- format Movies -- Reviews

Creed III

Posted on March 2, 2023 at 5:12 pm

B
Lowest Recommended Age: Middle School
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for intense sports action, violence, and some strong language
Profanity: Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs: Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness: Very intense fight scenes
Diversity Issues: A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters: March 3, 2023

Copyright 2023 Warner Brothers
The challenge for a movie series is like the challenge for a prize-fighter. No matter how big the triumph last time, the next one is even tougher. Expectations are higher. The people are older. And, when it comes to the Rocky/Creed series, even after a reboot, you still have to take someone who had a happy ending in the last one and figure out how to give him a meaningful challenge that will get the audience invested again. Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) ended chapter 2 rich, successful, married to the love of his life, Bianca (Tessa Thompson), father to an adorable little girl. As chapter 3 begins, he has all of that and is retired, with a gym of his own to support up and coming fighters, especially top-ranked Felix (played by real-life boxer Jose Benavidez). What could possibly make us think of him as an underdog?

The answer is: unfinished business. Adonis comes out of the gym to see a man lounging on his car. “You don’t remember me, do you?” It is someone from his past, someone who brings up conflicted feelings that he has spent years avoiding.

The man is Damian Anderson (Jonathan Majors), just out of prison. He and Adonis lived together in a group home. Back then, Damian was the fighter, and the younger Adonis was his cornerman. We find out later in the movie what the details were, but both them have wondered what would have happened if it had been Adonis who went to prison and Damian who had a shot at the title.

At first, Damian is humble and grateful, at least it seems so, and Adonis wants to help him. But soon Damian is in the Rocky slot, coming out of nowhere for a shot at the title. And if you think Adonis is going to stay retired then (1) you haven’t see the poster or (2) you haven’t ever seen a Rocky movie.

The script is not as strong as the previous two Creed movies but the fight scenes are exceptionally well-staged, as someone who spent two movies on the inside of those scenes might well understand. With the emotion behind it, the charged history. Damian is certain that he deserves this for all the time he lost, that he deserves to take from Adonis all he thinks Adonis took from him. Adonis has to face the guilt he feels over what happened to Damian and

Parents should know that this movie has very intense boxing scenes and other peril and violence involving young boys, some strong language, and sexual references.

Family discussion: What did Adonis owe Damian? Why didn’t Adonis tell Bianca the truth about his early life?

If you like this, try: the two previous “Creed” movies and the first three “Rocky” movies

Related Tags:

 

Drama movie review Movies -- format Movies -- Reviews Series/Sequel Sports

Seriously Red

Posted on February 9, 2023 at 5:10 pm

B-
Lowest Recommended Age: Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating: Rated R for sexual content, nudity and some language
Profanity: Strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs: Drinking and drunkenness
Violence/ Scariness: Scenes of surgery
Diversity Issues: A theme of the movie

Copyright 2023 Dollhouse Pictures
“Seriously Red” was written by Krew Boylan to take the greatest possible advantage of the talents of its star…Krew Boylan, with an assist from the infinite talents of the iconic superstar Krew Boylan cosplays as throughout the film: Dolly Parton. Dolly famously said, as quoted in the film, “Find out who you are and be that on purpose.” In “Seriously Red,” Boylan takes a while to follow that advice, as the first part is about becoming a better Dolly and it is only near the end that she begins to think about what it means to be a better Red. Significantly, “Red” like her curly hair, is her character’s nickname, but as Dolly, she hides it under a big, pouffy blonde wig.

Red’s job is valuing houses for sale and we can see in the first scene that she is sympathetic to the homeowner and also that she can’t wait to get to what she really loves, dressing as Dolly for an office party. The only other person in costume, though, is the Elvis impersonator hired to emcee the event (Rose Byrne, a close friend of Boylan’s and a co-producer on the film). Red braves it out and clearly enjoys the reaction from the crowd. But the next day, it turns out that her ebullience went too far. She is fired for inappropriate behavior, including grabbing the crotches of some of the attendees.

And so, she begins to explore the possibility of making a living as a full-time Dolly Parton impersonator. Channeling Dolly gives her courage and soon she is a success, especially when she teams up with a man so deeply into his Kenny Rogers impersonation that he will not give out his real name. He is Kenny offstage as well as on (Daniel Webber). He is drawn to Dolly; all he sees is Dolly, not Red. And that is fine with Red…for a while.

Boylan has the creamy skin and bright blue eyes to shine in the Dolly moments. The musical numbers, presented with sweetness and sincerity, are a lot of fun. The real life scenes are not as lively or effectively staged, including a detour to get breast augmentation surgery and encounters with Red’s disapproving mother, old friend who is growing impatient, and the people she deals with as she becomes more successful. Bobby Cannavale (also a co-producer) is so good as an impresario of impersonators (and former Neil Diamond performer) we wish we could see more of him, and learn more about the cosplayers on stage and in the audience. Like Red herself, the movie is more confident and appealing when it’s all dressed up in spangles and a high blonde wig. Dolly knows that it’s what is inside that counts. Boylen has not yet learned that lesson.

Parents should know that his film has nudity and sexual references and situations, cosmetic surgery, and strong language.

Family discussion: If you were going to be a celebrity impersonator, who would you be? Why was it hard for Red to be happy being herself?

If you like this, try: “Dumpling” and “Outrageous” and Dolly Parton films like “Steel Magnolias” and “9 to 5”

Related Tags:

 

Drama Movies -- format Musical
THE MOVIE MOM® is a registered trademark of Nell Minow. Use of the mark without express consent from Nell Minow constitutes trademark infringement and unfair competition in violation of federal and state laws. All material © Nell Minow 1995-2023, all rights reserved, and no use or republication is permitted without explicit permission. This site hosts Nell Minow’s Movie Mom® archive, with material that originally appeared on Yahoo! Movies, Beliefnet, and other sources. Much of her new material can be found at Rogerebert.com, Huffington Post, and WheretoWatch. Her books include The Movie Mom’s Guide to Family Movies and 101 Must-See Movie Moments, and she can be heard each week on radio stations across the country.

Website Designed by Max LaZebnik