New to the Queue

 Taking some final laps ...

Nicole Holofcener ("Walking and Talking," "Please Give") re-teams with Julia Louis Dreyfus ("Enough Said") to study a fractured marriage, "You Hurt My Feelings."

With a documentary feel, a period piece about radicalized workers at a watch factory in 19th century Switzerland, "Unrest."

A stylish thriller about a woman who jeopardizes her bourgeois lifestyle by harboring a wounded enemy of the Pinochet regime, "Chile '76."

A drama about two childhood friends, separated when one moves from South Korea to New York, who meet up again two decades later, "Past Lives."

Millennial Wall Street

 

BLACKBERRY (A-minus) - Matt Johnson has established himself as the master of the flashback process movie. He previously imagined NASA in the late '60s faking the moon landing in "Operation Avalanche," and now he starts in the mid-'90s to tell the story of the BlackBerry device, the once-ubiquitous attachment to rich assholes everywhere before the company crashed and burned through malfeasance and a little device that came along called the iPhone.

Johnson stars as Doug, one of the co-founders of Canadian start-up Research In Motion, along with Jay Baruchel as Mike Lazaridis, the visionary behind the outfit. If Mike is an idiot-savant, Doug is more of an idiot. He sports a red headband at all times, even the one time he has to don a suit to impress other suits. Doug speaks almost exclusively in dialogue from classic movies. He lives for Movie Night at the office, quoting along with dialogue.

Their fledgling operation is soon taken over by an opportunistic and brazen CEO, Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton), who immediately gets them in the door at Bell Atlantic, to pitch their PocketLink device, based on a crude prototype, slapped together literally overnight. 

Throughout the film, RIM has to walk a fine line between flooding the market with BlackBerries and not overwhelming the systems they run on. In 2007, the iPhone came along -- building the keyboard into the screen instead of having a click keyboard -- and the downfall of BlackBerry was swift and messy.

Johnson -- writing with Matthew Miller -- borrows a little from HBO's "Silicon Valley" (the nerds often riding to the rescue of the reckless CEO) and a bit from "Wall Street" (Balsillie poached top techies from Google and elsewhere, using an accounting trick with stock options that caught the eye of the SEC). His visual style has a shaky documentary feel to it, but is not afraid of drone shots of skylines, either. Baruchel is dead-on as the spectrum-y tech whiz (he eventually morphs, not unlike Steve Jobs, into a Jim Jarmusch-like spiritual guru), and the bromance between Mike and Doug is touching. 

Johnson's narrative hurtles along at break-neck speed, as one liners shoot out and land with ease. When reminded that "perfect is the enemy of the good," Mike claps back, "Well, good enough is the enemy of humanity." We already know that this is going to end in corporate tragedy, but that doesn't take away any of the entertainment value. Maybe it's the Canadian sensibility, the over-arching self-deprecation, that makes this all so delicious.

Some people are born storytellers. There's a Tarantino-esque DYI confidence to Johnson's filmmaking. It is a perfect match of this story that needed to be told, and done so without a heavy hand.

BONUS TRACKS

The film kicks off with the nervous energy of Elastica's "The Connection" over the opening credits:

When the film advances to 2003, the Strokes chime in with the infectious "Someday":

 

When things start to fall get out of control, the White Stripes charge in with "Hello Operator":

Auteur, Auteur

  A pair from two talented writer-directors who broke through in the Aughts.

SHOWING UP (B-minus) - Kelly Reichardt re-teams with Michelle Williams (they go back to "Wendy and Lucy," from 2008) for this minor-key depiction of the week in the life of an artist. This is as slow and uneventful as a movie can be, so it's the little things that make this worth a view.

You know how we go on about Theater People? They can be a lot to take. Well so can art departments. Thankfully, Reichardt does not dwell on the quirks of artists or deify their pursuit of genius. On the contrary, this movie is about the tedious existence of a modest artist, bland Lizzy, who dresses in baggy clothes, wilts under a mop of soccer-mom hair, and lives to make lovely statuettes of female figures. She is hustling to finish her latest crop before her upcoming exhibition.

But life keeps getting in her way. Her landlord, Jo (Hong Chau from "The Menu" and "Inherent Vice"), won't fix the hot water and then saddles Lizzy with a wounded pigeon she found. (Lizzy feels guilty because it was her cat who wounded the bird and Lizzy who dumped it out the window, leaving it to die.) Yes, get ready for a giant Wounded Bird Metaphor. Meek Lizzy gets walked all over in the art department and is at her wit's end dealing with her bipolar brother.

All of this can be quite interesting at times. And Williams is a wizard at disappearing into a complex character. The deep supporting cast also includes engaging small turns by the likes of Judd Hirsh (Lizzy's father), Amanda Plummer, James Le Gros (I recognized his voice before I recognized his face), John Magaro as the brother, and Andre (3000) Benjamin as the kiln operator who could probably be better at his job.

There's a lot to like here. But there's a whole lot of nothin' goin' on, too. It's just ... too ... slow. At the one-hour mark, I thought to myself, "OK, time for the plot to start." Fifteen minutes later one of my friends ducked out; he reported later that he just didn't have the patience to find out what would happen to those two wounded birds -- Lizzy and the pigeon. It's a delightful ending that my friend missed; but for too many people, it will be a chore to wade through nearly two hours to get there. I made it OK.

EVERYTHING WENT FINE (B+) - Francois Ozon has been one of the great storytellers of the past 20 years. His edge has dulled a bit in recent years. Earlier work -- "Under the Sand" with Charlotte Rampling, "Time to Leave" and "5 X 2" -- includes flawless, unsettling character studies.

Here he takes on the story of a woman who assists her dying father with his final wish. Sophie Marceau is riveting as Emmanuele Bernheim.  Apparently always her dad's favorite since childhood, she steps in to be at the side of Andre (Andre Dussollier), who has suffered a stroke and struggles to maintain his dignity or even care for himself. Dussollier, too, commands the screen in this emotionally draining pas de deux. Emmanuele's dour sister Pascale Geraldine Pailhas) can't work up the same amount of drive to accommodate the old man, but she offers support when she can.

Andre is cranky and petulant. He was a bad father and was an even worse husband to the traumatized and now-ailing Claude (a defeated Charlotte Rampling). Some might find him irredeemable; others might appreciate his candor. When he tells Emmanuele (whom we also see in childhood flashbacks) "you were such an ugly child," he delivers it as if he thinks it's a compliment about her current beauty. Marceau does make it difficult to look away as her face constantly fills the screen, even if the melodrama is painfully raw. (For one thing, she sports a shag haircut to end all shag haircuts.)

Dussollier's performance -- a raw depiction of a fallen, helpless man -- can be difficult to watch. And this could have been shorter than 113 minutes. But Marceau pours so much grit and nuance into her role of Everywoman that you are inclined to quietly cheer everyone on. Ozon teases us as to whether the old man might change his mind. Andre harbors a secret -- involving a pest called Gerard -- which unspools gradually until it completes the picture of a man hoping to go out on his own terms. The ending is near-perfect.

One-Liners: Sleuthing

 

MISSING (B+) - Incredibly frenetic and a little frazzling, "Missing" follows a young adult using her phone and computer almost exclusively to solve the mystery of her mother's disappearance during a planned trip to Colombia with a new boyfriend. As gimmicks go, this one is pretty slick; you're not just watching someone play with a computer screen but rather getting sucked into her online world.

Storm Reid (from HBO's "The Last of Us" and "Euphoria") plays June, the snarky daughter of Grace (Nia Long), whom we also see in a videotaped flashback to when June was a toddler, just before the girl lost her father. When Grace doesn't return to LAX from Colombia, June starts sleuthing online. Through TaskRabbit she finds Javier (a delightful Joaquim de Almeida), who goes way above and beyond his usual handyman duties to provide key private-eye assistance.

The FBI also gets involved, and it's eye-opening to watch all of the tools June utilizes at her fingertips. She uses translation programs to talk to the hotel staff. She unearths key documents. She IMs and face-times; she tracks down public video-camera footage; and she hacks emails and social-media accounts. Soon the intrigue has built to a real-world climax.

Writer-directors Nicholas D. Johnson and Will Merrick, in their feature debut, hurtle this story along for nearly two hours, never letting the plot sag. After peeling the onion with some engaging slow reveals, they pack the final reel with a couple of clever twists that turn this into a compelling mystery thriller. It all revolves around Reid, who has a grand command of the big screen, with beefy supporting roles from the likes of Ken Leung (TV's "Lost") as the creepy boyfriend. It all adds up to pleasing pulp.

MINDHORN (2015) (B-minus) - About as lightweight as they come, this British parody has the thinness of a sitcom as it follows a vain, washed-up TV actor who slips back into his old detective character to help police on the Isle of Man solve a murder and avoid more killings. It is silly and stupid, but it has enough gags to justify its feature length. It also has strong performances that lifts it above the riff-raff.

This comes from the minds of Julian Barratt, who stars as the hack actor Richard Thorncroft, and Simon Farnaby as Clive, who worked as Richard's stunt double on the '80s drama "Mindhorn," a poor man's "Matt Houston." A suspected killer is obsessed with the Mindhorn character, and so the local police ring up the balding, pot-bellied Thorncroft to once again don the cheesy orange leather jacket and his bionic eyepatch (which allows Mindhorn to see the truth) to revive his TV persona and lure the killer into custody.

Don't overthink this. Steve Coogan is on hand as Thorncroft's rival, Peter Easterman, who went on to become a movie star. Andrea Riseborough is amusing as a mousy detective. The eminent Kenneth Branagh and Simon Callow ("Room With a View," "Four Weddings and a Funeral") play themselves, dispensing some very British inside jokes. It all zings by in an hour and a half.

Barratt and Farnaby toss in some subtle comic flourishes -- for some reason, Thorncroft finds his inner Mindhorn only while wearing very specific footwear -- and the comedy is as deadpan as they come. Thorncroft is a blowhard and a buffoon, and while this has the feel of a show within a show, it never becomes too cartoonish. You can almost sense Quentin Tarantino taking notes for the washed-up TV action star he centers things around in "Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood," and you can still enjoy the simple send-ups of all the cop shows that came after "Mannix." (In turn, "Mindhorn" cops a few gags from the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" video.)

The hunt for the killer is almost an afterthought, but Barratt and Farnaby wrap things up nicely, and Mindhorn once again gets his day in the sun.

Class of '81

 Two from the year I graduated high school: the first I've never seen, the second a rewatch to see if it still held up (it does).

MY DINNER WITH ANDRE (B) - This must have seemed ground-breaking at the time -- an overt thumbing of the nose in the era of "Jaws" and "Star Wars" -- to make a movie about two theater veterans having a discussion over a meal for two hours. I'm sure it was a refreshing intellectual exercise taking place while I was mainlining "Stripes" directly into my veins. 

Forgive me for letting this one settle for four decades before testing my maturity, patience and stamina for dry fare. And the first half certainly can be a challenge. It is dominated by Andre Gregory, the director, spinning tales, a few of which are just not that interesting. Gregory had left the theater for a new-age adventure, doing a little soul-searching.

It isn't until the second half that Wallace Shawn moves beyond just reacting "Gee!" or "That's interesting!" during Gregory's stories. The discussion turns more philosophical, and the men offer sharp observations about modern society at the dawn of the Reagan era. You might not be surprised to learn that -- like observers for decades before then and since -- they often lament the accelerating speed of the culture and the dangers of losing our humanity.

The men caution about the rise of technology -- robots are a big theme -- and the loss of human connection. Sound familiar? They celebrate the simple things in life -- a cup of coffee while reading a newspaper (on paper, of course). They make references to mindfulness, citing a "need to cut out the noise." Back then, careerism was a big culprit. It's not clear which more peaceful era they would go back to; like Godard, they have a decidedly post-WWII traumatized mindset, and Nazism still infiltrates their thinking

Director Louis Malle films this with no frills. Besides bookended scenes of Shawn sharing his thoughts as he arrives at the restaurant and then again as he cabs home, this is literally a movie about two men talking while eating dinner. There are a few interactions with waiters. But other than that, this is old-fashioned analog storytelling. Be patient during the first half -- turn your other screens off -- and follow along as two old friends try to solve the world's problems. As I look around, I see that Shawn and Gregory did not succeed in their mission, but neither have my friends and I. That doesn't mean these meals have been a waste of our precious time.

FOUR FRIENDS (B+) - Written by Steve Tesich (following his breakthrough "Breaking Away"), this earnest drama follows the lives of four friends as they pine for a girl while navigating the turbulent cultural changes of the 1960s. It struck a powerful chord with my young self. Does it still?

Craig Wasson (always, to me, a poor man's Bill Maher) stars as Danilo, the wide-eyed son of gruff immigrants who craves both stability and a livelier world. He and two childhood pals -- David (Michael Huddleston),  and Tom (Jim Metzler) -- all have crushes on the free-spirited OG Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Georgia (Jodie Thelan), who flatters herself by thinking she's the reincarnation of dancer Isadora Duncan. When Danilo gets to college, his roommate Louie (a young Reed Birney) will join the Georgia fan club (its members are fond of singing along with Ray Charles to her theme song and they are rewarded by being called "Kiddo" by her).

Wasson is the perfect butt-hurt thespian to imbue Danilo with a solemn and prudish devotion to both woman and country. His education and musical talent will at first rescue him from the fate of his father (Miklos Simon), who toils at the East Chicago iron foundry and takes out his immigrant frustrations on his son, including the occasional back-hand across Danilo's jaw. Thelan hams it up as a young woman eager to shed the pre-Beatles era of repression for expressions of free love later in the Sixties. 

Their lives get complicated. The two other friends fade more into the background -- one goes off to Vietnam, the other takes over his father's mortuary business. The hippie uprising challenges Danilo's dewy-eyed love of the America that took him in as a boy, and Tesich's screenplay offers a sweep of history through one man's personal journey.

Tesich balances maudlin nostalgia with a few sharp insights into the culture, while peppering the script with wholesome humor. The film has the whiff of the soap operas of the early '80s -- there is a tragic arc of Danilo seeking to marry into a rich family (catch Lois Smith as his impending mother-in-law) -- and the gravitas of a page-flipping historical novel. Like with "My Dinner With Andre," this movie digs for universal truths in a way that can still resonate more than 40 years later.

Doc Watch: Addictions

 

ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED (B) - Overlong and sluggish, this appreciation of avant-garde photographer Nan Goldin and her crusade against the Sackler family's Oxycontin empire suffers from a bit of an identity crisis. It is torn between homage and polemic.

Laura Poitras ("Citizenfour") takes an unusually solemn tone, dwelling on Goldin's early family tragedy and rough upbringing to bathe this biography in pathos. This is sophisticated filmmaking, but it creaks under the weight of a full two hours. 

Half the movie is about Goldin's groundbreaking photography from New York's punk era and her work within the alternative scene.  The other half is about Goldin, a former junkie herself, leading protests against the Sackler family and their art philanthropy. Poitras uses the 1980s AIDS epidemic as a bridge between those worlds. However, each of the stories here keeps getting interrupted. It's as if she has two (maybe even three) good hour-long films here, but the stories detract from and trip over each other too often. It's a simple lack of focus.

Poitras doesn't do herself any favors when she allows the film to be hijacked by an extended detour featuring activist artist David Wojnarowicz, a relentless AIDS activist who just a year ago was the subject of a much sharper documentary. His presence reminds us of how raw and insurgent both activism and filmmaking can be. By contrast, Poitras seems overly reverent toward someone who survived a wild youth and now is placated with a prim retrospective in old age.

Poitras takes on a lot here, and much of it is impressive. If only it congealed into something a little more urgent or compelling.

TAKE YOUR PILLS: XANAX (B+) - Here's another surprisingly solid documentary from Netflix (see also "Money Shot" about Pornhub), a level-headed look at anxiety in the modern digital world and how Big Pharma offers an enticing solution.

Director Blair Foster and writer Claire Gordon keep this at a healthy pace as they alternate between psychologists delving into the pluses and minuses of Xanax and regular folk who both sing the drug's praises but also warn of its deleterious effects. One man in particular conveys the horrors trying to withdraw after building up his tolerance for decades (suicidal thoughts can be a serious consequence). Another, journalist Scott Stossel, describes anxiety in terms of any other physical condition that must be regulated with well-regulated meds. One young woman discusses the shame that Xanax users face.

Foster and Gordon keep the science simple and straightforward. They explore the ills of a society driven to the edge by social media and other pressures. But they never settle for facile arguments or shoot at easy targets. This is not a hit job Pfizer or any other drug company. The film is thoughtful and considerate of all sides of the debate.

New to the Queue

 Flipping to a new chapter, bubbling with promise ...

Master storyteller Kelly Reichardt ("Certain Women," "First Cow") re-teams with Michelle Williams ("Wendy & Lucy") in a portrait of an artist, "Showing Up."

Another of our favorites, Francois Ozon, follows a woman assisting her dying father, "Everything Went Fine." 

Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch ("The Broken Circle Breakdown") dramatize the friendship between two men in "The Eight Mountains." 

A documentary about half-brothers searching for their mother who disappeared years ago, "Sam Now."

From France, and writer-director Rebecca Zlotowski ("An Easy Girl"), a relationship drama, "Other People's Children."

An old woman ponders her future after the Japanese government incentivizes euthanasia, "Plan 75."

From Argentina, a nested four-plus-hour rumination about a botanist who goes missing, triggering a mystery that unspools going back in time "Trenque Lauquen."