Blurbing For The Weekend: 3/1/24

I never made it more than five minutes through an episode of Succession. Despite the terrific cast and likely craft, the show was an embarrassing cross between Fox News fan-fiction and a 21st century Dallas. Never into the Aaron Sorkin aesthetic of searching for wit, poignancy and soul among the wheeling and dealings of the political-cultural elite,  I have no desire to fantasize about Rupert Murdoch as J.R., feeling for the literal and metaphorical hellspawn struggling to make their names beneath his cruel hand. Then there was the show’s visual style, with shaky handcams darting about like paparazzi, using jerky zoom-ins to underscore facial expressions and punchlines. The vibe landed somewhere between Modern Family and the “Jenny From The Block” video, and fuck. that. shit. We deserve better, and the Murdochs deserve worse.

And yet, I watched the movie Blackberry. I still hate the glamorization of amoral, white-collar criminality in late capitalism, but I had to know if Glenn Howerton could pull off fake male pattern baldness. Howerton’s Dennis Reynolds on It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia is the stuff of comedy legend, with peers and critics alike worried his brilliance as a narcissistic sociopath has resulted in undue typecasting (James Gunn swears Howerton was his second choice for Star-Lord in Guardians Of The Galaxy, which is basically unimaginable without having seen the audition). Could he make something in the lead role of a biopic despite this distracting dome? Is he that good?

For the most part, yes. Howerton plays Jim Baldsilly - sorry - Balsillie, an aspiring money-shark who latches onto Research In Motion, a little tech company with a big idea: a cellphone that can do e-mail. Jay Baruchel plays the demure CEO torn between Balsillie’s aggressive vision and the amiable techietude of his partner-in-nerdery Doug Fregin (Matt Johnson), who cares more about the company's weekly Movie Night than demolishing the competition. Despite Balsillie’s penchant for screaming and Fregin’s commitment to tennis headbands (a quirk I can’t find photographic evidence of irl), things go well until the little Canadian tech company that could captures the attention of the big sharks, inspiring Balsillie to use shadier and shadier practices to keep RIM’s stock price above takeover territory. Initially it works, with Fregin’s dreams of a nerd utopia shattered and Baruchel’s grey wig going from “Bill Gates” to “Bond villain.” But eventually, the good ol’ USA, represented by Apple, the SEC and the NHL, teabags the hell out of these Canadian wanna-bes.

The “Canadian Wanna-Be” element of the story - and the film - gives Blackberry a some novelty, even if it’s yet another story about those lucky few who experience the dizzying highs and maddening lows of Big Business. Howerton’s Basillie is so entertainingly self-possessed and superficial, I forgot all about Dennis Reynolds and the Assistant Director Skinner cosplay, at least until a hollered threat so cartoonish I have to assume it was meant to get Sunny fans whooping. Baruchel has a harder time overcoming his hairpiece, but I really admire that guy’s commitment to the Canadian film industry. I also admire the commitment of Michael Ironside, one reason I’ll forgive him playing another elderly heavy sauntering into a tech lab after The Dropout. Another reason is that he’s Michael Ironside. 

I have no idea how accurate Blackberry is about its subjects (you’d think if a future billionaire actually dressed like Judah Friedlander as Bjorn Borg, I’d be able to find at least one photo), but out of respect for its cast and the desire to remind Americans that Canada has technological innovators and unhinged greed too, I’m giving it FIVE BAGS OF POPCORN.

Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving isn’t set quite so close to the North pole, but it’s pretty damn Northern. The film is in essence a 2023 remake of the ‘70s movie Roth didn’t actually make in 2007, but shot a trailer for, to play between Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror and Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof when Grindhouse was in theaters. Memorable death sequences in that trailer are cannily referenced but not directly imitated in the new film, as Roth (Hostel, Knock Knock) is about as canny as horror director as we’ve got. The plot is basically I Know What You Did Last Black Friday, though the sociopolitical element doesn’t go much further than “Black Friday is a dumb, ugly thing, and you shouldn’t be anywhere near capitalist carnage if you can help it.” 

Still, Thanksgiving is a better Kevin Williamson movie than anything that guy’s touched in over twenty years, and the use of turkey day iconography is frequently amusing. If you find bad New England accents amusing as well, this movie is mandatory. Frankly, I wouldn’t put it past Roth to have made Patrick Dempsey do each take five times, always using the one where his pronunciation was the least explicable. FIVE BAGS OF POPCORN.

I haven’t used any variation of the word “problematic” yet in this post, so I'll go ahead and note that Louder Than Bombs by The Smiths, collecting all the As & Bs that hadn’t been released in America by 1987, is another ‘80s college-rock release I’ve discovered sounds far better as a 2LP than as an overlong cassette or CD, alongside Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation and The Cure’s Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. Ironically, it’s easier to get a vinyl copy of The World Won’t Listen today, the European single LP compilation Bombs originally replaced in America. But they had Bombs at my local Barnes & Noble, for only a touch more than it costs online, and it felt right to make what’s hopefully my last Morrissey-related purchase in the most banal, royalty-diluting location possible. 

(If you must know, I still have The Queen Is Dead, Bona Drag and Southpaw Grammar as well. I’m sure I’ll explain why someday. Then you’ll really get to see me handwring!)