Who could have guessed that a movie about the creation and promoting of a smart phone would be so compelling?

The film tells the story of the rise and eventual fall of the first smartphone, the BlackBerry, and the men behind the product. Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel), his best friend Doug (Matt Johnson) tried to pitch their new phone idea to Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton), whose ambition has gotten him into trouble with his company. Seeing the possibilities in the phone, Jim goes back to Mike and Doug and offers to help them if they make him CEO.

Mike eventually makes the deal with Jim and they begin to work on building the first major smartphone, the BlackBerry. However, things turn on BlackBerry quickly as well.

This is a very engaging and entertaining movie, even though you wouldn’t think that it would be. The subject matter did not sound like a winner, much like the Apple TV+ film Tetris from earlier this year. Like Tetris, BlackBerry far exceeded the pleasing potential and provided a story that grabbed the audience’s favor.

Jay Baruchel does a phenomenal job as Mike. He started out as a shy, timid technician trying to create a company to become a power leader of a company that caused him to drop some of his personal morals.

It was fascinating to watch this movie, knowing that BlackBerry the phone would be eaten up by Apple’s iPhone. Every moment that you wanted to root for Mike, you would realize that this company was doomed. Meanwhile, Jim was consistently shown as a jerk who knew how he could work around problems, even if he had to bend the law to do it.

I rented BlackBerry on Vudu and I found it to be engaging and thrilling. It does not sound like a captivating story, but it absolutely is.

4.5 stars

Patrick Wilson starred in and directed the fifth and supposedly final installment of the horror franchise Insidious, this one subtitled The Red Door.

Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson), who split with his wife Renai (Rose Byrne), is taking his son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) to college. Their relationship was strained from the events of their past. Dalton meets a girl named Chris (Sinclair Daniel) who was accidentally assigned to the same dorm room.

Dalton’s art class encourages him to dive deep into the depths of his memories, causing him to question a time when he believed he was in a coma.

Strange things happen, and he eventually finds his way back into The Further.

Insidious: The Red Door is basically a bunch of jump scares with attempts to be shocking for the audience. There is not much to the story. It felt like a lot of retread from previous Insidious installments.

Ty Simpkins was fine as Dalton, but I am not sure what he did not remember the events of his father trying to murder him when he was a kid. He had some nice chemistry with Sinclair Daniel.

There was an idea that could have been developed more, involving the reaction from these kids whose father, though possessed, tried to kill them. How did that affect their lives and relationships? This was in the film, but it was nowhere near as developed as it should have been. Instead, we just try and solve the mystery that we already knew.

The things from The Further were unremarkable and seemed to have little reason for being. There were some downright silly moments too. Plus, I hate puke scenes and there were a couple here.

Lin Shaye’s Elise Rainer is shoehorned into the film too in a seriously dumb manner. I guess they felt as if they needed her in the Insidious franchise, but how they did it was barely worth the time.

Insidious: The Red Door felt as if the franchise had run out of ideas and was just revisiting the past to try and find something new. It failed at that. Keep the door shut.

2.1 stars

We recently had a solid comedy film that leaned toward the raunchy side of the spectrum in No Hard Feelings. Typically, I have never been much of a fan of this type of comedy, but No Hard Feelings exceeded my expectations. Joy Ride is the next film that falls into the same category. It was the second one in a row that I really enjoyed.

Audrey (Ashley Park) was a lawyer assigned by her agency to go to complete a deal in China. Audrey was a Chinese-American who had been adopted as a child by an American couple. She could not speak Chinese so her lifelong friend Lolo (Sherry Cola) was going to go along too. Lolo brought her sister Deadeye (Sabrina Wu) and Audrey was meeting her actress friend she met in college, Kat (Stephanie Hsu), who worked on a TV show in China.

The four of them started on their big adventure in China, which would lead Audrey to look for her birth mother.

As I mentioned, this movie is extremely raunchy and I typically have not be a huge fan of this style of comedy, and, honestly, a lot of the raunchy aspects of the film were the parts that I was not a huge fan of. I am not sure that a lot of the humor worked as well as I wanted, though there were some funny bits. Yet, I enjoyed the film because there was more than just the vulgarity involved.

In fact, the film had four main characters in Audrey, Kat, Lolo and Deadeye and they all were real, well-developed characters that had motivations and were relatable. None of them were just Chinese stereotypes and the interactions between the four of them were outstanding. The cast is easily the main reason for this film to be as successful as it is,

And the movie did not only give us the raunchy humor. There were a ton of character moments that really worked well. Even then, a lot of the bawdy humor really fit with the characters as well, informing us who these people were and their hopes and dreams for their lives.

No spoilers, but I also loved the cameo by Daniel Dae Kin, who played Jin on LOST. It was awesome seeing him once again.

Joy Ride was much more than just a comedy with a lot of swear words and sexual innuendo. It is actually a smart, clever, witty film with the heart centered with the main four characters.

4 stars

I went to the new animated movie Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken today and I was the only person in the theater. I do love that. It allowed me to not have to suffer this movie in silence.

Honestly, I did not like this much. I would admit that Ruby Gillman is not necessarily targeting me as its main audience. However, this was the same studio that made Shrek and How to Train Your Dragon which were two amazing animated movies that could be enjoyed by adults and kids alike. They were intelligent, clever and entertaining. Ruby Gillman is not much of any of those adjectives.

Ruby Gillman (Lana Condor) is a 16-year old Kraken pretending to be Canadian and attending a normal high school. Her mother Agatha (Toni Collette) has insisted that Ruby never reveal the truth behind her Kraken heritage. She is determined to keep Ruby out of the water.

When Ruby’s crush Connor (Jaboukie Young-White) falls into the water and starts to drown, Ruby goes after him, discovering that she has more abilities than she knew.

Ruby finds her way to her Grandmamah (Jane Fonda), who just happens to be the Queen of the Kraken.

At this point, Ruby meets up with a mermaid named Chelsea (Annie Murphy), who was also pretending to be human at the school. They bond and spend time swimming together. Chelsea tells Ruby a story about their mothers fighting over a trident and how they could retrieve it and bring peace to the oceans.

The animation of Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken was fine. The colors were bright and flashy for the little kids. The character designs were okay, but did not jump off the screen as being tremendously interesting. I could see this being a solid work of animation for a TV program, but as a feature film, it could not reach levels of past glory for this studio, let alone other more exceptional animation studios.

The story was simple and straight-forward, dealing with a typical theme of being who you are, not hiding who you are. Other themes of this movie get all messed up and mishmashed together. I immediately knew what was going to happen and I really wished it would have taken a different path. They had a couple of cool concepts here, but it was so clichéd that it was hard to watch.

I enjoyed the voice work by Jane Fonda, especially the insistence of being called “Grand-MA-MAH.” Toni Collette does a reasonably decent job of balancing the chaotic worry over her daughter with the calmness of trying to pass along vital info. I like Sam Richardson, but his character Uncle Brill was not funny and one of the more annoying of the characters.

As I said, I would not be the targeted audience for Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken. I was pretty bored early and I did not find a lot of charm here. Younger kids might find it more acceptable, but it certainly cannot reach the stars of some of Dreamworks classic animated films.

2.6 stars

Past Lives is writer-director Celine Song’s feature debut, one of those remarkable times when your first movie is exceptional.

This is a small, A24 film with two Korean leads with both Korean and English language being used throughout. It was one that I found a lot to relate with and one where my feelings went back and forth between what I wanted to happen.

According to IMDB, “Nora (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), two deeply connected childhood friends, are wrested apart after Nora’s family emigrates from South Korea. Twenty years later, they are reunited for one fateful week as they confront notions of love and destiny.”

I bought into the relationship between Nora (at first named Na) and Hae Sung immediately. They were shown as 12-year olds on a cute date, set up by Na’s mother because she wanted to give her good memories of Korea before they immigrated away. Then, years later, Hae tried to find Na (now called Nora) using social media and she saw him. They spent time communicating on the computer, Nora living in New York and Hae Sung still in Korea.

Nora decided they needed to stop talking because she could not focus on her writing career. It was at this point when she met Arthur (John Magaro), and ended up marrying him.

I loved John Magaro in this movie and his character made me reevaluate my opinions on what was going on. With Arthur, along with Nora and Hae Sung, you had three, extremely developed, brilliantly written characters that felt so real that they were so relatable.

The cinematography of this movie was sensational, especially when Hae Sung and Nora are walking around New York. There were so many excellent shots, it was beautiful to see.

This is a slow burn film with some amazing characters and a story that gives us wonderful dialogue and character moments. Past Lives is a really great film that I liked more than I thought I might.

4.3 stars

Oh bother…

You know how you drive by an accident and you just can’t help but look. Welcome to Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey.

I knew this was horrendous before I watched it. It had 3% on Rotten Tomatoes. 3%? I watched a Dan Murrell video about the first half of the year and he spoke on how bad this film was. I couldn’t help myself.

I rented Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey on Vudu and it was just terrible. It looked cheap, the acting was ridiculous, things happened that made no sense. There was really no story after the animated opening that was the best part of the film.

When Christopher Robin (Nikolai Leon) grew up, he left for college, deserting his friends in the 100 Acre Woods. They faced hardship and problems, not having food to survive, pushing them to make some unexpected choices (who knew Eeyore would be so yummy?). Eating their friend drove Winnie the Pooh and Piglet mad, sending them into a murderous, bloody killing spree.

Not sure what happened to Owl or Rabbit who were there at the beginning. Maybe I missed it.

There were so many characters that just showed up out of nowhere to give Pooh someone to brutally kill. None of them had any sort of development. Even Christopher Robin, who had returned with his wife, was nothing more than just a body.

The look of Pooh and Piglet was absolutely laughable. They also looked very little like the iconic characters as this could have been any type of unnamed characters. The killings were bloody and, of course, the lacking characters did a ton of stupid stuff.

The ending was also remarkably anticlimactic. It was just over. I had to go back and rewatch a couple of scenes because I did not know how it was now over… albeit mercifully.

Dan Murrell was right. Don’t watch this. I am ashamed to have contributed to the financial well being of this travesty. Don’t let my pain be for naught. Skip Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. You’ll be glad you did.

It was mostly in focus so….

0.2 stars

Well, this was better than Crystal Skull.

I know that bar is low. I absolutely loved Raiders of the Lost Ark and Last Crusade. I liked Temple of Doom. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull… I can remember coming out of that movie with a couple of friends of mine feeling like we were shocked at how bad it was.

The newest installment in the Indiana Jones franchise opened today with Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

Indy (Harrison Ford) is preparing to retire from teaching when his god-daughter Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) showed up looking for an artifact that her father had during the war. Former Nazi Dr. Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) also comes after the artifact with his own henchmen. The part of the artifact was missing so Indy, Helena and Voller went on a race to reclaim the rest of it.

I am fairly split on this plot of the movie. The first part of the movie was an exciting action bit, but was really almost too dark to tell what was happening. The darkness helped with the de-aged Harrison Ford. The middle part was slow and kind of middling. There were sections that were in there that felt like it should have been cut from the film (such as Helena’s crimelord fiancé) and the seemingly never ending chase scene could have been edited down. The third part was mixed… some felt like classic Indiana Jones and other parts felt really silly, almost a cartoon.

It is always great to have Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. He does an excellent job as this iconic character. He is great both as the young Indy parts and as the older, aged Dr. Jones. He is charming and you feel for him during the emotional bits that happen.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge grew on me as the film moved on. I was really not a fan of her in the first part of the movie but as that character moved on, I liked her better. Mads Mikkelsen is always a win.

James Mangold has directed some amazing movies such as Logan and Ford vs. Ferrari. He has done a decent job on Dial of Destiny, but it seemed to lack some of the magic of past Indy movies. This film cannot be compared to Logan in any way.

In the end, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is not a bad movie. I would recommend people to watch it, especially if you are a fan of the Indiana Jones franchise. However, it is not a brilliant film. It is okay. Parts of it are outstanding. I wish it would have been better.

3.3 stars

I, along with a bunch of other reviewers, claimed that The French Dispatch was the most ‘Wes-Anderson-movie’ that we had ever seen.

Well, Asteroid City is that but on all kinds of steroids.

I am not sure that I have seen anything are weird and as wild as Wes Anderson’s latest movie, Asteroid City. My mouth was agape multiple times and I grasped my head with my hands over and over again.

And yet, I was weirdly entertained.

The narrative was bizarre. It was a play being hosted by Bryan Cranston, and directed by Conrad Earp (Edward Norton) starring an actor playing Augie Steenback (Jason Schwartzman) but was shown as if it were happening with Augie and a group of people attending a junior stargazing event in Asteroid City where an alien showed up and stole the meteorite that had landed in the town years before.

There were storyline everywhere with some of the most eccentric characters that I have seen on screen together in a long time. Anderson brought an A-list cast, full of many of his typical band of actors that appear regularly in his films. The cast, along with those already mentioned, included Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Jake Ryan, Maya Hawke, Liev Schreiber, Sophia Lillis, Grace Edwards, Hope Davis, Rupert Friend, Steve Park, Ethan Josh Lee, Aristou Meehan, Tilda Swinton, Matt Dillon, Steve Carell, Henry Rhoades, Tony Revolori, Bob Balaban, Fisher Stevens, Jeff Goldblum, Adrien Brody, Hong Chau, Rita Wilson, Willem Dafoe, Margot Robbie, and Preston Mota.

This movie was extremely chaotic. Things were weird and did not always tie together in any sort of true narrative structure, but every strange thing that happened was funny or shocking or entertaining. There were scenes that were included that felt like its own little thing and I could not believe what I was watching.

I was shaking my head throughout the film. As I was watching the movie, there were times that I considered walking out for good and other times I considered giving it 5 stars. There were several people in my theater that did walk out during this movie and I couldn’t blame them for it. Still, I laughed. I was engaged. I was entertained. I had no idea what was coming next and isn’t that a great theater experience.

There is no doubt that Asteroid City is not a film for everyone. If you are a fan of Wes Anderson, you may like this movie (although it may go too far for those fans as well). There will be those who absolutely hate this movie. I understand that feeling. I might even agree with it. But I enjoyed myself. Just sayin’.

4 stars

(…but this could be anywhere from 2 stars to 4.5 stars too.)