Time to talk about a movie that really clicks. BlackBerry is a Canadian biographical dramedy that covers the history of the titular phone developed by Research in Motion (RIM) from its meteoric rise starting in the late 90s to its inevitable downfall in the late 2000s. The movie stars Jay Baruchel and Glenn Howerton as the polar opposite co-CEOs, with Matt Johnson as one of the co-founders and true heart of the film. Plus, Johnson also directed BlackBerry and co-wrote the screenplay with Matthew Miller. BlackBerry was adapted from Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff’s book Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry. And the rest of the cast includes Rich Sommer, Michael Ironside, Martin Donovan, Michelle Giroux, SungWon Cho, Saul Rubinek, and Cary Elwes.
Our intro music this week is “Wind Flower” by Toti Cisneros.
Links:
- Email your feedback for the show to cinemaholicspodcast [at] gmail.com
- Join our Discord! We have a Cinemaholics channel here.
- Follow us on Twitter: Jon Negroni, Will Ashton
- Check out our Cinemaholics Merch!
- Check out our Patreon to support Cinemaholics!
- Connect with Cinemaholics on Facebook and Twitter.
Synopsis for BlackBerry:
WORK HARD. FAIL HARD. Two mismatched entrepreneurs – egghead innovator Mike Lazaridis and cut-throat businessman Jim Balsillie – joined forces in an endeavour that was to become a worldwide hit in little more than a decade. The device that one of them invented and the other sold was the BlackBerry, an addictive mobile phone that changed the way the world worked, played and communicated. But just as BlackBerry was rising to new peaks, it also started losing its way through the fog of Smartphone wars, management indecision and outside distractions, eventually leading to the breakdown of one of the most successful ventures in the history of the tech and business worlds. [Source: Letterboxd]
