#Jim balsillie

[onthecrosslook]

she’s from WATERLOO!!!! WHERE THE VAMPIRES HANG OUT!!!!!

[buthappysoverrated]

BlackBerry (2023), dir.Matt Johnson

[yoko-goto]

Holy shit guys I just finished my first draft of my BlackBerry fanfic (over 32,000 words!)

I am giddy with excitement. I cannot believe I finished something long like this, the last time I finished a first draft that was long was like back in 2021. I'm so excited guys holy shit

[vicvinegarandhughhoney]

what about sopping wet cat jim balsillie

omg how could I have forgotten... the ultimate loser cat.

this is him btw 👇

[cinefilesreviews]

BlackBerry (2023) Movie Review

Sandwiched between the releases of two massive Summer blockbusters, Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 and Fast X, were a meager selection of smaller films. There’s the hypnosis crime thriller from Robert Rodriguez starring Ben Affleck. There’s the sequel to the quiet, soft hit Book Club. There’s also Sony’s shabby looking live-action anime adaptation Knights of the Zodiac. Then, there’s…

[doyouknowthisactor]

By "roles" I mean playing a different character, and in a different piece of media; someone playing one character across a franchise only counts as one thing for the purposes of this poll, as does playing multiple characters in one franchise/piece of media

Below are some of this actor's roles. Please only check after voting!

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia as Dennis Reynolds

BlackBerry as Jim Balsillie

A.P. Bio as Jack Griffin

The Strangers as Mike

[good-realtor-bad-realtor-dynamic]

In between all the Glenn and Charlie stories where they talk about how they got into acting, the plays they did in school, Juilliard and Williamstown and making a career of it, they managed to drop quite a few hints and little bits teasing all their upcoming projects.

Sunny Season 16 teases dropped in today's podcast:

Mrs Mac, Mrs Kelly and Uncle Jack are all back

Charlie is wearing his 'Murica bandana and possibly a denim jacket (filmed on the day of recording the pod)

Uncle Jack is in this America episode

Heath Cullens was directing it

Charlie has a few new sweatshirts this season

Mac is wearing a facial prosthetic to do a specific gag for one episode where something happens to him that affects how he sounds (they filmed it the day before this was recorded)

Megan is going to be directing two episodes

She and the other writers are working on finishing off the last two scripts while the guys are off filming season 16 and one of these scripts is only 25 pages so there's going to be room for a lot of improv

Charlie's movie Fool's Paradise is coming out on 12 May 2023 IN CINEMAS.

Jon Brion (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Punch-Drunk Love) did the score with a full orchestra and Charlie got to hit a gong

Ray Liotta was very excited for this movie to come out and used to phone Charlie because he wanted to see it RIP :(

Leslie Jones (Punch-Drunk Love, Thin Red Line) and Tim Roche (one of the Sunny editors) did edits on this film

Glenn is in the movie and Charlie says he's fantastic

Glenn's Blackberry movie is also probably coming out fairly soon considering he talks about some of the bts.

He found it hard to watch himself in the movie because his character tapped into a side of himself he loathes

I looked it up and he's playing Jim Balsillie, who's a real person so I could look it up and figure out why he's gross if I wanted to.

Related because it's from this episode but not quite related because it's not an upcoming show: see these photos of child Glenn Howerton doing theatre in Alabama and Juilliard before Sunny (1) (2)

[peytons-depression-land]

With BlackBerry, Matt Johnson continues to show no other director has a better understanding of our modern, media-molded minds

For those unfamiliar, Matt Johnson is a 37-year-old Canadian indie filmmaker, whose new film BlackBerry, which he co-wrote, directed, and co-stars in, was released this past week. BlackBerry charts the rise and fall of the Canadian creators and company behind the once ubiquitous “BlackBerry” smart phone, a device that’s now a relic to the pre-iphone aughts. The film chronicles the triumphs and tribulations of the phone’s creators, underdog nerds Mike Lazaridis and Dough Fregin, and cutthroat businessman and Blackberry co-CEO Jim Balsillie, who both launched the phone to its successes and helped destroy all they created. Johnson’s previous features are The Dirties, a found footage dark comedy/drama about the lives of two film obsessed high schoolers leading up to a school shooting, and Operation Avalanche, a period thriller about low level CIA agents faking the moon landing – a film in which said agents con their way into NASA, which Johnson and his crew actually did in real life when making the low budget indie film. However, Johnson’s most iconic work, and most beloved by many, is his mockumentary comedy series, which started as a web series and was later adapted to TV, Nirvanna the Band the Show. The series details the misadventures and schemes of a fictionalized version of Johnson and his friend, musician Jay McCarrol, as they try to get their band – Nirvanna the Band – a show at the Toronto restaurant and music venue “The Rivoli.” You might know this series from the now famous "Update Day" clip in which the duo sing along to the Wii shop music. In 2021, Johnson and McCarrol even made a three-episode animated children’s spin off of Nirvanna the Band, titled Matt and Bird Break Loose. A unifying aspect of much of Johnson's work is his narrative documentary style of filmmaking, often employing real people in Sacha Baron Cohen-style moments.

Something about me: I'm kind of a Matt Johnson obsessive. Any time I meet someone from Canada under the age of 40, I ask them if they've heard of Matt Johnson or Nirvanna the Band the Show. I have multiple back-up hard drives with the complete web series and TV seasons of Nirvanna the Band because it's impossible to get/find now in the US. Anytime I'm in a large media store that sells 2nd hand movies (like Amoeba Records), I religiously spend time searching to see if, by some small chance, they have one of the physical copies of The Dirties (the ones with the variant covers that look like Criterion Collection covers) - it's kinda my physical media holy grail. My DVD of Operation Avalanche is one of my most prized possessions. Hell, I’ve even tried my hand at replicating Johnson’s style numerous times, a short film I made while at film school abroad in France being the main example. So, suffice to say: I was very excited for Blackberry.

With BlackBerry Johnson is making significant stylistic and scale leaps from his previous works, “making it to the big leagues” as someone more confident than me with sports metaphors might say. It’s a bigger movie than he’s made before, getting a limited national release here in the US, by a major indie distributor (IFC), starring two sizeable, well-known actors (It’s Always Sunny in Philidelphia’s Glenn Howerton and comedy mainstay Jay Baruchel). All this far from the rag-tag, small scale, underground nature of his previous works, where the cast was the filmmakers and the biggest names involved were Vice (and its since defunct TV network) and Kevin Smith whose company distributed The Dirties. Stylistically, BlackBerry makes the jump from Johnson’s previous found footage/mockumentary movie (both terms sounding far more derisive to the idiosyncratic style of Johnson’s films than I’d like) to a fully “traditional” narrative feature. With both The Dirties and Operation Avalanche, as well as NTBTS, the characters are involved in the actual act of filmmaking, for one reason or another, and aware of the camera filming them, the cameramen being acknowledged entities. The footage you’re watching is filmed, edited, and staring the characters on screen. But, with BlackBerry, besides a fun visual gag from Glenn Howerton at the beginning of the film, the cameras exist as they would in any normal movie – invisible watchers of the events.

What makes BlackBerry and Johnson’s filmmaking so great though is that he doesn’t just abandon all semblance of his style and aesthetic, becoming some bland gun for hire, like so many indie directors plucked from festival success to helm the next cinematic toy line for Marvel. Instead, he finds ways to work his style into this more traditional film in compelling ways. While the camera is no longer literally in the story, it still hovers around the characters, with longtime Johnson DP Jared Raab often shooting through the obstruction of windows, from far away, and with the back of heads in the foreground. The camera zooms and focuses in and out of different characters and things in the moment, cinema verité style, Johnson describing in a Q&A for the film having been influenced by documentaries like Pennebaker and Hegedus’ The War Room. The looming, documentary-like camera works perfectly for this constantly manic story of slap dash, neurotic tech wizzes and on edge CEO sociopaths, the camera matching the characters nature. For this story of greed, corporate malignancy, and the loss of ideals, the camera’s living style also feels like what you’re watching is covert, hacked CCTV footage. It makes the viewer feel like they’re seeing what actually happened: secret footage from inside the office, fly on the wall stuff, intimate to these people and these conflicts.

True to the overarching motif in Johnson’s work of media’s permanent place in our cultural language and experience, Blackberry is filled visual references to other movies: from a non-diegetic montage of famous sci-fi technology over the opening credits, to scenes of the lovable band of “Research in Motion” nerds enjoying movie nights of Raiders of the Lost Ark and They Live, to movie posters lining the walls of the RIM offices and featured on Doug’s t-shirts. Johnson perfectly described how necessary referencing other media was to his film when he explained “Pop culture that we think of as just nerdy ephemera, I believe sincerely, winds up dictating what technologists create that will become the future.” Well timed needle drops help ground the work in its specific world of a nerds 1996, 2003, and 2007, and frequent Johnson collaborator (and aforementioned co-star of Nirvanna the Band) Jay McCarrol brings a pumping synth score, not too dissimilar to Trent Reznor’s work in The Social Network, but with a uniquely quirkier, lo-fi essence that fits perfectly with the indie feel of both the film itself and its subject matter.

Thankfully we’re not entirely deprived of Johnson’s charismatic, comedic screen presence in BlackBerry. While not the Orson Wells-style leading man both in front of and behind the camera he was in his previous works, he still features in Blackberry as the third of our main 3 characters, Doug Fregin, co-engineer/creator of the famous phone, who acts in a way as the film’s audience surrogate. Despite Doug being a “goof” as Balsillie describes him, he’s the heart of the main three characters, the moral center to which we compare Balsillie’s shrewd cunning, lies, and manipulations, and Lazaridis’s tragic moral downfall from tech idealist to bottom-line businessman. Doug is undoubtedly a character in the typical “Johnsonian mold” - a movie quoting, John Carpenter t-shirt and sweatband wearing, ninja turtle loving hyperactive who uses Star Wars references in business meetings. In fact, the character seems molded in the film more on Johnson than the real man, given that, as Johnson explained, he’s a “true cipher… has never done a taped interview,” leaving Johnson with room for interpretation.

However, while Johnson delivers a more lighthearted, comedy performance, as a director he pulls some impressive dramatic performances from Howerton and Baruchel. It’s true that the movie is, at its core, a dark comedy, so there’s some great comedy in the lead performances, Howerton delivering that trademark snark and unhinged rage his Always Sunny character has become known for and Baruchel with his awkward nerdiness. I have no doubt Howerton’s scene in which he, in a rage, screams “I’m from Waterloooooo! Where the vampires hang out!” - in a moment that must be seen to be believed - will become a quoted classic before long. But the characters aren’t just farce Social Network parodies, they have depth and drama to them, a credit to Johnson’s directing and Howerton and Baruchel’s acting. You feel Balsillie’s underlying insecurity and attraction to power that drives him. You hurt seeing Lazaridis slowly turning into what he once stood against and the tragedy of him reaching his ethical “point of no return” when he agrees to the BlackBerry touchscreen phone being manufactured overseas, in order to meet budget and deadline. We also get some delightful supporting performances from the likes of Saul Rubinek, Rich Sommer, Cary Elwes, and Michael Ironside as an imposing, rotund, bolo tie wearing, hard ass COO.

BlackBerry is a tragic tale of ambition and passion succumbing to ego and greed, and in so it’s not only a movie about the tech sector, but also about the struggle of making art. Lazaridis struggles, and ultimately fails, to maintain integrity while creating a technology he loves and believes in against a world run by people like Balsillie who only seek profit and status, quality be damned as long as it sells. Anyone who makes art, especially films, is up against the same problem. There will always be Mike Lazaridis and Matt Johnson’s, there will always be Jim Balsillie’s and David Zaslav’s, and there will always be a struggle between the two: art and commerce. The tragedy comes when the creator, like Lazaridis, loses their principles, and begins creating not for the love of it, but out of obligation and out of profit. The triumphs come when the creator finds a way to take what they love, what they’re good at, and what is meaningful to them, - their vision - and deliver it to the masses with the heart intact, as Johnson has done throughout his career, now with BlackBerry more than ever. It’s up to the creator to stand fast and endure to create their meaningful works, as oftentimes the sharks will get along either way, as we see in the end credits with Balsillie, who avoided any jail time for his stock fraud committed while co-CEO of BlackBerry.

While I don’t think they're for everybody, Matt Johnson's works capture the modern media deluged culture that we all exist in better than any other modern artist or filmmaker. His movies are always about movies, whether they narratively are or not, just as our lives have become subsumed by media consumption, regurgitation, and reinterpretation. We now live in a world where almost every movie and TV show is at our fingertips 24/7 - a religion, the upgrade to dreaming, the codex we classify our existence on - and his film-making style and characters reflect that. The characters, especially the characters Johnson portray, speak in a lingua franca of movies quotes. His camera is alive and involved in the action, often literally, just as our cameras and screens are every day. His editing blends the real world with the movie world, blurring the lines. His movies are not documentaries, but they’re certainly not just fiction, something in between, a dreamlike blend for our media-soaked minds. I’ve never been one good at the rigid definitions of “modernism” and “post modernism” in art, but I have to believe Johnson is the cutting edge of whatever “post-post-post…Modern” stage we’re at currently. The Dirties is about media’s role in the lives of a youth more connected but also alienated than ever before. Operation Avalanche takes the uniquely western art form of film and uses it to represent how governments often use media to manufacture their own fictions to control the public narrative. Nirvanna the Band the Show shows how media influences our everyday lives, friendships, personalities, and dreams. And now BlackBerry serves as a cautionary tale for the fate an artist can fall to if they let their work become a product instead of a passion and art. As we drift further into the oblivion of inevitable ecological, political, social collapse, media becoming the God of our reality, Matt Johnson is our guru, beaming our media-soaked psyche back on to the screen, creating innovative, funny, compelling stories of life through the lens of a movie-fed world.

[manwhoredennis]

catboy jim balsillie for @yyoati. get well soon love <3

(no human ears under the cut, couldn't fully commit, too uncanny valley 4 me asdhgashda)

[filmjoyreviews]

BLACKBERRY: Matt Johnson Isn't Afraid to Make a Hilarious Biopic -- and Glenn Howerton's Rage is at its Finest

Matt Johnson's BlackBerry is a constantly engaging and often hilarious exploration of capitalist corruption and the way media forms our world through telling the story of the rise and fall of the Blackberry--a phone that was once the status symbol and beginning of the smartphone conversation and is now largely forgotten.

BlackBerry's Impressive Pace

From the first frame, Blackberry is an engrossing experience, setting the stage by quickly introducing the characters, especially highlighting their unique personalities, predicting the clashes that are bound to come.

Research In Motion co-founders Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel) and Doug Fregin (Matt Johnson) want to bring a groundbreaking product into the market, but their major concern is maintaining their friendship and making sure to never forget when it's movie night.

The nerdy and wholesome energy of Doug and Mike is in quick direct contrast with Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton), who enters the room like a shark constantly on the hunt for more power.

From this initial moment, BlackBerry never stops. The film flows perfectly from moment to moment, crafting scenes showcasing the different morals of Mike and Doug and their newfound partner Jim through well-placed and perfectly delivered darkly comedic beats.

Glenn Howerton, Jay Baruchel, and Matt Johnson's Memorable Performances

BlackBerry gives us Jay Baruchel's best performance to date as he captures the unease of a character slowly losing his morality over time, in the pursuit of money and relevance. Baruchel's performance makes the audience feel sympathetic for Mike, wishing we could save him as be drifts further and further away from the kindhearted, nerdy tech genius he once was.

Glenn Howerton's award-worthy performance shows the depth of Jim Ballsillie, especially his underlying insecurity and desire to present confidence, even when it isn't fulfilled--hidden behind layers of rage and sarcasm.

Howerton balances the moments where pure, unadulterated rage will best show Jim's emotions with the moments that need a quiet intensity.

Throughout BlackBerry, there are many powerful moments where Howerton shows Ballsillie's insecurity and anger through pursed lips, trying to hide anything bubbling to the surface.

His rage-filled scream of "I'm from Waterloo, where the vampires hang out" will replay over and over inside your head. The different ways Howerton displays Ballsillie's rage make for a layered and engrossing performance.

We want to know more about this man and what makes him tick. The character feels real through this stellar performance guiding us into knowing more about Ballsillie's internal life and tireless pursuit of the capitalistic dream of wanting more and more until nothing is ever good enough.

Matt Johnson's role as Doug is the moral center of BlackBerry, showing us how money and success have corrupted those around him. Mike's fall wouldn't hit quite as hard if we didn't have Doug on the sidelines, showing how much Mike has changed.

Seeing Doug trying to find his friend inside the shell of a person he doesn't recognize pushes forward the film's themes of corruption. This change is shown most powerfully as Mike leaves his integrity behind as he makes a decision directly going against everything he once stood for.

Technical Triumphs

Matt Johnson's directing and writing showcases our cultures connections with media, especially technological advances.

BlackBerry is filled with well-placed pop culture references from a montage of tech in movies/tv, glimpses of iconic movie posters like the Japanese Army of Darkness poster, scenes from the RIM movie nights, and energizing needle drops.

The movement and aesthetic of BlackBerry brings forward the nostalgia of outdated media making us feel how much and how little time has passed since the time of keyboards and trackpads on smartphones.

BlackBerry brings each time period--no matter how close together they seem--to life with unique production design by Adam Belanger and the use of specific needle drops combined with footage symbolic to the era.

In addition to this, the passing of time and how much or little our main characters have changed comes across with purposeful costume design by Hanna Puley.

Doug--who is the least impacted by the corruption of success-- barely changes, wearing his pop culture shirts and sweatbands throughout. As Mike leaves some of his morals behind, he relates more closely to Jim than Doug.

Jay McCarrol's wonderful score perfectly captures the tone of BlackBerry, using synth to tell a unique, character-driven story built around technology and how it pulls us in various directions.

Conclusion

BlackBerry is a funny character-driven exploration of the rise and fall of a company and its two very different CEOs brought to life through powerful performances from Glenn Howerton and Jay Baruchel.

[buthappysoverrated]

【Blackberry | Jim Balsillie/Mike Lazaridis】 100 Stories

[gilligould]

jim balsillie would eat that freak alive i can tell you that much

[yoko-goto]

Congrats to the zero (0) people who asked for it, I am coming out with a king/court jester medieval times fanfic of Jim and Mike, something I'm sure no one wants but me

[vicvinegarandhughhoney]

i would go to church if jim balsillie was the religion, jack griffin was the preist and we prayed to glenn howerton

our father who art in gleaven

howerton be thy name

thy glingdom come

thy glill be done

on glearth as it is in gleaven

glive us today our daily glead

and forgive us our glespasses

as we forgive those who glespass against us

glead us not into glemptation

but gleliver us from glevil

for thine is the glingdom

the glower, and the glory

for glever and glever

glamen

[myhahnestopinion]

THE AARONS 2023 - Best Supporting Film Performance

Christopher Reeve will not be nominated for his part in The Flash this year. Hopefully, you’ll believe a man can die and rest in peace. Here is The Aaron for Best Supporting Film Performance:

WINNER: Ryan Gosling as Ken - Barbie

Gosling broke the mold in his performance in order to beach off his competitors for this award. Certainly, the actor modeled himself after well-known features of the popular toy in many regards, but his clueless characterization let his Ken take on a life of his own. Infused with the highest of himbo energies, The Nice Guys star reaffirmed his comedic chops and retained Ken’s sympathetic core throughout his curious character arc. Gosling goes on to accessorize this performance with delightful scenes of singing, dancing, and expert guitar playing, but he had more than (k)enough talent to win even without those.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss - Oppenheimer

Downey shines at the slimy Strauss, a role that stands in stark contrast to his suave superhero. 

Glenn Howerton as Jim Balsillie - BlackBerry

Howerton’s deftness for dialing up indignation continues to rate him as a five star man.

Nicolas Cage as Dracula - Renfield

It’s ironic, given the subject matter, how dependent Renfield’s entertainment is on Cage’s batty performance.

Jason Schwartzman as Lucretius Flickerman - The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

Viewers will surely flip for the deadpan delivery of Schwartzman’s anchorman.

NEXT UP: THE 2023 AARON FOR BEST SCREENPLAY!

[laresearchette]

Thursday, November 09, 2023 Canadian TV Listings (Times Eastern)

WHERE CAN I FIND THOSE PREMIERES?: COLIN FROM ACCOUNTS (City TV +) MYSTERY ON MISTLETOE LANE (W Network) 8:00pm RAP SH!T (Crave) 10:00pm

WHAT IS NOT PREMIERING IN CANADA TONIGHT: THE CROODS: FAMILY TREE (Premiering on November 11 on YTV at 10:30am) MOUNTAIN MEN (TBD - History Channel Canada) MURDER RUNS IN THE FAMILY (TBD - Lifetime Canada)

NEW TO AMAZON PRIME CANADA/CBC GEM/CRAVE TV/DISNEY + STAR/NETFLIX CANADA:

AMAZON PRIME CANADA BTS: YET TO COME TO CINEMAS COMEDY ISLAND (Season 1)

CBC GEM BLACKBERRY (all three episodes streaming)

CRAVE TV RAP SH!T (Season 2, Episodes 1-2)

NETFLIX CANADA AKUMA KUN (JP) TEMPLE OF FILM: 100 YEARS OF THE EGYPTIAN THEATRE

BILLIE JEAN KING CUP (SN1) 10:00am: Canada vs. Poland

GRAND SLAM OF CURLING (SN) 11:00am: National - Draw 10 (SN) 3:00pm: National - Draw 11 (SN1) 7:00pm: National - Draw 12

NHL HOCKEY (SN) 7:00pm: Islanders vs. Bruins (SNPacific/TSN5) 7:00pm: Canucks vs. Sens (TSN2) 7:00pm: Habs vs. Red Wings (TSN3) 8:00pm: Predators vs. Jets (SN/SN1) 10:30pm: Penguins vs. Kings (SNWest) 10:30pm: Oilers vs. Sharks

DRAGONS' DEN (CBC) 8:00pm

NFL FOOTBALL (TSN/TSN4) 8:15pm: Panthers vs. Bears

BLACKBERRY: THE LIMITED SERIES (CBC) 9:00pm (PREMIERE): Mike Lazaridis and Doug Fregin pitch their idea of combining a computer with a cellphone to Jim Balsillie; Jim comes on board, and they try to sell their idea.

AUSSIE GOLD HUNTERS (Discovery Canada) 9:00pm: In flooded Victoria, the Poseidon Crew are forced back onto an old lease; Shane and Kate call in some vintage help in Western Australia; Jacqui and Andrew get separated at night in far north Queensland.

KILLING IT (Showcase) 9:00pm (SEASON PREMIERE): Craig and Jillian prepare for the farm's first shipment of saw palmetto berries, but a series of unexpected visitors puts everything they've worked for in jeopardy; a new employee is a thorn in their side. In Episode Two, the Boones make their demands; Craig tries to reconnect with Isaiah; Jillian must decide whether to sacrifice her prized possession to save the farm.

HEARTLAND DOCS, DVM (Nat Geo Canada) 10:00pm (SEASON PREMIERE): The Schroeders reel in an unexpected catch during a family boating trip.

OUTBACK OPAL HUNTERS (Discovery Canada) 10:00pm: The Bushmen find a hidden shaft by falling into it and the Blacklighters brand-new investment is dead in the water; a busted jackhammer forces JC and the Young Guns to make emergency repairs halfway down the mine shaft.

CANADIAN REFLECTIONS (CBC) 11:30pm: Play It Again; Hall of Mirrors