Tag: SXSW Film Festival

Review: ‘Black Barbie: A Documentary,’ starring Kitty Black Perkins, Stacey McBride-Irby and Beulah Mae Mitchell

November 24, 2023

by Carla Hay

A scene from “Black Barbie: A Documentary” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“Black Barbie: A Documentary”

Directed by Lagueria Davis

Culture Representation: The documentary film “Black Barbie: A Documentary” features a predominantly African American group of people (and some white people, Latin people, and Asians) discussing the history of black Barbie dolls and/or racial issues for Barbie dolls.

Culture Clash: There is an ongoing struggle for black Barbie dolls to not be perceived as inferior or less important than white Barbie dolls.

Culture Audience: “Black Barbie: A Documentary” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching a documentary about the intersection of Barbie dolls with African American history.

Stacey McBride-Irby, Kitty Black Perkins and Beulah Mae Mitchell in “Black Barbie: A Documentary” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“Black Barbie: A Documentary” is essential viewing not just for people who are interested in this often-overlooked part of Barbie doll history but also for people who aren’t fans of Barbie dolls but want to watch a fascinating pop culture documentary. The movie (which has a total running time of 100 minutes) packs in a lot of different layers that are mostly cohesive. The movie is fairly ambitious in how it puts certain things in a broader historical and sociological context, thereby avoiding being a formulaic Barbie doll documentary that would probably ignore these larger issues.

Directed by Lagueria Davis (who wrote and spoke the movie’s narration and is one of the movie’s producers), “Black Barbie: A Documentary” had its world premiere at the 2023 SXSW Film & TV Festival and has since made the rounds at numerous other festivals, including its New York premiere at the Urbanworld Festival. Davis has said in many interviews that it took her 12 years to make this documentary. It shows in the amount of meticulous research in “Black Barbie: A Documentary,” which makes everything easier to understand by including a timeline of events.

This not a documentary made by a “Barbie fangirl.” In fact, in her narration, Davis (who occasionally appears on screen in the movie) tells viewers from the beginning that in her childhood, she didn’t even like Barbie dolls and never had an interest in them. She says that what inspired her to make this documentary was hearing stories from her aunt Beulah Mae Mitchell, who was one of the first black employees for Mattel, the Barbie toy manufacturing company, where Mitchell worked from 1955 to 1999.

The first Barbie doll, which went on sale to the mass market in 1959, was invented by Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler and was inspired by Ruth’s real-life daughter Barbara. Barbie dolls became a hit because they were not the type of shapeless woman dolls that were usually being sold at the time but were dolls designed to emulate the curves and contours of a fully developed woman. The first black Barbie doll went on sale in 1968, at the height of the Black Power movement.

Mitchell was mostly a receptionist throughout her career at Mattel, but she was privy to a lot of insider information that she shares in the documentary. Mitchell also kept many valuable mementos and memorabilia from her time with Mattel, some of which is shown in this documentary and would be right at home in a Barbie museum. In “Black Barbie: A Documentary,” Mitchell describes Ruth Handler as a kind and generous boss who always asked for feedback from employees on how to improve the company. Nevertheless, for years, Mattel had a blind spot or resistance to the idea of Mattel making Barbie dolls that were any race other than white.

Mitchell says part of that resistance came from cultural conditioning at the time in the United States, when it was more acceptable to “erase” people of color from representation in many areas of life where people of color existed. The image manufactured for Barbie at the time and which still exists today is that Barbie leads a life of glamour and privilege, which are often out of reach for people who are treated as being on the margins of society.

In the documentary, Mitchell comments: “My mother loved dolls. I loved dolls. I loved fashion.” Mitchell remembers that she was growing up, she was so used to seeing only white dolls being sold as the “pretty dolls,” that “it didn’t occur to me” that dolls that weren’t white could be included as “pretty dolls” too. She remembers the usual black dolls that were around in her childhood were the Aunt Jemima dolls that were considered frumpy and unattractive.

The reasons why the first black Barbie wasn’t introduced until 1968 had as much to do with race as economics. There was deep skepticism that there would be enough demand for black Barbie dolls to make the dolls a profitable investment for Mattel. The underlying doubt was that although black people might buy black Barbie dolls, what about white people, the majority race that was buying Barbie dolls?

“Black Barbie: A Documentary” briefly goes off on an interesting but necessary tangent by mentioning the famous Clark doll tests of 1947, as an example of how dolls can often influence how young people think of racial differences. Psychologist spouses Mamie Clark and Kenneth Clark conducted tests with white and black children by giving them a choice between choosing a white baby doll or black baby doll. The children almost always chose the white dolls, thereby showing how white supremacist racism can be internalized from a very young age.

These test results were used successfully in arguments in favor of making racial segregation illegal in U.S. public education in the 1954 landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education. However, legislating racial justice in public education is one thing. Trying to do that in the business world is another thing.

As is often the case when white-owned corporate companies exclude representation of races that aren’t white, the excluded races create their own businesses. “Black Barbie: The Documentary” admirably mentions the importance of Shindana Toys, a co-op company that was the first major manufacturer of black dolls and became very successful at it. Shindana Toys, which was in business from 1968 to 1983, was a division of Operation Bootstrap Inc.

Mattel noticed the success of Shindana and saw that there was a viable economic demand to make Barbie dolls more racially inclusive. And so, the first black Barbie doll was launched in 1968. Her name was Christie, who was marketed as a friend of Barbie’s. In 1969, another black Barbie doll named Julia was introduced. Julia was inspired by Diahann Carroll’s title character in the TV comedy series “Julia,” where Carroll starred as a young widowed mother who is a nurse.

Eventually, Mattel responded to requests from consumers to make people of color dolls not just as sidekick friends to Barbie but as dolls named Barbie. Kitty Black Perkins was the designer of Mattel’s first black doll named Barbie, which was introduced in 1979 and went on sale in 1980. Black Perkins, who worked at Mattel from 1976 to 2003, is considered the most influential person at Mattel in creating a wider range of black Barbie dolls.

Black Perkins’ interviews in the documentary are among the most insightful. She mentions that a child psychologist was brough in by Mattel to assess her work when designing Mattel’s first black doll named Barbie. Black Perkins says that psychologist backed off when it was obvious that Black Perkins, as an African American, knew better than the psychologist on what should be done in creating a black Barbie doll. She also says that Mattel gave very little promotion to the first black Barbie doll that she designed.

Black Perkins mentored Stacey McBride-Irby, a Mattel designer who continued Black Perkins’ legacy in creating new black Barbie dolls, when McBride-Irby worked for Mattel from 1996 to 2011. One of the documentary’s highlights is showing Mitchell, Black Perkins and McBride-Irby—three generations of black women who have long histories with Mattel’s Barbie dolls—sitting down together for a talk. Their conversation doesn’t look forced or contrived. It’s a joy to watch. McBride-Irby mentions that her own daughter was an influence in many of McBride Irby’s design decisions for black Barbie dolls.

“Black Barbie: A Documentary” also has the expected array of talking head interviews with Barbie doll collectors, historians, entertainers, cultural experts and former Mattel employees. The movie acknowledges that Mattel has come a long way in diversifying Barbie dolls. However, the documentary also points out that there could be more progress in how Mattel’s “Barbie” animated movies still push the idea that the only Barbie who deserves the most attention has to be a white female who is thin, blonde and pretty.

For example, even though the “Barbie” animated movies have introduced a black Barbie named Brooklyn Barbie as a friend counterpart to white Malibu Barbie, the storylines often still presents Brooklyn Barbie as a sidekick, not the main star of the story. Malibu Barbie is still at the center of the marketing campaigns for these movies. If racism is mentioned in the “Barbie” animated movies, Malibu Barbie does most of the talking about it.

Mason Williams—Mattel’s senior director of diversity, equity, and inclusion—is interviewed in the documentary. He looks visibly uncomfortable in the documentary when he’s confronted with criticism that Mattel’s “Barbie” animated movies still don’t show racial equality among the Barbies. Williams gives a tepid response by saying that these changes take time and won’t happen overnight.

One of the best parts of “Black Barbie: A Documentary” is in the last third of the movie, when it goes beyond just talking head interviews and shows a series of focus groups with children (about 7 to 12 years old, male and female and of diverse races) to discuss what they think when they are presented with various Barbie dolls and are asked questions about these dolls. Yeshiva Davis (a therapist whose specialty is family and marriage) is the leader of these focus groups.

The results of these focus groups are revealing about children’s attitudes about race relations and perceptions of physical attractiveness, as well as how these attitudes affect their judgments of others and themselves. The children’s answers are sometimes funny and sometimes sad but always come across as very unfiltered and honest. Davis is then shown discussing the results of these focus groups with various educators and cultural historians, who comment on the children’s answers.

Perhaps that is the greatest takeaway of “Black Barbie: A Documentary”: It’s not about which black Barbie dolls are bestsellers for Mattel. It’s about how Barbie dolls, like them or not, have a great deal of influence on how people (especially impressionable children) can view the world.

Netflix will premiere “Black Barbie: A Documentary” in 2024, on a date to be announced.

Review: ‘Shiva Baby’ (2021), starring Rachel Sennott, Molly Gordon, Polly Draper, Danny Deferrari, Fred Melamed and Dianna Agron

August 25, 2023

by Carla Hay

Molly Gordon and Rachel Sennott in “Shiva Baby” (Photo courtesy of Utopia)

“Shiva Baby” (2021)

Directed by Emma Seligman

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York state, the comedy/drama film “Shiva Baby” features an all-white cast of characters representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: A bisexual college student, who secretly makes money as a sex worker for male clients, finds herself in uncomfortable situations when she, her parents, her ex-girlfriend, a sex customer and his wife all end up at the same post-funeral reception. 

Culture Audience: “Shiva Baby” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of sarcastic and well-acted movies about people who have secret lives.

Dianna Agron and Danny Deferrari in “Shiva Baby” (Photo courtesy of Utopia)

“Shiva Baby” seamlessly blends hilarious comedy and sobering drama in this incisive story of a college student forced to reckon with secrets and lies during a tension-filled shiva reception. It’s a stellar feature film debut from writer/director Emma Seligman. The movie authentically represents American Jewish culture (almost every character in the movie is Jewish), which is a big part of the story, but the essential elements of the plot could have been about people in many other cultures.

Seligman is also one of the producers of “Shiva Baby,” which was selected to have its world premiere at the 2020 SXSW Film Festival, but the event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Jury prizes were still given for the event. “Shiva Baby” went on to win the John Cassavetes Award at the 2022 Film Independent Spirit Awards, presented to the creative team of a film with a production budget of less than $500,000. (The John Cassavetes Award’s qualifying amount has since been changed to a movie production budget of less than $1 million.)

“Shiva Baby” is based on Seligman’s 2018 short film of the same name that she made when she was a student at New York University. Rachel Sennott, another NYU alum, stars in both “Shiva Baby” films, which get their title from the fact that the story takes place primarily at a shiva reception, and the protagonist is a college student who feels like her parents still treat her like a baby. Both movies were filmed on location in New York state.

In the “Shiva Baby” feature film, Sennott portrays bisexual Danielle, who’s in her early 20s and in her last year at an unnamed university in New York City. Danielle comes from a middle-class family (the movie never mentions how her parents make money), where she is the only child of her parents. Danielle’s life is revealed in bits and pieces in the movie until a portrait emerges of a deeply insecure woman who’s been lying to people about many things in her life. What “Shiva Baby” viewers first find out about Danielle isn’t necessarily the truth about her.

The movie’s opening scene shows Danielle and a man in his mid-to-late 30s having sex at his apartment in New York City. Viewers don’t find out until a little later in the movie that his name is Max Beckett (played by Danny Deferrari), and he’s also been keeping secrets. Max has been giving money to Danielle in a “sexual arrangement” relationship. Some people in this line of work might call Max a “sugar daddy,” but the reality is that he’s a sex customer.

Danielle has told Max that she needs the money to pay for her tuition at Columbia University Law School, where she says she is currently a student. Max seems a little jealous of other men whom Danielle might be seeing for the same type of arrangement. “How are you going to get through law school if you’re screwing around with these guys?” Max asks. Danielle doesn’t give a direct answer, but she makes sure to get the cash that she wants from Max before she leaves.

Danielle will soon have a lot more to deal with than nosy questions from Max when she attends a shiva reception later that day. Her parents call Danielle to remind her to attend the funeral of someone whom Danielle didn’t even know. The funeral is on Long Island, where her parents live, and Danielle has to ask her parents what the name is of the person who died. The deceased person has a very distant connection to Danielle’s family and is described as the sister of the second wife of someone’s uncle.

Danielle’s mother Debbie (played by Polly Draper) is very talkative, uptight and domineering. Danielle’s father Joel (played by Fred Melamed) is sensitive, gentle and easygoing. Debbie, who doesn’t like to talk about Danielle being bisexual, has been pressuring Danielle to find a nice Jewish guy to marry. Debbie wants to think Danielle’s bisexuality is just an “experimental” phase that has ended for Danielle.

Danielle skips the funeral but she meets up with her parents after the funeral at the shiva reception taking place at the middle-class house of a relative of the deceased person. Danielle is taken aback because one of the first people she sees is her ex-lover Maya (played by Molly Gordon), who has known Danielle since they were kids. Maya is also an only child of her parents. Danielle asks her parents, “Why is Maya here?” Debbie warns Danielle, “No funny business with Maya.”

The rest of the movie takes place at this reception, which becomes an increasingly volatile minefield of emotions, as the scandalous secrets of Danielle and other people are in danger of being exposed. Throughout “Shiva Baby,” Danielle is seen going to the buffet table to grab something to eat, or she finds some wine to gulp, which is the movie’s way of showing how Danielle uses food and alcohol as a way to cope with the stress she’s experiencing at this gathering.

Danielle’s issues with food are brought up in other ways that hint that she might have an eating disorder as part of her personal history. At this reception, multiple people (including Danielle’s mother) comment to Danielle about how much weight she has lost. It’s mentioned later in the movie that when she was younger, Danielle was considered to be “chubby,” but she lost a lot of weight during her college years. Debbie quips to Danielle about Danielle’s physical appearance: “You look like Gyneth Paltrow on food stamps—and not in a good way.”

Also at this reception are Maya’s mother Katherine (played by Glynis Bell), who is a very judgmental gossip. Just like Danielle’s mother Debbie, Katherine is aware of but chooses not to discuss the fact that Danielle and Maya used to be lovers. Katherine also seems to think that Maya will eventually settle down with a husband.

At this party, Danielle is asked several times by various people if she’s dating anyone and what her plans are after graduation. Danielle is honest about not currently being involved in a serious romance, but she gives people different or vague answers about her post-graduation plans. It should come as no surprise that Danielle and Maya have unresolved feelings for each other. Maya, who is a confident overachiever, is more likely than Danielle to be truthful about her feelings.

Even though Danielle wants to be independent and find a job on her own, her mother Debbie constantly asks people to help Danielle find a job after she graduates. It’s later revealed that Danielle’s parents are paying for all her expenses and have access to her bank account records. Danielle has been lying to her parents about the money she gets through sex work. She tells her parents that she gets the money from babysitting.

Maya isn’t the only guest whom Danielle is surprised to see at this reception. Danielle is even more shocked to see Max there. Max has a big secret that he’s been keeping from Danielle, but she finds out his secret at this gathering: Max is married and has an 18-month-old daughter. And he might not be the one paying for the apartment where Max and Danielle have been having their trysts. Danielle also finds out at this reception that Max used to work for her father years ago.

Max’s wife and daughter arrive later at the reception. Max’s wife Kim Beckett (played by Dianna Agron), an elegant blonde, is described by some of the reception’s gossips as a “shiksa” (a somewhat derogatory word for a non-Jewish woman), who’s a successful entrepreneur with multiple businesses and who earns a lot more money than Max. Kim works from home so that she can take care of daughter Rose (played by Edgar Harmanci), whose frequent crying in the movie is used as one of the things that causes Danielle to become more anxious.

Although “Shiva Baby” is mainly about Danielle’s worlds colliding at this shiva reception, Max and (to a certain extent) Maya have their own secrets and role playing that they do at this gathering. In a desperate bid to assert her sexual attractiveness, Danielle goes in a bathroom at the house, impulsively takes a topless photo of herself using her phone, and sends the photo to Max. You can imagine what might happen next.

“Shiva Baby” has a lot of dialogue that crackles with underlying resentments and hard feelings, as bitter rivalries and jealousies play out but are disguised by small talk that has a forced pleasantness. This dialogue wouldn’t work as well if “Shiva Baby” did not have these very talented cast members acting out the dialogue in realistic ways, especially in portraying how people often say one thing but are thinking the complete opposite. “Shiva Baby” composer Ariel Marx’s tension-infused music perfectly conveys in the movie how Danielle feels like she’s in a pressure cooker that could explode at any moment.

Sennott shines in this starring role as the moody and complex Danielle, who finds herself in way over her head when she sees the horrifying reality that her lies aren’t as harmless as she thinks they’ve been. Draper is also a standout in the cast and has some of the funniest lines of dialogue in “Shiva Baby” as Danielle’s overbearing but well-meaning mother. When Danielle accuses Debbie of not being able to see queerness (also known as “gaydar”), Debbie snaps in response: “Excuse me, I lived through New York in the ’80s. My gaydar is as strong as a bull!”

Agron and Gordon are especially good at portraying people who are in love with someone who’s fickle and a habitual liar, but these betrayed lovers are willing to risk getting hurt to have that person’s love. Deferrari is also quite skilfull in his performance of a cheating husband who’s terrified of being exposed and trying to keep his composure. Melamed’s Joel character is one of the few in the movie who does not put on airs. Joel is genuine about who he is, but he mistakenly thinks everyone is like that too, so he fails to see clues of deception that are all around him.

“Shiva Baby” has a few slapstick comedy moments that involve mishaps and accidents at the party. But the movie is laser-sharp in how it takes aim at people who put on fake appearances of having a great life when they might actually be very insecure, miserable and jealous of other people who are happy. “Shiva Baby” isn’t cynical about love. Rather, this very memorable movie is ultimately a poignant depiction of how true love can be found when people are willing to show their true selves to each other.

Utopia released “Shiva Baby” in select U.S. cinemas and on digital and VOD on April 2, 2021. “Shiva Baby” became available on HBO, Max, Mubi, Blu-ray and DVD in July 2021. Utopia re-released “Shiva Baby” in select U.S. cinemas on August 4, 2023.

Review: ‘Bottoms’ (2023), starring Rachel Sennott, Ayo Edebiri, Havana Rose Liu, Kaia Gerber, Nicholas Galitzine, Dagmara Dominczyk and Marshawn Lynch

August 24, 2023

by Carla Hay

Ayo Edebiri and Rachel Sennott in “Bottoms” (Photo by Patti Perret/Orion Pictures)

“Bottoms” (2023)

Directed by Emma Seligman

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the comedic film “Bottoms” features an predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans and a few Asians and Latin people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: Two lesbian best friends start an all-female fight club in their homophobic high school as a way to lose their virginities to cheerleaders. 

Culture Audience: “Bottoms” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and comedic movies where queer people are the central characters.

Ayo Edebiri, Rachel Sennott, Zamani Wilder, Summer Joy Campbell, Havana Rose Liu, Kaia Gerber and Virginia Tucker in “Bottoms” (Photo courtesy of Orion Pictures)

“Bottoms” is a bawdy and occasionally bloody comedy that gets gleefully absurd in this story about two lesbian best friends who start an all-female fight club in their high school. The originality outshines some of the film’s clichés. Even people who might not like “Bottoms” can admit that there are many things in this movie that have never been said and done before in a teen-oriented comedy.

Directed by Emma Seligman (who co-wrote the “Bottoms” screenplay with “Bottoms” co-stars Rachel Sennott), “Bottoms” had its world premiere at the 2023 SXSW Film & TV Festival. A distracting part of this movie is that the cast members portraying high schoolers look too old (early-to-mid 20s) to be in high school. It’s why all the movie’s raunchy dialogue isn’t as edgy as the “Bottoms” filmmakers probably thought it should be. However, because of the talented cast members, the delivery of this dialogue is entertaining, even if many parts of the movie require a huge suspension of disbelief, including the fact that all the cast members playing high schoolers are not really teenagers.

“Bottoms” takes place in an unnamed U.S. city but was actually filmed in Louisiana. The begins with lesbian best friends PJ (played by Sennott) and Josie (played by Ayo Edebiri) talking about sex. At this pont in time, PJ and Josie, who are both virgins, are students in their last year at Rockridge Falls High School. Their fantasies are to lose their virginities to the cheerleaders at the schools who are their biggest crushes.

PJ is hot for Brittany (played by Kaia Gerber), a tall beauty with a sarcastic attitude. (Gerber, who got her start as a model in real life, is the daughter of former supermodel Cindy Crawford.) Josie is infatuated with attractive Isabel (played by Havana Rose Liu), who is dating the school’s start football quarterback Jeff (played by ), a conceited, dimwitted pretty boy who is a chronic liar and cheater. Isabel and Brittany are best friends.

PJ is bossy and obnoxious, but she’s also hilarious and a generally loyal friend. Josie is more sensitive and thoughtful, but she’s also very insecure and plagued with self-doubt. In their conversations about losing their virginities, PJ is confident that it will happen to her before she graduates from high school. Josie thinks that if she has any chance of getting together with Isabel, it’ll probably be if they see each other at their 20-year high school reunion.

At school, PJ and Josie are outcasts because they’re lesbian and because people have heard that PJ and Josie both spent time in juvenile detention for violent crimes. Josie and PJ are often the targets of bigoted hate. Homophobic slurs are often spraypainted on their school lockers. Even the school’s sleazy leader Principal Meyers (played by Wayne Pére) doesn’t hide his homophobia.

There’s an incident where Jeff insults Josie, and she deliberately injures his leg while driving her car with Josie and Isabel as passengers. Principal Meyers calls Josie and PJ into his office and scolds them for injuring the school’s star football player. Rockridge Falls High School’s Vikings football team has been in a fierce rivalry for about 50 years with the Huntington High School Golden Ferrets. And there’s a big football game coming up between the Vikings and the Golden Ferrets

A story has been going around the school that a Rockridge Falls female student was attacked by a Hungtington male student. And so, when Principal Meyers tells PJ and Josie that they need to find a way to channel their “negative energy,” PJ comes up with the idea to start an all-female self-defense club at the school. (It’s really a fight club.) Principal Meyers says the club will be approved if PJ and Josie can find a teacher to be the sponsor/supervisor. PJ and Josie recruit their history teacher Mr. G (played by Marshawn Lynch), who has a hip-hop persona and is going through a divorce.

Josie is reluctant to go through with this fight club idea, but PJ convinces her by telling Josie that the fight club will be a way that they can find potential sex partners. Josie and PJ are thrilled when Isabel and Brittany end up joining the “self-defense club.” Other students are join the club, to varying results.

One of club members is Hazel Callahan (played by Ruby Cruz), who’s androgynous-looking and openly queer, is an even bigger misfit at the school than PJ and Josie, who try not to associate too closely with socially awkward Hazel. Also joining the club is Annie (played by Zamani Wilder), who is proud to be an African American member of the Republican Party. Other memorable supporting characters in “Bottoms” is Hazel’s frisky divorced mother Mrs. Callahan (played by Dagmara Dominczyk) and Vikings football player Tim (played by Miles Fowler), who is Jeff’s smirky sidekick.

The plot for “Bottoms” is fairly simple and a little bit on the formulaic side. However, the movie’s snappy dialogue and great comedic chemistry between the cast members (especially between Sennott and Edibiri) are definitely not formulaic and make this movie shine. Sennott also starred in Seligman’s feature-film directorial debut “Shiva Baby” (written by Seligman), a comedy/drama that was released in 2021 and re-released in 2023. There’s a final showdown in “Bottoms” that gets very over-the-top in its slapstick comedy. Ultimately, “Bottoms” won’t be a massive breakout for any of its stars, but it’s the type of movie that will get a very devoted following who won’t get tired of watching it.

MGM’s Orion Pictures will release “Bottoms” in select U.S. cinemas on August 25, 2023, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on September 1, 2023.

Review: ‘BlackBerry’ (2023), starring Jay Baruchel, Glenn Howerton, Matt Johnson, Rich Sommer, Michael Ironside, Sal Rubinek and Cary Elwes

August 20, 2023

by Carla Hay

Jay Baruchel and Glenn Howerton in “BlackBerry” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

“BlackBerry” (2023)

Directed by Matt Johnson

Culture Representation: Taking place in Canada and in the United States, from 1996 to 2013, the comedy/drama film “BlackBerry” features a nearly all-white cast of characters (with a few Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Canada-based technology company BlackBerry becomes a global success as the maker of the world’s first smartphone, but internal power struggles, bad management and an inability to compete with Apple’s iPhone all lead to BlackBerry’s downfall.

Culture Audience: “BlackBerry” will appeal primarily to viewers who are interested in watching scripted movies that depict behind-the-scenes business dealings of real-life famous companies.

Pictured in center: Jay Baruchel and Matt Johnson in “BlackBerry” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

“BlackBerry” takes viewers on a roller coaster ride in telling this “based on a true story” about the rise and fall of BlackBerry, the first popular smartphone. Glenn Howerton gives a standout performance as a greedy corporate villain with a nasty temper. The movie is made with a mockumentary-styled combination of a comedy and drama. “BlackBerry” had its world premiere at the 2023 SXSW Film & TV Festival.

Directed by Matt Johnson (who co-wrote the “BlackBerry” screenplay with Matthew Miller), “BlackBerry” is based on the 2015 non-fiction book “Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry,” by Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff. The movie’s story takes place in chronological order, from 1996 to 2013. BlackBerry manufacturer Research in Motion Ltd., which was founded in 1984, went from being a scrappy start-up company headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario, to being the world’s first and leading company for smartphones.

At its peak in 2008, after Research in Motion became a publicly traded company, its stock price was valued at $147 per share, with an overall estimated company value $85 billion. Research in Motion changed its name to BlackBerry Ltd. in 2013. For the past several years, BlackBerry’s stock price as hovered between $8 to $10 per share. How and why did it all go so wrong?

The “BlackBerry” movie shows that this train wreck didn’t go off the rails right away. Like many tech startups, Research in Motion was founded by eager entrepreneurs with big ideas and a fanatical work ethic but not the best business acumen when it came to sales and managing money. And when you bring in a toxic troublemaker to co-lead the company, it’s a recipe for disaster.

Research in Motion was co-founded by two self-admitted computer nerds named Mike Lazaridis (played by Jay Baruchel) and Douglas “Doug” Fregin (played by “BlackBerry” director Johnson), who (for a while) could have been considered the Canadian versions of Apple Inc. co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Just like in the Jobs/Wozniak relationship, one person in the partnership was the master of overall concepts and marketing, while the other person was the technical/engineering whiz.

In the case of Research in Motion, Mike was the concept/marketing guy, while Doug was the technical/engineering guy. In the “BlackBerry” movie, Mike is a constant worrier, and he tends to be too gullible in business. Doug has a jolly personality, but he approaches business with more logic and healthy skepticism. Eventually, the different personalities of these two friends will lead to several clashes between them on decisions for Research in Motion.

An early scene in the movie takes place in 1996, when Research in Motion is still a struggling start-up, but Mike and Doug are still the best of friends. Mike tells his all-male team of computer geeks (there are about seven employees on this team) that he had a shop teacher who once told him that anyone who could put a computer inside a phone would change the world. Doug thinks of a prototype that will be like a combination of a pager, a phone and a device that can send and receive email. Mike’s name for this invention is Pocket Link, but the name would eventually be changed to BlackBerry.

As ambitious as this idea is, Mike struggles to find investors for it. Part of the problem is that introverted Mike isn’t very good at sales and marketing presentations. He’s articulate when it comes to tech jargon, but he often has a hard time explaining technical issues to non-tech people. Mike is also not very fond of public speaking.

An early scene in “BlackBerry” shows Mike coming back from a business meeting where he was rejected by a potential investor. The reaction of Doug and the other staffers is to shrug it off and gather to watch “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” which is Mike’s favorite movie. However, Mike is in no mood for this diversion, which he would normally use as a way to cheer himself up.

Meanwhile, at another company, cutthroat sales executive Jim Balsillie (played by Howerton) is feeling very discontented at Sutherland-Schultz Limited, a construction company headquartered in Cambridge, Ontario. Jim wants to run a new division of the company, but his boss Rick Brock (played by Martin Donovan) won’t let it happen. Jim is also upset because he feels that he is being sidelined. It isn’t long before volatile Jim gets fired.

Around the same time, Jim and Mike end up meeting each other. Mike tells Jim about Research in Motion’s new phone invention. Jim doesn’t tell Mike right away that he’s currently unemployed because he’s been fired. Jim thinks this phone will be a massive hit, but Research in Motion needs the money to make and market this phone. Jim offers to be the co-CEO who can bring in these capital funds, but on one condition: Jim wants to own half of Research in Motion.

Doug is vehemently against this business proposal, because Doug and Mike made a deal with each other that they would never sell at least 50% of the company. Eventually, a compromise is reached: Jim will own 33% of the company (which he buys for $125,000) and be co-CEO with Mike. Jim will oversee all the company’s sales and marketing, while Mike will oversee all the day-to-day operations. Jim also takes out personal loans to help keep the business afloat.

Jim’s aggressive style and his sales connections initially benefit Research in Motion. And as many people already know, the BlackBerry phone (which pioneered having a mini-keyboard as part of its interface) was launched in 1999, and was the market leader for nearly 10 years. BlackBerry also had the nickname CrackBerry because of how addictive it was for many people. Apple launched the iPhone in 2007.

In no uncertain terms, the “BlackBerry” movie puts most of the blame on Jim for the downfall of the BlackBerry brand. He’s portrayed as someone who got too greedy and too delusional about his power. Howerton gives a riveting performance that’s a great character study of a tyrant who’s out of control. Anyone who thinks what’s in the movie is exaggerated has no idea that Jim’s heinousness is not only a very accurate portrayal of how many corporate CEOs act but this damaging toxicity can also be a lot worse in real life than what’s shown in the movie.

Mike is portrayed as someone who changes from being an accessible “one of the guys” part of the team to becoming an increasingly cold and distant CEO. Doug repeatedly tries to warn Mike that Jim will run the company into the ground, but Mike is blinded by the spectacular profits that the company is making. Doug eventually makes a decision about how he’s going to handle all of these changes.

The mockumentary style of “BlackBerry” often mimics the sitcom “The Office,” with an occasionally shaky hand-held camera that often zooms in on people’s facial expressions. The characters in the movie sometimes have awkward pauses in their sentences, as if they’re self-conscious about being filmed. However, there is no mockumentary director or other filmmakers who are shown as characters in the movie. It’s a wise choice, because fabricating these types of characters would be an unnecessary distraction.

One of the best things about “BlackBerry” is its sharp and incisive screenplay. The dialogue in the movie is often hilarious to watch, even when the characters are being deadly serious. Perhaps the only noticeable flaw of the movie is that it doesn’t do a very good job of convincing viewers how much Mike ages over the decades portrayed in the film. Putting a fake-looking white wig on Baruchel doesn’t make him look older in the movie. It just makes him look like he’s wearing a white wig.

Despite a few minor flaws, “BlackBerry” maintains an entertaining level throughout the entire film, which shows other corporate sharks swimming in these smartphone business waters. Cary Elwes has an amusing supporting role as Palm CEO Carl Yankowski, who threatens a hostile takeover of BlackBerry, which at the time was the biggest rival to the PalmPilot. (In real life, Yankowski died on May 13, 2023, a day after “BlackBerry” was released in theaters.) Michael Ironside portrays Charles Purdy, a no-nonsense executive who’s brought in as chief operating officer of Research in Motion. Charles immediately starts to “crack the whip,” by forcing employees to have a more formal and corporate culture.

Rich Sommer portrays a fictional character named Paul Stanos, one of the lead design engineers on the BlackBerry team. Sal Rubinek has a pivotal role as John Woodman, a leader of Bell Atlantic. Apple is portrayed as a corporate rival whose principal executives are kept at distance in the story and are not characters in the movie. It’s a reflection of what would eventually be BlackBerry’s undoing: The Research in Motion executives weren’t paying enough attention to what Apple was doing with iPhone upgrades and ended up being crushed by the competition from iPhone products.

There are many movies that serve as cautionary tales of what can happen in business when greed and arrogance take over and lead to bad decisions. “BlackBerry” isn’t interested in doing any preaching. The movie isn’t a complete satire, but it pokes some fun at the Research in Motion executives who thought they were brilliant but ended up ruining a very successful company. Simply put: The comedy in “BlackBerry” is very bittersweet indeed.

IFC Films released “BlackBerry” in select U.S. cinemas on May 12, 2023. The movie was released on digital and VOD on June 2, 2023. “BlackBerry” was released on Blu-ray and DVD on August 15, 2023.

Review: ‘Joy Ride’ (2023), starring Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu and Sabrina Wu

July 6, 2023

by Carla Hay

Stephanie Hsu, Sherry Cola, Ashley Park and Sabrina Wu in “Joy Ride” (Photo by Ed Araquel/Lionsgate)

“Joy Ride” (2023)

Directed by Adele Lim

Some language in Mandarin and Korean with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in the United States, China, South Korea and France, the comedy film “Joy Ride” features a predominantly Asian cast of characters (with some white people and African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Four Asian American women in their late 20s have misadventures in China, where one of the women is on a business trip and tries to find her birth mother. 

Culture Audience: “Joy Ride” will appeal primarily to people who can tolerate raunchy comedies about the ups and downs of friendships.

Sabrina Wu, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu and Ashley Park in “Joy Ride” (Photo by Ed Araquel/Lionsgate)

“Joy Ride” earns its reputation for being a movie for “mature audiences only.” Some of the fantasy elements of this comedy don’t work very well, but the snappy dialogue and the chemistry between the cast members make “Joy Ride” highly entertaining to watch. The movie recycles some elements from other comedy films about friends on a misadventurous trip, such as 2009’s “The Hangover,” 2011’s “Bridesmaids” and 2017’s “Girls Trip.” However, “Joy Ride” has plenty of originality on its own, including a story told from an Asian American female perspective.

Directed by Adele Lim, “Joy Ride” was written by Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao. Lim, Chevapravatdumrong and Hsiao are also three of the producers of “Joy Ride,” which had its world premiere at the 2023 SXSW Film & TV Festival. There’s a lot of authenticity in “Joy Ride” that has to do with the fact that Asian American women are principal leaders on the creative team in this movie that is centered on Asian American women. All four of the main characters in “Joy Ride” are fully formed human beings and not hollow stereotypes, although there are some clichés in certain situations that are played for laughs.

Too often, Asian women are stereotyped in movies as subservient or tragic figures. “Joy Ride” is a giant and defiant middle finger to those stereotypes. At its core, “Joy Ride” (which is Lim’s feature-film directorial debut) is about true friendship, honesty, and being comfortable with one’s own identity. “Joy Ride” is far from being preachy, but it does offer some meaningful life lessons amid all the vulgarity and extreme comedy.

The beginning of “Joy Ride” shows how the friendship started between the two characters whose relationship gets the most screen time in the movie: Audrey Sullivan and Lolo Chen. They both met when they were 5 years old. Audrey’s family moved to the town of White Hills, Washington (a Seattle suburb), where Lolo and her family live have lived for a number of years. (Lennon Yee has the role Audrey at age 5, while Belle Zhang has the role of Lolo at age 5.) Audrey and Lolo are each the only child of their parents.

Audrey was adopted as a baby from China by a white married couple named Mary Sullivan (played by Annie Mumolo) and Joe Sullivan (played by David Denman), who are loving and attentive but not completely in touch with giving Audrey enough exposure to her Asian heritage. Audrey has lived in predominantly white areas her entire life. Lolo’s parents are Jenny Chen (played by Debbie Fan) and Wey Chen (played by Kenneth Liu), who are Chinese immigrants who own and operate a Chinese-food restaurant.

When they meet at 5 years old, Audrey is obedient and shy. Lolo is rebellious and outspoken. During Audrey’s first day at her new school, she is bullied by some white boys for being Asian. Lolo’s reaction is to punch the boy who is the cruelest to Audrey. It sets the tone for the friendship between Audrey and Lolo, who are the only Asian girls in their neighbhorhood. (In flashbacks, Isla Rose Hall has the role Audrey at age 12, while Chloe Pun has the role of Lolo at age 12.)

Audrey and Lolo are so close, they have a sisterly friendship. Their personalities stay the same into adulthood, except Audrey becomes more confident as an adult. The majority of “Joy Ride” shows Audrey (played by Ashley Park) and Lolo (played by Sherry Cola) when they are both 29 years old.

Audrey has grown up to be a responsible and successful corporate attorney at a law firm where she is the only Asian attorney. The movie makes a point of showing that almost every attorney at the firm is a white man. Audrey, who is accustomed to being around mostly white people, does what she can to fit in at this male-dominated law firm, including playing tennis with her male colleagues.

Lolo is a struggling artist whose specialty is making kitschy erotic art. For example, one of her art displays is a plastic recreation of her playground from her childhood, but with things such as a penis-shaped slide. An illustration she has made of a flower is supposed to resemble a vagina. It’s mentioned several times in the movie that Lolo is a sexually fluid “free spirit” who indulges in drugs and believes in having an unrestricted “sex-positive” lifestyle.

Audrey is under pressure because she is about to go on a business trip to Beijing, China, where she is expected to close a deal with an important potential client, who is a wealthy Chinese businessman named Chao Lin. If she closes this deal, it could mean a possible promotion for Audrey, who wants to become a partner in this law firm. Audrey’s boss Frank (played by Timothy Simons) is casually condescending in his racial attitudes and goes overboard in trying to appear like he’s politically “woke,” even though it’s obvious he dislikes everything that has to do with being politically correct.

Audrey’s boss and her other colleagues expect Audrey to have some kind of special advantage in closing the deal, just because she is Asian. Audrey doesn’t know how to speak Mandarin, but she pretends that she does because she wants the people at her law firm to think that she’s well-educated about China and in touch with her Chinese roots. “Joy Ride” has constant themes about how pretending to be someone you’re not can ending up backfiring in damaging ways.

Audrey and Lolo decide to go on this business trip together, partially because Lolo can speak Mandarin, and partially because Lolo just wants to get away from her life in the U.S. for a while. Lolo plans to visit family members in China. Lolo also says that she plans to hook up with basketball star Baron Davis (playing a version of himself), who will be in Beijing at the same time because he’s playing for a Chinese basketball team. Lolo is addicted to social media and does a lot of livestreaming throughout the trip.

Even though Audrey insists that this trip is mainly going to be business for her, there would be no “Joy Ride” movie if that turned out to be true. Audrey also has plans to visit her college best friend/roommate Katherine, nicknamed Kat (played by Stephanie Hsu), a Chinese American who has become a famous movie/TV actress in China. Throughout the movie, Lolo and Kat have a rivalry where they try to prove who is Audrey’s “real” best friend. It’s very reminiscent of the friendship rivalries that were in “Bridesmaids” and “Girls Trip.”

One person whom Audrey does not want to visit in China is her biological/birth mother, who was an unwed teenager when she gave Audrey up for adoption. The only thing that Audrey has of her mother is a photo of her mother holding Audrey as a newborn baby. Lolo can read Mandarin and notices that the back of the photo has the name of the adoption agency and the name of Audrey’s birth mother.

Before leaving for the trip, Lolo offered to go with Audrey to the adoption agency in China to try to find Audrey’s birth mother. It’s an offer that Audrey declined because Audrey says she’s happy with her adoptive parents and doesn’t want any more parents. Lolo is surprised and disappointed, because when they were children, Audrey used to talk a lot about the two of them going to China to find Audrey’s birth mother.

Lolo waits until she and Audrey are at the airport to tell her that someone else is going with them on this trip: Lolo’s socially awkward and eccentric cousin Deadeye (played by Sabrina Wu), who is androgynous, childlike, and obsessed with K-pop music. (In real life, Wu is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns.) Later in the movie, Deadeye reveals that her real name is Vanessa. Audrey, who has a tendency to be elitist, is temporarily upset by Deadeye going on this trip because she doesn’t want Deadeye to be a social burden.

Upon arriving in China, one of the first things that Audrey, Lolo and Deadeye do is visit Kat while she’s working on her soap opera TV series called “The Emperor’s Daughter.” Kat is the star of the show. And she’s engaged to her leading man: a tall and handsome actor named Clarence (played Desmond Chiam), who is originally from Australia. Clarence (who is a strict Christian) and Kat have been dating each other for three years.

One of the biggest comedy gags in “Joy Ride” is that Kat has a wild past that she has not revealed to religious Clarence, who doesn’t believe in having sex outside of marriage. Kat has been pretending to have the same religious beliefs as Clarence, who insists that they abstain from having sexual intercourse or any other intimate sexual activity with each other until they are married. Audrey knows about Kat’s past promiscuity but is keeping it a secret from Clarence because it’s not Audrey’s place to tell him. Clarence and Kat are very affectionate with each other, but their affection doesn’t go past passionate kissing.

Not surprisingly, there are immediate conflicts between Lolo and Kat, in their competition to outdo each other as “Audrey’s best friend.” Lolo doesn’t respect Kat because she thinks Kat is a phony. Kat doesn’t respect Lolo because she think Lolo is a failed artist. The sniping between these two women is one of the many problems that occur during this trip. Audrey doesn’t do anything to pit Lolo and Kat against each other, but Audrey doesn’t adequately deal with this rivalry problem either.

Audrey’s first meeting with Chao Lin, also known as Mr. Chao (played by Ronny Chieng), takes place at a nightclub. Because of this casual setting, Audrey has also invited Lolo, Kat and Deadeye to go to the nightclub with her. Audrey also needs Lolo and Kat there because they can speak Mandarin. Audrey has been told in advance that Mr. Chao will only speak in Mandarin to her. It turns out he actually knows English and was just testing Audrey.

Of course, this nightclub meeting is the start of even more problems. Mr. Chao and his all-male group of colleagues insist that anyone they do business with has to partake in their business customs, which includes binge drinking. Audrey feels obliged to go along. (And you know what that means in a comedy where a drunk person inevitably gets sick.) Lolo, Kat and Deadeye also join in on this binge drinking.

Mr. Chao knows that Audrey was adopted by white American parents, but he expects Audrey to know who her biological family is, in order for him to agree to the deal. “If you don’t know where you come from,” he says to Audrey, “how do you know where you’re going?” Lolo spontaneously lies and tells Mr. Chao that Audrey keeps in touch with Audrey’s birth mother. Mr. Chao then insists that Audrey’s birth mother and Audrey go to a party that Mr. Chao will be having in the near future.

Audrey is angry at Lolo for blurting out the lie to Mr. Chao, because finding Audrey’s birth mother will take time away from the other things that Audrey wanted to do on this trip. It won’t be the last time that Lolo’s impulsiveness causes some issues in this group. Caught in a lie, Audrey and her three companions then go on a quest to find Audrey’s birth mother, with the hope that the reunion will go well and that Audrey’s birth mother will want to go to the party. (It’s a lot to expect, but stranger things have happened in real life.)

Along the way, the quartet will get caught up in some wacky situations, including being stuck in a train car with a drug dealer named Jess (played by Meredith Hagner), right at the moment that the train security staffers are patrolling the aisles and will soon arrive at their train car to search their luggage for drugs, weapons or other contraband. Part of the comedy is that Audrey is so sheltered, she doesn’t figure out until it’s too late that Jess is a drug dealer, because Jess appears to be an innocent-looking young American woman. A quick plan is put into action that is exactly what you think it might be, in order to hide the drugs that Jess brought on the train.

The four travelers also visit Lolo’s large group of relatives who are all gathered in one house, for a family reunion. This clan also includes (cliché alert) a feisty grandmother named Nei Nei Chen (played by Lori Tan Chinn), who’s not afraid of giving her unfiltered opinions. Three of the four women also have separate sexual encounters with men on Baron’s basketball team, including Baron; Todd (played by Alexander Hodge), who knows Kat from a previous encounter; and Kenny (played by Chris Pang) and Arvind (played by Rohain Arora), who meet Audrey at a hotel bar.

“Joy Ride” doesn’t shy away from jokes and commentary about race relations, white supremacist racism and the prejudices that Asian people have against each other. In an airport scene, Deadeye gives a judgmental rundown of ethnic stereotypes, based on the travelers being from Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea or Japan. The movie also shows how some Chinese people are prejudiced aganst Koreans because they think that Koreans ar a lower class of Asian people than Chinese people.

Audrey has some self-esteem issues related to her racial identity because, as she says at one point in the movie, she’s not white enough to fit in with white people and she’s not Asian enough to fit in with Asian people. Deadeye was bullied as a child and still struggles with finding people who fully accept her. It’s mentioned several times in the movie that most of Deadeye’s “friends” are people she only knows through online activities.

The movie has a few dream-like sequences that are whimsical but don’t really fit the harder edges of this comedy. One of these sequences is styled like a music video, when Audrey, Lolo, Kat and Deadeye pretend to be new K-pop stars, in order to board a private jet to South Korea without passports. Because, yes, “Joy Ride” has the travel comedy cliché of stolen luggage and stolen passports.

“Joy Ride” has a few surprises, including something that one of the women finds out, which leads to a sentimental, tearjerking moment in the film. Some viewers might expect “Joy Ride” to be all raunchy fun, but the movie handles this balance of zany comedy and serious drama in a mostly skillful way. The temporary shifts in the movie’s tone bring “Joy Ride” back down to earth to show that these four women are not caricatures for the sake of comedy.

Because “Joy Ride” has a lot to do with the friendship between Audrey and Lolo, the cast members who get to show the most emotional range in the movie are Park and Cola. Park in particular rises to the occasion by adeptly portraying all aspects of these emotions. Cola also does quite well in her role as Lolo, although the movie could have done a little more to show more of Lolo’s life that doesn’t involve her friendship with Audrey.

Hsu is hilarious as pampered diva actress Kat, who is fixated on what other people think about her. Wu also has moments to shine in scenes where Deadeye starts to come out of her introverted shell. Of the supporting cast members in “Joy Ride,” Chiam stands out with some very good comedic timing in portraying Kat’s hunky and pious fiancé Clarence, who upends the stereotype that physically attractive and famous actors are sex-crazed cheaters.

Even though “Joy Ride” uses many of the same formulas that are found in other travel comedy films, there are so many other things about the movie that are rarely seen in American-made comedy films. “Joy Ride” director Lim (who wrote the 2018 smash hit “Crazy Rich Asians”) gives a brisk and lively pace to the movie, even though some viewers might think that too much is crammed into the short trip that’s depicted in “Joy Ride.” Parts of “Joy Ride” do seem overstuffed, but what’s in the movie overall is worth unpacking.

Lionsgate will release “Joy Ride” in U.S. cinemas on July 7, 2023.

Review: ‘Tetris’ (2023), starring Taron Egerton

May 13, 2023

by Carla Hay

Taron Egerton, Sofia Lebedeva and Nikita Efremov in “Tetris” (Photo courtesy of Apple TV+)

“Tetris” (2023)

Directed by Jon S. Baird

Some language in Japanese and Russian with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in 1988, in the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom and Japan, the dramatic film “Tetris” (inspired by a true story) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Asians and a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Video game entrepreneur Henk Rogers gets caught up in a web of ruthless business deals and political intrigue in multiple countries, as he tries to obtain worldwide licensing rights to the game Tetris. 

Culture Audience: Besides appealing to the obvious traget audience of Tetris fans, “Tetris” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Taron Egerton, video games that were launched in the 1980s, and movies about real-life business underdogs.

Togo Igawa, Nino Furuhata and Taron Egerton in “Tetris” (Photo courtesy of Apple TV+)

Combining 1980s entertainment nostalgia and 1980s Cold War history lessons, the dramatic film “Tetris” also mixes facts with fiction. In this lively retelling of the Tetris game origin story, the “race against time” plot developments are obviously exaggerated for the movie. However, the double dealings and business backstabbings ring true, in addition to navigating cultural differences. “Tetris” had its world premiere at the 2023 SXSW Film and TV Festival.

Directed by Jon S. Baird and written by Noah Pink, “Tetris” can get a little too over-the-top in how it depicts the story of one man versus corporate giants and the Russian government in the fierce competition to get worldwide rights to the video game Tetris. However, the cast members’ performances elevate the movie, which has some comedic elements that easily could have looked out-of-place with the wrong cast members. “Tetris” has a winking tone to it let viewers know that the filmmakers didn’t intend to make this movie entirely factual or entirely serious.

“Tetris” (a globetrotting story that takes place in 1988) also has a visual motif used to great effect: Many of the scenes have flashes of the live-action visuals presented as if they were in the format of a Tetris game or a video game from the late 1980s. The beginning of the movie also identifies the main characters as “players,” a word that can take on multiple meanings in the context of the story. The word “player” is also more than ironic because much of what happens in all these frantic business deals for Tetris is anything but fun and games.

“Tetris” begins by showing Henk Rogers, co-founder of the small, independent company Bullet-Proof Software at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Henk is of Indonesian-Dutch heritage but he was raised primarily in the United States and lives in Japan during the period of time that this story takes place. His multicultural background comes in handy in some ways, but in other ways it becomes a hindrance when people question his cultural loyalties.

Henk is trying and failing to make his new video game a hit at CES, which is a crucial event for Bullet-Proof Software. Henk has already taken out a bank loan to launch this video game, which he now knows is going to be a flop. But as fate would have it, Henk tries a new video game at the convention: It’s called Tetris, invented by a Russian computer expert named Alexey Pajitnov (played by Nikita Yefremov), who has a humble and unassuming personality.

Alexey does not own the rights to the game. Why? Because in the Communist country that was then known as the U.S.S.R. or Soviet Union, Alexey works for the government entity ELORG, which has monopoly control of the importing and exporting of Russian-made computer products. Anyone who wants the worldwide licensing rights to sell Tetris has to go through the Soviet government first.

In the simplest of terms, Tetris is a game where players try to make buildings out of falling building blocks. Henk is immediately hooked on Tetris and thinks it could be a massive worldwide hit. And he’s willing to bet his life savings and his home on what he wants to do next: partner with a major video game company to get the worldwide licensing rights to Tetris.

An early scene in “Tetris” shows Henk trying to convince a skeptical bank manager named Eddie (played by Rick Yune) to give Henk another bank loan, this time for this Tetris endeavor. After explaining what Tetris is about, Henk tells Eddie why Henk thinks Tetris is so special: “It stays with you. It’s the perfect game.” Henk also mentions that Tetris has become an underground hit in the Soviet Union/Russia, where people have been sharing bootleg copies of Tetris on floppy disks. Eddie reluctantly agrees to the loan, on the conditions that the loan will have a high interest rate and that Henk has to put up his home as collateral.

Henk ends up sneaking into Nintendo headquarters in Japan and meeting with Nintendo CEO Hiroshi Yamauchi (played by Togo Igawa) and Hiroshi’s assistant (played by Nino Furuhata) to broker for Nintendo the worldwide licensing rights to make Tetris for Nintendo cartridges and arcade machines. Henk turns down Nintendo’s initial offer of $500,000. Henk wants $2 million for the cartridges deal and $1 million for the arcade deal.

While still negotiating with Nintendo, Henk goes to Nintendo of America headquarters in Seattle, where he meets Nintendo of America CEO Minoru Arakawa (played by Ken Yamamura) and Nintendo of America senior vice president/general counsel Howard Lincoln (played by Ben Miles). Minoru and Howard show Henk a sneak peek of a product that has not gone on the market yet: Nintendo’s hand-held Game Boy system. Nintendo is planning to install the game Super Mario Land on all Game Boys, but Henk convinces Minoru and Howard that Tetris has broader appeal and should be the game installed on all Game Boys.

Henk has to contend with three British video game moguls, who at various times are his allies and enemies: duplicitous Robert Stein (played by Toby Jones), the founder/CEO of Andromeda Software; corrupt Robert Maxwell (played by Roger Allam), chairman of Mirrorsoft, a video game publisher; and arrogant Kevin Maxwell (played by Anthony Boyle), who is Robert’s son and the CEO of Mirrorsoft. Henk has been told that Robert Stein has gotten worldwide licensing rights for Tetris and has already made a deal with Mirrorsoft. Henk’s plan, with backing from Nintendo, is to buy out the rights from these British businessmen.

The rest of the movie shows Henk wheeling and dealing, while often getting undercut and betrayed by some people he thought were trustworthy business colleagues. Video game companies Sega and Atari, which were Nintendo’s main rivals at the time, also get in the mix because they also want Tetris. Meanwhile, Henk has to spend a lot of time in Russia (where he eventually meets Alexey) and finds out the hard way that doing a capitalist business deal in a Communist country is a lot more dangerous than he ever thought it could be.

Henk’s family life also suffers because of his obsession to close this deal. His patient wife Akemi Rogers (played by Ayane Nagabuchi), who co-founded Bullet-Proof Software with Henk, handles the managerial administration of the company’s small staff of employees while Henk is in charge of all the sales and marketing. Henk and Akemi have three children: 10-year-old Maya Rogers (played by Kanon Narumi), 8-year-old Julie Rogers (played by Karin Nurumi), and 6-year-old Kevin Rogers. Maya has an important dance performance that she doesn’t want Henk to miss. You can easily predict what will happen.

Meanwhile, in Russia, Henk is assigned a translator named Sasha (played by Sofia Lebedeva), who also educates Henk on Russian and Communist cultures. Henk soon finds out that he is being spied on by the Soviet government. Two of the ELORG officials who have been monitoring Henk are Valentin Trifonov (played by Igor Grabuzov) and Nikolai Belikov (played by Oleg Shtefanko). One of these ELORG officials is much worse than the other.

Egerton portrays Henk as an optimistic charmer who thinks he can talk his way in and out of situations but finds out that he sometimes gets in way over his head. He adeptly handles movie’s drama and comedy. Lebedeva is another standout as translator Sasha, who develops a friendly rapport with Henk and possibly becomes romantically attracted to him. Allam and Boyle provide some sardonic comic relief in portraying the love/hate relationship between Robert Maxwell and Kevin Maxwell. A running joke in the movie is Robert Maxwell’s bragging about being a friend of Mikhail Gorbachev (played by Matthew Marsh), who was the Soviet Union’s president at the time.

Even though “Tetris” couldn’t possibly include portrayals of all the people involved in these complex deals, there are still many characters to keep track of in the story. Luckily, “Tetris” is written well enough to juggle all of these moving pieces in a briskly paced manner, much like how skilled Tetris players navigate the game. The movie’s adrenaline-pumping climax is pure fabrication, but it’s the most memorable aspect of this thriller. “Tetris” strikes the right balance of being escapism and a reality check for how landmark business deals often happen under circumstances that can be stranger than fiction.

Apple Studios released “Tetris” in select U.S. cinemas on March 24, 2023. Apple TV+ premiered the movie on March 31, 2023.

Review: ‘Evil Dead Rise,’ starring Lily Sullivan, Alyssa Sutherland, Morgan Davies, Gabrielle Echols and Nell Fisher

April 21, 2023

by Carla Hay

Gabrielle Echols, Nell Fisher, Lily Sullivan, Morgan Davies and Alyssa Sutherland in “Evil Dead Rise” (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)

“Evil Dead Rise”

Directed by Lee Cronin

Culture Representation: Taking place in California, the horror film “Evil Dead Rise” features a predominantly white group of people (with a few Asians and Latinos) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A guitar technician/roadie goes to Los Angeles and gets thrown into the middle of supernatural terror when she visits her sister and her sister’s three children. 

Culture Audience: “Evil Dead Rise” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the “Evil Dead” franchise and have a high tolerance for gory but effective horror movies.

Alyssa Sutherland in “Evil Dead Rise” (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)

“Evil Dead Rise” is a very back-to-basics horror story that is neither terrible nor outstanding. But there’s nothing basic about the overload of blood in the movie. People who easily get squeamish from the sight of bloody gore: You have been warned.

Written and directed by Lee Cronin, “Evil Dead Rise” had it world premiere at the 2023 SXSW Film & TV Festival. It’s a continuation of the “Evil Dead” franchise that began with 1981’s “The Evil Dead.” Sam Raimi, who wrote and directed “The Evil Dead” and 1987’s “Evil Dead II,” is an executive producer of “Evil Dead Rise.”

One of the best things about “Evil Dead Rise” is that it doesn’t waste time with a lot of boring and useless scenes. The horror starts within the first 10 minutes of the movie. The story is set in California, but “Evil Dead Rise” was actually filmed in New Zealand.

“Evil Dead Rise” begins by showing three people in their early 20s on a getaway trip at a remote cabin near a lake. Yes, that sounds like the most cliché of horror story clichés, but “Evil Dead Rise” makes this opening scene memorably gruesome.

The three people on this trip are named Teresa (played by Mirabai Pease); her cousin Jessica (played by Anna-Maree Thomas); and Jessica’s boyfriend Caleb (played by Richard Crouchley), who is a bit of a prankster. Richard has a toy drone with him that he uses to scare Teresa while she is relaxing on a deck near the lake.

Teresa isn’t just annoyed with Caleb. She’s annoyed because she really didn’t want to be on this trip in the first place. Several friends of Jessica and Caleb were supposed to be a part of this trip, but they cancelled their plans to be there. And now, Jessica has been acting weird, by staying in bed when she should be in a party mood.

Teresa goes in the bedroom where Jessica is hunched over on the bed. Teresa begins reading Emily Brontë’s classic Gothic 1847 novel “Wuthering Heights” while complaining to Jessica that this party is dead and she wants to leave. And then, Jessica eerily starts reading the words from the book out loud. Jessica has a “possessed by a demon” voice, so you can easily figure out what will happen next. Viewers will find out at the end of the movie how Jessica got to be that way.

“Evil Dead Rise” then does a flashback to one day earlier. Beth (played by Lily Sullivan) is a guitar technician/roadie for an unnamed rock band that has been on tour of grungy clubs. Beth, who is a freewheeling bachelorette, is seen in a restroom of one such dumpy club, where she’s about to find out the result of a home pregnancy test. You can easily predict the result there too.

After Beth finds out if she’s pregnant or not, she makes an unannounced visit to her estranged older sister Ellie (played by Alyssa Sutherland), who is a tattoo artist in Los Angeles. Ellie has three children: Danny (played by Morgan Davies), an aspiring DJ, is about 15 or 16 years old. Bridget (played by Gabrielle Echols), an aspiring political activist, is about 13 or 14 years old. Kassie (played by Nell Fisher) is about 9 or 10 years old.

The tension between the Beth and Ellie is immediately apparent. Beth resents that Ellie, who likes to call Beth a “groupie,” doesn’t take Beth’s job seriously. Ellie resents Beth for dropping in and out of her life whenever Beth pleases.

It’s also a very bad time for Beth to visit. Ellie’s husband Jay abandoned the family two months ago. And to make matters worse, the apartment building where Ellie and her kids live is about to be torn down the next month. Ellie, who is struggling financially, has not found a new place to live yet.

Shortly after Beth arrives, an earthquake measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale happens while Beth and the kids are in the building’s parking garage. The family survives this earthquake, but the earthquake has opened up a hole in the parking garage of the building, which used to be a bank. The hole exposes a hidden bank vault, where Dan finds what “Evil Dead” fans will immediately recognize as the Book of the Dead.

And you can easily predict what happens next, even if you don’t know it’s already shown in the trailer and poster for “Evil Dead Rise”: Ellie gets possessed by a demon. Some of the building’s other residents—including a helpful young man named Gabriel (played by Jayden Daniels) and a shotgun-wielding, middle-aged man named Mr. Fonda (played by Mark Mitchinson)—encounter a possessed Ellie. The earthquake has destroyed the building’s stairs, while the elevator is unsafe. Who will survive and who will die? That’s the only real spoiler information for this movie.

“Evil Dead” makes a few major departures from previous “Evil Dead” movies, which include the 2013 “Evil Dead” reboot. First, most of the action takes place in an apartment building instead of a remote wooded area. Second, most of the characters involved in the action are female. (Original “Evil Dead” actor Bruce Campbell has an uncredited voice cameo as a priest heard on an old vinyl album that Danny plays backwards.)

“Evil Dead” borrows some ideas from the 1986 sci-fi horror movie “Aliens” but it’s not a complete ripoff. The performances are serviceable in “Evil Dead Rise,” which doesn’t have much suspense when it comes to jump scares or terrifying surprises. The movie’s real horror is about seeing a loved one transform into something demonic and knowing that it’s a “kill or be killed” situation. And that blood. So much blood. After seeing “Evil Dead Rise,” some viewers will feel nauseated and/or feel like taking a long shower.

Warner Bros. Pictures released “Evil Dead Rise” in U.S. cinemas on April 21, 2023.

Review: ‘Bad Axe,’ starring Jaclyn Siev, Chun Siev, Rachel Siev, David Siev, Raquel Siev, Michelle Siev and Michael Meinhold

April 1, 2023

by Carla Hay

Jaclyn Siev (pictured at left) in “Bad Axe” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

“Bad Axe”

Directed by David Siev

Culture Representation: Taking place in 2020, in Bad Axe, Michigan, the documentary film “Bad Axe” features a group of Asian and white people (with a few African Americans) discussing the Siev family, a Cambodian-Mexican American clan that owns the Bad Axe casual restaurant Rachel’s.

Culture Clash: The family experiences several challenges during the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic, including COVID-19 restrictions, financial problems, political conflicts and bigotry toward non-white immigrants.

Culture Audience: “Bad Axe” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in stories about immigrant families and restaurant survival during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chun Siev in “Bad Axe” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

“Bad Axe” is more than just a documentary about a family-owned restaurant trying to survive during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s also an emotionally stirring and heartfelt story about immigration, dealing with bigotry, and the significance of family legacies. “Bad Axe” director David Siev says in the film that this documentary is also a “love letter” to his hometown of Bad Axe, Michigan, where this documentary was filmed. However, the story of his family resonates more in this film than a story about a city, because there aren’t many people outside of the family who are interviewed for this documentary.

“Bad Axe” had its world premiere at the 2022 SXSW Film Festival, where the movie won the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature, as well as special jury recognition for Intimacy in Storytelling. “Bad Axe” also won the 2022 Critics Choice Documentary Award for Best First Documentary Feature. “Bad Axe” is an admirable feature-film directorial debut from Siev, who manages to weave together two different storylines (the COVID-19 storyline and the immigrant storyline) in a meaningful way. The merging of these two storylines isn’t always seamless (some of the film editing needed improving), but it’s never awkward or confusing. The “Bad Axe” documentary was filmed in the first several months of the pandemic, beginning when lockdowns in the U.S. started in March 2020. A few epilogue scenes were filmed in 2021.

The documentary begins David’s sister Jaclyn Siev reading an angry, anonymous letter from a customer of Rachel’s, the Bad Axe casual restaurant owned by David’s parents Chun Siev and Rachel Siev. Rachel’s is a restaurant that serves American and Asian food and can seat about 50 to 75 people indoors. Chun is a Cambodia immigrant who has been living in Michigan since the mid-1970s, when he, his siblings and their single mother relocated to the United States. Rachel is a Mexican American who met Chun through a Taekwondo class that she took where Chun was the instructor.

According to the 2020 U.S. census, Bad Axe is a city with a population of a little more than 3,000 people, and 95% are white. Most residents of Bad Axe have household incomes that would classify them as working-class or poor. Located in Michigan’s Huron County, Bad Axe is a city whose population has been steadily declining since 1990, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Bad Axe was also a conflicted city in 2020, when it came to how the government should have handled certain COVID-19 policies, such as whether or not people should be required to wear masks, and which businesses needed to shut down during the quarantining lockdown period of the pandemic. Michigan was one of the U.S. states where COVID-19 policies sparked the most widespread protests and debates, often divided along political lines.

Supporters of then-U.S. president Donald Trump tended to be the most resistant to government safety policies for the pandemic. People who were against these policies argued that it violated their personal freedom of choice. All of these sociopolitical factors affected countless people, especially during the first two years of the pandemic. “Bad Axe” takes a very up-close and personal look at how it all affected this family’s small restaurant business.

The angry customer letter that Jaclyn reads on camera says, in part: “You are right that many of your customers are Trump supporters, but Bad Axe isn’t changing from traditional American values. My family and others will be changing our restaurant routine, and Rachel’s is no longer a choice. … You can return to Cambodia for opportunity.” The documentary circles back to this letter-reading scene after it shows the reason why this letter was sent in the first place.

As most people already know, the restaurant industry was among the hardest-hit during the lockdown period of the pandemic. Even though restaurants were considered essential businesses that could stay open during the lockdowns, most U.S. states and cities banned indoor sit-down meals at restaurants for several months. (The lifting of this ban depended on the local or state government that issued these regulations.) Most restaurants that stayed open durng these restrictions had to rely on take-out and delivery orders, as well as provide outdoor seating areas, if the restaurants were fortunate enough to have space for outdoor seating.

In “Bad Axe,” David (who lives in New York City) is shown coming back to Bad Axe during the pandemic lockdowns to spend time with his family. Jaclyn (the eldest child in the family) also took time off from her regular life to help out as much as she can in the restaurant. It’s mentioned that Jaclyn and her husband Michael “Mike” Meinhold live in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and their corporate day jobs allowed them to work from home during the pandemic lockdowns. They used this more flexible work schedule to go to Bad Axe and assist in operating the restaurant.

Meinhold says, “Bad Axe is a place where, if you grew up here, you really can’t wait to get out. It doesn’t have a whole lot of things to offer.” He adds, as if attempting not to appear too negative about Bad Axe: “It’s a nice place to raise a family.”

Also featured in the documentary are David and Rachel’s younger sisters Raquel Siev and Michelle Siev, who help out in the restaurant too. At the time the pandemic lockdowns happened, Raquel was about to graduate from the University of Michigan and wasn’t very enthusiastic about the idea of continuing to work at the restaurant after graduation. Michelle seems a little more committed to her restaurant duties, but she also can’t say for sure that she will take over the restaurant when her parents retire.

Family friend/restaurant manager Skyler Janssen is also seen being among the crucial staff who helped keep the restaurant open for business. She is a friendly and loyal employee who is treated almost like a member of the family. Janssen admits later in the documentary that if it weren’t for being employed at the restaurant, she probably wouldn’t have taken the time to get to know the Siev family, whose race and family history are different from hers.

These cultural differences in Bad Axe cause friction in the community when outspoken Jaclyn and mild-mannered Raquel get involved in the Black Lives Matter protests in Bad Axe and nearby cities, after the horrific murder of Goerge Floyd. Raquel’s boyfriend Austin Turmell also gets involved in the protests, and he has a personal reason for advocating for better race relations: He’s an African American whose adoptive parents Denise Turmell and Wayne Turmell are white. All of these family members are featured in the documentary.

During one of these protests, members of extreme white supremacy groups line up with guns as a way to intimidate the peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters. Things get heated as some of the protesters and the white supremacists yell insults at each other. Jaclyn is one of the people who gets caught up in these verbal conflicts.

People are filming this public gathering, which also makes the local news. And even though Jaclyn is wearing a face mask covering the lower part of her face, people in the community recognize her when videos of her at the protest are seen in mass media. The restaurant gets a backlash for these civil rights activities, and the backlash grows when people find out that David has started a crowdfunding campaign for the documentary.

But the conflicts that the Siev family faces aren’t just from external sources. The family had internal conflicts too. It would be easy to assume that a family would be united to help save the family’s restaurant under these circumstances. However, that was not the case with the Siev family.

“Bad Axe” shows that Jaclyn, who has a take-charge personality, often argued with her parents to be quarantined at home, out of concerns that they might get infected by COVID-19, due the parents being in the high-risk group of people over the age of 60. Chun and Rachel eventually agree to the quarantine. And there comes a point where Chun gets so discouraged by the sharp decline in business, he contemplates closing the restaurant permanently. It’s a decision that Jaclyn vehemently opposes.

There are some tearful arguments among family members, with Jaclyn openly saying that she feels the most pressure (as the eldest child) to keep the family business going. Part of her determination to keep the restaurant in business comes from the heartbreak that she and other family members experienced when Chun had a donut shop that failed years ago when his children were underage. Jaclyn tells anyone who’ll listen that she doesn’t want the same thing to happen to Rachel’s. In the documentary, she considers quitting her day job and taking over the restaurant full-time.

Chun says in the documentary that Jaclyn reminds him a lot of his mother. Jaclyn comments on Chun’s mother: “She’s the one who taught me what it means to sacrifice for your family. I just always grew up thinking, ‘If she could survive a genocide and come to this country, the least I can do is help my family run a business.”

Quarantining at home during the pandemic obviously caused Chun to reflect on his life. And that’s where the documentary’s second storyline comes in: Chun talks about his past in Cambodia (he experienced some horrific things) and what it was like to be a refugee immigrant in the United States. The American Dream is a constant theme in “Bad Axe.” And during the pandemic, that dream and so many others were destroyed for many people, often in unexpected ways.

Many directors who make documentaries about their families tend to make themselves (the directors) the stars of these documentaries. David doesn’t follow that usual stereotype. He is seen in some of the footage, and he’s also heard asking some of the interview questions. But he isn’t at the center of the documentary’s story.

Without question, Jaclyn and Chun are the stars of the “Bad Axe” documentary. Their disagreements have a lot to do with something that is obvious to viewers, but it takes a while for Jaclyn and Chun to figure out: This father and daughter, both stubborn and opinionated, have their biggest clashes with each other because their personalities are so much alike.

“Bad Axe” is a story of survival, not just financial but also emotional, during a deadly pandemic. It’s a story about a multiracial family learning more about how they can live in a mostly white community during a time of high racial tension. And most important of all: It’s a story about a family finding new ways to appreciate each other when times are tough and uncertain.

IFC Films released “Bad Axe” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on November 18, 2022.

Review: ‘Air’ (2023), starring Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Jason Bateman, Marlon Wayans, Chris Messina, Chris Tucker and Viola Davis

March 28, 2023

by Carla Hay

Matthew Maher, Matt Damon and Jason Bateman in “Air” (Photo by Ana Carballosa/Amazon Content Services)

“Air” (2023)

Directed by Ben Affleck

Culture Representation: Taking place in 1984, primarily in Oregon and in North Carolina, the dramatic film “Air” features a predominantly white group of people (with some African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Against the odds, Nike executives convince a young Michael Jordan to sign with Nike, which makes a historic deal to create the Air Jordan shoe brand entirely around him. 

Culture Audience: Besides appealing to the target audience of fans of Michael Jordan, Air Jordan shoes and the movie’s headliners, “Air” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching movies about landmark business deals, from the perspectives of the business executives.

Matt Damon and Viola Davis in “Air” (Photo by Ana Carballosa/Amazon Content Services)

“Air” is designed to be an awards-bait movie with mass appeal, but it has a very selective agenda in which characters get the most importance in the story. This dramatic origin story of the Air Jordan business hits many familiar beats of sports underdog movies. The acting and writing are engaging, but Michael Jordan is a sidelined character. His mother is at least given credit for being a smart dealmaker. “Air” had its world premiere at the 2023 SXSW Film and TV Festival.

Directed by Ben Affleck and written by Alex Convery, “Air” takes place in 1984, in the months leading up to the September 1984 launch of Nike’s very first Air Jordan shoes, also known as Air Jordan 1. According to several reports, Nike (which is headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon) had $5 billion in sales from Jordan Brand (Nike’s division Air Jordans shoes) in 2022. In “Air,” the underdogs and main heroes of this sports story are not athletes but the Nike executives who played crucial roles in conceiving and launching this industry-changing athletic shoe brand. It’s a very feel-good, slanted view of a fascinating story, but “Air” is a scripted drama, not a documentary.

The main protagonist of “Air” is Sonny Vaccaro (played by Matt Damon), a Nike basketball recruiter who’s been mainly working with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in selling Nike basketball shoes. Vaccaro is often credited with being the person who came up with the idea to have Nike pay NCAA colleges to have their basketball teams wear Nike shoes as product endorsements meant to influence people to buy the shoes. This type of product endorsement is now commonplace in the NCAA.

Sonny is passionate about basketball. And because he is deeply entrenched in NCAA basketball, he has a knack for being able to predict which NCAA players will be the top recruits by the National Basketball Association (NBA). But getting the top recruits for Nike endorsement deals requires a lot of money that Nike doesn’t have. The problem is that in 1984, Nike is financially struggling from decreased sales and massive money losses.

In terms of basketball shoe sales, Converse was the market leader at the time, with 54% of the market share, according to a statistic mentioned in “Air.” Converse had endorsement deals with NBA stars such as Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. Adidas, which was Converse’s closest competition in 1984, was popular with hip-hop stars, such as Run-DMC. Adidas was also Jordan’s first choice on where he wanted to sign an endorsement deal as a 21-year-old rookie for the Chicago Bulls.

Meanwhile, in 1984, Nike had only 17% of the market share for basketball shoe sales before the historic deal with Jordan. Nike also had an image and reputation of being an outdated company whose specialty was shoes for joggers. Basketball fans come in all different races, but NBA basketball is mostly played by African Americans. As Nike vice president of athlete relations Howard White (played by Chris Tucker), who is African American, half-jokingly comments in the movie: “Black people don’t jog.”

Nike vice president of marketing Rob Strasser (played by Jason Bateman) isn’t as passionate about basketball as Sonny is, but he is passionate about making profits from his marketing ideas. Rob is cynical about Nike’s office politics, and he has a world-weary attitude about him. He gives the impression that he is very annoyed with being part of a losing company, but he doesn’t want to quit Nike because he’s convinced that he can be part of the team that turn things around for Nike. Privately, Rob is afraid that no other company would hire him if he wanted to leave Nike.

“Air” makes a point of showing that middle-aged Sonny (a bachelor with no children) is at a crossroads in his life and at Nike. Sonny’s life revolves around Nike, which is in a slump. And he’s got a lot to prove, because Sonny’s self-esteem is very wrapped up in his job. Observant viewers will also see that Sonny likes to gamble a lot in his free time, which is a possible addiction that the movie never really explores. The parallels are obvious: Sonny is about to make the biggest gamble in his career with the Jordan deal.

Someone else who’s also got a lot to prove is Nike founder/CEO Phil Knight (played by Affleck), who is exactly the type of upper-class jogger that Nike has been courting for years. But there’s no denying that basketball shoes will be a driving force of sales for athletic footwear. Nike has been slow to adapt. Sonny says to Phil: “Basketball is the future.” Phil is skeptical: “Basketball is dead.”

In a Nike executive meeting that includes Sonny, Rob and a few other employees, Rob asks everyone in the room who their top choices are for NBA recruits who should be pursued by Nike. Sonny wants Jordan. Sonny also gets frustrated because everyone else names safe choices of basketball players who probably won’t achieve greatness. Sonny berates the employees by saying: “I have no tolerance for people who have no insight.”

In the men’s restroom, Rob tells Sonny that Sonny should be more diplomatic in these meetings. Sonny brushes off this advice. He is determined to sign Jordan and will do whatever it takes. Sonny thinks Nike should be spending even more money on the Jordan deal, while Phil wants to spend less.

Part of Sonny’s goal includes persuading Phil to spend Nike’s entire $500,000 recruiting budget on Jordan, before Jordan even starts playing for the Bulls. It’s unprecedented. And at the time, its seems like more than a big risk. It seems like financial suicide for Nike.

Sonny reminds Phil that Phil took a big risk by founding Nike. And he needs Phil to take a big risk on Sonny’s gut instinct that Jordan is the one and only NBA player that Nike should sign for this basketball season. Sonny tells Phil that if Sonny is wrong about Jordan, then Sonny will probably resign from Nike.

Sonny’s enthusiasm (or obsession) to sign Jordan means that Sonny inevitably offends people with his aggressive tactics. One of those people is Jordan’s agent David Falk (played by Chris Messina), a fast-talking, foul-mouthed New Yorker, who has some of the funniest scenes in the movie when he has raging meltdowns every time Sonny bypasses David to try to close the deal. David makes threats to Sonny that’s just a lot of empty, blustering talk. David is also one of the naysayers who thinks that Nike won’t be able to afford Jordan. In real life, Falk is credited with coming up with the name Air Jordan, but “Air” pokes a little fun at this claim to fame.

As part of his preparation for the deal, Sonny watches footage of Jordan’s college games and figures out the inner workings of Nike’s competition. He also gets some important advice from Jordan family associate George Raveling (played by Marlon Wayans), who was an assistant coach of the U.S. Olympics basketball team at the time. It’s a short but well-acted scene in the movie, where George tells Sonny a memorable story about being in the crowd during Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech during the March on Washington.

“Air” depicts Sonny as being inspired to create an entire Nike shoe line around Jordan after Sonny sees an old TV ad with tennis star Arthur Ashe talking about his custom-made tennis shoes that have been replicated for people to buy. Ever the wheeler dealer, Sonny makes a bold move to pitch the idea directly to Jordan’s parents Deloris Jordan (played by Viola Davis) and James Jordan (played by Julius Tennon), by driving to the Jordan parents’ home in Wilmington, North Carolina, and showing up unannounced. (Davis and Tennon are married in real life.) Deloris is the outspoken and savvy business person of the couple, and she makes the best power play in the entire story.

And where is Michael Jordan during all of these schemes and deals that wouldn’t exist without him? “Air” depicts Michael Jordan (played by Damian Young) as an occasional bystander who says very little in this story, and he is mostly filmed with his back to the camera. There’s some archival footage of the real Michael Jordan, but the screen time in “Air” for these clips is also very brief.

In the production notes for “Air,” director Affleck explains this choice: “Michael Jordan is so famous that I truly felt if we ever saw an actor playing [him], it would be hard to get the audience to suspend their disbelief, because, in my opinion, there’s no convincing anybody that someone who isn’t Michael Jordan is Michael Jordan. We felt a more interesting way to tell the story would be for him to exist in the ether of the movie. To be talked about by everyone but not seen is somewhat analogous to the experience of celebrities and sports stars in modern life, because most people go their whole lives without ever meeting or seeing their favorite sports star or celebrity in person. So we only see Michael in clips and flashes. We don’t ever fully see him in person because to see him in person would be to put his feet on the ground in a way that the movie doesn’t want to do.”

In other words, Affleck didn’t want any character to overshadow the Sonny character, played by Affleck’s longtime friend Damon. (Affleck and Damon are two of the producers of “Air.”) The fact of the matter is that this movie could have shown a little bit more respect for Michael Jordan’s role in this monumental deal. The “Air” movie depicts Michael Jordan as mostly caring about getting a new red Mercedes 380SL as part of the deal, while his parents (especially his mother) did almost all of the talking for him. It’s hard to believe that Michael Jordan didn’t speak more in these business meetings.

Another thing that looks very fabricated for the movie is how the first Air Jordan design came about, because it’s depicted as a “race against time” over a weekend to get a prototype ready in time for a Monday meeting with Michael Jordan and his parents. It’s the prototype for the shoe that would become Air Jordan 1. Peter Moore (played by Michael Maher) is portrayed as the artistic visionary who came up with the design for the shoe all by himself. The movie mentions a team of designers who worked with Peter to bring his vision to life, but these team members are nowhere to be seen in “Air.”

It’s another misstep that doesn’t properly acknowledge the contributions of an untold number of real-life people who were essential members of the team. “Air “didn’t have to single out all of these people in the movie, but they could have at least been characters seen in the movie as background extras. It’s odd that with so much of Nike’s Air Jordan deal riding on the actual product (the shoes), so little thought in the movie is given to the shoemakers who helped make the first Air Jordans a reality. Instead, “Air” makes it look like it was only Peter Moore in a Nike shoe design room who created the first Air Jordan.

What “Air” does get right is having an infectious energy in the behind-the-scenes drama that went into making this deal happen. The dialogue is snappy and intelligent but accessible. And the performances, especially from Damon and Davis, are above-average for movies of this type of subject matter. “Air” also has excellent soundtrack choices, with well-placed pop songs from the 1980s, such as Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA,” Night Ranger’s “Sister Christian,” Chaka Khan and Rufus’s “Ain’t Nobody” and Squeeze’s “Tempted.” The movie also has Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing,” which actually wasn’t released until 1985, but that’s a minor dateline error in an otherwise commendable soundtrack.

A movie like “Air” obviously wants to be more important than just a story about how Nike made a comeback by signing a young Michael Jordan in what would turn out to be the most lucrative celebrity endorsement deal in athletic shoe history. (For a deep dive into the cultural impact of Air Jordans, the 2020 documentary “One Man and His Shoes” is worth seeing.) The story depicted in “Air” serves as an example of how some of the best risks are taken by people who’ve got a lot to lose but take the risks anyway. It’s too bad that Michael Jordan’s perspective of this inspirational story is completely erased from the movie.

Amazon Studios will release “Air” in U.S. cinemas on April 5, 2023. Prime Video will premiere the movie on May 12, 2023.

Review: ‘Pretty Problems,’ starring Britt Rentschler, Michael Tennant, J.J. Nolan, Graham Outerbridge, Charlotte Ubben and Alex Klein

March 27, 2023

by Carla Hay

Britt Rentschler, J.J. Nolan, Graham Outerbridge, Alex Klein, Charlotte Ubben and Michael Tennant in “Pretty Problems” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

“Pretty Problems”

Directed by Kestrin Pantera

Culture Representation: Taking place in California, the comedy/drama film “Pretty Problems” features a nearly all-white cast of characters (with one African American) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A middle-class married couple looking to spice up ther lives are invited to a party retreat at a vineyard by a flaky rich woman, who introduces the couple to the equally flaky people in her inner circle, including her husband and another couple of shallow partiers.

Culture Audience: “Pretty Problems” will appeal mainly to people who are interested in watching repetitive movies about people who get drunk at upscale retreats.

Britt Rentschler and J.J. Nolan in “Pretty Problems” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

A satire such as “Pretty Problems” could have been a clever parody of shallow and materialistic people, but this tiresome movie ends up being as vapid and annoying as the characters it is trying to mock. Watching this movie is like being stuck somewhere for 103 minutes and watching nothing but people acting stupidly drunk and thinking that they’re hilarious. It’s an endurance test, because there’s almost nothing in this movie that is truly unique, while the characters just aren’t interesting. The one-note jokes quickly run out of steam very early in the film. “Pretty Problems” had its world premiere at the 2022 SXSW Film Festival.

Directed by Kestrin Pantera and written by Michael Tennant, “Pretty Problems” strains to keep the comedy momentum that it seemed to have started in the film’s first 15 minutes. In the beginning of the movie, viewers see that married couple Lindsay Simpson (played by Britt Rentschler) and Jack Brown (played by Tennant) are stuck in a rut in their relationship. They aren’t breaking up, but they’ve become a little bored with each other. The movie begins with a sex scene of Lindsay and Jack in bed together and being “out of sync” and not connecting the way in the way they did when they were happier in their relationship. And then, Lindsay and Jack are shown masturbating separately in the shower.

Lindsay works as a sales clerk at a trendy women’s clothing boutique. Jack works as a probation officer. They don’t have children. One day, when Lindsay is at work, a wealthy homemaker named Catherine “Cat” Flax (played by J.J. Nolan) is in the store and strikes up a friendly conversation with Lindsay. The next thing Lindsay knows, Cat has convinced Lindsay to go on her lunch break with Cat. In the back patio, Lindsay and Cat have some wine (one of the many “Pretty Problems” scenes where the characters are drinking alcohol), and they talk about their lives.

Cat is married to a self-made billionaire businessman. They have twin children, who are never seen in the movie. Cat tells Lindsay that Lindsay looks too smart to be a retail sales clerk. Lindsay admits that her dream is to have her own fashion business, with either her own brand of designer clothing or a high-end retail store. Even though they’ve just met, Cat offers to invest in Lindsay’s dream. And that’s how Lindsay finds out that Cat is rich.

But is Cat’s generous offer for real, or is it just drunken rambling from a bored woman with a lot of money? When Cat goes back into the store, she spends a long time lingering and being somewhat of distraction to the store employees. Finally, Lindsay’s supervisor Georgia tells Lindsay: “If your friend isn’t going to buy anything, I’m going to ask you to leave.” Cat then proceeds to buy a massive number of clothing in the store, so that Lindsay can get the credit for selling the merchandise.

When Lindsay is at home with Jack, she enthusiastically tells him about Cat and how they became “fast friends,” as well as the large purchase that Cat made to help Lindsay look like a great salesperson. Lindsay says to Jack: “I sold more in that boutique in six minutes than I sold in six months.” Lindsay also tells Jack that Cat has invited them to an adults-only party retreat at a vineyard in Sonoma, where Cat and her husband have one of their homes.

Jack is skeptical because he thinks that he and Lindsay won’t fit in at this retreat. He’s not just skeptical. He’s also paranoid that they might be targeted to join a weird sex cult. Lindsay is excited and intrigued and says she wants to go to this retreat, with or without Jack. After much whining and hesitation, Jack agrees to go with Lindsay to the retreat. They take their car for the road trip to the vineyard.

When they get to the vineyard, Cat is drunk (as usual) and introduces Jack and Lindsay to her husband Matt Flax (played by Graham Outerbridge), who proceeds to tell Jack that Matt recently bought Jack’s favorite beer distributor. Jack and Lindsay are then introduced to the other couple who are part of this group retreat. Carrie (played by Charlotte Ubben) is a ditzy model/actress, who is the latest fling for Kerry (played by Alex Klein), who is living of off his family’s trust fund. Kerry’s grandfather invented Tater Tots. One of the first things that Carrie and Kerry do after they meet Lindsay and Jack is brag about spending $65,000 on champagne and cocaine.

The rest of “Pretty Problems” is just a series of scenes showing these six partiers getting intoxicated, having mindless conversations (where there’s more boasting and flaunting of wealth and possessions), and making fools out of themselves in various ways. There are some very unoriginal scenes where the group has a “murder mystery game” and then do some karaoke. Lindsay is eager to fit in with this group, but Matt starts out as very uptight and acting like he’s above all the drunken antics. And then, someone puts Ecstasy in Matt’s drink without his knowledge or consent, and he starts acting like an idiot too.

Meanwhile, the employees of Cat and Max have to deal with serving these partiers and staying calm and rational as things get more chaotic. Dan (played by Clayton Froning), who works for the Flax couple as a majordomo, is a former Sea World trainer. He also happens to know Lindsay from when they were in high school together, and he had the name Big Dick Dan. It’s so predictable what kind of history Lindsay has with Dan and what Matt’s reaction will be when he finds out.

Other employees include party planner Becca (played by Katarina Hughes) who is a Rhodes Scholar playwright; master sommelier Georges (played Tom Detrinis); and shaman Gigi (played by Vanessa Chester), who leads a meditation session like a teacher has to lead a classroom of unruly kids. There is nothing special about any of the performances in “Pretty Problems.” In fact, some of the cast members over-act and therefore ruin what could have been hilarious satire.

It doesn’t take long for “Pretty Problems” to run out of ideas after making its point over and over that rich jerks who are drunk or high on drugs are still jerks, but the drinking and drugging just amplify their awful personalities. “Pretty Problems” might have been better off it were filmed like a mockumentary short film, but it still wouldn’t erase the movie’s unremarkable acting and dull dialogue. If people want to see a witty and dark satire of wealthy people behaving badly in gorgeous settings, then viewers are better off watching HBO’s “The White Lotus.”

IFC Films released “Pretty Problems” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on October 7, 2022.

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