BlackBerry: The Rise and Fall Story, Co-Starring Michael Ironside

Before iPhones and Androids, it was the handheld addiction of choice. They were pseudo-affectionately called “CrackBerries.” The company that manufactured them rode their market-share to great heights, but it eventually crashed hard. And yes, they can partially blame China. The semi-lightly-fictionalized true story of Research in Motion and its once-popular product unfold in Matt Johnson’s BlackBerry, somewhat adapted from Jacqie McNish & Sean Silcoff’s Losing the Signal, which opens Friday in theaters.

Mike Lazaridis was the tech guy who could figure things out. Jim Balsillie was the business guy who could get things done. Doug Fregin was the fun guy everyone else really enjoyed working for. Initially, Balsillie had no interest in Lazaridis’s pitch, but when his sharp elbows got him fired, he bought into Research in Motion, thinking he could right the aimless Canadian start-up’s ship.

Unfortunately, the company is in even worse shape than Balsillie expected, but Lazaridis has a potentially game-changing device on the drawing board. Of course, he is reluctant to pitch anything that is not absolutely perfect, but Balsillie is sure Lazaridis can deliver whatever he has to promise. The fact is they really do not have any choice, which Lazaridis grudgingly acknowledges. Fregin, on the other hand, is shocked when his old friend refuses to push back against the sharky Balsillie’s demands.

Of course, that product was the BlackBerry, which a lot of former users still remember with fond nostalgia. For a while, the company could not lose, until they suddenly lost big. Johnson and co-screenwriter-producer Matthew Miller efficiently compress the company’s history into a highly compellingly drama, while sort-or maintaining the quasi-verite style of Johnson’s previous features, The Dirties and the underwhelming Operation Avalanche. At times, it resembles an episode of The Office, but the stakes are higher—and everything we see on-screen, most definitely including the performances, are much more realistic.

Jay Baruchel portrays Lazaridis as a twitchy bundle of neuroses, but his performance is never cartoony or lazily shticky. As Balsillie, Glenn Howerton rivals Michael Douglas in Wall Street and Alec Baldwin in Glengerry Glen Ross. When he roars and rages, people better listen, including the audience. Johnson himself is probably the weakest link playing Fregin, whose goofy behavior is so abrasively unprofessional, it pushes viewers to identify with Balsillie.

However, the film gets a huge energy boost from the great Michael Ironside as back-breaking (or a less polite term) COO Charles Purdy. Ironside also had a small but significant role in Hulu’s The Dropout—if you enjoyed its depiction of Elizabeth Holmes’ fall from grace, you should also dig BlackBerry. Plus, reliable character actor Saul Rubinek makes the most of his appearances as Woodman, a Verizon executive.

Sundance ’16: Equity

Remember Facebook’s over-hyped, under-performing IPO? Naomi Bishop certainly does. However, she is more haunted by the recent blockbuster IPO she was not able to land for her firm. She hopes to get back on track with the initial offering for Cachet, a vaguely sketched out internet privacy company. It’s so private, nobody really knows what is does. Regardless, it should be money in the bank for Bishop, but some of her closest colleagues are out to sabotage her in Meera Menon’s Equity, which screens during the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.

Bishop is under pressure from her dim-witted blue-blooded boss to generate revenue the way she used to or resign herself to career stagnation. Consequently, Bishop is in no position to help her under-compensated and increasingly resentful assistant, Erin Manning. She has fun hooking-up with Michael Connor, a hotshot in her firm’s trading division, but she is right not to trust him. He is about to bolt to a rival firm, so he is looking for inside information to hobble her IPO.

It is not clear whether it is good or bad timing, but Bishop happens to re-connect with Samantha, an old classmate now prosecuting securities crimes in the U.S. Attorney’s office, just as the Cachet IPO starts to turn sour on her. (Since she works for the government, she can’t even afford a surname.) Of course, it was no coincidence. Samantha was not so subtly digging for dirt on Bishop’s firm.

Absolutely everyone in Equity is rotten to some extent, which is actually refreshing. Screenwriter Amy Fox never tries to gin up phony moralistic outrage by cutting away to the widows and orphans who stand to be dispossessed due to the characters’ shenanigans. In Equity’s world, when you play with vipers, you are likely to get bitten. It’s as simple as that.

Anna Gunn really gives it her all as Bishop. She can go from earnest glass ceiling exhibit A to snarling office nightmare on the turn of a dime. She looks like she is a part of this world, though not necessarily comfortable within it. Co-producer Alysia Reiner avoids all the usual crusading prosecutor clichés as the smart but ethically nuanced Samantha. However, her co-producer Sarah Megan Thomas’s Manning is a rather blandly vanilla, which gets a bit problematic when her sharp elbows are supposed to come out. Frankly, the extent of Connor’s villainy seems shortsighted and arbitrary, but James Purefoy clearly enjoys his dastardliness, which counts for a lot.

Even though Menon and Fox would probably be delighted if Equity led to tighter securities regulations, it would be dashed difficult to legislate against the kind skulduggery on view here. The fact that it does not immediately lend itself to teachable moments and online petitions makes it one of the better thrillerish financial dramas of recent vintage. Recommended on balance, Equity screens again early this morning (1/30) in Park City, as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Americons: So When Does Fannie Mae Get Its Movie?

Perhaps it is time to get over the whole home ownership fetish. We’re largely over it here in the City already. It isn’t like there is genuine property ownership in this country anyway. We just lease from the Federal government. If you disagree, stop paying your property taxes and tell me what happens. Buying a home is really just a device to manufacture equity. Just put some money in the bank instead. Unfortunately, nobody wants to do a boring responsible thing like that in Theo Avgerinos’s Americons (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Jason Kelley is an NFL bust scuffling to make ends meet as a bouncer when Devin Weiss logically recruits him for his go-go mortgage brokerage. After learning there is a “t” in mortgage, Kelley starts hawking adjustable rate “Option ARM” mortgages, because they seem like free money for everyone. His old college football teammate Theo Jones is the first deal he closes. The fact that Weiss falsified Jones’ income to get it done only moderately disturbs Kelley. Fortunately, there is so much partying go on, he hardly has time to worry, until the economy starts to crest.

Basically, Americons wants to be Wolf of Wall Street-lite, but more lectury. As a result, it delivers enough bikini-clad women and femme fatale realtors to cut a tempting trailer, but Kelley’s long painful guilt trips are far more representative. Nevertheless, the lads’ Glengarry Glen Ross tactics only go so far. At some point, people have to take responsibility for the papers they sign. Yes, real estate contracts are complicated. That is why nearly every transaction in New York requires at least two attorneys.

Regardless, Americons has its talking points, which Beau Martin Williams and Matt Funke’s screenplay drive home good and hard. For instance, Weiss cannot simply live high on other people’s money. He also has to rack up $300K in gambling debts, because betting on sports is just like the mortgage business. Oddly, it also seems to be pushing the envelope with its depiction of Weiss’s boss at what is passingly established to be the very real Countrywide Financial. On a practical level, it seems like a legally questionable decision to claim Kerry Stein, possibly an identifiable figure, was using strippers to blackmail colleagues.

As Kelley, Williams is a convincing meathead in over his noggin. Providing more entertainment value, Funke’s Weiss genuinely seems to enjoy acting as recklessly and rashly as humanly possible. Yet, perhaps the best work comes from Tim Griffin as voice-of-reason Todd Elliott, who commands viewer attention with his scoldy dressing-downs.

Americons bills itself as the Great American mortgage brokering film, but you really shouldn’t be getting your financial analysis from a movie (check out this Forbes piece and guest post at the Cranford Pundit for fuller background). It simply is not as deep as it thinks it is or as grabby as it ought to be. Not really recommended, Americons opens this Friday (1/23) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

Supercapitalist: Playing Liars’ Poker in Hong Kong

Like a financial Luke Skywalker, Connor Lee is about to assume his destiny as the son of a legendary trader.  He will find it in Hong Kong.  His Chinese is limited, but he speaks money.  That will be all he needs in Simon Yin’s $upercapitalist (trailer here), the centerpiece selection of this year’s Asian American International Film Festival, which opens this Friday in New York.

Lee regularly predicts the unthinkable, yet is never able to adequately capitalize on his foresight.  That may soon change.  He has caught the eye of hedge fund master of the universe Mark Patterson, who dispatches him to Hong Kong.  His assignment is to mount a takeover of Fei & Chang, a hidebound family run conglomerate in which they already own a minority stake.  This does not sit well with the ruling Chang family, especially the heir apparent son, Richard, who is spearheading a top secret project afoot to radically re-engineer the company’s ailing import-export division. 

Will Lee facilitate the revitalization or the liquidation of the company?  This depends on who gets the final word: the devil or the angel sitting on his shoulders.  The devil is Quentin Wong, Lee’s colleague and mentor in the HK fast life.  The angel is Natalie Wang, a corporate publicist working with Richard Chang and his IT guru.

Once again, $upercapitalist portrays an American hotshot who must go abroad to get a lesson in business ethics.  At least it is HK rather than the CP dominated Mainland doing the teaching this time around.  However, the supposed killer app for employee motivation Richard Chang’s team is developing sounds highly dubious.  Essentially, their plan to increase productivity involves an intra-company facebook, in which workers try to amass attaboys from their peers.  I think I’d rather start the day with a dozen lashings.

Conceived as a star vehicle for himself, screenwriter Derek Ting has a few nice moments in $upercapitalist as Lee.  Mostly though, his character follows the old school Tom Cruise template of a humbled young Maverick finding redemption through the help of a more emotionally mature love interest.  Kathy Uyen holds up her end well enough as the virtuous publicist, but it is not a particularly well fleshed out role. 

However, as Wong, Darren E. Scott clearly enjoys playing the villain, bringing a nice infusion of energy to his scenes.  Still, for those who follow Asian cinema, the real highlight of $upercapitalist is seeing veteran HK actors Richard Ng (a Jackie Chan alumnus also seen in Detective Dee) and Kenneth Tsang (recently in Starry Starry Night, as well as John Woo classics like Once a Thief) do their thing as Chairman Donald Chang and his board member brother Victor, respectively.

$upercapitalist is not a bad boardroom soap opera, but it falls in too easily with the lazy Bain Capital attacks currently circulating in the media.  Frankly, if Fei & Chang’s import/export division is dragging down the entire company, they have a responsibility to all their employees to fix the problem.  Of course, why worry about the complexity of reality in a film when simplistic stereotypes are so much safer?  A decent showcase for some fine supporting work, the flawed but still quite watchable $upercapitalist opens this Friday (8/10) in New York at the Village East.

First Look ’12: The City Below

It is almost like a modern-contemporary version of Metropolis. The financial titans rule the Frankfurt financial world high atop their glass and steel towers, while everyone else scurries about like ants on the sidewalk. However, very real dangers accompany their power games in Christoph Hochhäusler’s The City Below (trailer here), which screens during the Museum of the Moving Image’s inaugural First Look film series that has leapfrogged other festivals to kick-off 2012 for cineastes in earnest.

Roland Cordes is about to become the banker of the year and broker a blockbuster merger for his firm, because he is one of Tom Wolfe’s Masters of the Universe, who always gets what he wants. Then he meets Svenja Steve, the wife of a junior colleague. Finally, someone is willing to say “no” to Cordes, or at least “probably not.” While she refuses to immediately fall into bed with the banker, she does not exactly discourage his attention. In fact, she seems to enjoy sparring with the older man, at least on days when she is in the right frame of mind.

Meanwhile, the stakes are rising at Cordes’ Lobau Bank. The board is keeping the assassination of the head of their Indonesian office hush-hush. However, it leaves an opening for Cordes to move the ambitious Olli Steve up and out of the picture, despite the presence of more qualified candidates. Shrewdly he keeps his fingerprints off the decision, but there are still signs he might be losing his Midas touch.

Below is not a film for uninformed Occupy-This simpletons. Essentially, it is a cerebral character study with overtones of a Paul Erdman financial thriller that takes a slightly weird turn into Lars von Trier territory at the eleventh hour. The net effect is quite distinctive, if hard to categorize.

Part Shakespearean tragic hero and part moustache twisting financial villain (sans the facial hair), Robert Hunger-Bühler creates one of the most fascinating and confounding characters to ever stride through a cinematic boardroom. It is an open question whether there is a soul buried deep within him, but there is certainly a multiplicity of layers to peel back in search of it. Nicolette Krebitz matches him note for note as the seemingly fickle, but more complicated than we initial realize Svenja Steve. Watching their verbal fencing is a pleasure.

Cinematographer Bernhard Keller’s austere color palate and use of glassy, reflective surfaces creates a cold, eerie vibe that nicely enhances Hochhäusler’s sense of mounting dread. While hinting at much, he refrains from answering many questions. Indeed, this film is chocked full of odd little bafflements, yet everything seems to follow according to some strange logic. Smart and ambiguous in an intriguing (rather than smugly self-satisfied) way, Below is one of the highlights of the first First Look, screening once-and-only-once this Sunday (1/15) at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens.

Klapisch’s My Piece of the Pie

Steve Delarue is a financial shark. France Leroi is a single mother, who is laid-off when her factory abruptly closes (but what a name she has). The former is so obviously the villain and the latter is so clearly the victim, we can surely put our brains on auto-pilot. Yet, Cédric Klapisch’s latest offering is surprisingly more interesting than that (perhaps unintentionally so, but it still counts). Drawing on three year-old headlines, Klapisch tells a messy morality tale in My Piece of the Pie (trailer here), which opens today in New York at the IFC Center.

France Leroi is indeed a victim. That is not a subjective judgment; it is the essence of her identity. A union worker thrown out of work by her factory’s financial collapse, she attempts suicide during a birthday party, with her home filled with children. Fortunately, she soon recovers, leaving Dunkirk to seek employment in Paris. Through a friend of a friend, she lands a gig working as the cleaning lady for Steve Delarue, a Bonfire of the Vanities style Master of the Universe recently returned to France (the country) after a long stint in London. Delarue is the kind of guy who administers the death knell to struggling enterprises, like Leroi’s former employer. In fact, unbeknownst to Leroi, he was exactly that guy.

Delarue dates supermodels, but treats them little better than servants like Leroi. Not surprisingly, he is terrible father material, but fortunately Leroi is there when Delarue’s three year-old son Alban is dumped in his lamp. In fact, as she assumes the duties of a nanny, employer and employee start to warm towards each other. However, a perceived betrayal launches Leroi on a reckless course of action.

Throughout the film, we are conditioned to perceive Leroi as the exploited and Delarue as the exploiter. Yet, her emotional reactions in the closing sequence and the final unsettling freeze frame raise a host of nagging doubts. We have essentially seen the entire film from Leroi’s POV, but is it necessarily reliable? She attempted suicide at time that would maximize the resulting drama and attention. Is it possible other embarrassing moments are the deliberate result of attention seeking behavior? Could this be significant? We forgive her for committing such a rash criminal action late in the film, because it is not premeditated and she is not presumed to be a dangerous person, but should we? Whether by accident or design, Klapisch leaves viewers re-evaluating everything they just witnessed and how they responded to it. That is certainly a rare place for a film to go.

As Leroi, Karin Viard exhibits a frightening hold on the audience, forcefully carrying us through her emotional roller-coaster. Though he scrupulously maintains Delarue’s “all business” exterior, Gilles Lellouche hints at hidden complexity, which is critically important as the film progresses. British character actor Tim Pigott-Smith also adds a memorable dash of Gekko-esque color as Delarue’s English pseudo-mentor, Mr. Brown.

Make no mistake, Klapisch clearly suggests there is more dignity and value in working on a factory floor than in high finance. However, Pie is too complicated and nuanced to serve as reductive propaganda. This is a good thing. Terrible as an economics lesson but fascinating as cinema, Pie is definitely worth checking out when it opens today (12/9) at the IFC Center.

Long Dark Night on Wall Street: Margin Call

Who understands the recent financial crisis better, brokers on Wall Street or first-time indie filmmakers? If you answered the latter, than this is the film for you. Have no fear, writer-director J.C. Chandor’s father was at Merrill for forty years, so it’s all in the genes. The toast of Sundance and New Directors/New Films earlier in the year, Chandor’s Margin Call (trailer here) opens for real today in New York.

Junior analyst Peter Sullivan’s boss Eric Dale is about to be unceremoniously let go. His cell phone will be terminated and his email locked. As he is escorted out of the building, Dale gives him a flash-drive with the file he had been working on. “Take a look at this, but be careful,” he cautions. When Sullivan pops it in, up launches a spreadsheet predicting the firm is on the brink of imminent collapse.

Sullivan alerts his new boss, Will Emerson, the British expat head of trading, who calls in his boss, Sam Rogers. As the firm’s long dark night of the soul progresses, the dire projections work their way up to CEO John Tuld, but of course nobody can reach Dale, since they cut all ties with such ruthless efficiency.

Presented in only the most simplistic terms, supposedly because the senior management who have lived and breathed the market for three to four decades needed it broken down in that manner, the firm’s crisis apparently involves sub-prime mortgages they packaged together with less risky assets into extremely profitable packages. The problem is they have been caught with too much junk on the books. Naturally, the steely Tuld mandates a draconian solution: liquidate all of it as soon as the market opens. Of course, this will require the traders burn bridges with all their counterparts, but the firm will survive. Yet, this seems somewhat problematic, turning potential paper losses into serious-as-your-life financial losses. At least, the traders stand to make sizable bonuses if they can pull it off. Rogers though, has profound misgivings.

Nobody should go to Margin for an economics lesson—or to any other narrative drama for that matter. However, those looking for a salty-talking men-in-suspenders pressure cooker drama will probably enjoy the style and attitude on display throughout the film. Producer Zachary Quinto is pretty bland as Sullivan the plugger, but the rest of the cast really digs in with relish. Paul Bettany largely commandeers the film, realistically capturing the swagger and animal charisma of Emerson, a proud “one-percenter.” To a surprising extent, Kevin Spacey and Stanley Tucci legitimately humanize Rodgers and Dale respectively, investing them with nuance and complexity. Although Jeremy Iron’s Tuld is basically an off-the-shelf businessman villain, he certainly knows how to chew the scenery with menace.

Yet, Margin indulges in one of the most persistent and pernicious Hollywood stereotypes with Sarah Robertson, a senior manager played by Demi Moore, largely just carrying on from where she left off in Disclosure. Why is it that businesswomen are unfailingly portraying as cravenly CYA-ing backstabbers out to derail all their male colleagues? Screenwriters really need to get out into the real world more.

Chandor has a great ear for dialogue and he perfectly captures the eerie vibe of being in the office during the wee hours. He just needs to get past some dated gender preconceptions. Sometimes silly, but still a promising first feature, Margin opens today (10/21) in New York at the Angelika Film Center.

Revenge of the Electric Car: a Sequel that Outshines the Original

In Terminator 2, the villain of the previous film comes back as the hero of the sequel. Such is also the case with Chris Paine’s latest film, except it is a documentary. The freshly reformed protagonist? General Motors. The times just might be changing after all in Paines’ Revenge of the Electric Car (trailer here), a standout at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, which opens tomorrow in New York.

According to Paine’s Who Killed the Electric Car, despite enthusiastic driver feedback, GM recalled their experimental EV-1, while twisting its mustache and laughing maniacally. Instead, they ramped up production on Hummers. The end, or is it?

Fast-forward a few years and meet Bob Lutz, the Vice Chairman of the automotive giant. The car executive’s car executive, Lutz is no tree-hugger. Yet, like Saul on the road to Damascus, Lutz fundamentally changed his mind about the feasibility and desirability of electric cars. Only Lutz has the prestige to put GM back in the electric business and the guts to allow their old nemesis to document it.

Revenge has other protagonists, like Elon Musk, the tech-centric entrepreneur, who made his fortune with Pay Pal before starting Tesla Motors. Sleek and striking, these sports cars are probably too elite to change the world, but they ought to make electric cool. Unfortunately, Musk has trouble filling customer orders (including Paine’s). As more mass market competition, Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn has “bet the future” of his company on electric, but that shoe has yet to drop.

It is important to note, none of these ventures are the result of government mandates. Indeed, they are highly speculative ventures that might just short circuit careers and fortunes. To his credit, Paine himself gives due credit to the captains of industry and entrepreneurs of Revenge. Though he retracts nothing from his previous film, it is clear he and pre-government takeover GM made a lasting peace.

Of course, Bob Lutz is a major reason why. Although Paine probably has a more natural affinity for the Silicon Valley-based Musk, Lutz’s curmudgeonly charm dominates the film. The camera loves the cigar chomping old school executive far more than the icy Ghosn or the cerebral Musk. (While Revenge eventually addresses the government bail-out, most of the GM segments deal with Lutz’s early championing of the hitherto underwhelming Volt.)

The open-minded fairness Paine brings to bear on an industry he formerly excoriated is quite remarkable. Still, the film raises a few questions that remain unanswered. Granted, it would certainly be advantageous to see electric cars displace a number of gas guzzlers, particularly in light of the Obama Administration’s war on domestic off-shore drilling and contentment to import petroleum from hostile governments, like Venezuela. However, is there sufficient infrastructure in place to plug-in and support them in high density urban areas?

For that matter, electricity is not magically supplied. Could the state of California, which experienced roving “Gray-Outs” in the early 2000’s, handle a significant increase in demand? Paine well might argue the marketplace can respond to these challenges, in which case perhaps Lutz was not the only one to experience a conversion of Biblical proportions.

In a pleasant surprise, Revenge is probably the most favorable depiction of corporate and entrepreneurial America seen in a documentary since who knows when? Again, Paine deserves his just due. As a result, he will probably spread the electric car gospel to previously unreceptive audiences. He certainly makes a star of Lutz (so it is a shame the current administration does not want him involved in “Government Motors”). Informative and engaging, the highly recommended Revenge opens tomorrow (10/21) in New York at the Landmark Sunshine.

HK Cinema at SFFS: Don’t Go Breaking My Heart

It must be a sign of the zeitgeist when HK action auteur Johnnie To and his frequent collaborator Wai Ka-fai set their latest film in the world of high finance in a deliberate attempt to appeal to Mainland audiences. What would Madame Mao say? Yet, their love triangle rom-dramedy is the sort of material that has appealed to average movie patrons for generations. Still, they do instill Don’t Go Breaking My Heart (trailer here) with enough in-the-now to make it quite a fitting and appropriate way to close the San Francisco Film Society’s first class Hong Kong Cinema series this coming Sunday.

Chang Zixin is smart enough to predict the recent global “hard correction,” but she is not so shrewd in love. Yet in a promising development, she has been flirting with the Cheung Shen-ran, whose fat corner office can be seen from her bullpen station. As will happen in rom-coms, he inadvertently asks both her and the hottie in the office below her out for coffee at the same time. In a moment of weakness, he chooses the one with the larger endowments and lives to regret it.

Cheung is not the only one interested in Chang. Fate also brought her together with Fang Qi-hong, a spiritually down-and-out architect, more interested in boozing than building. He gave her a little confidence after last break-up and she gave him her ex’s pet frog. She also inspired him to clean up his act and fall in love with her. Not so suddenly, the bottom falls out of the market, taking Cheung down with it. Three years later, he returns to the game as Chang’s new boss. Across the way, Fang’s new architectural firm has taken over Cheung old office space. Let the rivalry begin.

Despite the disruption of the financial bubble, Heart is not really about the sort-of-great crash. It is however, very definitely preoccupied with the near-misses and hyper-connected loneliness of contemporary urban professionals. For its three principals, the mere act of making a connection must be significant, because it is so unlikely.

Yet, if it all sounds dour and serious, rest assured To and Wai keep the tone largely towards the lighter side. They also have the benefit of three ridiculously attractive primary cast members, as well as To regular Suet Lam as an office manager very much in the Ricky Gervais tradition. However, Gao Yaunyuan’s Chang is so radiantly cute, it is hard to understand how the heck Cheung keeps blowing it with her. Not just a HK Bridget Jones, she is actually a smart, self-aware fully-dimensional woman.

Frankly, the degree to which To and Wai stack the deck in favor of Fang eventually becomes a tad ridiculous. The comfortable old-shoe charisma Daniel Wu projects as Fang further exaggerates the disparity between her suitors. While he might be rich, it is hard to fathom how Louis Ko’s preening smugness as Cheung could be appealing to anyone. Still, Chang’s investment of time and emotional commitment is understandably difficult to walk away from.

Considering how unbalanced it is, Heart ought to be termed an isosceles love triangle. Yet, somehow To, Wai, Gao, and basic human nature maintain a sense of uncertainty as to whom she will ultimately choose. That is saying something for this genre. Stylish executed (even with the 1980’s-ish pop and smooth jazz soundtrack), Heart even features an enormous CGI-skyscraper, rising as triumphant testimony to the power of love. Lehman Brothers references notwithstanding, it is essentially a old school movie romance and a rather satisfying one at that. Though doubtlessly a disappointment for most To fans, Heart will be a pleasant conclusion to the Hong Kong Cinema series this coming Sunday (9/25) at the New People Cinema in San Francisco.

Crouching Banker: Empire of Silver

Initially, the late Qing Dynasty’s new paper money is an economic boon, especially helpful facilitating transactions for the lower classes. Unfortunately, when the people come to suspect it is not fully backed by silver, it leads to bank runs. This is an ominous development for Lord Kang’s financial dynasty. Yet, he will face even greater tribulations within his own family in Christina Yao’s Empire of Silver (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

In 1899, the “piaohao” bankers of Shanxi were like Tom Wolfe’s “Masters of the Universe.” Lord Kang, or “Old Master” as he is often called, assumed four sons would be sufficient to ensure a safe line of succession for his venerable banking company. Of course, as a pious Buddhist deaf-mute, “First Master” never really counted. Unfortunately, when the Second and Fourth Masters are undone by calamity partly of his own making, old Kang is left with the dissolute playboy Third Master. Still, he is probably the most talented of the lot, but he has heretofore squandered his life out of resentment for his father’s Machiavellian management of family affairs. This is Third’s time to chart his ascendance, but it remains unclear whether he wishes to assume the mantle of leadership.

Needless to say, Old and Third Masters have very different management philosophies. However, his relationship to his young stepmother is even more strained. Quickly we come to understand Third and his former teacher had quite a bit of history before she became Madame Kang, which obviously explains much.

Silver is a big historical melodrama, but there is only a spot of actual fighting here and there. Still, the costumes, sets, and sweeping vistas are worthy of epics like Hero and Red Cliff. Jeremy Thomas, the producer of ambitious films like The Last Emperor, Little Buddha, and Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, served as executive producer, lending Silver further prestige.

While Silver is indeed a finely crafted period production, Aaron Kwok is surprisingly flat as Third Master. Yes, his character is emotionally damaged, but at some point we should see some signs of life percolating. Still, Hao Lei largely compensates as Madame Kang with her exquisite expressiveness. Frankly, it is just nice to see her working, considering she appeared in Lou Ye’s bold Tiananmen Square drama Summer Palace, which was duly banned by the Communist authorities. Silver also boasts a number of rich supporting performances, particularly Ding Zhi Cheng and Lei Zhen Yu as two rivals branch managers, one talented but dangerously independent, while the other is deemed controllable by virtue of his mediocrity.

Yao revels in the classical tragedy of her story, but she periodically offers up shrewd nuggets of insight as well. It is intriguing look at a proud family and their celebrated house of finance increasingly destabilized by China’s mounting anarchy, but it might well be too restrained and respectable for fanboys. An engaging feature directorial debut for Yao (if not a perfect star vehicle for Kwok), Silver opens this Friday (6/3) in New York at the AMC Empire and AMC Village 7.

Tribeca ’11: My Piece of the Pie

Steve Delarue is a financial shark. France Leroi is a single mother, who is laid-off when her factory abruptly closes (but what a name she has). The former is so obviously the villain and the latter is so clearly the victim, we can surely put our brains on auto-pilot. Yet, Cédric Klapisch’s latest film is surprisingly more interesting than that (perhaps unintentionally so, but it still counts). Drawing on three year-old headlines, Klapisch tells a messy morality tale in My Piece of the Pie (trailer here), which screens during the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival.

France Leroi is indeed a victim. That is not a subjective judgment; it is the essence of her identity. A union worker thrown out of work by her factory’s financial collapse, she attempts suicide during a birthday party, with her home filled with children. Fortunately, she soon recovers, leaving Dunkirk to seek employment in Paris. Through a friend of a friend, she lands a gig working as the cleaning lady for Steve Delarue, a Bonfire of the Vanities style Master of the Universe recently returned to France the country after a long stint in London. Delarue is the kind of guy who administers the death knell to struggling enterprises, like Leroi’s former employer. In fact, unbeknownst to Leroi, he was exactly that guy.

Delarue dates supermodels, but treats them little better than servants like Leroi. Not surprisingly, he is terrible father material, but fortunately Leroi is there when Delarue’s three year-old son Alban is dumped in his lamp. In fact, as she assumes the duties of a nanny, employer and employee start to warm towards each other. However, a perceived betrayal launches Leroi on a reckless course of action.

Throughout the film, we are conditioned to perceive Leroi as the exploited and Delarue as the exploiter. Yet, her emotional reactions in the closing sequence and the final unsettling freeze frame raise a host of nagging doubts. We have essentially seen the entire film from Leroi’s POV, but is she necessarily reliable? She attempted suicide at time that would maximize the resulting drama and attention. Could this be significant? We forgive her for committing such a rash criminal action late in the film, because it is not premeditated and surely she is not a dangerous person, but should we? Whether by accident or design, Klapisch leaves viewers re-evaluating everything they just witnessed and how they responded to it. That is certainly a rare place for a film to go.

As Leroi, Karin Viard exhibits a frightening hold on the audience, forcefully carrying us through her emotional roller-coaster. Though he scrupulously maintains Delarue’s “all business” exterior, Gilles Lellouche hints at hidden complexity, which is critically important as the film progresses. British character actor Tim Pigott-Smith also adds a memorable dash of Gekko-esque color as Delarue’s English pseudo-mentor, Mr. Brown.

Make no mistake, Klapisch clearly suggests there is more dignity and value working on a factory floor than in high finance. However, Pie is too complicated and nuanced to serve as reductive propaganda. This is a good thing. Terrible as an economics lesson but fascinating as cinema, Pie is definitely worth checking out at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, when it screens this Sunday (4/24), Monday (4/25), Thursday (4/28), and Saturday (4/30).

Israel’s Human Resources Manager

In addition to mundane benefits administration and payroll management, HR managers do a bit of PR flackery in Israel. They also have to worry about terrorism. When an immigrant worker at a struggling bread factory is murdered during a Palestinian attack, but goes unmissed for days, it creates a media scandal that must be dealt with by the title character of Eran Riklis’s The Human Resources Manager (trailer here), the winner of Israeli Academy Award for best picture, which opens this Friday in New York.

She is the only character in the film with a proper name. Yulia worked the graveyard shift on the lowly cleaning crew. She had a son back in Romania, but seemed to like living in Israel, at least according to secondhand reports. The HR Manager would not know. He does not even remember her. In all fairness, he has had plenty to distract him. In fact, the HR Manager clearly hates working in HR. However, he accepted the Jerusalem-based position in hopes of mending fences with his estranged wife and their sensitive daughter.

During his investigation, the protagonist learns the messy but oh-so human reason why Yulia’s absence went unnoticed for so long. Naturally, he is reluctant to air their laundry in public. Unfortunately, the journalist pursuing the story has no interest in truth. He simply sees an opportunity to embarrass a supposedly exploitative corporation. (Yes, some things are universal, regardless of national boundaries.) In order to put the controversy to rest, the HR Manager must escort Yulia’s body back to her family in Romania. Yet, even that task turns out to be more complicated than he anticipates.

Though HR eventually settles into the road movie format, it is far deeper and sadder than typical on-the-road fare. More than anything, it is the quietly compelling work of Mark Ivanir as the HR Manager that distinguishes the film from the pack. He conveys a complex lifetime of experience just in the way his character carries himself. Clearly missing the action of an earlier life, but profoundly world-weary and haunted, he is an extraordinary everyman.

Unlike Riklis’ previous film The Lemon Tree, HR is not an explicitly political movie. Yet, for American audiences, the everyday reality of terrorism will loom over the film. The value Israelis place on human life, even anonymous immigrants like Yulia is equally evident. Truly, a film HR could never be produced within any of Israel’s neighbors.

As Israel’s official submission for best foreign language Academy Award consideration, HR is a considerably worthier candidate than the recent Oscar winner, In a Better World, but it was not even shortlisted. Academy voters in this category were simply out to lunch this year. HR is a film of subtle emotional payoffs, honestly earned, primarily through Ivanir’s remarkably strong and dignified lead performance. A very good film, HR opens this Friday (3/4) in New York at the Landmark Sunshine.

Soul Kitchen: Who Stole the Soul?

Talk about bait and switch. Instead of soul food, they serve nouveau fusion cuisine and alt-rock has replaced the classic soul music, yet Zinos still calls his restaurant Soul Kitchen. It does not seem to hurt business though in Fatih Akin’s Soul Kitchen (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

German-Greek restaurateur Zinos is not much of a cook, but his regulars eat up his greasy down-home offerings anyway. Recuperating from a back injury, Zinos makes a fateful decision, hiring a legit gourmet chef as his temporary replacement. In addition to being a culinary artist, Shayn happens to be Roma and intimidates people with his knife wielding prowess (nope, no cultural stereotypes going on here). Shayn alienates the local clientele with his new menu, but the hipsters start coming in droves. When Zinos hires his waiter Lutz’s grunge group to be the house band, suddenly Soul Kitchen is the in-scene.

Of course, Zinos is still besieged with a plague of dramas, most of which stem from Neumann (insert Seinfeld joke here), his long lost childhood chum, now a successful real estate developer. In Kitchen’s contrived world, such a profession guarantees his villainy. True to course, as soon as they reconnect, Neumann is scheming to swindle Zinos out of his primo property. Unfortunately, the unkempt restaurant proprietor is seriously distracted with his efforts to save his relationship with the severely Teutonic Nadine. Not for an instant though, are they remotely believable as a couple. On top of everything else, Zinos has to worry about his compulsive gambling brother, currently enjoying a prison furlough. Hey, no worries, everyone’s family at Soul Kitchen.

From the evil businessmen to the grumpy old neighbor, Kitchen does not miss a single cliché. That might have been forgivable had the film had a sense of fun. However, it is a surprisingly dour and uninvolving film. And yes, the largely Euro-alternative soundtrack is a major disappointment, given what one would expect from the title (and the misleading trailer).

Adam Bousdoukos tries to hit a likably nebbish note as Zinos, but he is such a doormat for trouble, it is hard to maintain a rooting interest in him. As Nadine, Pheline Roggan looks uncomfortable in every scene, which frankly makes her performance Kitchen’s most believable. The most intriguing turn comes from Anna Bederke as Lucia, the slightly less Teutonic waitress. Most of the cast though seems stuck on uber-indie quirky.

To get an idea of the fantasy world Kitchen is coming from, Zinos can expect compassion from the tax inspector and treachery from anyone with a real job. With few laughs in the offing, it all gets rather tiring. Aside from a bit of Quincy Jones’ “Hicky-Burr” (which is all kinds of awesome, by the way) the dark, hard-edged soundtrack is also mostly off-key. Safely skippable, Kitchen opens tomorrow (8/20) in New York at the IFC Center.

Canadian Front: The Death of Alice Blue

Vampires and corporate suits are all the same—they are both just bloodsuckers. Or so a new Canadian indy vampire film would have us believe. The office is quite a dangerous place in Park Bench’s The Death of Alice Blue (trailer here), which screens this weekend as an unusual selection of the MoMA’s annual Canadian Front series of new cinema from our northern neighbors.

To all outward appearances, Alice Blue is a mousy young woman hired for a soul-deadening entry-level job at the Raven Advertising Agency. However, it quickly becomes apparent something nefarious is going on behind the scenes at Raven, and Ms. Blue is a little off herself. At work she is belittled by the popular cliques, while at home she must endure a mother who seems to be doing a permanent Catherine O’Hara impression. Yet, the creative director she pines for seems to take encouraging notice, as does Peter Green, the annoying mail-boy and self-styled leader of the so-called “resistance,” played by the director.

The best thing about Blue is Mark Gabriel’s grungy art direction, which effectively creates a sense of austere menace. The morning office roll call of layoffs is also a nice blackly humorous touch. However, the laughs are few and far between in the deliberately quirky Blue and there no real chills to be found. The corporate vampire motif has been done to undeath by now, often with better results, like the Wolfram & Hart law firm in the Angel television series. In comparison, there is really nothing in Blue to distinguish it from the pack.

Blue has creepy look, but the action on-screen is often hard to follow. With a dearth of likable characters, audiences are unlikely to develop an emotional investment in Alice Blue’s story. It might satisfy a certain goth niche, but for the rest of us, Blue has nothing like the crossover appeal of Let the Right One In. It screens again this Sunday (3/22) at the MoMA and next Saturday (3/28) in Connecticut at the Kent Film Festival.

For Cult Film Oddballs Only: Repo! The Genetic Opera

It is very distracting to watch a film whose makers are clearly ignorant of the plot twists in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. However, the description, “rock opera helmed by the director of Saw 2 co-starring Paris Hilton,” will probably be sufficient to convince most viewers to keep their distance. Those instincts are not wrong in the case of The Genetic Opera (trailer here), opening today in select cities.

It’s the year 2056 and life stinks. For vague environmental reasons, an epidemic of organ failures led to the rise of GeneCo, a medical-pharmaceutical corporation. Since this is a movie, you know the corporation must be evil, and is GeneCo ever so. Yes, they supply replacement organs, but their terms are what might be considered sub-prime, and their evil founder Rotti Largo loves nothing better than to order their repossession when their recipients fall into arrears. Of course, in Merchant, Shylock is foiled in his attempt to extract his pound of flesh, because he had no right to any of Antonio’s blood. (OK, maybe it was not Shakespeare’s greatest plot point, but Repo’s logical gaps are far more egregious.)

Like all movie businessmen, Rotti is evil in all aspects of life. He murdered his ex-lover, tricking her husband, Dr. Nathan Wallace, into believing he was responsible. Blackmailed by Rotti, the tortured Dr. Wallace, unfortunately a GeneCo employee, becomes his Repoman. In between ridiculously gruesome repossessions, Wallace tends to his sickly daughter Shilo, desperately seeking a cure for her rare blood disease.

A clichéd plot could be forgiven if the music of Repo was compelling. Unfortunately, it is not. In this context, rock opera seems to mean characters constantly wailing their angst, with little discernable variance in mood, melody, tempo, or dynamics. There is no flag-waving opener, or even a love ballad. Repo is based on a successful stage musical that had successful runs in Los Angeles and Toronto, but clearly something was lost in translation.

One guesses Paul Sorvino accepted the role of Largo for the opportunity to exercise his operatic chops. Anthony Head, best known as Giles in Buffy the Vampire-Slayer, must have agreed to play Dr. Wallace in hopes of boosting his asking price for fan conventions. In her first screen role, Sarah Brightman absolutely has the voice for Blind Mag, the opera diva spokesperson for GeneCo. In fact, the voices of all the principals are strong, but are undermined by the undistinguished tunes.

The most successful aspect of Repo is the Creepshow-like comic book interludes. They give the film a distinctive look and help set the macabre atmosphere. However, the rest of the film looks deliberately low budget, perhaps to court the cult film subculture. They will probably eat it up at midnight movie screenings. Hey, nobody’s forcing them, but have pity on the projectionists.

Bottle Shock and Awe

It’s the U.S.A. versus the French. What else do you need to know? Of course, the French are accustomed to defeat, but this one probably stung worse than their long history of military losses. This time the field of battle was a blind wine tasting, pitting the upstart wines of California against the best the French had to offer. The results stunned the world, as portrayed in director Randall Miller’s Bottle Shock (trailer here), opening in New York and other selected cities today.

Based on true events, Shock dramatizes the 1976 competition organized by British expat Steven Spurrier, played by Alan Rickman, to promote his struggling wine emporium. Ostensibly a friendly competition to celebrate the American bicentennial, Spurrier assumed a well publicized rout of the California wines would appeal to French chauvinism, creating good will for his store as a result. However, much to his dismay, those California wines were actually quite palatable.

On his Napa Valley scouting trip, Spurrier meets Jim Barrett (Bill Pullman), the owner of the Chateau Montelena winery. After a reasonably successful corporate career, Barrett is pursuing his dream of making the finest chardonnay possible. In doing so, he has the dubious help of his dirty, unkempt hippy son Bo, played by Chris Pine. The younger Barrett only has one ambition, to sleep with their attractive intern, and even on this front, he is under-achieving badly. Can Bo get serious long enough to save the family winery? Have you seen a movie before?

Shock takes its name from the temporary damage sustained by wine when shipped as cargo. It is one of the many potential pitfalls avoided by the California wines on the road to Paris in a fairly clever screenplay. However, we get a little too much of knuckle-headed Bo and his pals, at the expense of the more appealing adult characters. Indeed, Shock boasts a cast of actor’s actors who always turn in interesting performances, including Pullman, Rickman, and Dennis Farina, as an American expat who patronizes Spurrier’s establishment.

In many ways, Shock is a refreshing story. In truth, the patriotic aspect of American underdogs taking on French snobs is actually played down, but it is in there. More pronounced is the spirit of camaraderie and friendly competition that prevails among the California wineries. At its core though, Shock is a story of the American Dream, as pursued by Barrett. Both French wine snobs like Spurrier and Gustavo, a young Montelena employee and vintner on the sly, consider wine making a product of destiny, wholly dependent on the blood in your veins and the soil you happened to be raised on. For Barrett, it is a matter of vision, commitment, and a little capital—the American way.

Shock is a bright and appealing film—literally. Michael J. Ozier cinematography makes the wine country sparkle. It moves along briskly and efficiently, even with Bo’s distracting subplots. Although you probably already have a pretty good idea where Shock is going (spoiler: the U.S. won), it is amiable ride getting there.

BIFF: August

Indy filmmakers seem to share Hollywood’s contempt for the supposedly evil businessman, but if there is one exception to the stereotype, it is the tech guru. Internet start-up wizards who created business plans with no appreciable stream of revenue are not typically portrayed like the crass capitalist. A fresh example would be Josh Harnett’s Tom Sterling, a one-time Wired magazine cover-boy with an ugly neck tattoo, whose spectacular fall is told in the upcoming film August (trailer here), which screened at the Brooklyn International Film Fest.

Sterling capitalized on his younger brother’s innovations to create Landshark, the last of the tech start-ups to get Wall Street’s blessing. What they do is kept purposefully vague. Harnett tells a potential client: “We’re not the e-commerce, we’re the e.” So how is that “e” working out? Not well. After a blockbuster IPO, Landshark has come crashing down to Earth and desperately needs an infusion of capital to stay afloat.

Harnett’s Sterling is portrayed as a snake oil salesman without any oil. His brother’s breakthroughs are the real deal, but their revenue projections are not. There simply is no market for whatever Landshark has to offer—at least not yet. All Sterling really has to sell are image and rhetoric, running the company in his words: “on fumes.” When Sterling finally gets his comeuppance at the hands of old school moneymen, personified by David Bowie, it is stone cold business.

Sterling might be self-important, but he is also self-destructive, as witnessed by his sabotage of a second chance with Sarrah, an ex-girlfriend, played by Naomie Harris, who brings a distinct charm to a thankless role. He also has issues with his parents, former sixties radicals who sold out to academia, but cannot understand his dreams of capitalist glory. (They do listen to John Coltrane and Benny Goodman, so they can’t be all bad).

August moves at a lightning quick pace as the Landsharkers scramble against time to save the company, but it is hard to fully sympathize with Sterling along the way, due to the limitations of its lead. For his part, Hartnett is totally convincing as an arrogant jerk, but less so expressing more complex emotions, so director Austin Chick wisely plays to his strength.

When Landshark crashes, it is pretty dramatic, but August seems to keep it all in perspective. The title refers to the specific time in which it is set, August 2001, a month before September 11th. The implication seems to be that in a September 10th world, the doings of Sterling’s start-up could considered quite important, but in a post-September 11th world, much less so. In effect, August depicts an innocent time that thought it was cynical, as evidenced by clips of the moron media’s celebrity coverage and manufactured controversies.

August is pretty smart in its portrayal of the death rattle of the internet boom. Much of it will ring true to those who first heard constantly about stock options from friends at dotcoms, and then suddenly nothing, when their company’s stock certificates became cheap souvenirs of the late 1990’s. It effectively recreates a specific time and place, as well as the attitude that went with it. It opens in New York at the Village East on July 11th.

An Irregular Heartbeat

In 1978 Elie Wiesel criticized the miniseries Holocaust for dramatizing, and thereby capitalizing on the murder of six million individuals (a controversy recounted in the documentary Imaginary Witness). When debating the possibility of filming Holocaust stories, Wiesel did not outright rule out the possibility, but argued the production in question just was not good enough. Likewise, Nicolas Klotz’s Heartbeat Detector (La Question Humaine), which examines the culpability of a German conglomerate in the Holocaust, simply is not good enough in its handling of such sensitive subject matter.

Detector (French trailer here) introduces the audience to Simon Kessler, a cold blooded HR psychologist working for a German multinational corporation. His duties include molding employees into blind obedience and downsizing those that become expendable. Karl Rose, one of his Mephistophelean masters orders him to unofficially investigate the mental state of the French division’s CEO, Mathias Jüst (the significance of whose name is difficult to miss).

Kessler pretends to research the company string quartet Jüst once played in for the sake of a corporate bonding project as cover for his presence in the French office. For his part, the CEO seems a bit gruff and eccentric, but not unfit for leadership. However, Kessler eventually uncovers a batch of anonymous poison-pen letters, sent first to the CEO and then to himself, accusing Jüst and their company of collaboration during the Holocaust.

As Kessler pursues his quarry, reality and illusion begin to blur. At this point, the narrative of Detector becomes problematic, as it is difficult for viewers to discern dream sequences from ostensible real life. Kessler’s own behavior starts to become erratic as well, even though his conscience is apparently stirring. The truth might lie with a member of that seemingly inconsequential string quartet, but it is hard to hold onto a notion of truth in such a subjective environment.

There are some heavy moments of intrigue, as when we get peaks into dark history of certain characters, but the pacing of Detector is certainly slow and its characters are cold. Those are not original sins, but it does make demands on the audience. As Jüst, Michael Lonsdale fares best, compellingly emoting a world-weary intelligence. Mathieu Amalric as Kessler is not simply cold. He remains a cipher throughout the film, never really letting the audience into his head, even when he appears to be losing it.

Ultimately, Detector is fatally undone by its pretensions. There is a very blatant analogy made between the boardrooms of corporate capitalism and the death camps of National Socialism, suggested through plot points and imagery. Such comparisons would be a delicate matter under any circumstances, but in Detector it often seems the Holocaust material is there solely for the sake of the film’s more contemporary commentary.

The issue of European collaboration with the Nazis remains an issue of tremendous resonance and could make for gripping drama. At times Detector shows flashes of such inspiration, but overall, it simply does not handle the material deftly enough. It opens tomorrow in New York at Cinema Village and Lincoln Plaza.