Photo caption: Julie Ledru in RODEO. Courtesy of Music Box Films.
In the ever-kinetic Rodeo, a remarkably fierce young woman invites herself into a crew of dirt riders. Rodeo is set with remarkable verisimilitude in a subculture of young bikers from France’s hardscrabble immigrant communities. It’s an edgy scene, and Julia (newcomer Julie Ledru) penetrates it only because she’s a little scary herself.
Julia is a force of nature, and she is able to back off guys with an explosive hostility. When she is ready to adopt a dangerous new passion on two wheels, no one can stand in her way. Off she rides, on a journey with life-and-death stakes.
Rodeo is the first feature for French director Lola Quivoron, who is the real star of this roller coaster of a movie. If she wants to, Quivoron will be making big Hollywood action films like The Fast and the Furious.
Rodeo won the Un Certain Regard coup de coeur prize at Cannes, and I screened it for the SLO Film Fest. Rodeo is now available to stream from Amazon, Apple TV and Vudu.
Photo caption: Jay Baruchal in BLACKBERRY. Courtesy of IFC Films.
BlackBerry is the funny true story of Canadian geeks who find themselves suddenly dominating the nascent smartphone market…but not for long. The improbable rise of BlackBerry’s parent company is a tale of the Odd Couple partnership co-CEOs, Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchal), who ran the engineering side, and Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton), who managed finance and sales.
Mike Lazaridis solved the technical challenge that had kept cell phones from becoming the email machines that they have been since. As played by Baruchal, Lazaridis is reserved, even shy, supremely confident in all things tech and not all confidant with other humans.
Lazaridis needed a pitchman, and that was the hard charging Balsillie, who, as played by Howerton ranged between hard-charging and abusive. A tech exec I knew in Silicon Valley was described to me as having “too much testosterone” and that’s Howerton’s Balsillie.
Lazaridis’ engineering brilliance, combined with Balsillie’s sheer will and audacity, allowed the company to nimbly pivot through various product cycles. Balsillie’s hubris even began to leak into Lazaridis. But then came an advance in product design that Lazaridis hadn’t anticipated, and Balsillie had cut one too many corners in finance.
I’ve mostly seen Baruchal in much more broadly funny roles (Tropic Thunder, This Is the End). Here, Baruchal successfully carries the leading role with a much more subtle and textured performance. One nice (and slyly underplayed) touch is that when Baruchal’s character transitions from the CEO of a start-up to the CEO of a company with a massive market cap, his haircut transitions, too.
For much of the movie, we see Howerton playing Balsillie as a one-note, hard charger. He refuses to acknowledge any obstacle, until, in a wonderful moment of performance, his face shows when knows he’s finally been had.
BlackBerry was directed by Matt Johnson, who also co-adapted the screenplay and plays one of company co-founders.
Make sure you watch the end credits to see what happened to the real guys.
I screened BlackBerry for the San Luis Obispo Film Festival, where it won the audience award for Best of Fest. BlackBerry opens in theaters tomorrow, and it’s a surefire audience-pleaser.
