Review: Glenn Howerton Dominates in ‘BlackBerry’

By Abe Friedtanzer

There are a number of tech-related crash and burn stories that have made their way to the big and small screens recently. It’s remarkable to watch the rise and falls of certain magnetic leaders and come to understand how their big ideas managed to ultimately be their undoing. The Dropout and Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber are two worthwhile television examples. A recent IFC Films theatrical release, BlackBerry, now available to rent, is also very much worth checking out.

It's hard to remember a time before the iPhone, but this film looks at a crucial moment before Steve Jobs and Apple changed everything. The opening titles identify it as a fictionalized version of true events, though it’s never made quite clear what authenticity remains in the finished product...

Click to read more ...

Best Animated Feature Contenders: How to Train Your Dragon 3

by Tim

Only time will tell which five movies are going to receive nominations for the Best Animated Feature Oscar in January, but I can tell you this much with absolute certainty: there are going to be a lot of sequels in the mix. Each of the four biggest American animation studios released a single film in 2019, and each one of those was a franchise entry. Disney had the blockbuster hit Frozen II just a month ago, and their corporate cousin Pixar released the slightly smaller hit Toy Story 4 over the summer. Illumination Entertainment had a rare flop with The Secret Life of Pets 2. Before any of these, though, came my pick for the best major studio animated feature of the year, and a film we really haven't talked about very much at the Film Experience: DreamWorks Animation's How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, third and final film in a trilogy that started in 2010.

The film was greeted without much enthusiasm, whether from critics, fans of the series, or audiences more generally; this seems horribly unfair to me. While it is more than a little bit of a retread of 2014's How to Train Your Dragon 2 in its plot and especially in its generic, forgettable villain (and one should never think "unforgettable" when watching a character played by F. Murray Abraham, but here we are), the emotional stuff is all new...

Click to read more ...

Matthias of Linkland

In Contention Lion is using T****'s unconstitutional travel ban its advertisements
Boy Culture 70s star and Battlestar Galactica hunk Richard Hatch has died
Awards Daily Jazz talks to Joel Harlow about the Oscar nominated Hair and Makeup of Star Trek: Beyond
Towleroad a close-up of Glenn Close returning to Sunset Boulevard

Cottages & Gardens the Grey Gardens estate is up for sale  
Variety Stanley Tucci has directed a movie about Alberto Giacometti starring Geoffrey Rush and Armie Hammer
Tracking Board the Coen brothers are polishing the remake script for Scarface (which was made twice already in the 30s and 80s)
Towleroad Finland is the first country to release their own national emojis and one of them is for the gay artist Tom of Finland 
MNPP "Smile like Trevante Rhodes"
New Yorker Oscar Spotlight: The Actresses
World of Reel a synopsis of Nicolas Winding Refn's new Amazon series
AV Club "Johnny Depp close to completing his transformation into mole person"
Interview Jay Baruchel talks Man Seeking Woman and his first time as director on the sequel to Goon
Comics Alliance weirdest Aquaman moments in comics 

MNPP How hot is Matthias Schoenaerts? So hot he's steaming.
빛나는 special Korean posters for Moonlight - Chiron drawn at all ages
Theater Mania Meryl Streep to present Stephen Sondheim with the PEN Award in April in NYC
/Film Mary Poppins Returns has officially startedc production with Ben Whishaw, Emily Mortimer, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Julie Walters, Colin Firth, Dick Van Dyke, Emily Blunt as "Mary Poppins" and Meryl Streep as Mary's eccentric cousin "Topsy"