Hacker Cinema
BlackBerry
2023 · Film · 119 min
Directed by Matt Johnson
Two mismatched entrepreneurs – egghead innovator Mike Lazaridis and cut-throat businessman Jim Balsillie – joined forces in an endeavour that was to become a worldwide hit in little more than a decade. The story of the meteoric rise and catastrophic demise of the world's first smartphone.
18 positive5 negative10 neutralfrom 33 commenters
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39 comments on Hacker News
I guess what I mean is if education is the goal, then a written medium is far better than a video. Real life has too much nuance to be able to accurately re-create, plus the more expensive the production, the more it needs to earn a return incentivizing the entertainment aspect over the education aspect.
Obviously written works do not present more information, but they can provide only the known information (which I guess a documentary composed of the actual recordings and interviews of the events can provide). And obviously written stuff can also be fabricated and blah blah, but assuming all of that, I just presume the fidelity of a video re-creation of an event is less than that of a written one.
One example I just thought of that led me to this assumption of discounting all videos is the way Captain Phillips is portrayed. The recent movie Blackberry is also highly fictional.
https://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/blackberry/
I know these aren't documentaries per se, but they all require digging to get to the truth v fiction parts, so why bother digging? If I want to be entertained, I watch the video. If I want to be educated, I look up written sources I think might be credible.
“You told me these were the best engineers in the world!!”
“I said they were the best engineers in Canada”
(Great quote from the BlackBerry movie).
Rings true here. You can’t fight market forces. To push out the US tech you need to build something that’s better than the US tech. Anything else is just wishful thinking.
We need a Symbian/Nokia movie to accompany the "Blackberry" movie, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXL_HDzBQsM
Mike, are you familiar with the saying, "Perfect is the enemy of Good"? Well, "good enough" is the enemy of humanity.
> we mocked the Chinese as being able only to copy American technology.
Thing I disliked most about the movie Blackberry (and I liked the movie!): The Blackberry lost to a phone that could only have been made in China.
Like all “based on a true story” or whatever movies/tv shows, the BlackBerry movie has a lot of fiction:
https://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/blackberry/
There is no way for a viewer to know which parts are real or fake, so watching it is not going to help educate.
>Engineering companies success because of their engineering culture.
What current companies do you consider to be both successful and have this culture now?
It's brought up a lot on HN. Heck, the evolution from 'fun, small, engineer company makes through product then everything changes when it becomes larger, more corporate' is almost a Hollywood cliche now (films like Blackberry, tv like Halt and Catch Fire).
There's a pretty nice movie about Blackberry's rise and fall: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackBerry_(film)
In case you didn't know, that movie was a lot of fiction.
https://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/blackberry/
I assume all "documentary" or "based on real events" type media is completely fiction, unless specific events in the media are otherwise noted to be true.
Hoping for an upcoming movie in the vein of BlackBerry (2023)
I recently noticed the narrative power of montages and just how "movie magic" they are, as opposed to being based in reality, when I watched the BlackBerry movie. There's a really great montage near the beginning of the film where they're cobbling together a prototype device in one night for an important meeting the next day. Watching it, I couldn't help but get hyped up and excited.
As a dev, I love watching other technical people do the impossible and create something great. At the same time, the logical part of my brain kept thinking, "This is really cool, but obviously this is total fiction. No way anybody, no matter how smart they are, can put together a device like that in one night." But I went along with it because it was fun and got the narrative going. So even with my critical brain, I couldn't help but "believe" the fantasy a little bit.
On the whole, it made me reflect on how movies really do present a fictional view of reality and that's kind of the power they have. And what about all those times where I watched a movie and didn't have a background in what they were presenting and just ate it up wholesale?
> - (1) the cell carriers like AT&T and Verizon controlled what kind of software could on the Palm Treo, Blackberry, Motorola, etc.
It's worth watching "Blackberry" (2023) to see an instance of this in the style of a documentary drama.
I haven't seen the movie yet, but I just finished the book, Losing the Signal. Totally captivating story with so many powerful takeaways. I'd highly recommend it, even if you're already familiar with the BlackBerry story.
Have a sudden urge to rewatch the BlackBerry movie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3icHg3N5ym0
Weird coincidence that it’s the exact same amount that Research In Motion paid to poach top engineers from Google / Microsoft back in the 2000’s to help grow their Blackberry network capacity (assuming the Blackberry movie is accurate)
Since hearing of its release I expected to enjoy this and definitely did. Checks a bunch of boxes: 90s /00s tech history, nostalgia, nerds vs corporates the ongoing struggle, general nostalgia and some great actors (Dennis from It's Always Sunny.., Jay Baruchel, a few other cameos and such), even some Canadian details which add to the fun. While the movie format doesn't allow for that much character development or to tell more of the behind the scenes, it's still a great tech story and one that fits into a certain era that many would be familiar with. Being familiar with that era of the transition to smartphones, rise of blackberry, and then the sudden shift and leapfrog into touch screens/iPhone etc alongside the rise of mainstream internet, even the change in nerd culture..... I think knowing some of the backstory and what the landscape was really like having lived thru most of it changes one's impressions while watching. A casual viewer might only be wrapped up in the tech 'thriller' type drama at the surface, which is still enjoyable and fun.
Lots of reminders and surely inspiration from Halt And Catch Fire tv series which is a big plus also. It's almost like a continuation of that series as far as timeline and another 'next big thing' in tech being developed. Whether accurate to RIM's story or not, the film/tv series is a nice look at an era and done pretty well, and its accolades are warranted.
Review from back in May 2023
Wanted to share this as thought there would be some renewed attention due to the movie getting a TV/streaming release in a '3-part mini series' format with some extra footage on both AMC (https://www.amcnetworks.com/press-releases/critically-acclaimed-film-blackberry-coming-to-amc-and-amc-as-limited-series/) and in Canada on CBC (https://www.cbc.ca/mediacentre/press-release/cbc-original-limited-series-blackberry-debuts-november-9-on-cbc-gem-and-cbc)
Funny timing on this article. I just watched the BlackBerry drama about Waterloo based Research In Motion. Pretty good movie.
About 2001, I don't know, but Blackberry, SuperPumped, and General Magic are three other things I'd recommend watching in this general area.
You can't expect a movie adaptation of a non-fiction book to be completely faithful to the original. I love the book but I realize it makes total sense to market the film as the story of Canada's versio of Apple Computer.
The Blackberry devices were an icon of the corporate world and Wall Street; like a Rolex, it told the world you were important. It's that image that got Fortune 100 companies to order the things in droves and pay for the expensive servers.
I thought the book was fantastic, particularly with regards to detailing what Blackberry did right when it came to tech sales and pitching their product. I felt the movie missed the opportunity to have a 'success montage' scene a la Scarface, where Blackberry sales blow up once executives started showing it off as the go-to device for instant email and messaging.
The fairly hurt-feelings "this isn't close to accurate" reviews from people who were insiders or employees at Blackberry turned me off from wanting to watch this film.
I never had good feelings about RIM/Blackberry the company. I worked at Google Waterloo with a lot of people I'd characterize as "refugees" from there. And by the time the 2010s rolled around they were clearly in a serious decline. But this movie doesn't sound like it has the finger on why.
Other people have linked to this article in the comments, but I'll call it up here into the root: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/dennis-kavelman-i-was-a-longtime-senior-leader-at-blackberry-the-new-movie-is-not-our-story
In particular I think this is insightful and worth calling out: "It was also sad to see the easy knocks against Canada from Canadian movie writers — the movie Mike is quoted as saying “I didn’t say they were the best engineers in the world, I said they were the best engineers in Canada.” Do we really need to still talk about how the University of Waterloo is one of the top universities in the world?
It sounds entertaining, but wildly wildly inaccurate. And disparaging of various humans and efforts involved. Dramatizations often are, but maybe this is just too close to home?
If you liked BlackBerry, I very-highly recommend watching "Nirvanna The Band The Show", the TV show made by the same director.
Do the book and/or the movie touch the Blackberry QNX acquisition? [1]
[1] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/qnx-software-systems
I agree, but at the same time I used to think, let the US rate it first, but overtime I've learnt the US is not always right and when it comes to films, its only the PR red carpet shenanigans that prevent the instant global roll out.
Movie stars cant be in two or more places at once "promoting" their films.
Tom Cruise or any other movie star turning up for a country's premiere is not going to sway me either way, the trailers either look good or not.
Sometimes Rotten Tomatoes may also sway me.
The British press dont sway me.
Comments from strangers in the street who rave on about a film sway me more than the press do!
And this is why Netflix and Apple TV have an advantage at eating into both the Hollywood pie and a country's own terrestrial offerings like Channel 4 or BBC films. Carving out a niche in the middle which is where the money can be found especially considering the low cost of CGI.
Hollywood could do more if it embraced iMax more, for example I've yet to see the latest TopGun:Maverick film, because I want to see it at an iMax theatre for that whole AV in the thick of the action experience.
I have this Blackberry film on my list of films to see though because it looks funny, I want to see how reality has been altered and I dont think some of the tech companies get enough Hollywood treatment considering how pivotal they are or have been in our lives. Tetris is another on my list to see.
Le Man's 66, and Joy are other examples of pivotal things in our lives, even if some of us dont shop on QVC, they still fill in that gap of how did these things come to be, even if not historically 100% accurate, its the sort of history lesson no one else is giving to the masses.
Most history taught at school is just battles and wars, its like the state has an obsession with fighting, so to have Hollywood give us some history is refreshing and I encourage them to do more please.
Great timing! I just watched this last night with my friends. We all were surprised that this movie didn't get more traction!
> But Glenn Howerton’s Portrayal of Jim Balsillie’s explosive rage is one of the great performances. Ever. it’s one of those instant legendary meme performances.
Totally agree. Even if you're not into the story of blackberry, the character performances and rarely onscreen story of "engineer becoming corporate" is worth the watch.
I might be late to the party but I think if you watched BlackBerry you’d like the Tetris movie too.
It’s a bit silly but in a good way.
I was fine with the review, even though the film was panned by an insider as being quite inaccurate [0], but this got to me:
> Of course, Research in Motion imploded spectacularly… Blackberry went from controlling over 50% to now controlling 0% of the cellphone market, Alberta’s oil industry has been destroyed by a decade-plus of willful misgovernance, and Canada’s long national suicide continues even as it’s doctors encourage it’s citizens to opt for physician-assisted suicide rather than burden the system with their depression, homelessness, or wounds sustained in their country’s wars…
Really? That much self-hate? Then stop voting in governments full of shallow, vapid people based on how they look, or how much money they give away. People deserve the governments they elect.
[0] https://nationalpost.com/opinion/dennis-kavelman-i-was-a-longtime-senior-leader-at-blackberry-the-new-movie-is-not-our-story
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/blackberry-movie-review-2023
> “BlackBerry” is a MoneyBro movie par excellence, right up there with “Wall Street,” “Glengarry Glen Ross,” “Boiler Room,” and “The Wolf of Wall Street.” It shares their key, defining trait: even though its main characters are either charismatic sociopaths or sheep, and the capitalist system they operate in is deeply corrupt and rewards men without morals or conscience, the story is so excitingly told, the performances so watchable, and the dialogue so quotable that it becomes the verbal equivalent of an action flick—kinetic, suspenseful, and sometimes unexpectedly beautiful and weirdly moving.
Sad to see a once great company fail. BlackBerry in 2003 still did email better than iPhone in 2023; that is a fact.
The fictionalized movie[1] was entertaining.
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21867434/
See the movie Blackberry[0] for a dramatic telling of this.
[0]: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/blackberry
Unrelated, but a song by the band was in the 'BlackBerry' movie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuqEpjcBfaU
The Blackberry movie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackBerry_(film) includes a few examples of selling something without having anything real behind it.
I just want to point out: At the time of the iPhone launch, AT&T's business model (and every other telecom up until this tipping point) was to sell "minutes" which was essentially micro-charges for consumers who want to make calls or send texts.
This was mostly an infrastructure problem that Apple innovated on and helped AT&T solve- carriers would no longer need to sell "minutes" but could instead sell Data, which was a much better value proposition. There's a quote in the movie Blackberry along the lines of "the problem with selling minutes is that there's only 60 of them in a minute to sell".
I can only assume this attributed to the global adoption of the "data sale" model (and the iPhone with it) since the profit ceiling was exponentially higher for every carrier.
I just searched for that new Blackberry docu.
There is a lot of weird pornographic films with "Blackberry" in the name.
maybe he's just seen the Blackberry movie and now getting new ideas, prepare for a rough landing
Engadget had been quite biased against BlackBerry for a long long time.
"Crucially, though, it's not just like reading a Wikipedia entry. Johnson tells us exactly who Laziridis and Balsillie are from the very first scenes of the movie."
This statement's patently false. Aside from failing to spell the name of one of the main characters correctly, anyone who have interacted with Mike Lazaridis knows that he's not a meek push-over of a computer nerd.
All the review, this one included, that raves about how true and accurate the movie have never been there.
And the movie would have been better off if they just used false names, because at least it would be a lot less distracting from all the wild deviations from reality.
This movie is scoring well with 98% on rotten tomatoes and 7.9 on imdb. I loved it and while it's almost entirely a fictional work (in particular, none of the characters are even remotely similar to the people that led RIM)... it really hits on the feeling of a fast scaling startup challenging incumbents with innovative hardware.
1. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/blackberry 2. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21867434/
Contrary to the tone of the article, this is an obligatory reminder that the BlackBerry movie is heavily fictionalized:
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/dennis-kavelman-i-was-a-longtime-senior-leader-at-blackberry-the-new-movie-is-not-our-story
It's a real movie review (though pretty short):
> BlackBerry has everything Apple's Tetris film lacked: human drama grounded in actual history, without the need to spice things up with car chases and fantastical storytelling. On the face of it, the rise and fall of Research in Motion's keyboard-equipped smartphone may not seem inherently compelling. But the brilliance of the film — directed by Matt Johnson, who also co-wrote it with Matthew Miller — is that it makes the BlackBerry's journey feel like a genuine tragedy.