Mike Schulz wants Dave Levora and Darren Pitra about Book Club: The Next Chapter, which he deems “a strange movie” because “it’s not really a movie”: There really isn’t a plot that makes sense or is in any way important. It sounds like it’s just an excuse to get Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen back together to hang out in Italy and drink like Germans. There are a few wisps of narrative here and there, but nothing to indicate that there are any stakes; Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon’s Trip series of foodies-abroad films feel like the Fast and the Furious franchise. (More on the latter later.) There are just scenes of them quaffing ferocious quantities of liquor in restaurants, enough for Ernest Hemingway’s long-dead corpse to stand up in its Ketchum grave and shoot the gang a hearty salute. If you can take all of that on board, then the film won’t bother you; your liver might quaver, but more out of sympathy for the octogenarians on-screen. What did bother people, apparently, was Schulz’s review of the film. He even drew a rebuke from his mother. Mom said senior citizens aren’t fans of the current movie trends, with their quick-cuts and their costumed bozos being punched through walls. Who would have ever thought that to be the case? So, as one of the Deez says, it makes good business sense for films like Book Club to not go in that direction. Schulz caveats by saying the film had better be at least generically appealing to cis-gender hetero males ages fifteen through thirty, or it won’t crack $40 million at the box office, as was the case with 80 for Brady (which, in fairness, did crack that barrier, with a $40.3 million return *sigh of relief*). On that basis, Schulz fears The Little Mermaid, which opens next week, will falter at the chains. Then there’s the SF thriller Hypnotic, directed by veteran filmmaker Robert Rodriguez, with Ben Affleck as a detective looking for his missing daughter — only he’s given to question the nature of his reality, that he might be hypnotized — only he’s given to question the nature of his reality, that he might be a hypnotic, or a powerful hypnotist trained by a secretive government “Division” to control people’s minds — only he’s given to question the nature of his reality, that he might be a hypnotized hypnotic — ad infinitum, ad nauseum. Having the rug pulled out from under the audience again and again for 94 freakin’ minutes put Schulz into the headspace where “it finally reaches the point where you say, ‘Great. Please roll the credits.” Then there’s the “bio-tragic” comedy, BlackBerry, directed by Matt Johnson, about the invention of the BlackBerry mobile phone. Seems like a piddling excuse of a subject for building a film around, but BlackBerry, written by Johnson with producer Matthew Miller, has its surprises. The film covers the years 1996 to 2008 — the arc of the BlackBerry’s popularity — with Glenn Howerton’s portrayal of Jim Balsillie, the tech-illiterate businessman who helped sell investors on the BlackBerry, singled out by Schulz as amazing — “a – MAY – zing”: “He is such a douche,” Schulz says. “He’s not likeable for five seconds; and yet he’s hypnotic; he urges you [to say], ‘Yeah, keep on doing those awful things.’” Waxing autobiographical (or auto-tragic), Schulz recounts the period when he was the proud owner of a second-hand BlackBerry, which he enjoyed until he had to upgrade. (Rosebud. . .) The people who made and pushed the BlackBerry were apparently hellbent on their tech having keyboards built into them, and could not conceive of a phone that didn’t have one. . . we guess you can figure out how that turned out. Next week, Schulz will report on the tenth Fast and the Furious film (there will be twelve, apparently). Schulz loved the first film, hated the next five, but loved the last three. “They’re just basically really expensive James Bond movies. . . they’re just proudly ridiculous” is how Schulz diagnoses their appeal. Since the plot went to outer space in the last installment, one is given to wonder how the franchise plans to top that. Given the synopsis, which promises a more earthbound threat involving a family threatened by a drug-dealer, one guesses time-travel will be in the works. Levora’s wife, incidentally, who’s an English teacher, undertook a binge-watch of the F&F films one summer in order to “disconnect [her] brain from thinking about school.” Did she enjoy them? “Well, she followed them,” the DL says, emphasizing her ambition to disconnect — which sounds like a lot of work for a summer off; but they did the job: “I’m not thinking about school anymore,” she said as she finished the last installment. Will she go to see the next one? Well, she’s back in school, presumably, and not drooling on her lap in a padded cell, so disconnecting her brain anew sounds like it would be counterproductive at this point, doesn’t it?

“Book Club: The Next Chapter,” “Hypnotic,” and “BlackBerry”