Movie Club Edition Twelve: Brick- SPOILERS

RanzB

RanzB

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****The discussion starts Monday 25 May 2015****

Brick is a 2005 American neo-noir thriller film written and directed by Rian Johnson, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It was Johnson's directorial debut and won the Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.[3] Brick was distributed by Focus Features, opening in New York and Los Angeles on April 7, 2006.

The film's narrative centers on a hardboiled detective story that takes place in a Californian suburb. Most of the main characters are high school students. The film draws heavily in plot, characterization, and dialogue from hardboiled classics, especially from Dashiell Hammett. The title refers to a block of heroin, compressed roughly to the size and shape of a brick..
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Brickmovieposter.jpg


**A review is encouraged, and a star review out of 5 is preferred over a /10 score.

0 - Couldn't finish it was so bad
1- Horrible
2 - Very Bad
2.5 -OK <- just to be in the middle
3 - Good/Very Good
4- Excellent
5 - Perfect

Previous Discussion Threads:
1. Vertigo
2. Chinatown
3. Blue Velvet
4. Angel Heart
5. Porco Rosso
6. Fargo
7. The Shining
8. Amelie
9. American History X
10. Metropolis
11. Ran
 
Enjoyed it immensely. 4/5.

Was wondering how the hardboiled/noir style would work in this setting, but I think the director pulled it off very well. Felt like a little insulated world with the various dubious characters, the music and the dialogue all working together. Gordon-Levitt does a great job of firing off the stylised one-liners and strange lingo that underpins the overall atmosphere. He also embodies the generally irrational (but yet intelligent) approach to the whole thing, which ties in to the detectives of the stories this emulates.

Also really liked the sound design, the footsteps being something that stood out immediately. In the chase scene where the knife-wielding thug is chasing him it's used most effectively, giving the whole scene a sense of distance, intensity and abruptness that puts you in Brendan's shoes, in a way.
 
Forgot about this yesterday. It's queued up so I'll have to get to it I think tomorrow evening.
 
For those that haven't seen it yet - I found watching it with the subtitles helped a lot. Some of the lingo is difficult to understand and sometimes you're not sure you heard correctly etc.
 
I had difficulty with this one. Is it a twist on the noir genre or a parody done really well? Either way, I did enjoy it when I finally gave up and put on the subtitles. It made things a lot easier.

There's not much to not like here. JGL? Awesome. Meagan Good in crazy costumes? Good. Direction and editing? Fantastic. I think it was a bit muddled to begin with, especially with so much information thrown at the viewer so quickly, and in rapid fire dialogue at that.

I think this movie works if you just immerse yourself in it without a sense of incredulity. And you can't deny the style. Rian Johnson's debut is awash with it.

4/5

OrbitalDawn said:
For those that haven't seen it yet - I found watching it with the subtitles helped a lot. Some of the lingo is difficult to understand and sometimes you're not sure you heard correctly etc.
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Definitely. And it doesn't help that they discuss situations which the viewer has no backstory to fall onto.
 
Will post a review a bit later - thought you guys might enjoy reading the short story Rian Johnson wrote that became the Brick screenplay.

http://www.rcjohnso.com/brickscript/BrickNovella.pdf

From the introduction -
The first draft of Brick was written on a Mac SE on the poo colored carpeted floor of a
cramped Santa Monica apartment during a summer of post collegiate unemployment in
1996. Although it was always intended to be a screenplay, it was first put to paper in
prose as a glorified treatment which I enjoy calling a novella. The reasons for this
circuitous writing process were twofold: first I was very intentionally cribbing from the
novels of Dashiell Hammett, and thought that doing a prose pass imitating as best I could
his style of writing would help shape the thing as a whole. Second, I did not own a
professional screenwriting program, and had to format the whole damn thing using tabs
in Word, so the less I goofed around with it in screenplay format the better.
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Randhir said:
I had difficulty with this one. Is it a twist on the noir genre or a parody done really well? Either way, I did enjoy it when I finally gave up and put on the subtitles. It made things a lot easier.

There's not much to not like here. JGL? Awesome. Meagan Good in crazy costumes? Good. Direction and editing? Fantastic. I think it was a bit muddled to begin with, especially with so much information thrown at the viewer so quickly, and in rapid fire dialogue at that.

I think this movie works if you just immerse yourself in it without a sense of incredulity. And you can't deny the style. Rian Johnson's debut is awash with it.

4/5



Definitely. And it doesn't help that they discuss situations which the viewer has no backstory to fall onto.
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Yeah, I decided pretty early on to go with subtitles. You are sort of required to get caught up with some of the backstory through context. You're definitely not spoonfed the info. Good example being Jerr, Brendan's old friend who got busted.

While it could be a liability it also helped give the film and characters a sense of urgency and pace that fit the atmosphere well.
 
4.5/5

This is one of my favourite movies (I've probably watched it at least once a year since it came out)...I'll try not to be over the top :o

From the first conversation between Brain and Brendan, I was hooked. I'm a sucker for old detective novels and this movie's screenplay has alot of fun with the lingo from the 30's-40's era of crime fiction. If you're not in the right mood, it comes off pretentious and a bit too clever for itself but it's always worked for me. The language also lends itself it some little moments of sly humour that come off really nicely(the whole conversation with the dopeheads behind Coffee and Pie Oh My stands out).

It's effectively filmed with lots of different techniques on show...some lingering shots in still moments, slow, tight, intense pans in the Pin's house and panoramas of the external scenery (football field, the birds flying around).

Anyone catch the lyrics to the song Laura sings at the piano? The last verse goes -

"I mean to rule the earth,
As he the sky
We really know our worth,
The sun and I!"

I can't say that's a dead giveaway (Kara comes across as way more femme fatale-y), but in restrospect, it does show how she views herself and what she wants.

Great sound design, music (this might be entirely me but I think the synth in the main theme makes a sound almost like something the turquoise bangles Emily wears would make) while the chase scene Orbital mentions is fantastic.

Joseph Gordon Levitt nails the worn, dogged detective character, Norah Zehetner and Meagan Goode are fantastic while the rest of the cast pull their weight.

All in all, a great movie and definitely a cult classic.
 
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^ On the sly humour theme, I found the scene where Brendan tries to convince Tugger to let him meet The Pin quite hilarious. *Smack* "I want to meet The Pin" *smack* "I want to meet The Pin... *smack*. :D
 
Not yet finished, so far 2.5/5.

- The movie feels like a souped up student project, which it is. It's high-concept, low-budget all the way. Acting talent is thin and the editing is choppy.

- The dialogue, which is sometimes very sharp and witty, 1) feels jarring coming from the mouths of high school students un-ironically, like watching modern Shakesperean adaptations, and 2) muffled by bad sound quality and mumbling.

- The central conceit of making a noir film in a high school sort of works I guess, but it's not particularly illuminating of either the noir genre or the high-school drama, so it just feels like a mashup and I got irritated by the director's need to transpose every noir archetype into a high school equivalent (school principal = head of police, etc).

- Plot details are fuzzy and I'm struggling to care about any of the characters even Gordon-Levitt's.

- Despite the criticisms above, there are some fresh ideas and it's quite a fun movie. There's plenty here to indicate that the director has some talent - I enjoyed the scene with the mirror shining around the room.
 
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Neoprod said:
Joseph Gordon Levitt nails the worn, dogged detective character, Norah Zehetner and Meagan Goode are fantastic while the rest of the cast pull their weight.
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I've never been a fan of Zehetner and I didn't like her here either. I don't think she's a good actor at all.

cerebus said:
Not yet finished, so far 2.5/5.

- The movie feels like a souped up student project, which it is. It's high-concept, low-budget all the way. Acting talent is thin and the editing is choppy.

- The dialogue, which is sometimes very sharp and witty, 1) feels jarring coming from the mouths of high school students un-ironically, like watching modern Shakesperean adaptations, and 2) muffled by bad sound quality and mumbling.

- The central conceit of making a noir film in a high school sort of works I guess, but it's not particularly illuminating of either the noir genre or the high-school drama, so it just feels like a mashup and I got irritated by the director's need to transpose every noir archetype into a high school equivalent (school principal = head of police, etc).

- Plot details are fuzzy and I'm struggling to care about any of the characters even Gordon-Levitt's.

- Despite the criticisms above, there are some fresh ideas and it's quite a fun movie. There's plenty here to indicate that the director has some talent - I enjoyed the scene with the mirror shining around the room.
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I agree with a lot of that, but still thought a lot of it was quite fun.
 
OrbitalDawn said:
^ On the sly humour theme, I found the scene where Brendan tries to convince Tugger to let him meet The Pin quite hilarious. *Smack* "I want to meet The Pin" *smack* "I want to meet The Pin... *smack*. :D
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I thought the funniest part was the first scene with the VP where they make it crystal clear who exactly he would've been in a traditional noir setting..
 
3/5

I really wanted to like this but I struggled with the audio on the copy I got. Dialog was like whispers and the sound effects were like a Metallica concert. So as a result I missed out on 90% of what they were saying.
I want to blame the copy I have but I find this a common thing in a lot of movies, soft vocal track with big sound track. Wish I could have put on some subtitles ! Never thought of that... were you guys watching on netflix.

That aside I did get what they were trying to do with this film. I like the concept. If I get the chance Ill watch again with the subs on.
 
Nerfherder said:
3/5

I really wanted to like this but I struggled with the audio on the copy I got. Dialog was like whispers and the sound effects were like a Metallica concert. So as a result I missed out on 90% of what they were saying.
I want to blame the copy I have but I find this a common thing in a lot of movies, soft vocal track with big sound track. Wish I could have put on some subtitles ! Never thought of that... were you guys watching on netflix.

That aside I did get what they were trying to do with this film. I like the concept. If I get the chance Ill watch again with the subs on.
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The subtitles really make a difference. Kept me engrossed. Didn't watch on Netflix, just got them on Subscene or something, and made sure they fit the copy I had.
 
Nerfherder said:
3/5

I really wanted to like this but I struggled with the audio on the copy I got. Dialog was like whispers and the sound effects were like a Metallica concert. So as a result I missed out on 90% of what they were saying.
I want to blame the copy I have but I find this a common thing in a lot of movies, soft vocal track with big sound track. Wish I could have put on some subtitles ! Never thought of that... were you guys watching on netflix.

That aside I did get what they were trying to do with this film. I like the concept. If I get the chance Ill watch again with the subs on.
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Yeah, we should have posted in the main thread that anyone watching should have used the subtitles.. Jammer..
 
Randhir said:
Yeah, we should have posted in the main thread that anyone watching should have used the subtitles.. Jammer..
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Funny thing is because I struggle with my hearing I have subs on most things I watch anyway, Netflix and iplayer. Only thing I don't get subs on are movies I download, need to investigate things like this
 
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