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  • Brick

    Saw a special screening of this with director Q/A. Very interesting. I love film noir and to see it applied to a high school setting was a lot of fun. Not a perfect film, but much to admire and extremely stylish.

    Trailer here...

    http://www.apple.com/trailers/focus_features/brick/
    Twitter: @WriterLe

  • #2
    Re: Brick

    oh, wow...

    looks great. Hope it gets an early UK release.

    Visually, the trailer's thick with Chinatown nods, isn't it. The shot of someone drowned in what could be a concrete tributary of the LA River was even cued up with a horn flirting close with Goldsmith's score. Looks like the young detective even has the "nose" for a mystery. (Hmm... overdone, or does he pull it off?)

    How's the dialogue?
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    • #3
      Re: Brick

      Originally posted by BROUGHCUT
      oh, wow...

      looks great. Hope it gets an early UK release.

      Visually, the trailer's thick with Chinatown nods, isn't it. The shot of someone drowned in what could be a concrete tributary of the LA River was even cued up with a horn flirting close with Goldsmith's score. Looks like the young detective even has the "nose" for a mystery. (Hmm... overdone, or does he pull it off?)

      How's the dialogue?
      The dialogue is pure hard-boiled noir. The director said he initially wrote the story as a 100 page novella after devouring Dashiell Hammett books. Then he realized the novellla read like a treatment, he started writing it as a script. The movie references everything from "Maltese Falcon" to "Miller's Crossing".

      By the way, this is the director's first film. Took him 7 years to make it on a budget of less than $500,000. Looks mind-bogglingly amazing for that budget. An audacious debut.
      Twitter: @WriterLe

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      • #4
        Re: Brick

        when I saw $3,000,000 in Filmtracker (a regurgitated figure, obviously, not saying that's accurate) after watching the trailer, I thought to myself: hmm just goes to show what you can do on a low budget [bloody "stars"].

        But $500,000 is truly amazing.

        I notice he sold an animation pitch to Disney in 2003 for six figures, based on his own epic poem, The Prince and the Pig ("a boy and his pig brave all odds in an attempt to steal a piece of the moon"). Sounds like a diverse talent.
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        • #5
          Re: Brick

          Originally posted by BROUGHCUT
          when I saw $3,000,000 in Filmtracker (a regurgitated figure, obviously, not saying that's accurate) after watching the trailer, I thought to myself: hmm just goes to show what you can do on a low budget [bloody "stars"].

          But $500,000 is truly amazing.

          I notice he sold an animation pitch to Disney in 2003 for six figures, based on his own epic poem, The Prince and the Pig ("a boy and his pig brave all odds in an attempt to steal a piece of the moon"). Sounds like a diverse talent.
          I think the $3,000,000 includes the $2,000,000 Focus paid to buy it, prints, etc.
          Twitter: @WriterLe

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          • #6
            Re: Brick

            Saw this last month at a screening in San Jose. Good film. Great performances. Loved Lukas Haas as The Pin. Can't wait to see it again on DVD...with English subtitles! Dialogue is almost too impenetrable for its own good, but it's a credit to the writing and perfs that you pretty much get the gist of things and are able to go with the flow, picking up what you might have missed.

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            • #7
              Re: Brick

              Meet your new cult favorite, fellas.
              Meet the old Brick thread.
              The Complete IfilmPro DEVELOPMENT FORUM (PDF)

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              • #8
                Re: Brick

                Jeez, my apologies. How dare I? I'll consolidate.

                Ele...

                I saw Brick last night. I gotta say, I was pumped to see it after their great trailer and I'm happy to say it was better than I imagined.

                It's a wonderfully suspenseful and eerie film. It's like the Son of David Lynch. But that would take away from the dialogue -- which is the Maltese Falcon set in high school. Sure, it seems like a gimmick. But it works. It's simply a matter of the filmmakers creating a world and sucking us into it. That dialogue is part of that world. And once you figure out a bit of the lingo, the ride gets even better. Rian Johnson makes some great visual strides for such a low budgets affair. The twisty plot may seem typical to noir fans, but the characters and the direction more than make up for that.

                Best of all is Joseph Gordon Levitt. He puts in an amazing performance. I couldn't stand to even look at promos for 3rd Rock From The Sun. He has come a long way.

                Meet your new cult favorite, fellas.

                Ele...

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                • #9
                  Re: Brick

                  I didn't think the dialogue worked at all. It was a total gimmick and completely took me out of the film.
                  Had it been just a noir, thriller without the pretentious dialogue it would have been better.
                  Gordon-Levitt was great, but his performance was wasted in this.
                  None of this "high school, gangster, Orange County tough guy, kid from Witness with huge ears" drama worked for me. None of it was realistic in any way.

                  This isn't the Howard Johnson's.

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                  • #10
                    Re: Brick

                    The director on AICN said Brick is doing awesome box office on every screen it's playing at except here in Austin... Go out and see it you lazy bastards! its good!

                    Who'd a thunk the kid from Third Rock could be so cool?

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                    • #11
                      Re: Brick

                      But what do Hairy and Jake say?



                      Can't wait to see it. I'll report back afterward.
                      Just one more reason to get hammered tonight.


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                      • #12
                        Re: Brick

                        How did this slip past me? Noir is my crack-I have to have it!

                        This looks like something I'm going to love.
                        sigpic

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                        • #13
                          Re: Brick

                          It's forced and fake.
                          I saw it in a basically empty theater in LA, so I can't believe it's doing that well ($636,000 after three weeks).

                          This isn't the Howard Johnson's.

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                          • #14
                            Re: Brick

                            Just caught this on DVD.

                            Very good film.

                            Doesn't live up to the hype I have heard over and over again although my expectations were set so high that nothing could. (Without the build up, I might be saying 'great film').

                            Director's commentary is pretty good- very earnest and down to earth.

                            Really amazing for a debut.

                            An he confirms the budget was $10K.

                            He wrote in 1996 and made it in 2006.

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                            • #15
                              Re: Brick

                              Originally posted by TwoBitHack
                              An he confirms the budget was $10K.
                              Holy crap!
                              Only 10K, you sure 2Bit?
                              A talent for drama is not a talent for writing, but is an ability to articulate human relationships.
                              Gore Vidal

                              "Aisatsu Yori Ensatsu"
                              Money is better than compliments.


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