Wednesday, April 05, 2006

It's Duck Soup For You Yegs.

Right, so this was supposed to mark another entry in the What I’m Whatevering department, but then I realized I had enough to say about one thing that to continue with the rest of the list would be to keep all of us here much longer than any of us want to be, and so…yeah, now it’s just Movie Recommendation Time!

And that movie? Is Brick. Because Brick? Was awesome in italics – even after my looking forward to it for almost a year, which I know makes me sound pathetic, but it’s not like I was putting big, red “X’s” on my wall calendar, counting down the days, or anything – it’s just, I heard about it, and it took a year to come out. It’s not like I didn’t have expectations (see: the links section on the side), which it definitely lived up to, is all I’m saying. And it’s been a while since I’ve had a movie to obsess over (Batman? Star Wars? Fun, but…ya know), so bear with me.

Okay, so, be a good movie set in high school, and you’ve already won me over (if you think I’m kidding, Mean Girls was on my Top 5 Movies of Whatever-Year-It-Came-Out List). The same goes for being a good mystery (Encyclopedia Brown and I go way back). But do both at the same time, and I promise to name my kid after you. And Brick, poor kid, is a detective story set in high school – Brendan’s ex-girlfriend turns up dead-in-the-first-few-seconds-so-I-didn’t-give-anything-away, and he sets out to figure out why, running into all manner of shifty situations and entertainingly disreputable characters along the way. And, yeah, that makes it sound a lot like Veronica Mars (at least, if you know what Veronica Mars sounds like, watch Veronica Mars), but, if anything, the two are more comparable in the fact that they both have a plot and dialogue that are packed – forcing you to pay attention while guaranteeing that you’ll want to, anyway – than they are in any other fashion (as Brick doesn’t really revolve around the mystery in the same way, its being more about the quest than the question). But, right, enough with the comparing two things that you probably haven’t seen, yet (though, if you have, let me know, and your name goes to the next kid).

Because what really makes Brick awesome (or, "even more awesome") is that the whole thing looks, feels and sounds like those old noir mystery stories and movies, which, if you don’t know, is to say like…ugh, is the most recent, reliable comparison we have for “film noir” really those Flonase commercials? Um – okay, you know those old black-and-white movies, with the private eyes and the mean, lonely streets and the “You’re gonna close your head, drop the dame and scram, else I squirt metal” [i.e. You’re gonna shut up, let go of the girl and get outta here or I shoot]? You know (random) but the kind of thing Roger Rabbit was paying tribute to? Right, so that’s what this is, but instead of being a parody or even an homage to some old movies, it really creates its own world, with its own rules and language (no, really, they even hand you a cool little Brick Talk glossary when you walk in, I’m not even kidding), a world that's somewhere in-between old detective movies and a modern-day high school. And while that could have gone horribly “Kids Playing Dress Up” wrong (or, “How Independent-Film of You to Spend More Time Trying to Get Cool Points for Style, While Forgetting About the Story?” wrong) the movie tells a great story, with great characters, all while having enough confidence in its unusual self that everything stays right, preempting any possible questions (Why are these kids talking like that? Why are their parents letting this happen? Why is any of this allowed to go on at a high school?) with a “because we said so” that keeps you from wondering, in the first place.

So
, in case I bored you, up there, and you skipped to the end – all I’m saying is that Brick is completely cool, and, once it makes it into more theaters, you’d do best to go see it. It’s the sort of movie that I inadvertently find myself writing more-than-one paragraph about. It’s the sort of movie that you inadvertently find yourself pretending you’re in, in your head, as you walk out of the theater (you know what I mean…uh, right?). It’s the sort of movie that I wish I made (and, actually, it kind of resembles a story that I did make, before I even knew this existed, but don’t worry, they’re different enough that I won’t get sued, if I ever learn how to write a decent mystery).

Oh, and its super-cool, no-nonsense main character makes an excellent case for quiet outsiders who wear glasses. Which, I suppose, might explain why I liked it so much…


Background Noise: Well, the soundtrack. Easy, this time.


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