Brick review

My latest Netflix rental was the 2005 release Brick. Written and directed by Rian Johnson (his first full-length feature), the film garnered a lot of attention at last year’s Sundance Film Festival when it won the Special Jury Prize. The film is based on a very simple but unique idea. Take a genre and lift the dialogue, mood and characterizations and place it in an entirely new setting. In this case, Johnson took a typical Noir-ish, gumshoe story and set it in the present day with high school kids filling the roles of tough guys, femme fatales, gangsters and informants.
Needless to say, the concept works very well. Lead tough guy Brendan, played perfectly by Joesph Gordon-Levitt, gets a mysterious phone call from an ex-girlfriend, she sounds scared and seems to want help. He sets off to find out wants she’s gotten into and enlists the help of The Brain, a local know-it-all.
The story has its twists and turns and you have fun watching the classic roles of ‘the muscle’ and ‘crime lord’ filled by such boyish faces. My only issue with the story is that I didn’t care how it ended; it was more fun to just watch the variety of characters. It felt like they slapped on a generic Maltese Falcon like speech at the end that sort of made sense. But it is still a very well-crafted movie and I highly recommend it for fans of 30s and 40s Noir fans.

My next Netflix review will be of Infernal Affairs, the Hong Kong cop thriller that Scorsese has remade and is releasing this October as "The Departed".

who's doing what and with who

They tell me it's been a week since I've updated the site. Well, here's a weeks worth of news:

Over at Yahoo Movie News they're reporting that two off my favorite directors will be working on new projects soon. Wes Anderson will start filming his latest flick The Darjeeling Limited in India starting at the end of this year. The film is yet another Anderson/Owen Wilson writing collaboration (I'm a little tired of Owen Wilson but these two do write good screenplays together). Wilson, Jason Schwartzman and Adrien Brody play three brothers on a spiritual trip to India after their father dies. Ah, another family dramedy from Anderson, I can't wait.

Also reported, Tim Burton will bring the musical Sweeney Todd to the big screen and guess who's playing the title character? Burton's go-to guy for off-the-wall characters, Johnny Depp. This should be weird and visually appealing, but we wont know if it's good until it's seen.

I've read that there will be a film adaptation of the children's book "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs". I personally remember that one well and as a child had a fear of being squashed by giant meatballs whenever it rained. This fits well with the slowly developing screen version of "Where the Wild Things Are", another of my boyhood favorites. Spike Jonze was attached to the project last I heard but it seems to be in development limbo, they don't even know if it will be CGI or live-action yet.

A short comment about another project that I would love to see actually happen. Apparently there is a Metal Gear Solid movie slated for release in 2008 by Universal Pictures. We need to write some letters because I want Universal to make this movie happen. The video games this film would be based on are more finely crafted than half of what Hollywood puts out each year. The plots, the action, the cut-scenes are flawless and on top of that the lead hero is the ultimate one-man army. And you know who would be perfect to play Solid Snake?... Hugh Jackman. I know, it would be nice to get the guy who does the voice acting for the games but you need to have a star to get something obscure like this moving. If you haven't play the games, go rent Metal Gear Solid for the playstation or Twisted Snakes for the Gamecube and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Finally, here's a story that just made me angry reading it. I wish that Bryan Singer would just have stayed on and did X-men 3, it could have been so much better than what we got this summer. I'll admit I was excited to see what he would do with Superman, but after seeing both films I was doubly disappointed. Granted, Fox could have waited a couple years and let Singer complete the trilogy after his work on Superman, but they had to get the movie out to compete with Supes. Enter Brett Ratner, the man who brought us the Rush Hour movies and a sub-par adaptation of Red Dragon (saved only by the phenomenal cast). Ratner, combined with the fact that Fox rushed through every step of the filmmaking process, directed a lack-luster, stale action movie. I don't even care if they continue the series. If they try, it won't have Singer's vision and it will be minus most of our favorite mutants. I'd rather see another Singer-directed Superman film before I watch any more X-men movies, and I don't even like Superman that much. Read the whole story and you too will be as depressed as I am right now.

live free like pirates or die hard like spiders

Here's a tentative but mostly official release schedule for the summer of 2007:

May 4: Spider-Man 3
May 18: Shrek the Third
May 25: Pirates of The Caribbean: At World's End
June 8: Ocean's Thirteen
June 15: Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer
June 22: Evan Almighty
June 29th: Live Free or Die Hard
July 4: Transformers
July 13: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
July 27: The Simpsons Movie
August 3: The Bourne Ultimatum
August 10: Rush Hour 3

I'm not sure how I feel about this. I have to say it's an impressive, yet boring lineup. Every single one of these is either the latest in a franchise; a spinoff from a previous summer movie; or based on a TV show. But again I'm torn; I actually want to see most of these movies. In fact I have a moderate to strong desire to see all of these films with the exception of Rush Hour 3, a movie I have little to no interest in seeing (which is the same way I felt about Rush Hour 2).

I guess this is the kind of stuff that we expect from summer movies (Michael Bay will never win an Oscar) but with this volume of franchise releases I don't see how any original films are going to be able to garner any mass attention, let alone any money at the box office. I guess filmmakers with fresh ideas will have to fight over the other 8 months of the year. However, as a fan of box office trends I am anxious to see how obscene the grosses generated by the month of May alone will be with the Spiderman, Shrek and Pirates threequels. For the record, the films I'm most anticipating are: Spiderman 3, The Bourne Ultimatum and Harry Potter 5.

how soon is to soon?

World Trade Center is coming out tomorrow, a release date that is a little over a month shy of the 5th anniversary of the attacks in NYC. For the paper I write for I had the opportunity last week to interview some local fire fighters and police officers and ask what they think about a 9/11 movie being made. The answers varied, as expected. Here's some of the quotes I got, for those interested:

"Personally, I have shied away from this kind of stuff," said a local fire fighter. "Even documentaries. I'm not ready for Hollywood's version either."

The fire fighter added that while it's nice to be honored by Hollywood, glorifying fire fighters and police officers hasn't really done any true service to what he and other officials do.

However, a local police officer praised the makers of World Trade Center for doing their research. Michael Pena spent time living with the Port Authority man he portrays in the film, Officer William Jimeno.

"I'll probably see it," said the police officer. "I know it was approved by some of the fire fighters and police officers involved. They're the ones who have been through the tragedy more than us as a nation... we as citizens should respect that."

I spoke with many others, but this is a sample of some of what is being said about the film. I think I'm on the fence on this one, but I'm keeping an open mind and I'll go see the movie as well.