Brick, first of all, was a really low budget film made in 2005, but didn't really get any exposure until this summer. And it's a damn shame, too.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Third Rock from the Sun) stars in the film as a highschool "detective". He's a face most people would recognize but not know his name, which I think works really well for the film. His solid acting helps keep the film together, although the supporting cast doesn't really slouch either.
The film details a murder of his ex-girlfriend, which inevitably leads him to the underground world of cocaine (ie: Brick) which is ran through it seems like people that are either seniors in highschool or just graduated. Although that part of the plot seems kind of ridiculous (that 18 year olds could run that), it's really one of the very few flaws of the film, and it still fits.
The dialogue of Brick is sharp, as the film is pushed on by the script rather than the camera. The action is more cued by character's conversations instead of their movements, which I'm not always a big fan of, but it still works here. The only gaff I found was that all the characters, especially Pin and Brendan, talk really quick, so if you're not paying attention or space out for a few minutes (like I did at one point), you'll miss a swath of information and find yourself confused for awhile. This quick-talking is of course a homage to the film-noirs in American cinema from the late 40's and early 50's, where everyone spoke a billion miles an hour. In many ways, Brick is a throwback to those classic films, specifically in dialogue and action cues. And it still works.
The highschool setting seems a bit off-putting for a film-noir, but again, the plot demands it and it still works. The adult supervision (which is usually lacking in most films about teen-adventure) is actually THERE, but the fragile balance is maintained so what the characters do doesn't seem ridiculous.
One character that I absolutely found to be the most believeable was Tugger. Not only did he surprise me, but as the hothead bodyguard, his actions and what he said was completely justified in the film. He didn't step outside of his character, which can be found frequently in teen-films (and frankly, sucks).
The shots of the film were also well put together, which once again was a nice surprise for a low budget flick. Director Rian Johnson did a standup job balancing artistic shots with the standard, so every now and then, the audience with a keen eye get a treat. A few specifically stick out in my mind, one of a close up of Brendan's face on the right side of the screen as a car rushes by, and another of Tugger, Pin, and Brendan in a basement looking up at the cieling listening to noises. Both of those definitely convey a message during the action, which jump in place to the character's words (these specific shots have no dialogue). It's there where the audience can just get into the heads of the characters, and there's many shots like that.
All in all, one could never guess this film was made on a budget of only 500K. It grossed only 2 million (US) and about 600K (UK), but that's still a smash success for such a little film.
If you ever see this film around and are a fan of mysteries, I highly recommend Brick... but just don't space out. You'll probably need to watch it twice.
-Mark
Next: Hard Candy
Friday, August 18, 2006
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Sequel
So it's been a little while since I dropped in with actual content for the "new" site, but of course, I've watched movies like no tomorrow between those empty weeks. My life's been a roller coaster of monotomy, so pretty much it's been going in a straight line. But enough about my hilariously depressing life - onto the movies!
So today, I'll be discussing Pirates of the Caribbean : Dead Man's Chest. [Spoilers ahoy.]
First of all, this movie was highly advertised, so it's not like people haven't heard of it. With the whole "blockbuster" sequel they tried to tout, it had some big shoes to fill after Curse of the Black Pearl. And let me tell you, it fails to get even close.
It's produced by Disney to start, which typically ensures a hammed-up moral point that's "positive". And as usual, there are clear cut good and bad characters, with nobody really floating in the middle, save Jack Sparrow (this being established in the first movie, so it fits). Will Turner is the protypical male superhero, that's made to identify with the audience while inexplicably having ridiculous on-the-spot talents that are just convienent to the plot, yet never previously explained (ie: the quickness of him figuring out the dice game, and consequently playing well without any learning curve, against the best player). Elizabeth is actually pretty forgotten within the whole film, probably only covering 20-30 minutes of actual "development". She's seen at the beginning - forgotten for nearly 45 minutes, thrown into a relatively unexplained scene, forgotten again, and then put in the film another 45 minutes later. She never takes a dominating role in the film, which is a huge drawback considering she's the main female protagonist, and the one the female audience is supposed to identify with. But when in scenes with either Jack or Will, she doesn't ever take a dominant role, instead the attention being shifted to the males. I'm not exactly surprised by this, considering this is typical Disney to push the female into a supporting role. I can only think of a few - actually, one movie that doesn't do this (Mulan, which is flawed in its own ways).
Jack is clever and smarmy in his own way, but I completely didn't feel his character the way I did in the Curse of the Black Pearl. In the first film, he was clever and smarmy, and funny in a not stupid way. In Dead Man's Chest, he seems overdone. The one-liners aren't particularly funny, nor are his supposedly amusing actions. Instead the pickles he gets into are more caused by stupidity, and result in an even more unbelievable result. The fearlessness he seems to have in the first movie (yes I know he runs a lot, but it's more like a tease in the first, not in the second) is forgotten until some ridiculous concept of his galant bravery is crammed literally into the last 20 seconds he's on screen, when he's stepping into the mouth of the beast. Given the way he acts throughout the movie, it'd seem more likely and plausable that he'd sacrafice everyone else to save himself, not the other way around.
While the CG is impressive, particularly with Davy Jones' crew and the sea-monster, it's basically all the film has to offer. I enjoy the work done on the ship as it dives, and as it falls apart from the monster. But the plot itself can't support anything, and the CG can't carry the movie. The most aggrevating thing about the plot that I found was that it danced around, never really explaining half of what was supposed to be going on. While time is supposed to pass in the film, I never really get the impression of how much, especially since everything seems to happen within about the course of a month, when in context of the film, one could roughly expect 1-2 years to pass. With such a large disparity in contuinity, I easily found myself frustrated at the assumed logic the film took. Will's supposed to be on this ship, so they're discussing it - and in the next scene, he's a crewmember of said rival ship? And how in the hell would he come up with such ridiculous plans so quickly? There's one thing for cunning, but Will is more of an all-action guy, with a knack for logic - he can fight and he can catch onto people's intentions quickly, but nowhere does it seem to indicate he's one ot make plans properly - especially since from the first movie, he wasn't even a seaman, so it's natural to assume he'd only have a fringe knowledge of vessels and the intricaces of running it, even after a year.
The editing bothered me as well, but this goes into the timeline. However, the shameless hamming of a triology also bothered me, espeically considering this film was weak overall and pretty nonsensical. I don't care what they're doing in the third film, although I'm sure that it'll be just as stupid and ridiculously contrived as this adventure.
And two more things - the fight scenes dragged on way too long, particularly the spinning wheel one. Amusing? Yes, but it didn't deserve the 15 minutes of screen time it got. Second: Norrington. Wow, how could anyone make a main antagonist so underdeveloped? I had no real idea why he was hating Jack. As far as I was concerned, he was some goon the Imperials hired to get the heart of Davy Jones (because they want it why?).
All in all, the film's grotesque budget of 225 million dollars was in my eyes, a failure. It turns out all that money was spent on stars and CG, instead writing a solid script and getting a believable plot.
-Mark
Reviewing Brick next.
So today, I'll be discussing Pirates of the Caribbean : Dead Man's Chest. [Spoilers ahoy.]
First of all, this movie was highly advertised, so it's not like people haven't heard of it. With the whole "blockbuster" sequel they tried to tout, it had some big shoes to fill after Curse of the Black Pearl. And let me tell you, it fails to get even close.
It's produced by Disney to start, which typically ensures a hammed-up moral point that's "positive". And as usual, there are clear cut good and bad characters, with nobody really floating in the middle, save Jack Sparrow (this being established in the first movie, so it fits). Will Turner is the protypical male superhero, that's made to identify with the audience while inexplicably having ridiculous on-the-spot talents that are just convienent to the plot, yet never previously explained (ie: the quickness of him figuring out the dice game, and consequently playing well without any learning curve, against the best player). Elizabeth is actually pretty forgotten within the whole film, probably only covering 20-30 minutes of actual "development". She's seen at the beginning - forgotten for nearly 45 minutes, thrown into a relatively unexplained scene, forgotten again, and then put in the film another 45 minutes later. She never takes a dominating role in the film, which is a huge drawback considering she's the main female protagonist, and the one the female audience is supposed to identify with. But when in scenes with either Jack or Will, she doesn't ever take a dominant role, instead the attention being shifted to the males. I'm not exactly surprised by this, considering this is typical Disney to push the female into a supporting role. I can only think of a few - actually, one movie that doesn't do this (Mulan, which is flawed in its own ways).
Jack is clever and smarmy in his own way, but I completely didn't feel his character the way I did in the Curse of the Black Pearl. In the first film, he was clever and smarmy, and funny in a not stupid way. In Dead Man's Chest, he seems overdone. The one-liners aren't particularly funny, nor are his supposedly amusing actions. Instead the pickles he gets into are more caused by stupidity, and result in an even more unbelievable result. The fearlessness he seems to have in the first movie (yes I know he runs a lot, but it's more like a tease in the first, not in the second) is forgotten until some ridiculous concept of his galant bravery is crammed literally into the last 20 seconds he's on screen, when he's stepping into the mouth of the beast. Given the way he acts throughout the movie, it'd seem more likely and plausable that he'd sacrafice everyone else to save himself, not the other way around.
While the CG is impressive, particularly with Davy Jones' crew and the sea-monster, it's basically all the film has to offer. I enjoy the work done on the ship as it dives, and as it falls apart from the monster. But the plot itself can't support anything, and the CG can't carry the movie. The most aggrevating thing about the plot that I found was that it danced around, never really explaining half of what was supposed to be going on. While time is supposed to pass in the film, I never really get the impression of how much, especially since everything seems to happen within about the course of a month, when in context of the film, one could roughly expect 1-2 years to pass. With such a large disparity in contuinity, I easily found myself frustrated at the assumed logic the film took. Will's supposed to be on this ship, so they're discussing it - and in the next scene, he's a crewmember of said rival ship? And how in the hell would he come up with such ridiculous plans so quickly? There's one thing for cunning, but Will is more of an all-action guy, with a knack for logic - he can fight and he can catch onto people's intentions quickly, but nowhere does it seem to indicate he's one ot make plans properly - especially since from the first movie, he wasn't even a seaman, so it's natural to assume he'd only have a fringe knowledge of vessels and the intricaces of running it, even after a year.
The editing bothered me as well, but this goes into the timeline. However, the shameless hamming of a triology also bothered me, espeically considering this film was weak overall and pretty nonsensical. I don't care what they're doing in the third film, although I'm sure that it'll be just as stupid and ridiculously contrived as this adventure.
And two more things - the fight scenes dragged on way too long, particularly the spinning wheel one. Amusing? Yes, but it didn't deserve the 15 minutes of screen time it got. Second: Norrington. Wow, how could anyone make a main antagonist so underdeveloped? I had no real idea why he was hating Jack. As far as I was concerned, he was some goon the Imperials hired to get the heart of Davy Jones (because they want it why?).
All in all, the film's grotesque budget of 225 million dollars was in my eyes, a failure. It turns out all that money was spent on stars and CG, instead writing a solid script and getting a believable plot.
-Mark
Reviewing Brick next.
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