come anticipate 'Brick' with me!

I hated this movie. Which is weird cuz I tend to love ripoffs of Chandler/Hammet, and I love teen movies that operate within their own little world (cf. Bugsy Malone!), but this just did not work. It's internal logic just didn't work for me - it switched back and forth between the rules of noir and the rules of teenage reality whenever it was convenient, which I found really annoying and distracting.

for example, the role of the assistant principal - the only adult role in the film, but if there's one adult, where are the others? DOES NOT COMPUTE

I just wish it had decided which world it was in - this total unreal neo-teen-noir world, or the real world. Flitting back and forth between one and the other just made it really irritating - internal consistency is important when the premise of a film requires the temporary suspension of disbelief.

There was also a mother.

But the Asst. Principal is The Man, or The Chief - the authority figure who intrudes upon the seedy underbelly Our Hero exists within.

There was no reason to have more adults, it wasn't about them.

unwatchable.

I understand each and every noir archetype fulfilled by the various characters Milo, but their usage was haphazard and sloppy - why did the Chief have to be an adult at all? There being one adult authority figure implies the existence of an outside world capable of influencing the teenage one - yet no one in the film worries about cops or anything like that, just the assistant principal? what the fuck.

I really did want to turn this off in the middle, which is pretty rare for something I rented.

There being one adult authority figure implies the existence of an outside world capable of influencing the teenage one

erm an outside ADULT world

What should the Asst. Principal have been instead in order to serve his role?

He had to be an adult because he had to come from outside the kids' world. There are no readily identifiable teenage figures who could play The Chief.

THIS MOVIE IS CRAP AND YOU ARE ALL CRAZY.

They coulda made up any kid as an authority figure, as long as logic's going out the window - an older sibling perhaps, a kid in charge of a place all the other kids frequent, there's an endless stream of possibilities.

But my underlying point is this: why bother setting the movie in a teenage world anyway, if its just gonna be a straight Chandler/Hammet plot, with all the adult motivations and chicanery, complete with faithful dialogue? If you aren't gonna have the characters operate in any of the standard way teenagers do, or have their world bear any resemblance to teenage life and motives and concerns, or have the plot hinge on any teenage concerns or character traits - why make it about teenagers at all? So gimmicky and pointless.

(x-post)

They couldn't 'make up any kid as an authority figure' because they would have to tell you. The audience immediately and clearly identifies the Asst. Principal as the The Man, just as they would the Chief of Police or someone in a traditional noir.

I haven't seen it in over a year, but I think you're overstating the adultness of the characters. The concerns and attitudes seemed teenager-centric, they didn't have the freedom of adults, they were still bound in by suburban life/school/parents.

oh come on, nobody's concerns in the movie had anything to do with being a teenager - they were all classic ADULT noir concerns: the femme fatale, the underworld criminal boss, the cocaine, murder, etc.

That's the point - femme fatales and drugs and lost love are equally teenage concerns in other respects, aside from the murder (and hell, I grew up in a pretty easygoing city so maybe not even that). The underworld criminal boss was a petty dealer with a couple of henchmen.

(see also: story behind Alpha Dog for the real-world version of "underworld criminal boss")

I would have been happy if they had chosen one or the other: either play the film weird all the way with no adults anywhere a la Bugsy Malone, or actually make it about teenagers (and not teenagers pretending to be adults) and place it in the ostensibly "real" world. This six-of-one, half dozen of the other approach was a mess.

x-post

"Teenagers pretending to be adults" = teenagers

There was no six-of-one. There were two adults and only one relevant (the other existed to remind you that the hardcore badass mastermind you refer to was actually 18 and living in Mom's basement) - and he had to be from outside their world, as per noir authority rules.

C'MON YOU KNOW THIS MOVIE SUCKS.

Shakey your point makes zero sense to me.

teenagers bein' all noir is far more plausible than adults acting that way, which is a giant fantasy.

...which would be ok, again, if the actors had been trained to deliver the argot.

i like this movie enough that i bought a copy.

haters OTM.

Although if it had actually been a high school play instead of a movie it would've been great!

SHIT SANDWICH.

Maybe clarifying Shakey's point a little: the teenage world is recognizable as the noir world (actions, motivations) but what's the point if the teenagers don't TALK like teenagers? (ie Alfred OTM). Not trusting the teenagers not to talk like the Continental Op and still come up noir --> unpleasant gimmick.

this movie is better teen noir than brick

http://www.digitallyobsessed.com/cover_art1/tart.jpg

seriously

so weird. I had no idea this was such a divisive movie.

ilxors only like contrived teen movies when theyre made in the 80s (ferris bueller etc)

... except when they're called "brick" and made in the 2000s? are you sure you read the thread?

kenan i really really wanted to like this and yet it's one of only like 3 movies i've ever walked out on, so when other people express mild enjoyment it's just perplexing to me.

New Best Friend >> The Smokers >> Tart

It's Joseph Gordon-Levitt's finest role since Angels In The Outfield

It's a really fun movie. A little amateurish at times. The fight scenes were very entertaining and the running scene culminating in the trip was very clever and well executed. The dialog was great, not for it's authentic delivery, but for the humor. I especially love the moment on the beach when the Pin asks him if he's ever read Tolkien. "His descriptions of things are really good. He makes you wanna be there."

Haters are sour and have no sense of fun.

Teen movies might as well be written and acted like this because they are almost all painful to listen to, even the good ones.

"She knows where I sit at lunch."

C'mon. That's awesome.

I hardly even think of it as a teen movie. It's pretty effective noir, down to the last cliche.

There's a little plot problem at the end, tho.

Since being a poseur has done so much for Tarantino, you can't blame the (much less talented) writer-director for trying it with this tripe.

Yeah I'm gonna have to join the haters on this one. The trailer got my girlfriend and I so hyped up, but when we finally rented it we were both pretty disappointed. I get that the stylized dialogue was sort of the point, but after Veronica Mars proved that you can do high school noir while still letting the characters talk like chatty modern teenagers, it just felt so ham-fisted and overcooked. I mean, I went to a high school were small-time dealers beat up and killed each other over drugs, so the plot didn't seem too far-fetched, they just made it feel ridiculous with poor exectution. And it felt very much like the rookie director's first effort that it was, hopefully his next one will be better.

it felt very much like the rookie director's first effort that it was

yes, but i'm kinda thrilled by that

hopefully his next one will be better

fingers crossed

RUFFALO

I wanna see John and Fluffy Bear At the Movies now.

roffalo

The Bros Bloomps?

I was all about this movie fwiw

John Justen and Fluffy Bear at the movies is in preproduction at the moment, but prominent names have been attatched to the project.

Wow, I'm also surprised there's a hater contingent for this one. The complaint that doesn't really make sense to me is Shakey's:

If you aren't gonna have the characters operate in any of the standard way teenagers do, or have their world bear any resemblance to teenage life and motives and concerns...

This is weird to me, since so much of the obvious surface-level fun and recognition of the thing comes from the way the high-school setting is already noir. Someone's already mentioned the "where have you been eating lunch" slang, which is a good example of that -- but it goes beyond the slang, really, into the idea of high schools as microcosms where there really is an importance to where you're eating lunch, with complex heirarchies and subterranean groups and social scheming that's as noir as anything from the get-go. Most of the great moments of crossover and recognition come from that, with the assistant principal scene probably chief among them -- the ass VP is the police of the high school world, the disciplinarian, the one adult who's actually (in the real world!) trying to keep track of how a high school's worlds operate (they have informants and shit!), and so it turns out to be a rather narrow exaggeration to have one taking on that role, right? I can't figure out why this bothered Shakey, rather than pretty well delivering the chuckly recognition it seemed meant for.

There was a review somewhere that basically said that this movie has no idea who their audience is which is probably otm. Most teenagers wouldn't get the Hammett/Chandler references and the people who do get it probably wouldn't get why they have to be placed in the context of a modern high school. My first impression was that they were pretty much saying that noir-speak is a lot like teenage-speak - impenetrable unless you're part of that world. Nabisco otm, it is pretty clear that Brick (and Veronica Mars as mentioned upthread) is basically pointing out that high-school is very noir. When I saw this, it really got me wondering why nobody thought about doing this earlier.

I kind of liked it, mostly because it is so obviously done by an amateur, you could see just how hard they were trying. And there were a lot of fun moments - how could you not appreciate all the physical comedy in this? All the fighting scenes were great! Plus, I liked the dorky kid who plays JGL's sidekick/man-on-the-inside but then again, I would.

I thought it was pretty well directed, though it's not like I really know about those things. The previously mentioned chase/trip scene stands out, as does the visual concept of the pin's dark basement with almost no furniture and the really low ceiling.

People think too much about stuff.

nabisco 8080 -- it's much more realistic than the obligatory 'newcomer is introduced to the taxonomy of highschool subcultures' lunch-room scene in every other teen movie

EVEN "TEN THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU"!?!?!?

How many times has Joseph Gordon-Leavitt been introduced to the taxonomy of high school subcultures in a lunchroom?

the most obnoxious Sundance Concept Movie I've seen yet.