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orange_crushedIn nicer news, I saw the movie Brick last night (at last.) It's the story of a loner trying to solve his ex's murder, and getting tangled into a seedy underworld of drugs, guns, money and sex.
Oh, yeah: and it's set in high school.
First of all, I have to say that the cast was terrific. Joseph Gordon-Levitt delivered lines like "Throw one at me if you want, hash head. I've got all five senses and I slept last night, that puts me six up on the lot of you." with a kind of honest intensity that doesn't come across in actors twice his age. And everybody slipped into their thriller roles without slipping into caricatures, which could have easily been done. There was a scene with Kara, the femme fatale, where she's sitting before the mirror in geisha makeup, turning her charm on and off with a flicker of her eyelashes, that is so pitch-perfect for the character that it's almost magical.
And everything carries into the high-school setting so well, I was highly surprised. I didn't think it would hook me so completely, with the posturing and musical, brutal language that belongs to the genre, but it works. The stiffs and thugs are on the football team, the junkie hangs out behind the local diner, the school becomes battleground and haven and mean streets by turns. The hard-boiled vice-principal takes on a shade of the hard-boiled chief of police. It works. It fits. It's real.
And, finally, the cinematography is lovely. It's honest, too, like its anti-hero, and the bleak ugliness of modern public-school architecture becomes almost beautiful. Stills from IMDB can be found here.
Gary Trueman: You've helped this office out before.
Brendan: No, I gave you Jerr to see him eaten- not to see you fed.
Gary Trueman: Fine. And very well put.
Brendan: Accelerated English, Mrs. Kasprzyk.
Gary Trueman: Tough teacher?
Brendan: Tough but fair.
I don't think I have to tell you twice: I loved it.
Oh, yeah: and it's set in high school.
First of all, I have to say that the cast was terrific. Joseph Gordon-Levitt delivered lines like "Throw one at me if you want, hash head. I've got all five senses and I slept last night, that puts me six up on the lot of you." with a kind of honest intensity that doesn't come across in actors twice his age. And everybody slipped into their thriller roles without slipping into caricatures, which could have easily been done. There was a scene with Kara, the femme fatale, where she's sitting before the mirror in geisha makeup, turning her charm on and off with a flicker of her eyelashes, that is so pitch-perfect for the character that it's almost magical.
And everything carries into the high-school setting so well, I was highly surprised. I didn't think it would hook me so completely, with the posturing and musical, brutal language that belongs to the genre, but it works. The stiffs and thugs are on the football team, the junkie hangs out behind the local diner, the school becomes battleground and haven and mean streets by turns. The hard-boiled vice-principal takes on a shade of the hard-boiled chief of police. It works. It fits. It's real.
And, finally, the cinematography is lovely. It's honest, too, like its anti-hero, and the bleak ugliness of modern public-school architecture becomes almost beautiful. Stills from IMDB can be found here.
Gary Trueman: You've helped this office out before.
Brendan: No, I gave you Jerr to see him eaten- not to see you fed.
Gary Trueman: Fine. And very well put.
Brendan: Accelerated English, Mrs. Kasprzyk.
Gary Trueman: Tough teacher?
Brendan: Tough but fair.
I don't think I have to tell you twice: I loved it.
