My Weekend: A Mind Blowing Trailer. A Kick-Ass Movie. A Creepy Book. A Time Lord in Venice.

Movies:

Inception (trailer)
HOLY CRAP! If you haven't seen it already, check out this new trailer for Inception, Christopher Nolan’s follows up to The Dark Knight. Nolan is the master at making intelligent thrillers with complex narratives and strong adult thematic underpinnings. This just looks stunning. Basically it is a high tech sci fi crime/heist film set in the world of dreams. I'd be mightily surprised if Inception doesn't end up as the best film of 2010. Jaw meet floor.

(Sorry, couldn’t find an embed.)

Iron Man 2
Good but not great. The first one was better. This time around the story was too unfocussed with all of act 2 being just long stretches of talk and virtually no action. Mickey Rourke, though good, was rather an underused villain. Also the films 'wow' factor was pretty much absent this time - except for the great race sequence in Monaco.

But despite its flaws I still enjoyed it quite bit. For a big summer blockbuster superhero film it might be too shallow to be quite so talky but then again when you have the likes of Robert Downey Jr. and Sam Jackson verbally sparring on screen then that’s real talent and charisma overload. Throw in the wonderful Gwyneth Paltrow, whose chemistry with Downey Jr is still pleasingly sparky, the fun Sam Rockwell and the gorgeous ass kicking goddess who be Scarlett Johannsen, plus some pretty cool (when they happen) action sequences, and IM2, for all its faults, is still a cut above. Oh, and if you’re a superhero/Marvel geek then hang around until the end credits are over for a foretaste of the next big Marvel movie. A certain Norse thunder god is on his way. 3.5/5

Kick-Ass
I watched Kick-Ass again this morning. God I love this film. It is just bursting at the seams with such creative, irreverent, yet weirdly warm and affectionate energy. If you’ve ever loved superheroes and wondered why nobody ever tried doing it for real (or maybe you secretly dreamed of doing it for real yourself) then Kick-Ass is for you.

Kick-Ass is directed by Mathew Vaughan (Layer Cake, Stardust) and adapted from Mark Millar’s excellent graphic novel of the same name. Aaron Johnson in the title role is perfect. He comes across as an even geekier version of Toby Maguire’s Peter Parker and a lot more realistic as an ordinary hormone fuelled teenager with dreams of masked heroism and of getting the girl. But it is a certain pint sized psycho moppet who truly steals the show. Chloe Moretz as Hit Girl is a phenomenon. She’s an eleven-year-old whirling dervish of mayhem, death and profanity. And with a vicious curled lip that would make any grown man quiver in fear. Quite simply this kid in this role is an instant pop culture icon. A lot of the stuff she does and says is very, very wrong for such a little lass. And yet she does it so darn well. As her daddy, Nicolas Cage is almost as brilliant. When in his Batman-esque costume, Cage adopts an Adam West style persona that just kills. Watching him in this you remember why he actually is a movie star.

Kick-Ass is the best film I’ve seen this year. And the most fun film I’ve seen this year. And the most wrong film I’ve seen this year. I mean watching nasty Mark Strong punching an eleven-year-old girl in the face repeatedly is a mightily disturbing sight. But don’t worry dear reader, he soon gets his comeuppance. Oh yes indeed. 5/5

Books:

The Reckoning
I’ve just finished The Reckoning, book three in Kelley Armstrong’s Darkest Powers young adult series.

Fifteen year old Chloe Saunders, a troubled but powerful young necromancer, is on the run from Lyle House Children’s Home along with bitchy witch Tori, handsome arty sorcerer Simon, and Simon’s adoptive brother, the hulking, bad moody Derek, a fast maturing werewolf. Hot on their heels is the mysterious and deadly Edison Group, a shadowy organisation who’ve been doing some very nasty secret experiments on supernatural children for years. Chloe and her new friends seem to be the culmination of those experiments. And the Edison Group wants them back.

This third book wraps up the first trilogy of the Darkest Powers series in a fitting and exciting way. The Reckoning is a cracking read full of realistic and witty dialogue, great characters, dramatic action, high emotion, nasty monsters and supernatural shenanigans. There are a lot of chases, fights, double crosses and supernatural showdowns as well as some cool payback and destruction. But, as always with Kelley’s books, the characters, relationships and the emotions are always kept at the forefront. The fact that this is part of a young adult series doesn’t matter. The Darkest Powers series is still set in Kelley’s Otherworld universe and her usual writing style is kept 100% intact. Content-wise the action, humour and horror is all still there. But (as only to be expected in a YA book) the fairly graphic eroticism that plays a role in her adult work is not present here. Instead we get elements of teenage angst along with some burgeoning conflicted feelings; feelings which never amount to anything more physical than a hug, the holding of hands or a tender kiss. And that’s fine. For the teens in this series are so well drawn and so layered and complex in their characters that you totally accept it. It seems truthful and real. You really do like these kids and feel for them in their plight. Kelley Armstrong gives great character.

Anyway, I’ll miss Chloe. She was a great narrator who went on a fun, scary and challenging journey over the three books from a stuttering, insular and rather timid little daddy’s girl to someone of burgeoning power, intelligence, maturity and courage. The fact that she was also a major movie geek (especially horror and action films) and an aspiring screenwriter was just the icing on the cake. Although this part of Chloe’s story is now over, the book’s ending sets up the bigger tale with new and dangerous future missions to undertake. The next Darkest Powers trilogy will have new main characters, new stories and a new narrator, but Kelley says that Chloe, Derek, Simon, Tori et al will be back at some point, most likely as supporting characters rather than leads. And I look forward to meeting up with them again. 4.5/5

TV:

Doctor Who
Doctor Who is still great. Matt Smith now owns this role so much it ain’t funny. I much prefer his Time Lord take to that of David Tennant. I liked Tennant but preferred Chris Eccleston. Now I prefer Smith to them both. And Amy Pond is just sublime. She’s gorgeous, smart, fiery, funny, perfect. The stories so far have varied in quality from the excellent opener, the brilliant Weeping Angels two-parter, to the fun but flawed Victory of the Daleks, and the okay but not great second one called The Beast Below. This week’s ep was Vampires in Venice from Being Human writer Toby Whithouse. It was a fun romp made all the better by the wonderful location filming in Croatia (doubling perfectly for Venice), Whithouse’s witty, funny, insightful dialogue, and Matt Smith knocking it way out of the park as The Doctor. Watch and revel in his quiet, subtle scene with the main villain as they debate about what to do next. He gives a level of mature restraint, thoughtfulness and sly wit that Tennant would have had trouble in selling. My two main criticisms of this episode are:

1) The actual plot is very samey to new Who tales that have come before. Think The Runaway Bride meets The Fires of Pompeii.

2) The FX. The Mill FX house dropped the ball here with some of the crummiest CGI recently seen in the show. The Doctor climbing the tower at the end is embarrassingly bad, as is some of the obvious CG water added throughout to make the location look even more Venice-y.

On the big plus side, though, the gaggle of female vampires are a foxy lot with even The Doctor getting a bit overexcited at times. And Whithouse’s script is full of many wonderful lines and some great character based humour. Next week sees The Doctor and Amy trapped in a world of dreams and having to find their way out before they die. It looks very interesting and suitably weird.

The Guild: Felicia Day Gives Good Geekitude

Okay, I’m pretty late coming to this party. And I’m not sure why. I mean, how did I miss out on this little gem when it is written by and stars a Whedon favourite and has gained a huge fan following and won awards for over a couple of years now? Um…er…[looking around sheepishly]

Sooo anyway…

Similar to Joss Whedon’s awesome Dr Horrible’s Sing-along Blog, The Guild is a quirky live-action comedy web series (though not a musical like Dr H) following the misadventures of a group of online gamers who play together in a fantasy world similar to World of Warcraft. The Guild web series has been running for three seasons now with each individual episode being only four to six minutes in length. The main cast is:

Felicia Day (Cyd Sherman/Codex)
Amy Okuda (Tinkerballa)
Jeff Lewis (Vork)
Robin Thorsen (Clara)
Sandeep Parikh (Zaboo)
Vincent Caso (Bladezz)

I gotta say that The Guild reminded me somewhat of Spaced. For like that classic series, this one’s also about a group of motley, maladjusted, geeky characters coming together to help each other fight life’s daily battles, battles which are often surreally magnified for comic effect. Unlike Spaced, though, the backbone for The Guild is the fairly recent world of online gaming. Now I’m not a gamer, online or otherwise, so I don't get the many gaming community in-jokes at play here. But it doesn’t really matter, as that is only one aspect of the show. The wider, more general geekitude of The Guild is something I do understand and do get. It is something common to us geeks in all our many tribes – be we gamers, comic book geeks, Trekkers, Whedonites…whatever!

So, now, lets talk Felicia Day, the creator, writer and star of The Guild. Ah…the lovely and talented Felicia Day. And who pray tell is Felicia Day I hear you ask? She’s not a household name for sure. But within certain online and fandom communities she is a very big name indeed. Prior to The Guild, Felicia co-starred in Joss Whedon’s afore mentioned multi-award winning and hugely popular Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog alongside Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion where she played love interest Penny. But Felicia is probably best known (to us geeks anyway) for playing Vi, one of the surviving potential Slayers in the final season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She also had a small role in Joss Whedon’s recent Dollhouse, appearing in what was by far its best episode: Epitaph One. In The Guild, as leading lady Cyd Sherman aka Codex, Felicia is spot on. She has a genuinely geeky, gawky, insecure, innocence about her that you just can’t help but find adorable. Each episode of The Guild begins with a brief pre-title of Cyd/Codex talking directly in to her webcam as a way of expressing her innermost thoughts and fears, a kind of personal video blog/confessional. It is a fun framing device, one she will occasionally dip back in to throughout an episode. And Felicia’s deliveries of these little web blogs are masterful. As previously stated, Felicia is also the creator and writer of The Guild. And a great job she does of it too. The characters are well realised and distinctive. And her sharp, witty, sometimes surreal dialogue is often laugh out loud funny. As are the many comedic set pieces she creates with Tinkerballa’s rather…er…dubious babysitting skills being a hilariously bizarre bad taste example. Minding Clara’s twins for an afternoon, the antisocial Tinkerballa basically locks the two toddlers in a small wire cage with a fan aimed directly at them so as to blow the smell of poop away from her. “What? Change them?” she cries in horror while talking online to the rest of the Guild posse about the horrible poop smell. “She never told me I’d have to touch them!”
One of the charming things about Felicia is that, like the character she plays in The Guild, in real life she really, genuinely is an honest-to-god geek. She’s in to computers and online gaming in a big way. She also loves writing and reading – especially sci fi and fantasy. Oh, and did I mention that she’s also a major league hottie? No? Well, she is.

So, in summary, The Guild is great fun. It is witty, sharp, surreal and very geeky. The comedy is perfectly timed and delivered. The rest of the cast is pretty good with a couple of them recognisable from other things. But basically this is Felicia’s show, quite literally. The Guild is her baby and she is the star. She is very funny and very cute and very talented. And The Guild is way better than a lot of the alleged comedies I see on TV. Yes Big Bang Theory I’m looking at you. You have no geekitude you shallow laughter-tracked impostor you. Felicia has geekitude. She has geekitude to spare. Viva la Guild!

A tip. If you want to watch the show then go to the YouTube channel and watch it. For some reason The Guild website edits out all the bad language. The YouTube ones are unedited.

YouTube - Watch The Guild

http://feliciaday.com/

http://www.watchtheguild.com/

Swedish Zombies Go For The Heart

I recently finished Handling the Undead, Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist’s acclaimed follow up to Let The Right One In. Handling the Undead is actually several years old now and has only recently been published in the UK (on the back of the LTROI movie success.) It first saw light in Sweden back in 2005 but it took four years for the English translation to appear. Never mind. Better late than never I guess.

The story goes something like this:

For some inexplicable reason the recently deceased of Stockholm (those dead for up to six months) have come back to life. This includes all those who have been buried as well as those previously undiscovered bodies including, in one memorable incident, a man who had drowned in a lake and whose body had been hidden beneath the water for weeks. Needless to say he is not in a good state when he wakes up. But these ‘reliving’ are not quite the people they once were. There are aspects that are familiar but they seem to be more robotic and instinctual. And they also appear to have a strange psychic effect on regular living people whenever they come together in any number. The book focuses equally on several main characters and how they each deal with the reappearance of their recently departed. There is David, a stand up comic, whose wife was killed in a car crash the same night as the mass resurrection and who has been left to care for his young son. Meanwhile, teenage metaller, Flora, and her Catholic grandmother, Elvy, are horrified when the reanimated corpse of Flora’s granddad, Elvy’s husband, arrives at their front door. And then there’s middle-aged journalist Mahler who, upon discovering what has happened, goes to the local cemetery and digs up the reliving body of his young grandson Elias who recently died in a tragic accident.

Now, a lot of this is pretty grim stuff, especially everything to do with little Elias. The little boy is a dried up corpse, yet he is also reliving. Mahler and his grief-struck daughter’s continual and rather hopeless attempts to help Elias appear and to act more human by bathing him, moistening his desiccated skin with lotion and training him to react to simple things, is difficult stuff to read. Lindqvist’s prose is simple but very descriptive and highly emotional. He doesn’t shy away from intense imagery that will make you feel rather queasy. But even so, Handling the Undead is not really a horror story. Rather it is a grim, sad fable about life and the meaning of death. It is about how people deal with death, how they rationalise it, live with it, make it in to something else through the use of religion or even make it in to entertainment using more modern cultural outlets like movies and video games. The novel’s reliving are quite similar to the classic Romero zombie in that they shuffle around and many are in a very bad way, but they don’t eat people as their Hollywood cousins do. Lindqvist uses zombie films and video games such as Resident Evil (which shows up a lot in the story) as the touchstone for how people, mostly younger people, relate to the reliving, how they dehumanise them even though there is still a spark of their humanity remaining. The book follows several groups of characters and the emotional, psychological and actual physical journeys they go on in dealing with the return of their loved ones and of the wider event. This is not a story about plot twists and turns. It is a story about people, their emotions and how they deal. Or don’t deal. It is a journey of grief, faith and eventual acceptance. There is no big climax, no big revelations. The ending is like the rest of the book: quiet, sad and emotional.

There is no doubt that Handling the Undead is a good book. It is well written, atmospheric and quite disturbing in places. However, as with Lindqvist’s Let The Right One In, I found that the story, though compelling, meandered a little too much for my taste. There are many scenes where nothing much really happens, scenes that seem to just go off to places I wasn't really that interested in them going, wishing Lindqvist would just cut back to the central idea and perhaps focus more on some fewer characters. The wonderful thing about the film of Let The Right One In is how Lindqvist (who also wrote its screenplay) pared down his book to the core story and theme. He jettisoned the subplots and the excess fat from the book with the result being that the film was a superior telling of the story than the book it was based on. Don’t get me wrong, Handling the Undead is certainly a good book with an interesting and thought provoking approach to the zombie genre. I did like it. But if only it had been rather more focussed then it could have been a classic.

Everything Dies: RIP Peter Steele

Peter Steele, singer, songwriter and bassist for Type O Negative, has passed away at the age of 48. As a long-time Type O fan, this is a very sad day for me and for their many fans worldwide.

It’s no secret that for a long time Peter (born 1962 as Petrus Ratajczyk in Brooklyn, New York) had been fighting depression and various substance abuse issues for a long time. Rumours started circulating on the web earlier this morning that Peter had died but I didn’t really buy it. Back in 2005 the big guy pulled a hoax by posting his picture and the years “1962-2005″ on the group’s website leading the world to think he had died suddenly. So, this morning, I hoped this was yet another twisted gag by the dark and brooding but humorous Goliath (he was 6ft 7 tall you know.) Sadly, it was not to be. In an e-mail to CBS News, the band’s manager Mike Renault later confirmed Peter’s death. He wrote, “Peter passed away last night. As of now it appears to have been heart failure. That’s all the details we have right now.”

I’ve adored Type O Negative’s dark, heavy-yet-melodic and blackly humorous music since the early 90’s when I first heard their classic epic song Black Number 1 taken from their 1993 breakthrough album Bloody Kisses, an album which also spawned the classic track Christian Woman. Bloody Kisses became the first album released by Roadrunner Records to go platinum. At that time there was simply nothing else quite like Type O Negative around. And there never has been since. They rocked out hard, their music usually doused in overblown goth/horror-style atmosphere mixing romance, sex, death, religion, doom and depression but always accompanied by a massive dose of irony that couldn’t help make you giggle. Type O Negative were one of the most unlikely bands ever to break in to mainstream music. And yet they did. Although mostly dark and heavy and doomy (leading to their nickname of 'The Drab Four') Type O’s tunes could also be infectiously melodic, catchy and most chucklesome. They made some immensly cool and unforgettable songs on their seven produced albums.

Slow, Deep and Hard (1991)
The Origin of the Faeces (1992)
Bloody Kisses (1993)
October Rust (1996)
World Coming Down (1999)
Life Is Killing Me (2003)
Dead Again (2007)

It is an understatement to say that Peter Steele was central to Type O Negative’s success and enduring popularity. His unmistakably deep, scary, brooding voice, his song writing talent as well as his imposing physical presence were utterly integral in making Type O what they were. His was a (literally) towering presence in the world of rock and metal music, an icon of the scene for the past two decades. And he will be greatly missed.

Sleep well, big guy. :(

Black No. 1 (Bloody Kisses, 1993)


Christian Woman (Bloody Kisses, 1993)


Everything Dies (World Coming Down, 1996)


My Girlfriend’s Girlfriend (October Rust, 1996)

Trust Him. He's The Doctor.

Matt Smith's debut as The Doctor has now aired in the UK.

And I gotta say...it was brilliant!

Steven Moffat's rejuvenated Who is (pardon the pun) just what The Doctor ordered. The tone is indeed like Moffat’s promised dark fairytale - especially the first ten minutes or so of this Moffat written story titled The Eleventh Hour. This episode charts the first and then second meeting between the new Doctor and his new companion Amy Pond. And this meeting is quite special, clever and touching.

So, most importantly, how is our new Doctor?

He's great.

Being still in the grip of his regeneration cycle Smith's Doctor is rather confused, manic, and still a bit Tennant-y in his ways. But as the episode goes on he slowly becomes more of his own man. Eccentric in a young-yet-old professor-ish way, he is also effortlessly witty, a bit goofy, a bit reckless and quite a lot charming. Smith's Doctor makes an instantly great impression. The food tasting scene with the little girl in the kitchen is simply brilliant. “Fish Custard.” LOL. You can see why Smith leapt out at Moffat and co. during auditions. He genuinely does have an odd, otherworldly quality to him. And as new companion Amy Pond, Karen Gillan is very good too. In this episode she is all (lovely) legs, fiery red hair and cynical attitude. She’s a bit messed up, a bit of a bad girl and doesn’t really trust The Doctor and isn’t afraid to give him what for. She is also very, very easy on the eye. Amy and The Doctor should prove for an interesting and fiery dynamic with their relationship having been set up in a very cool and intriguing way.

And the story? It’s fine. It does the job. An escaped intergalactic shape-shifting alien prisoner is hiding out on Earth while the Prison Guards (giant flying eyeballs) arrive to give the world only twenty minutes to hand the prisoner over before they destroy the whole planet. As a story it’s not as good as what Mr Moffat has given us before (we’ve been spoiled) and he uses it mostly as a hanger for introducing the new Doctor and the new feel to the series as well as reminding us of its mythical heritage. And in that way it works spot on. But Moffat still manages to do what he always does so brilliantly. He layers his script with smart precision plotting and intensely creative ideas while also inventing scary images and creepy concepts based around things an audience (especially kids) can relate to as being odd and kinda disturbing at a very basic level. At night a big crack in the wall of a child’s bedroom becomes sinister and so very creepy with whispered voices leaking out. A bleak phrase is repeated over and over through every piece of electronic communications equipment everywhere. Extra rooms in a house seem to appear but are only visible glimpsed through the corner of the eye. An alien changes itself to appear as regular people but gets it a bit wrong, appearing as a mother walking hand in hand with twin little girls, except the children speak with the mothers voice and vice versa. And it also appears as a man walking a dog, but the man barks and growls, not the dog. Weird and properly creepy. And Moffat being Moffat he also laces his script with some great quips and one liners. “You’re Scottish. Fry something!” The direction of the episode is excellent too. There are two stand out moments: a glimpse in to The Doctors mind as he recalls an event that has just occurred, looking for a clue in his own memory. Then, later on, glimpses of all past ten Doctors ending with the heroic emergence of Doctor number eleven to confront the bad guys. Also, the first ten or so minutes of the Doctor crashing the TARDIS and meeting a little girl left alone in her house and scared by the sinister crack in her wall is just all-round superlative. A very special shout out goes to young Caitlin Blackwood who plays said little girl. She is wonderful and does a quite brilliant job opposite Matt Smith.

As well as a regenerated Doctor, the rest of the show has had a ground up regeneration too. There’s a new title sequence with a dark and scary time tunnel complete with lightening bolts striking the TARDIS. And there’s a new, more electronic and choral version of the iconic theme. The TARDIS has also regenerated after being almost wrecked at the episode’s start. It looks newer and brighter outside while inside the console room is twice as big and on multiple levels with curved and odd-angled walls and with stairs going off in many directions. It looks weird and very, very cool.

So colour me impressed. I could tell within the first ten minutes that I loved this new take on our favourite Timelord, it being much closer to my own personal tastes than that of RTD’s version. Not to take anything away from the awesome job Russell T did, but I just love the whole dark fairytale vibe, the more sinister-yet-playful feel. And I can see a whole new generation of kids properly hiding behind their couch come Saturday evenings as a result. And their parents might just be joining them.

So bring it on. And like the man says: “Trust me. I’m the Doctor.”

Indeed you are, sir.

Brick: Sam Spade the Teenage Years

Brick is an interesting and mostly successful experiment in mixing two genres you’d normally think were un-mixable. In this case the teenage high school drama and the old fashioned hard-boiled detective film noir.

Cynical street smart loner Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) gets a rambling phone call full of fear and desperation from his ex-girlfriend Emily (Emilie de Ravin) who recently dumped him to run around with some nefarious types including drug dealers, thugs and pot heads. Brendan can’t ignore Emily’s jumbled plea for help because he is still in love with the girl. And so he sets out to find her. Despite him being the odd man out at school, Brendan always keeps his ear close to the ground and has a quick mind and a sharp tongue that gets him in to all sorts of bloody scrapes in his mission to find Emily. And find her he does, right at films start in fact, dead in a drainage tunnel. The search for her is then told in flashback in true detective film fashion before the story moves on to the search for her killer and the reasons behind her murder. Brendan single-mindedly investigates Emily’s life since she left him and the weeks and days leading up to her death. He searches for clues and uses contacts and bluffs so as to find out what happened to the girl he loved who broke his heart. Brendan's investigations soon lead him to meet with possibly the most archetypal character in such tales: the femme fatale. In Brick this role goes to Nora Zehetner as Laura, a slinky, stylish, doe-eyed lovely who hangs out with the villains and who has her eye on Brendan. As with the best of the genre the story soon leads to convoluted plotting - who was doing what to whom, secret affairs, rip-offs, double crosses and other similar shenanigans.

What is particularly cool about Brick is how it really does play to the iconography of the detective film/film noir genre. Brendan is basically a proto-Sam Spade. He is smart, tough, cynical and quick with deadpan one-liners and vicious retorts. He travels the town and the school interrogating people, beating info out of strung out junkies and avoiding the come-on from the occasional young lady he meets along the way. But as well as dishing out the occasional bout of violence, Brendan also gets the proverbial kicked out of him throughout the story. So much so that by films end he is a blooded and broken and limping mess. Like any good hard boiled gumshoe he also has a mutually beneficial yet antagonistic relationship with the authorities - in this case the school’s Assistant Vice Principle Trueman (Richard Roundtree.) Also, at the end of the tale, Brendan kinda wins and yet doesn’t, the events of the story leaving him even more hard and cynical than he was at the start.

So, yes, many of the genre conventions and archetypes are present and correct. And that includes the dialogue too.

The words in Brick zing at a pace and are delivered in sharp, dense, aggressive monologues, expositions, one-liners and retorts. It really does sound like an old Bogart film only with its own playful style added, which is still kinda weird when coming from the mouths of teenagers in such contemporary and blandly recognisable environments. But I love stuff like that. I love stuff where language is played with and used in different and creative ways. It’s part of the reason I love Joss Whedon’s work and have loved everything so far from Diablo Cody. The only problem with the language in Brick is that it is delivered at such a pace, sometimes being mumbled as well, that it can often be difficult to make out. You have to listen pretty darn hard to what is being said.

Of the cast Joseph Gordon-Levitt is excellent as Brendan. He really does sell the tough, cynical world weary loner while also managing to appear as a vulnerable everyman with his thin body, straggly hair, plain clothing and glasses. It shouldn’t work. And yet it does. This is a testament to Gordon-Levitt’s talent. He is one of the best young actors working in films today. Nora Zehetner as femme fatale Laura is also very good. She captures the spirit of the role perfectly. You can see why any man would fall for her but can also sense the danger and manipulation behind her lovely eyes. Lukas Haas as Pin, the drug dealer, is low key, weird and pretty creepy. He reminded me of Barnabas Collins, the vampire from TV’s Dark Shadows. He looks like him, dresses like him and is similarly otherworldly. Noah Fleiss as Tugger is scary and effective in the psychotic thug role. And Matt O’Leary as Brain, Brendan’s only friend and his main source of help is strong as well. The rest of the cast are all fine with Richard Roundtree doing a fun turn as the hard ass cop…um…I mean Vice Principle who’s always on Brendan’s case.

Writer/Director Rian Johnson took nine years to write and then to finally make Brick after scraping up less than half-a-million bucks from friends and family. He shot it in twenty days in and around his own hometown using real locations (no sets) such as the local high school where he went as a kid. The script was actually written around the real key locations of the film: the high school, the drainage pipe, the phone box etc. And using the sparse locations and minimal to non-existent design and art direction lends Brick a realistic, stripped down feel. Johnson directs in an arty yet precise manner. Every shot is carefully constructed to sell story and character with the editing being just as sharp and precise. There is an excellent foot chase through the school built mostly around sound effects of shoes hitting concrete before then ending in a blackly humorous way. Also, DP Steve Yedlin did a great job in lighting the film. There is a beautifully lit sequence in a dark basement where Brendan uses sunlight and a mirror to search the room.

All in all Brick is an interesting and pretty entertaining experiment of a film helped a great deal by a strong cast - especially the ever-impressing Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I can’t say I loved Brick as I’m not a massive fan of the genre it is mostly riffing on, although I can appreciate the iconography and coolness associated with it. To take the central idea of moving that genre in to a high school setting where the emotions and experiences of everyday teen life - its angst, its first loves, its rivalries - are already heightened and seem world shattering to those involved was a bold and interesting choice. I expect a lot of people just won’t get over the film’s obvious mix of genres and will find the language used by the characters faintly ridiculous. But if people can get past that and can get in to what Rian Johnson was aiming for (and mostly hitting on target) then Brick should intrigue and entertain in equal measure.