Brick

Due to the overwhelmingly positive, or at least ambivalent, response to floating the idea of writing a blog, I give you the very first entry to my riveting, entertaining, informative, not-at-all tedious, self-involved attempt at letting the world know what I think. Since I haven't come up with a theme or name for my blog, I'll just go with whatever's on my mind. Today that's the movie "Brick".

I saw "Brick" for the first time yesterday, and loved it. The thought actually occurred to me mid-way through the film that it may be the best movie I've ever seen, and it actually got better as it went on. Seriously, this is a sure candidate for great-fuckin'-movie status.

That said, while watching it I couldn't shake one hugely distracting thing about the movie: it's set in high school. I'm sure there's a noir movie to be set in a high school, in fact, I think a high school would be an almost perfect setting for noir, with the cliques, the deception, the power games, whatever. My problem is not with "Brick"s premise in a high school, my problem is with its characters and the way they act. I think the movie misses it in two ways with its characters: their behavior, and the circumstances around them.

For starters, the characters are much too self-assured to be teenagers. The scene where Brendan punches Doad and then successfully threatens his six or so friends is a good example. It's a great scene, and fits perfectly with the vibe of the film, but Doad's and Brendan's actions are completely implausible. How does Brendan, as a 17-year-old, have the stones to sucker punch someone, then slap him around, to get information? That kind of action takes not only tremendous self-confidence that the other guy isn't going to kick your ass, but also self-restraint to hit the guy only a few times, instead of just beating the hell out of him. Brendan has a sense of real balance in his actions, and knows, almost preternaturally, to avoid going too far. Since when do teenagers have that kind of balance? They think and act in superlatives; everything is either the best or the worst thing EVER. There is no middle ground. Additionally, Doad's reaction to getting slapped around (brooding while still witholding from Brendan information), is just as false. How many teenagers are self-possessed enough to get slapped around in front of their friends and not either fly into a rage at the other person, or completely surrender and offer up any and all that the person wanted to know? Again, Doad's ability to avoid those two extremes contradicts his character's supposed age. (The actor who plays Doad looks like he's 29.) Either way, neither character screws up in a situation where it would easy, and almost understandable. (Jesus that was a long paragraph.)

The sheer absence of any mistakes on their part, with the exception of Tug, who has a temper, is completely unrealistic. Teenagers fuck up ALL THE TIME. It's what they do. Between the ages of 13 and 19 I must've fucked up five-ten times a day (COUGH Colleen COUGH). And while I'd like to think I'm being honest with myself, that's probably a generous estimate. I don't mean serious, life-altering mistakes here, the kind that stick you with injection scars, probation, child support, the nickname 'Backdoor Sally' (I'm looking at you, Andrew F) for the rest of your life, just errors in judgment or execution. Honestly, most of the things I remember most about my teenage years are things I screwed up and now know how I could have done them better. The lack of mistakes by the characters makes the mystery actually mysterious, but no more realistic for its setting.

As for the circumstances surrounding the characters, why are there no adults? Except for the principle (I realize it's a good, if short role, but is Shaft that hard up?) and the Pin's mom, there are none, just as there are apparently no boundaries on these teenagers' acts. None. Not school, not parents, not jobs. The only indication of any limitation is when Brain is at school an hour early because he had to take the city bus. (Apparently there aren't even school buses at this non-school high school.) But in the real world, being a teenager is all about a lack of control. That's why teenagers cling to the few things they can control, like having a car. There are the things that parents control, that school controls, that laws control, even that your own abilities control, leaving very little left for you to determine for yourself. Anyone who remembers how often I bumped into shit knows I couldn't even control where my head went. Yet the Pin and Tug could have a meeting at 4AM on a school night with their entire crews present (did anyone else wonder where the hell they each suddenly got posses at the very end of the movie?) while the Pin's mom serves them drinks? What the fuck? Yeah, it's kinda funny, but also seriously distracting, because there are no other parents anywhere, and the Pin's supposed to be in his twenties anyway.

I realize I'm kinda beating up on this movie, which is seriously really good, but as I think about it it gets more and more absurd. I mean, the girl dies in the beginning, but nobody seems to be involved. I mean, where the fuck are her parents? I mean, even "Kids" had parents, even if they didn't really do anything, there were at least around. I think if you took the exact same script, changed all the mentions of lockers and lunch to apartments and bars and set the movie among 25-35-year-olds, it would almost be a perfect movie. I really do. As it is now, it really takes something away from the film.

This blog is supposed to express my opinion, which I think it does, without getting too bogged down and boring, which I hope it does. I have no idea what the next one's going to be about. Maybe how Ford commercials haven't changed since as long as I can remember and that might have something to do with why they can't sell any cars. Maybe how Jay-Z should get poor again because he was such a better rapper when he was. Whatever it is, the one theme uniting all these topics is me telling professionals how to do their jobs better (like me telling the director of "Brick" how his setting was completely unrealistic). It is what I do.

So tell me if this blog sucks, or if it rocks, or if it was okay, but here's all the things I should do differently. If you liked it, tell your friends. Shit, tell your friends if you thought it was comically bad. And remember to include the Andrew F jokes. Now that I've finished, let us bask in my self-involvement.

I tried to find a good clip as an example of what I'm talking about, but the best I could find is the preview: