Screening Log
This new site feature is a collective effort to summarize our viewing habits. Occasionally, you will find titles here that are coming to a theater near you, in addition to films viewed on television, and even films viewed in piecemeal. The screening log is archived each month; to view past entries select a month in the menu below.
July 2006 activity
Total Log Entries: 71
- Adam (5)
- Chet (0)
- Chiranjit (15)
- Cullen (0)
- David (0)
- Eva (0)
- Evan (0)
- Ian (5)
- Jenny (5)
- Katherine (0)
- Leo (6)
- Megan (0)
- Rumsey (17)
- Teddy (0)
- Thomas (0)
- Victoria (0)
Total Comments: 23
- Lady in the Water (1)
- Metropolitan (0)
- Bonnie and Clyde (0)
- 24 Hour Party People (0)
- Ace in the Hole (0)
- The 40 Year-Old Virgin (0)
- Krrish (1)
- Predator (0)
- Lethal Weapon (1)
- Batman (0)
- Mary of Scotland (0)
- Cheyenne Autumn (0)
- Heading South (0)
- Spider (0)
- Frenzy (0)
- Superman Returns (3)
- The Night Listener (1)
- Captain Blood (0)
- Sleepers (0)
- Snowcake (0)
- American Dreamz (0)
- Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (0)
- Demolition Man (0)
- Ace in the Hole (0)
- The Big Lebowski (0)
- Dazed and Confused (0)
- MASH (0)
- Dazed and Confused (0)
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2)
- Superman Returns (0)
- Metropolitan (0)
- McCabe & Mrs. Miller (0)
- The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (0)
- An Inconvenient Truth (0)
- A Prairie Home Companion (0)
- X-Men: The Last Stand (0)
- Art School Confidential (0)
- Brick (0)
- L’ami de mon amie (0)
- Mission: Impossible 3 (0)
- The Spiral Staircase (0)
- Bringing Out the Dead (0)
- Leave Her to Heaven (0)
- Alice (1)
- Fantastic Planet (0)
- A Scanner Darkly (2)
- Caché (0)
- Superman Returns (0)
- The Devil Wears Prada (0)
- A Scanner Darkly (0)
- Popeye (2)
- 25th Hour (1)
- Dazed and Confused (0)
- Halloween: H20 (0)
- Culloden (0)
- Evolution (0)
- Hard Candy (0)
- Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban (4)
- Carnal Knowledge (0)
- Naked (1)
- Murmur of the Heart (0)
- Wet Hot American Summer (1)
- Superman Returns (2)
- Bringing Up Baby (0)
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (0)
- Click (0)
- The Squid and the Whale (0)
- The Harder They Come (0)
- Up! (0)
- Superman Returns (0)
- The Devil Wears Prada (0)
Full Archive
Brick / USA / 2005
If one can get past the inherent artifice of Rian Johnson’s film, his surreal homage to Hammett-style noir is a fairly enjoyable experience and actually functions as a bizarrely vivid depiction of the high-school experience on a certain emotional level. I couldn’t fault anyone for becoming aggravated by the film’s sheer saturation in style, especially since the imagery and audio tactics become a bit brazen, but Johnson crafts his mystery with a competence that could only be obtained through affection and devotion to the noir genre (which is often quite baroque to begin with).
Situated in what must be the most barren high school in a strangely bi-polar California (the film often shifts from gloomy cloud-cover to brilliant sunshine, in between pitch-black darkness), Johnson’s film is littered with a variety of flawed and intriguing characters (his femmes all seem fatal, his tough-guys become vulnerable, and his wise-guys have broken-down bodies), yet is able to express the isolation and loneliness of high-school with startling ease using numerous alienating visuals. Johnson replaces the claustrophobia caused by towering sky-scrappers and bustling city streets with the sprawling landscape of California, perhaps influenced by Polanski’s Chinatown or Boorman’s Point Blank. Johnson is also aided by a surprisingly adept cast of young actors and actresses, who display a startling conviction to their parts, delivering dialogue with astounding dedication. Thus, Johnson sculpts a representation of high-school that’s totally unrealistic in all its heightened style and sophisticated dialogue, but that feels somewhat authentic emotionally due to Johnson’s amplification of story, character, and setting. High school isn’t really this Byzantine or ruthless, but it radiates a certain intensity while you’re attempting to navigate its murky waters. No wonder then that by the film’s final moments our protagonist, Brendan, receives a rather bitterly cold introduction to adulthood.
by Chiranjit Goswami | Source: Focus Features 35mm Print
18 Jul 2006 3:49 PM | Submit Comment
