In a modern-day Southern California neighborhood and high school, student Brendan Frye’s piercing intelligence spares no one. He’s not afraid to back up his words with actions, and knows all the angles; yet he prefers to stay an outsider, and does – until the day that his ex-girlfriend, Emily, reaches out to him unexpectedly and then vanishes. His feelings for her still run deep; so much so, that he becomes consumed with finding his troubled inamorata. To find her, he enlists the aid of his only true peer, the Brain, while keeping the assistant vice principal only occasionally informed of what quickly becomes a dangerous investigation. Brendan’s single-minded unearthing of students’ secrets thrusts him headlong into the colliding social orbits of rich-girl sophisticate Laura, intimidating Tugger, substance-abusing Dode, seductive Kara, jock Brad and – most ominously – non-student the Pin. Only by gaining acceptance into the Pin’s closely guarded inner circle of crime and punishment that Brendan will be able to uncover hard truths about himself, Emily and the suspects that he is getting closer to. —IMDb
Rian Craig Johnson (born December 17, 1973) is an American writer and director, who won the Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival with his debut feature, Brick.
Johnson was born in Maryland. He was raised in San Clemente, California, and attended the high school where Brick was predominantly filmed. He then attended the University of Southern California and graduated from the USC School of Cinematic Arts in 1996.
In addition to his film work, Johnson is also a folk singer and banjoist. Some of his songs can be found on his website.
His brother is well-known music producer Aaron Johnson. His cousin, Nathan Johnson, composed the score for Brick and The Brothers Bloom. Rian and Nathan make up a folk duo called The Preserves. Other cousins, including Zachary and Marke Johnson, have been involved in design and illustration work relating to Rian’s films. —wikipedia
it started with a question & ended up in a huge mess. not bad... but too much chaos.
While this is an interesting modern take on "The Maltese Falcon", Rian Johnson tries too hard to be cool.
Just like any other good" satire-of-a-specific-genre-type-of-movie" it both works as a film-noir and as movie that is making fun of film-noir .
Rian Johnson’s Brick is one of my favourite films of the 2000’s and one of my favourite films of all time. It’s kind of hard to explain exactly why this is, as from what I’ve seen this is not a film… read review