| | Brick DVD (1 Customer Review)
| Category | Suspense DVDs, Dramas Movies, Action/Adventure Videos, Action, Thriller, Mystery, Murder, Teenage, Detective, Murder Investigations, Film Noir, Drug Dealers | | Starring | Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Lukas Haas, Nora Zehetner, Meagan Good, Noah Segan, Emilie de Ravin, Noah Fleiss, Lucas Babin, Jonathan Cauff | | Director | Rian Johnson | | Director of Photography | Steve Yedlin | | Music | Nathan Johnson | | Producer | Ram Berman, Mark Mathis |
This detective film by Rian Johnson stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Lukas Haas, and Emile de Ravin. A detective story set around a contemporary California high school, BRICK dares to combine the teen and film noir genres. In mixing these two disparate worlds, Director Rian Johnson creates many comically jarring and ironic moments. When loner Brendan Frye (a barely recognizable Joseph Gordon-Levitt of THIRD ROCK FROM THE SUN) gets a desperate-sounding call from his ex-love Emily (Emilie de Ravin), he feels compelled to help her, plunging himself into the seedy world of teenage crime that pulled her away from him in the first place. Throughout this journey, Brendan plays a hard-boiled type reminiscent of Humphrey Bogart's iconic Sam Spade character. Johnson's script invests heavily in the fiction of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, and is filled with other archetypical characters like the femme fatale (Nora Zehetner), the eccentric crime lord (a brilliant Lukas Haas), and the dame in distress (de Ravin). As teens trade in their cell phones for things as old-fashioned as pay phones and 1940s gangster vocabulary, occasional references to detention and first period provide a humorous contrast with the otherwise unbelievable complex, precocious, and largely parentless world that these teens inhabit.
With its heavy reliance on references to old noir classics like THE MALTESE FALCON and THE BIG SLEEP, the film may risk alienating viewers not familiar with these older films. Seeing teenagers speaking in coded detective-movie-style lingo is entertaining, but mixed with the often overlapping, fast-paced but muttered dialogue, it also proves to be distracting at points. People eager to see a predictable teen drama may be confused by BRICK, as its goal is to turn the genre on its head, earning inevitable comparisons to films like 2001's surreal teen fantasy DONNIE DARKO. Because of the film's attention to detail and witty yet hard-to-follow dialogue, BRICK may be better appreciated on second viewing. Theatrical Release: March 31, 2006 Brick Reviews: "While BRICK is chock-full of the characters, language and imager of classic noir, it is in fact set among contemporary teenagers."
-- Tim Cogshell, Box Office 4 stars out of 4 -- "The most eccentric feature to emerge from the US indie scene in years....One of the pleasures of 2006."-- Jonathan Romney, Uncut 4 stars out of 5 -- "Johnson creates a complex, sophisticated thriller that audaciously fuses two disparate genres....Gordon-Levitt delivers an intense and focused performance."-- David Richardson, Ultimate DVD 3 stars out of 4 -- "Johnson plunges off the deep end, risking ridicule by shaping this spellbinder with grit and gravitas....Johnson's BRICK is the stuff that dreams are made of."
-- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone "This high school film noir deserves credit for novelty. Writer-director Rian Johnson also has a rare gift for language."
-- Stacey Farber, Movieline's Hollywood Life "BRICK is all about style and sass....But Johnson also grabs hold a fundamental truth and seduces us with it: the schoolyard can be the noirest burg of all." -- Grade: B+
-- Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly "Johnson pulls his hipster revisionism with cine-savvy brilliance and twitchy laughs....Bursts of action arrive with a wallop..."
-- Jonathan Crocker, Total Film "BRICK takes two very disparate genres, film noir detective mysteries and high school dramas, and melds them into one intriguing premise, with original dialogue and a distinctive visual style."-- Claudia Puig, USA Today "What it borrows from noir is not simply a set of style cues, but a sense of obsessiveness, solemnity and encroaching social breakdown, which serves as a satisfying metaphor for the self-enclosed, self-regulating society occupied by teenagers."
-- Sight and Sound Critic, Sight and Sound
This is the only Lucas Babin video. Stars also making their debut in this video: Jonathan Cauff. Brick | List Price | $9.99 (You save $3.00) | | Studio | Universal Studios Home Video | | Orig Year | 2006 | | DVD Encoding | Region 1 | | All Time Sales Rank |  6284  | | CD Universe Part number | 7221904 | | Catalog number | 62028663 | | Discs | 1 | | Release Date | Aug 08, 2006 | | Rating | R (MPAA) | | Rating Reason | violent and drug content | | Running Time | 110 Minutes | | Additional Info | Widescreen; Subtitled | | Movie Details | Color; Widescreen; Subtitled |
Brick DVD Region 1
Snap Case
Anamorphic Widescreen -
1.85
Full Frame -
1.33
Audio:
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround - English
Subtitles - English (SDH), French, Spanish - Optional
Additional Release Material:
Extended Scenes
Deleted Scenes
Audio Feature Commentary - Cast & Filmmakers
Featurette: Casting The Roles
Purchase Brick Movie To buy, Click on price to add to cart | Aguirre, The Wrath Of God DVD (1973)
Brick film
 $14.39 
Based on the journals of Brother Gaspar de Carvajal, AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD is director Werner Herzog's hallucinatory tale of Spanish colonialists searching for El Dorado, the legendary city of gold, in 16th-century Peru. When the travellers reach an impasse, a scouting party is assembled to search for any traces of the mythical empire. As they attempt to forge their way through the dense jungle, more and more of the party falls ill while their ruthless leader, Don Lope de Aguirre (Klaus Kinski), grows increasingly insane.
Widely considered to be Herzog's finest film, AGUIRRE, which shares much in common with Francis Ford Coppola's APOCALYPSE NOW, highlights the director's visionary ...
| | One Night At Mccool's DVD (2001) Widescreen
Brick review
$16.89 
The title refers to the night when three men, Randy (Matt Dillon), his cousin Carl (Paul Reiser) and Detective Dehling (John Goodman), all meet Jewel Valentine (Liv Tyler) at a bar called McCool's. Actually, they don't so much meet her as fall under her spell when they first lay eyes on her. In her clinging red dress she looks like a cross between a beautiful damsel in distress and the Lady In Red looking for John Dillinger. The story begins with Randy, desperate to be rid of Jewel, hiring a sleazy hitman, played by Michael Douglas in an outré toupee. His story of how Jewel led him to ruin, filmed in a stylized flashback bathed in blue, is mirrored by Carl talking to his therapist--played with a delicious verve by Reba McEntire, and Detective Dehling talking with a priest; each telling their own stories of obsession with Jewel. Tyler is clearly beautiful, but it's the evil, scheming side of her character--delivered ...
| | Blankman DVD (1994) Widescreen; Dubbed; Subtitled; DTS Sound
Brick DVD
$6.55
| | Last Place On Earth DVD (2003) Full Frame
Brick movie DVD
$7.09 
| | Hills Have Eyes DVD (2006) Widescreen; Dubbed; Subtitled; Unrated
Brick video
$10.29
With his 2006 remake of Wes Craven's 1977 slasher THE HILLS HAVE EYES, French director Alexandre Aja manages to accomplish what many directors fail to do by making his film a definite improvement over the original. With Craven on board as producer, Aja sticks pretty closely to the first film's script and storyline, but with the help of a larger budget, special effects, better actors, and slick cinematography, creates a much scarier story. While the film's setting is contemporary, it maintains a 1970s feel in parts, paying tribute to the decade in which the slasher subgenre was born. With an interesting opening-credit sequence consisting of actual nuclear testing footage, we are told that the film's desert setting was the site of nuclear testing during the 1950s and ‘60s. Warned to vacate, the miners that lived there refused to leave, thus subjecting themselves to high levels of toxic radiation, and breeding mutant babies as a result. It is this generation of now-grown mutants that the poor Carter family has the misfortune to encounter while driving through New Mexico on their way to California.
When their vehicle breaks down in the desert, the Carters are too busy bickering with one another to realize they have entered enemy territory. But it doesn't take long for the demented creatures living in the hills to make their presence known. The gorefest that follows is packed with terribly frightening scenes of the deformed killers delighting in the torment and intended kill of each family member, young ...
| | Hard Candy DVD (2005) Widescreen
Brick film
$9.99
Claustrophobic and brightly colored, this tightly wound psychological thriller is constantly pulling the rug out from under the viewer, mostly due to the tense, explosive performances of its two main characters. The tale opens with a coffee shop rendezvous between 14-year-old Haley (the fantastic Ellen Page) and 32-year-old fashion photographer Jeff (Patrick Wilson), who have previously met only online in a chat room. Despite his questionable enthusiasm at meeting a girl half his age, Jeff comes off as slightly awkward and shy; rather, it's Haley who is unnervingly forthright in her flirtation. She suggests that they go back to his place, he complies, and, once there, Haley seductively convinces him to take pictures of her. She exhibits a beguiling mixture of innocence and precocious sexuality, but before anything happens between them, Jeff passes out under the influence of the drugs she's slipped him. When he wakes up, Haley drops her innocent demeanor and begins to undertake a meticulously planned game of retribution against her captive pedophile. She hacks into his computer and ransacks his house while he watches helplessly, and she ultimately raises the ante with a surgical procedure ...
| | Deadful Melody DVD (1993) Widescreen; Special Edition; Subtitled
Brick review
$11.05
A wild fantasy that takes place in Ancient China. The corrupt Six Clans seek the secret to the Demonic Strings, a magical lyre of great power. It's up to one heroic individual to protect the secret, as she seeks to avenge the deaths of her parents at the same time. Brigitte Lin adds explosive starpower to this over-the-top action fantasy.
Brigitte Lin and Yuen Biao star in this wild martial arts fantasy epic! When a magic lyre mysteriously ...
| | Death Ring DVD (1987) Subtitled
Brick DVD
$7.75
| | Cult - Live Cult: Music Without Fear DVD (2002) Widescreen
Brick movie DVD
$11.35
| | Dick Tracy vs. Cueball DVD (1947) Black & White
Brick video
$7.49
| | World's Most Famous Detectives - Vol. 3: Dick Tracy DVD (1946)
Brick film
$3.99
| | Violent Years DVD (1956) Black & White; Unrated
Brick review
$7.89
| | Mobster Classics Hits Vol 2 DVDs (2005)
Brick DVD
$5.79
|
|
|
Email a Friend
