Brick

Oh jeez. It’s been… holy hell it’s been months. I’m sorry. Really I am. Things just got away from me and kept on going. That’s the past now though, let’s celebrate the here and now. If you’ve been wondering what I’ve been up to for the past half a year, well:

I designed, made, wrote instructions for and recorded a video of an origami Blade Runner unicorn for Total Film magazine, which can be seen here. I used to read Total Film a bunch growing up, so this was kind of a bucket list item, even if it wasn’t really in a movie capacity.
Built a Lego Millenium Falcon (the one from The Force Awakens, not the new giant one) and a Lego First Order Heavy Assault Walker.
Started watching E.R., and finished series 1 & 2
Met up with fellow LAMB friends from America and the UK – some for the first time – and found many snarky things to bond over
Archived a bunch of Lambcast shows, though still not up to date
Made 1,000 origami cranes
Spent a solid 10 hours making fudge
Spent a solid 6 hours making brownies
Watched a bunch of Harrison Ford movies
Planned an extended James Bond marathon
Failed to accomplish said James Bond marathon, instead just watched two movies over a period of a month
A new 1001 book came out and I’ve barely even looked at the new additions.
Became an uncle
Saw Jurassic Park on the big screen for the first time, at my first outdoor screening, and still found new details even after all these years.
Attended my first funeral (my partner’s grandfather passed away) and gave a reading at it, despite probably being the person there who knew him the least.
Attempted to write this post at least 26 times.
Visited Canada, specifically Victoria, Tofino and Vancouver, where we saw bears, whales, otters and raccoons, and I tried a bunch of new food including poutine (I know it’s just chips, cheese and gravy, but I really thought it’d be more than the sum of its parts), fish tacos and artichokes.
And oh yeah, I went and got married, no big deal. That’s what the cranes, fudge and brownies were for.

Anyway, in all that time I have also watched a bunch of movies, so let’s get down to business. Here’s everything I saw since the last one of these posts:
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Recent years have seen seemingly exhausted classic genres being reinvigorated by big name directors and classy films, just look at the recent slew of westerns, or the amount of pictures throwing back not just their topics, but how the films have been made to more classic times. Hell, this year’s Oscars were dominated by a silent film and a film about the birth of cinema. Yet one classic genre remains relatively untouched, possibly because in 2005 first time feature director Rian Johnson updated the film noir template so pitch perfectly that no other films have been needed.

With closed eyes, Brick could quite easily take place amongst a myriad of smoke-filled bars, pool halls and rain-lashed phone booths, yet the action here has been transposed to a modern day high school, and in place of a perma-smoking Humphrey Bogart we’ve Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Brendan, finding his ex-girlfriend (Lost’s Emilie de Raven) face down in the mouth of a tunnel, and he is eager to find out why, regardless of how beaten up by jocks, thugs and car doors he becomes. Granted, there’s not really enough rain for it to be a traditional noir, but there’s plenty of secrecy, rich beautiful dames with brandy decanters in ostentatious mansions, moody shadows and an easily dismissed average Joe acting as gum shoe, sticking his nose in where most feel it has no business.

It’s not short on laughs – JG-L flounders like the best of them and his conversation with the principal is comedy gold, played spot-on like a detective berating his chief of police, and the final act wrap-up is gratefully received, for much of the highly quotable dialogue is sometimes too dense to catch.

Choose film 8/10