Rian Johnson's first feature is Brick, an accomplished neo-neo-pomo-noir that plays out in a present-day San Clemente, Calif. high school, being nealry equal parts The Big Sleep, Twin Peaks, and Rebel without a Cause. In Johnson's world, a high school drug dealer is chauffeured in a Chevy Astro, a Marlowesque secondary school shamus takes calls from a phone booth, and clueless adults take the place of Chandler's feckless police. His eye for the photographed image is assured, and he can tell a story with a lot of the action happening outside the frame. Nathan Johnson and Larry Seymour's electic score adds the right offbeat note.

And I'd love to know who's responsible for the sly Gilbert and Sullivan quotation.

 posted: 9:27:02 AM