BRICK is by far my favourite movie of all time, no contest. For some reason (undiagnosed autism), Brick has consumed my life more than any other piece of media I've ever experienced. Something about it has infected my brain and I can't get enough of it.

Coming out in 2005 and directed by Rian Johnson, the movie stars a young Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a strange contemporary take on a old school noir movie. Set in a Californian highschool, it isn't the usual location for a hardboiled detective story, yet it somehow makes it work if you manage to suspend your disbelief that these kids are all apart of a massive drug fueled murder mystery. Johnson and Gordon-Levitt agreed that "Brick isn't the way high school was, but maybe it's a little closer to the way high school felt." Joseph plays the main character Brendan, who after being broken up with is finding it hard to reintegrate into normal life. After discovering his ex-girlfriends body, he sets of on a chase to figure out what happened to her while struggling to let her go.

I think what makes the movie really special to me, is the way it was made. Being Rian Johnson's first movie, it had a very low estimated budget of around $450,000, and the crew had to make a lot of compromises to get the movie to work. The movie was only shot in 20 days in San Clemente, California. Majority of it takes place in San Clemente High School, where Johnson attended. A lot of the actors were students he got to work on it during weekends and outside of school. Only one set was made for the movie and the rest were shot in publicly available places like bed and breakfasts. The scenes shot in a mansion were shot in a friend of Johnson's home while still under construction and renovation, very visible in the film. I really appreciate movies that do the most to achieve an idea with such a low budget. Something about them being so imperfect makes them so captivating to me.

The soundtrack is another homemade aspect of the movie that I've grown really fond of. The score was composed by Johnson's cousin, Nathan Johnson. It really brings out those feelings of defeat, solitude and mystery that Brendan goes through. Nowhere is that more evident than in Emily's theme, which if you have the site unmuted, you should be hearing in the background. Piano, trumpet and violin were all included to give that overall feel of an old school noir movie, but also many DIY insturments were used too. Wine-o-phone, metallophone, tack pianos and even stuff like filing cabinets and kitchen utensils were all recorded on the same shitty mic of an old Apple Powerbook. Nathan composed pretty much all of it while in England over Apple iChat with Rian who would play clips of the movie for him to score.

What I love most about the movie is its main character, Brendan. Joseph has always been a favourite actor of mine, appearing in one of my other favourite movies of all time, Mysterious Skin, but here there is something so alluring and infatuating with Brendan I can't shake it. Besides the obvious being he is by far the most attractive man I have ever laid eyes upon in this movie, Johnson goes ham with the characterization in this film. Every character is so in depth and full. Not to mention, Brendan is in EVERY scene of this movie. There are no scenes where anything takes place without us seeing it from Brendans point of view, you really feel as if you are going through it all with him. Joseph played a big part in the direction of the character with Johnson saying "I wanted him to feel ownership over this entire movie because he had to be. He had to be infused in the whole thing, and the whole thing is from his character's perspective." Brendan is such a dishevelled and defeated version of himself, it really drew me into loving him. He walks around hunched over with his hands in his pockets, and never changes clothes. Fun fact, Brendan's character design, walk and other mannerisms were inspired and heavily influenced by Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop.