Long before Knives Out (2019) and Poker Face (2023 – ?), Rian Johnson was starting his whodunnits by showing us the dead body. Brick (2005) has a new release out from Kino Lober, and, surprising no one ever, the compositions of cinematographer Steve Yedin (Knives Out; Star Wars: The Last Jedi) still look world-class when transferred correctly. If you watch Yedlin’s online lectures about digital sensors and film grain, you’ll realize that while Roger Deakins (Fargo; Blade Runner: 2049) is the best working cinematographer today, Yedlin might be the most technically proficient. The story of Rian Johnson’s career is a story of friendships, from Joseph Gordon Levitt (Mysterious Skin; Treasure Planet) to Natasha Lyonne (His Three Daughters; Russian Doll), but it’s Johnson and Yedlin’s friendship and collaboration that remains in the driver’s seat, and it’s never more apparent than in Brick, a monument to youthful energy and angst.
This director-approved 4K shows off the long-term consequences of this collaboration. As Joseph Gordon Levitt climbs a hill to tail Noah Segan’s (Knives Out; Looper) Dode, a vibrant sunset behind him, my dad gasped out “I can’t believe they made this on such a low budget.” Different UHD disk masters have different strengths. Some crank the saturation, while some push the contrast. Johnson’s approved remaster uses UHD to show off the dynamic range of the Kodak Vision T-stocks shot in a Californian-style high school, half inside, half outside. The iconic stream of light onto the spinning mirror, Lukas Haas’s (Alpha Dog) The Pin’s basement, and Noah Fleiss’s (The Truth about Jane) Tugger slouched in the chair — Yedlin and Johnson didn’t make safe choices with the exposure on Brick, but they did make great ones. Now they get to show them off once more.
The first Rian Johnson film I ever saw was Looper (2012). I was 15 and of the age where my dad was starting to show us the more adult films we “had to see,” like Training Day (2001) and Goodfellas (1990). My poor little brother was getting dragged into movies he might not have been ready for just because I was. Dad rented Looper right after showing us Unbreakable (2000), probably because we weren’t showing a proper amount of reverence to the great Bruce Willis’s (Die Hard; Moonlighting) transcendent performance. After Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) and Knives Out, he became my first favorite director. When I sought out Brick a few months later, it was like getting punched in the face by his authorial voice. It still is.
I’m writing about self-financed films for burgeoning and iconic directors in the Blockbuster Bets column, and Brick is a perfect example of the boot-strapped-cash, leave-it-all-on-the-field filmmaking that’s so exciting about watching new directors arrive. If you listen to the collaborative director and crew commentary for Brick, Johnson spins a great tale about a team of people just as committed to the film as he was. Young actors, young production designers, young ideas. They whip-zoomed because laying dolly track took too much time. They stole shopping carts and they threw mud on walls right next to all their ideas. They literally wrote their own rules for the English language. I still think Knives Out and Star Wars: The Last Jedi are Johnson’s best films, but what I think surprised me most about how Brick still holds up is the early example of his best authorial trait: clear-eyed emotional complexity.
Morality and motivations get increasingly complicated as Johnson twists the dials with each act break. But they’re never that murky. They are tales of right and wrong, and the complexity comes from the increasingly high hurdles required to do the right thing. Would you do this? Would you go that far? Most wouldn’t. Brick is ultimately a tragic love story about people who love each other but can’t make it work. It’s easy to see how 23-year-old Rian Johnson could write that script, and 30-year-old Rian Johnson could fill it with so much regret and pathos. When I was in college, it was the confrontations on the football field that stuck in my numb skull. Today, it’s Emily (Emilie de Ravin (Remember Me)) and Brendan (Levitt) huddled up against the wall, trying to hold on to youth and each other, as she says “I couldn’t heckle life with you anymore.” A man at home in 1955, 2005, and soon 2025, Brendan could be a disaffected rockabilly biker during McCarthyism, the begrudging prisoner of the surveillance state that he is in 2005, or a red-pilled edgelord today. The world will always have young men who hate the mistakes the used-to-be-young men have made, and so the world will always have a place for Brick, now in 4K.
Brick Special Features:
- *NEW* HDR/Dolby Vision Master Approved by Director Rian Johnson – From a 4K Scan of the 35 mm Original Camera Negative
- *NEW* Audio Commentary by Professor and Film Scholar Jason A. Ney
- Audio commentary by Writer/Director Rian Johnson; Actors Nora Zehetner and Noah Segan; Producer Ram Bergman; Production Designer Jodie Tillen; and Costume Designer Michele Posch
- Eight (8) Deleted and Extended Scenes (w/ Introduction by Rian Johnson)
- The Inside Track: Casting The Roles of Laura and Dode
- 5.1 Surround and 2.0 Stereo
- Theatrical Trailer
- Optional English Subtitles
Available on 4K UHD October 15th, 2024.
For more information, head to the official Kino Lorber Brick webpage.
Share this:
Categories: Films To Watch, Home Release, Recommendation
Leave a Reply