Brick (2005)

In a modern-day Southern California neighborhood and high school, student Brendan Frye (Joseph Gorden-Levitt)'s piercing intelligence spares no one. He's not afraid to back up his words with actions or ensuing hilarity, and knows all the angles; yet he prefers to stay an outsider, and does - until the day that his ex-girlfriend, Emily (Emilie de Ravin), reaches out to him unexpectedly and then vanishes. His feelings for her still run deep; so much so, that he becomes consumed with finding his troubled love. To find her, he enlists the aid of his only true peer, the Brain (Matt O'Leary), while keeping the assistant vice principal only occasionally informed of what quickly becomes a dangerous investigation. Brendan's single-minded unearthing of students' secrets thrusts him headlong into the colliding social orbits of rich-girl sophisticate Laura (Nora Zehetner), intimidating Tugger (Noah Fleiss), substance-abusing Dode (Noah Segan), seductive Kara (Meagan Good), jock Brad (Brian J. White) and - most ominously - non-student the Pin (Lucas Haas). Only by gaining acceptance into the Pin's closely guarded inner circle of crime and punishment willt Brendan be able to uncover hard truths about himself, Emily and the suspects that he is getting closer to.

Trivia: The horn signal Brendan instructs Laura to give him (long, short, long, short) is the same as the doorbell signal Sam Spade tells Brigid O'Shaughnessy he'll use in The Maltese Falcon (1941). Brendan's earlier line to Laura, "Now you are dangerous," is taken from the film as well. To cheaply create the effect of something coming out of the tunnel and jumping up in the observer's face, the dream sequence in which Brendan sees Emily coming out of the tunnel is shot in reverse. You can see this because the water appears to be flowing out of the tunnel, while in all the other shots, it's flowing in. The car Tug drives is an original 1967 GT500 Shelby Mustang. The music score was composed by Rian Johnson's cousin, Nathan Johnson, with additional support and music from The Cinematic Underground. The score hearkens back to the style, feel and overall texture of noir films. It features traditional instruments such as the piano, trumpet and violin, and also contains unique and invented instruments such as the wine-o-phone, metallophone, tack pianos, filing cabinets, and kitchen utensils, all recorded with one microphone on a beat-up Apple PowerBook. Since Nathan Johnson was in England during most of the production process, the score was composed almost entirely over Apple iChat, with Rian Johnson playing clips of the movie to Nathan Johnson, who would then score them. The two later met in New York to mix the soundtrack. In his meeting with Trueman, Brendan refers to a teacher "Kasprzyk" as being "tough but fair". Mrs. Kasprzyk was an actual teacher of English (including Advanced Placement English) who was largely known as being tough but fair at San Clemente High School, the school where the movie was shot.

This is one of those movies that keeps you a little off kilter in the style Cruel Intentions. Both movies depict upscale teenagers that use highly sophisticated stylized language that is a little incongruous with the usual portrayal of American teens. But where Cruel Intentions centers on Sebastian's manipulations of his piers and Sebastian seems to be far ahead of most of the other characters, Brick is more of a mystery and has a lot of noir characteristics and you feel that the other characters are a lot closer to being on par with Brandan, especially the Brain and Laura. One thing is for sure, Brendan can really take a punch.

(p.s. there are still some questions in the Trivia question below that need answering)