I have managed to miss most of the big summer blockbusters so far, but last week I finally got around to seeing Brick. I thoroughly enjoyed it, even though it is basically a gimmick flick: a Dashiel Hammett story set in a Southern California high school, complete with teenage versions of all the usual film noir archetypes. There is the femme fatale, the down-on-his-luck private eye who gets beaten up a lot, the crime kingpin and so on.
It sounds a bit frivolous, but it’s not a spoof: there is real emotional depth to the characters and the cinematography is just fantastic, with muted, dreamy colors and desolate urban landscapes. The acting is excellent throughout as well —- watch out for a Richard Roundtree (aka Shaft) cameo! I was expecting something a bit similar to my favorite show on TV, Veronica Mars, which also riffs on the private-eye-as-metaphor-for-youth theme, but Brick distills the noir imagery to a purer essence. Highly recommended.
(As an aside, noir appears to be one of those exceedingly robust genre elements that goes with everything —- the same goes for Nazis and superheroes. In addition to high school, noir stuff can be mixed with with anthropomorphic animals, horror, science fiction, and —- of course, with Nazis and superheroes! It’s the Creole sauce of fiction.)
Creole sauce does not go with everything. Trust me on this one.
Cthulhu mythos also goes with everything (especially Nazis.) It’s the ketchup of fiction: In some bizarre way revolting, yet at the same time so fascinating.
I was going to comment that nobody seems to have mixed Nazis with anthropomorphic animals.. Silly me, having re-read Maus just a couple of days ago.