The Brick Movie was a limited release teen movie starring JosephGordon-Levitt, star of such movies as 10 Things I Hate About You and more known for his work in the television situation comedy Third Rock From The Sun, which was a classic story about the class loner who is forced into a situation where he has to come out of his shell to solve a crisis. In the Brick Movie Gordon-Levitt’s character, Brendan, is the extremely intelligent class loner who has few friends and never really gets involved with the school activities. He is an outcast from the group of popular kids and has no real contact with them until one day his ex-girlfriend Emily, played by Emile De Ravin makes contact with Brendan after a while of no contact and then she disappears. Brendan then spends the rest of the movie penetrating the criminal underworld of the popular kids’ group in the high school in an attempt to find out what happened to Emily. The Brick Movie is extremely entertaining and suspenseful and found a large following among high school students even in its limited release to no more than 50 screens in the United States. Even with such a limited release the movie grossed a couple of million dollars and became a financial success.

There was a lot about this movie that appealed to teenagers and among that was the honesty that the movie came across with. It was rumored that the movie was edited on a home computer and its limited release made it a movie that teens had to see. The Brick movie deals with topics that teens had a great interest in like what the popular kids in school are really up to and what would happen if the class loner had destroyed the popular kids’ circle. Many teens feel alienated and feel like that have few friends and when so many kids feel like that have no specific group they are part of then a story where the loner becomes the hero is very appealing. In keeping with the honesty of the film the movie was shot in director Rian Johnson’s hometown and the school it was shot in was one he attended. Johnson also wrote the movie back in 1997 and it took until 2003 before he could fund the project. Even though the stories are very different the story behind the Brick movie and how it was made is very similar to another teen movie hit called Napoleon Dynamite where the writer/director of Napoleon Dynamite wrote the movie himself, filmed it in his hometown, and edited the movie himself.

Movies like the Brick movie give hope to filmmakers that may not have access to the big budgets and huge sound stages of the big studios. With computer technology advancing while the cost for that technology is dropping it is becoming easier and easier for focused people to get their movies made and release. The Brick movie and Napoleon Dynamite both had a similar budget of around $500,000 and both were shot in high schools where the writer/director grew up. This trend is a great sign for the movie going public as more and more of the released coming from the big studios in Hollywood either bomb right away or offer nothing new in the way of interesting stories and entertainment. Movies like the Brick movie can help to pave the way for lesser known filmmakers to get their movies made and seen and maybe this will also help more entertaining movies make it to a screen or theater near you.