Eve's Bayou

"Memory is a selection of images, some elusive, others printed indelibly on the brain. The summer I killed my father, I was 10 years old."

Who can resist a hook like that?

EVE'S BAYOU is a movie about that summer, but it's a movie about a lot more than that. It's about a time and a place; it's about being a 10-year-old girl in a loving but troubled Creole family; and it's about the sorrows we bear and the things we can never take back.

Jurnee Smollett plays Eve, a doctor's daughter in a 1950s Louisana swamp town. Her father, Samuel L. Jackson, is her hero and a respected man. He's also a philanderer, a reality that's slowly breaking the heart of her mother, the painfully beautiful Lynn Whitfield. Smollett is incredible as Eve, and she can thank a penetrating and intelligent script for her good fortune. This is not a movie with cute but struggling moppets, nor is it one about adults in children's bodies. It's about a smart and insightful young girl who's trying to make sense of things that she's simply not ready to understand. Jackson, playing the father, reminds us that he is a gifted actor in addition to being a guy audiences can believe is ready to take on a passel of dangerous, planebound snakes. His doctor is smart and foolish, dashing and clumsy. He's a man. And Lynn Whitfield, well, Lynn Whitfield has this scene: she doesn't say a word, and she absolutely broke my heart. You'll know it when you see it.

EVE'S BAYOU is more than its script and its actors, of course. The movie looks and sounds great, with a deep, inviting palette, perfect costumes and sets, and an intriguing mix of light and shadow. Its music only brings attention to itself when it wants to and manages to get under our skin. Additionally, its selection of zydeco tunes for some scenes reflects a deep understanding for and appreciation of Louisiana swamp music, and it succeeds in bringing the milieu home.

In short, all the pieces of EVE'S BAYOU work. The movie takes us places we've never been, into the lives of people we'll never know, and it does so with insight, compassion, and beauty. This movie is a winner.

Brick

I enjoyed the heck out of BRICK. The movie does so many things right, it's hard not to.

First, we have the location. It's hard to imagine a less threatening, more sterile city than San Clemente, CA. It's the kind of clean-scrubbed, utterly dull town that made me itchy to get out of California. BRICK makes San Clemente feel like the scariest city on Earth, all the more so for its surface sheen of wholesomness.

Second, we have the dialogue. It's a stylized form of speech, a noirish banter that no one would actually use, but which we wish they did. The speech could easily descend into self-parody or throw off the entire picture, but it does just the opposite: it takes us into a parallel world that's familiar enough to be relatable but just different enough to be unsettling.

Fourth, we have the performances. I didn't recognize any of the players, but knew going in that the protagonist is the kid from ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD, all grown up. They were terrific, and not in the terrific-for-kids sense. The cast took to the stylized dialogue and fanciful situation and played it dead straight, giving the proceedings a tension and danger that even one wink would've have dissipated.

Fifth, we have the music. IMDB credits Nathan Johnson and Larry Seymour with the score, and they do a masterful job here. The music, like the dialogue, isn't normal. It fits its milieu, however, keeping us off-balance and tense. While it did call attention to itself, it did so in the most positive way, making me seriously consider purchasing a score for the first time in a very long time.

Rian Johnson, a first-time filmmaker, did BRICK on a shoestring and edited it with his home computer. With a debut like this, I can't wait to see what this guy can do with a little studio money behind him.

What a treat.