In “The Best Review I Ever Got,” filmmakers reveal their favorite piece of criticism about their own work. First up: “Looper” director Rian Johnson:
“The best review I ever got was for ‘Brick,’ and it was in The Economist. Because of their byline policy I don’t know who wrote it, and I couldn’t tell you exactly what it said. But it was positive, and it meant that my Granddad sat down to breakfast, read through his Economist, and stumbled on some very kind words about his grandson’s movie. He had always been supportive, but I think that was the moment he realized it was a real movie, and I’ve never heard him more proud.”
From that review in The Economist, dated May 18th, 2006:
“The film-making debut of the season is ‘Brick,’ a daring and assured film written and directed by Rian Johnson. It is a hardboiled detective story set in an affluent Californian high school where everyone speaks a wonderful mixture of teen slang and 70-year-old pulp lingo. The recurring high-school phrase ‘Who are you eating with?’ conveys life-and-death messages. And nobody has ever devised so many new ways of saying, ‘Get off the case, shamus.’… The first appearance of this uncompromisingly individual vision — unimaginable as a studio production — may even turn out to be what audiences remember most about this summer.“
Read the rest of “Satire, a Satire, and a Schoolboy Shamus.” Rian Johnson’s “Looper” opens in theaters this Friday.
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