From: Damon Wise
Date: Wednesday 6 april 2006
Subject: Re: honest journalist query

1) How important has the net been in promoting a film like Brick, not just the official website but your own and also Rian's (which I see you've visited)?
2) How have you found the experience yourself, making yourself so available to the public (as it were)?
Thanks,
Damon Wise
Empire Magazine

I think a lot of movies turn out so mediocre, so watered down and so glossed up, because they're trying to safely sell to Everybody. Brick, on the other hand, was never meant to please all and offend none; it's an individual movie that appeals to certain individuals. If a movie's not for Everybody, traditional media can't promote it, because television, radio, etc. can't communicate with individuals. But the internet can.  The sites surrounding Brick do.  And it's working.

They leave me breathless and smiling, the direct connections I've been making with people through the movie's official website (BRICKMOVIE.NET), Rian's site (RCJOHNSO.COM), my site (HITRECORD.ORG), and the innumerable variety of other sites that link to Brick. Traditionally there's this barrier between the people who make movies and the people who watch them, and I think it sucks.  Making Hollywood this castle on a hill and crowning actors the "Stars" might have been exciting and even brought people together last century, but now it's grown kind of disgusting in its excesses and it's no longer bringing people together—it's keeping people apart.  It always turns my stomach a little when, because I'm in movies and on TV, people sometimes treat me as if I'm somehow different from, even above, a normal person.  But the emails, posts, and comments I've been trading recently with people through those aforementioned sites cause me no nausea; they inspire me.  There's no nasty status predicated on "Fame" or "Fortune." There's just that beautiful thing, the point of all art in the first place: a connection between one individual and another.