Episode 118: Wake Up Dead Man & Brick

About this episode

The episode discusses Rian Johnson's films, focusing on Wake Up Dead Man and Brick, analyzing their themes, performances, and technical elements.

Rian Johnson films. Sarah Watt, Jeremy Downing and William Chen discuss Wake Up Dead Man (2025), the latest in the Knives Out series, and Rian Johnson's first film Brick (2005). We begin by discussing our experiences watching Brick back in 2005 and 2006. This moves into us discussing a number of Rian Johnson's films, ending with Wake Up Dead Man. We discuss the range of actors in Wake Up Dead Man, including the accuracy of their casting, the bravado of their performances and whether they had enough to do. Our discussion weaves between the two films and talk about the technical elements and how Johnson and his team have crafted the tension, plot contrivances and semiotics.

People in this episode

Guests: Sarah Watt, Jeremy Downing, William Chen

Topics covered

• Rian Johnson
• Wake Up Dead Man
• Brick
• film analysis
• casting
• performance

Keywords

• Knives Out
• film discussion
• cinema

Mentioned in this episode

Products: Knives Out, Brick

Books & works: Wake Up Dead Man & Brick, Wake Up Dead Man, Knives Out, Brick

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