“Brick” has every reason to be pretentious. I didn’t realize this going in, and for the first fifteen minutes I felt like I was watching a bad film school rehash of Godard in the most contrived manner. But somewhere along the way, this flagrantly self-affected and at times dementedly jocular piece of art-house trash earned my…
Let it be said that Antonio Banderas can take even an aggressively formulaic movie and turn it into a passable affair—sort of. In this case, he plays dance instructor Pierre Dulaine. From pierredulaine.com, I learn that the real Dulaine studied dance from the age of fourteen in England and by 21 became a member of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing, won several international championships, and moved to New York in…