The Missing Brest

No, that’s not a typo. But in this day and age you’ve probably seen the word you THOUGHT I meant spelled that way on a few message boards or text messages…

I’m talking about Martin Brest, film director. Over the weekend I was getting some stuff done and had the TV on in the background. “Scent of a Woman” was on. My God, what a brilliant film. To say that any one film really defined Pacino is a hell of a bold statement, but I think that film really did. And it had Chris O’Donnell, a fine young actor who used to have a career (amazing what stepping into the Batman franchise can do to put you on the “Where Are They Now” shows, isn’t it?), and this was him at his best, playing the timid and unsure prep-school kid against Pacino’s force of nature (HOO ah!). A moving and life-affirming film, directed by a man you’ve probably never heard of. Yes, Martin Brest.

I’d already been a fan of Brest (heh heh) when this film came out. His first big directing gig was none other than the first “Beverly Hills Cop”, the movie that launched Eddie Murphy as a leading man (“48 Hours” had just been his foot in the door), and damn near redefined the action/comedy genre. After getting some big Hollywood juice off the success with this, his next endeavor directing “Midnight Run”, one of the great buddy road films ever, where DeNiro and Grodin gave some of their best performances ever (and let’s not forget the awesome Danny Elfman score). This guy had already made two of my favorite films of the 80s when he decided to take a more serious turn an directed “Scent”. What a record! What a creator! He was one of my heroes.

And then, suddenly, he was gone.

For some reason, it took me quite a while to take notice. I wondered about this, but I don’t follow film like I used to, so I hadn’t really figured out what happened to him. Seeing “Scent” again got me curious, and I hit the trusty IMDB (Internet Movie DataBase, you heathen) to get some answers. Had he done anything after “Scent”? Turns out he had. “Meet Joe Black”. Well, okay. I can’t really speak to that one way or the other, since I never got around to seeing it. Looked a little too chick-flickish to me, and not the kind of Brad Pitt film I’m interested in (there are those that I am hip to. The man was in “Fight Club”. Did you SEE “Fight Club”? How could I NOT be a fan? Oh, crap. I just broke the first rule of “Fight Club”…). I can’t remember how that film did, but I don’t think it was a big flop. Certainly not enough of one, at any rate, to make Martin disappear off the face of the Earth. What could have happened?

I looked for any work after that, and it turned out he’d only done one other film, back in 2003.

Oh.

“Gigli”.

Written and directed by…Martin Brest.

Never mind.