Donnie Darko?

i have seen it. there is a thread. it's pretty fucked-up.

say more

I dont know why you always have to be judging me because I believe in science!

-- chaki, Friday, November 2, 2007 8:50 PM

classic line

I imagine this is Zach Braff's idea of a perfect movie. So edgy, so kooky and away from the mainstream!

I'm going to go watch this again and get all "SHIIIIIT. I'll never be able to create something this moving." GOODNIGHT!

-- Tape Store, Sunday, September 9, 2007 5:00 AM (5 months ago) Bookmark Link

Beating us to the punch, I see.

I just watched this for the first time, but the DVD that I bought for $3.99 at the local used DVD emporium was damaged in some way, so it kept skipping and breaking up throughout the second half of the movie, so apparently I missed that after the party they went to Roberta Sparrow's house and the gfriend gets hit by a car and then DD goes back in time again. Oh, and there was no scene where DD sees Frank in the movie screen. But still, it seems that the version I saw was as good as the real version -- very oblique. "Mad World" was still in it.

I imagine this is Zach Braff's idea of a perfect movie. So edgy, so kooky and away from the mainstream!

-- DavidM, Saturday, 3 November 2007 10:00 (3 months ago) Bookmark Link

Nice zing!

What a shitty ass piece of crap movie. Where do I start with this? Ugh.

by admitting that you're WRONG

I havent watched this in fnyears.

one day you will wake up with a jet engine crashing into your room but in the brief millisecond before you die you will remember this movie and you will realize how poorly created, told, and developed the idiotic story was and you will whimper STEVE SHASTA WAS RITE

try comparing it to Eternal Sunshine and maybe it won't seem so bad

there's nothing idiotic about the story, it's v simple and v touching, and it's an impeccably crafted film, with the most incredible atmosphere ever--a mysterious, dark, ET-meets-Blue-Velvet vibe. maybe you accidentally watched the director's cut?

hmmm... maybe you accidentally spelled "crapped" with a "-ft-" ?

tbh i have no idea what i watched only that it was a DVD called Donnie Darko and it was the worst film I've seen since Synechedoche, NY which lemme guess you loved as well?

now that I'm older & thinking about this movie I am kind of smh @ the tenuous connections that drive the storyline (e.g. the cellar door thing??)

there are still a lot of things about this movie I like tho

sorry, i hope this doesn't offend you, but are you getting old?

I personally don't have anything against this movie (however I do think the ending sucks big time) but I do have to say that Donnie Darko ruined a couple good songs "Under The Milky Way" and "Killing Moon" by reviving them and making them popular amongst teenagers - bummer EMO kids in particular

It's really Eternal Sunshine that bugs me the most but I already mentioned it upthread

perhaps i am old enough to see through jr hs fantasy scripts pawned off on the bedwetting mouthbreathing wikipedia generation, so yes??? this is not Blue Velvet meets ET, it's American Beauty meets Battlefield Earth dir by MNightShamwow.

I was in my mid 30s when it came out and I liked it plenty. But I'm not cynical type.

curtis, i think one of the things you have to do w/ this movie is reconcile the differences between richard kelly's DONNIE DARKO and your own DONNIE DARKO. like, he's all about the stupid-ass sci-fi elements (the way time travel works) and he actually thinks 'cellar door' is crucial shit (these things are v clear if you've seen SOUTHLAND TALES and THE BOX, which both feature some great elements but A LOT more of the tenuous sci-fi and literary references), but if you think of the whole movie as something happening in donnie's head, him going through the motions of justifying his own death (reinventing a life where he's a hero in school, the cool rebel), all of those superfluous things work because they're a part of donnie's mind, he's a naive teenager who thinks those things are "cool"

(and fwiw Im no fan of Shamalama ding dong)

xp, yeah when i heard Kelly's 'version' of this film i was totally shocked and like "wtf that's totally NOT what this movie is about, i don't care if you're the director"

I must admit he did over-explain it way too much.

this movie is amazing and getting pissed off about the poorly developed story = lol u old

but if you think of the whole movie as something happening in donnie's head, him going through the motions of justifying his own death (reinventing a life where he's a hero in school, the cool rebel), all of those superfluous things work because they're a part of donnie's mind, he's a naive teenager who thinks those things are "cool"

This is how I understood it too, probably through wishful thinking though (it makes for a better film than any of the other explanations). He makes the villains of the film very easy to rebel against, and as if they weren't easy enough one of them turns out to be a paedophile too. Then he turns himself into a saviour promising a better life for the overweight girl and so on. He's a complete dick to his family for the first 10 minutes of the film, the cool rebel stuff only starts after the jet engine falls onto his house (which is when the fantasy starts, I'm guessing)

This is the film I hate the most.

this movie (which i love) is one of the few dvds ill watch again and again just because its so aesthetically pretty. same reason i keep watching virgin suicides.

otm! Sometimes, films are great simply cos you can immerse yrself in the atmpsphere it creates. Be it 2001, Donnie Darko, Lost in Translation, whatever.

Oh my god. Did you two find Tim Burton's Alice an immersive aesthetic experience too???

Mordy you clearly don't understand what an atmosphere is if you think Burton films have them :)

haha, shasta filling the void while whiney is sidelined
Dreadful, twee horseshit marketed to "indie" types that fratboys watch to look smart and housewives watch to look hip

I'm no fan of Burton I have to admit.

Burton is as immersive as Donnie Darko. Seriously paint-by-the-numbers suburban goth-kid alienation. If it weren't a slight anachronism I'd call it Hot Topic.

Oh my god. Did you two find Tim Burton's Alice an immersive aesthetic experience too???

― Mordy, Sunday, May 2, 2010 2:24 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark

i dont even lknow what this is

and this makes no sense to me at all

Burton is as immersive as Donnie Darko. Seriously paint-by-the-numbers suburban goth-kid alienation. If it weren't a slight anachronism I'd call it Hot Topic.

― Mordy, Sunday, May 2, 2010 2:42 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark

i kind of meant the blue and the yellow but okay.

iirc Drew Barrymore's culottes were a colorful world unto themselves.

Mordy, I know this is off-topic but I would love to hear your opinion on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind if you have seen that movie

I liked Eternal Sunshine, tho it's not my favorite Kaufman or my favorite flick. tbh, I should just stay off this thread. I have this inexplicable hatred for Donnie Darko. I find it aesthetically ridiculous, I find the plot inane, the characters totally repulsive, and the cult following for it completely incomprehensible. I think Southland Tales is a better flick. Now, def some of my hate is from reading the director's notes on the film and realizing that it's just a masturbatory sci-fi thing for Kelly, but I only sought out the director's notes because I felt like I had just seen a bunch of stuff that promised really deep meaning but left me feeling totally empty. It was like reading high school poetry where the images are really heavy-handed and it's super emo, but when you probe it you realize that its just very poorly expressed. (Look, a guy in a creepy rabbit costume! The most iconic image in the flick. That must mean something, right? Nope, it's just what the dude was wearing on Halloween when he was shot.)

Donnie Darko ruined a couple good songs "Under The Milky Way" and "Killing Moon" by reviving them and making them popular amongst teenagers - bummer EMO kids in particular

songs don't get "ruined" by this

i watched this tonight for the first time since high school. i liked how it seemed very heavy handed but was also basically incoherent. what was it trying to say, if anything, about time, god, guilt, destiny, or any of the big themes it brings up? the lack of closure is unsettling and, i think, a strength of the movie. (maybe there would be closure if i studied fan analyses of the wormhole stuff but i don't plan to do that.)

the love story between donnie and the girl was very sweet, i thought, and sad. you wanted them to find some peace with each other in the midst of that hellish high school/community but the whole time you knew it was impossible because donnie was being tormented by "frank". just wrenching. i felt this movie was emotionally authentic even it was philosophically and logistically confused (which may have been intentional)

i liked how it seemed very heavy handed but was also basically incoherent.

a pretty good description of high school.

this is a very flawed movie that is better the more incoherent it is

this is also true of southland tales which i think of as a kind of horrible masterpiece

I admire ST but also find it completely unwatchable, the intro screed alone is just the worst

The Box on the other hand I kinda love, Richard Kelly getting to do another movie on the basis of the ironclad/unfuckwithable premise, then proceeding to Richard Kelly the fuck out of it.

It's a very teen movie in every way. It's also very sweet, with lots of touching relationships. What part of the plot makes sense or is pretentious isn't really important except for how it expresses some facets of teenage angst, rebellion.

It really hit the mark in creating memorable scenes in isolation. I remember so much of this movie, so many looks and lines.

I could perhaps see people being annoyed at the hype when it was originally released, hot new director and all. But now it's just a sweet artefact of its time for people who grew up with it and young people discovering it now.

watched this tonight for the first time since 2002 or so, having seen it once in the theater and then again when the DVD came out. it's still okay with some great parts but the mystique it had the first time around has dissipated for me. i don't know if this is an effect of not being 19, or the effects having dated, or just the difference between a movie where you know where it's all headed, and one where you don't. but if i wasn't one of those who was convinced the movie had deep profound meanings i remember finding the creepy Frank parts and the 'tubes' genuinely dread-inducing and unsettling and strange. that's all kinda gone now for me. the 80s throwback wiseass teen and busybody teacher stuff all still plays well though. supporting cast in this is a lot of fun.

i think it mostly holds up... saw it in a theater last year, first time in many years (tho i kinda half-watched it with someone in 2014), and the thing that stuck out to me was how memorable & funny the dialogue is. really quotable & memorable characters. sparkle motion, chut up, why are you wearing that stupid human suit, suck a fuck, "you're bitchin'... but you're not a bitch." totally makes up for the teenager philosophy & sci-fi, which has dated a bit but still found the film moving and unsettling in the same way i did whenever i saw it in the early 00s. also should say i've never seen the 2004 director's cut which supposedly explains way too much & ruins the film.

GRETCHEN: My mom had to get a restraining order against my stepdad. He has emotional problems.
DONNIE: Oh, I have those, too. What kind of emotional problems does your dad have?
GRETCHEN: He stabbed my mom four times in the chest.
DONNIE: Oh.

wow tonight i rewatched this for the first time in forever (since high school i think? and it was prob the director’s cut then, which actively undoes pretty much everything interesting about the movie)

obv i’m one of the biggest/only richard kelly partisans here but i still think this movie is really really good. surprised how much of it i remembered, surprised i forgot how...sad it is