What is that all about?
Travelling via time portel to relive a part of your life…and sooo much more…curious! Truly, bizzare!
A very clever film - the finest example of a movie that’s about absolutely nothing but seems to be about absolutely everything…
I’d rather shave my testicles than watch that movie again…
Yes, it is a clever film, how come you would never watch it again? Grown to dislike it? It is a little tedious, vacuous…but interesting ideas - meshing timetravel-with-psychology and at the same time a strange kind of social commentary.
Curious film. Pretenious. Self-conscious. But, I still rate it…
If you haven’t been to the website yet… I would advise it.
You can read grandma death’s diary and stuff… it sheds alot of insight into the concepts.
I would watch it many more times… I find it to be quite funny, all of the school scenes are brilliant. Drew Barrymore was smart to have pushed for this movie… great producing.
“grandma death” - does it not occur to you that this is a primary-school attempt at making someone sound old and wise and like they have a story to tell? The movie is full of cheap tricks that the middlebrow wankers will buy into because it flatters their ‘cool but not too taxing’ criteria…
middle brow wankers?
Tis only a film - keep your skirt on…
Sure, it’s not FUCKING shakespeare (thank god) and like all things it has HOLES, takes LIBERITIES and is very SELF-INDULGENT. but overall - it s a curious film.
Somone is guilty of taking it way too seirously perhaps…
I prefer AMERICAN PSYCHO - but that is also weak on soo many levels.
Gradma Death - donnies mum actually make the same comment as you - she says it is a lame nick-name for an old woman!!
Darko - has a certian comic strip feel to it…it is just a curious, creative film. nothing to write home about. nothing to shout about. perhaps to mention.
i guess what draws me to it in particular is the whole mental illness theme!
It certainly is a comic strip, but it’s a comic strip masquerading as a ‘serious film’. I don’t take it too seriously, I take it on the terms in which it presents itself then find it lacking…
As to mental illness - watch Sling Blade for a much more sensitive, intelligent and informed depiction. As far as I can tell the ‘mental illness’ of the protagonist in DD is little more than an excuse for hallucinations (couldn’t just keep using dream sequences) and to make Donnie obviously ‘different’. Always easier to sympathise with a loner when you are part of a western, individualistic audience.
Now of course I’m being deliberately critical, but I’ve rarely come across a movie that has attracted more unjustified attention from ‘serious critics’. I just find it to be the perfect example of a movie for critics to wank over rather than a movie that seeks to be about anything. I mean I detest Schindler’s List but at least I can see what the makers were trying to achieve, in Donnie Darko it just seems like a collection of cool signifiers…
As a story for 12 year olds it is wonderful. As a ‘indie’ movie (yeah, right) for adults it is lame.
Fair enough…but just to let you know…i never thought this was a serious film…i guess i am just not as critical of things as you are…
what you say about the mental illness being a mere device to perpetuate the loose narrative is true. but, i guess, i wasn’t watching with the sole intention of obliterating it. i am not at film school. nor do i dissect every aspect for analysis.
i guess it depends what exactly you are watching for…
Donnie Darko - all bone without the meat! it is a cheap, easy film. but i don’t watch films for feelings of integrity. i go to church for that.
p.s. i’ll check out that film.
I didn’t watch it with the sole intention of dissecting it, I watched it hoping to see what all the fuss was about. I liked the film as I watched, I enjoyed it cinematically, it is in thinking about it afterwards that I developed a certain scepticism towards it.
The point I’m making is this: Smokey and the Bandit is a dreadful movie intellectually, critically, but it has no aspirations to be taken critically. It is purely a silly movie designed to entertain and perhaps glorify criminals in true Hollywood fashion. Donnie Darko labelled itself an indie movie and it’s script toys with big themes but does nothing with them. It’s like going to a strip club and only staying for 10 minutes…
I agree with your analysis. But as a “silly movie” it stands up. all movies are watchable. end of.
O, I found a decent criticism of the movie - it seemed fitting, in a ctahcy, cereal box kind of way:
On donnie darko: If this movie ever figured out what it wanted to be when it grows up, it would be a terrific one.
I’d rather watch Harry Potter 3 for my movie time travel fix… there’s a movie that has more going for it than just disturbing artsiness.
I thought it was a comedy first and foremost…
the depth is there though.
I’m sure I could find things I feel are ‘stupid’ in some of the movies Saitd regards as ‘the best’… it’s not overly hard if you drop down to disagreeing with some of the names.
Heh… I can’t believe you complained about grandma death’s name… 
Although that’s a good point Colin - about the mom saying that’s a cheesy name… I had forgotten about that.
I dunno… maybe I’m alone here, but I thought it was a quality movie… i didn’t find it ‘cheap’ at all. It deals with alot of different things… all the while without being any one of them. Of all the movies… it’s probably the one I’ve asked the most questions about and thought about the most (second to mulholland drive) so… if a movie can do that I think it’s a success.
Agreed.
About schizophrenia…
Where?
It isn’t a question of there being stupid things, it’s a question of the movie promising something that I don’t feel it delivers at all…
Like all advertised art, one almost always watches a movie with some expectation of what it will offer, hence why you pay your money up front happily. Even if you don’t go into the theatre expecting something then the opening few minutes of the movie will set you up in a similar way. I think that, if you like, Donnie Darko is a fascinating example of a movie which flirts with philosophy and psychology and science fiction but never delivers on any of them.
As to whether Gobbo could provide a damning analysis of any of my favourite movies - I’d like to see that. I really would.
That was a minor point, I wouldn’t have brought it up had a prior post not reminded me, it is essentially irrelevant.
Perhaps you have a very limited imagination…
Oh yeah, because the sympathy is really with the mother, she’s like, so important to the central exploration of the themes, so like, her opinion is obviously the opinion of the filmmakers - yeah?
That you resort to use ‘quality’ alone as an adjective demonstrates just how vacuous your views are…
Yeah, but you were philosophically impressed by the Matrix movies. Put bluntly, you have lower standards…
How does it ‘deal with’ any of it’s themes? You keep saying that it’s deep and quality and so on but without making any reference to the actual film. You may as well be talking about another movie, so vague are your comments.
If it can make an idiot think that it’s clever then it has done it’s job? I’m sure that’s exactly what the studio said when they decided how to advertise it…
You are so naive…
Oh my god here we go again with the sentence evaluations…
Listen, Saitd… I just don’t have the energy to argue with you, again, especially over a movie.
Just let me say this…
Yes… I agree with this, but I disagree that it doesn’t deliver because it doesn’t promise anything… and in that, it delivers EVERYTHING. It’s supposed to be semi-lucid, it’s supposed to just hover over a bunch of different themes… it’s supposed to be creepy and confusing and in a way… depressing. It’s a comedy about how mad the world is (like the theme song) told from a dark… slightly philosophical point of view. I found it to be comparable to American Beauty.
This isn’t a point we can make a compromise… we’re disagreeing here in a fairly direct way.
Maybe I shouldn’t have dwelled so much on the grandma death thing… but as for the rest of your post… I can’t say I’m surprised. No… I didn’t explain in detail my statements… it’s because I don’t write out 400 elaborate posts a day like you have the time or patience to do. If you truly think I can’t actually defend my positions you’re an idiot… but I know you’re smarter than that so that’s why you continuously confuse me.
Honestly… i can’t believe you, still with the personal attacks. You’re so insecure it’s embrassing.
Dear Talking Gobshite,
Stop trying to be psyque, Gobbo, it is getting embarassing.
‘I don’t have the time to give a proper answer’, no, just time to write a series of totally empty statements.
Here’s a tip for you - if you don’t take movies seriously (which you don’t, quite clearly) then don’t oppose someone in an argument who not only knows more than you about the topic but takes films way more seriously and is therefore more prepared to back up his claims with evidence and argument. Of course if you weren’t totally lying about studying philosophy you’d already know this. Yes, that’s right, I know full well that you don’t study philosophy and that your repeated claims to the contrary are false, all part of you badinage…
(Dammit… he’s onto me…)
I’ll admit, you got a smile out of me for that one.
God, that was painful…