Donnie Darko
Moderator: yoloswegmaster
- Reeniop41
- Joined: Fri Jul 19, 2013 11:06 pm
- Location: Southwest US
Re: Donnie Darko
This was an excellent release from Arrow. I personally prefer the Theatrical version. Lost interest immediately in the Director's cut when the opening music sequence ( from ECHO and the Bunnymen ) was replaced with a different song!
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
Re: Donnie Darko
Wasn't the release of the Director's Cut when people started realizing, "Oh, we were giving Kelly wayyyyyy too much credit here"?
- swo17
- Bloodthirsty Butcher
- Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
- Location: SLC, UT
Re: Donnie Darko
Yes
- mfunk9786
- Under Chris' Protection
- Joined: Fri May 16, 2008 4:43 pm
- Location: Philadelphia, PA
Re: Donnie Darko
The theatrical cut is much better, and despite efforts to expand the film's logic in the director's cut, it actually ends up making less sense. I remember liking this quite a bit and then having my balloon entirely burst by the DC.
- zedz
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm
Re: Donnie Darko
I still haven't seen the Director's Cut, because everything I've heard about it sounds like a horrible mistake. I really liked the film on its original release, and the reports of the Director's Cut made me realise that I'd apparently liked it under false pretences (or that the director had no idea what was so good about his own film in the first place).
I read it as a portrait of an emotionally disturbed teen, whose greatest fear is to die alone, who, in the moment when he does in fact die alone, in a completely senseless way, imagines a convoluted narrative which not only gives him the experience of companionship, but transforms his meaningless death into a necessary sacrifice. This seemed to me a pretty ingenious way to lend emotional heft to the standard "it was all a dream" trope, and accounted for why the film seemed to be so good at delineating emotional relationships but so ramshackle in its plotting and world-building. It was genuinely unthinkable to me that we were actually supposed to take all that jerry-rigged sci-fi nonsense seriously, but that seems to be what Kelly was intending. Unfortunately, there was no trace whatsoever of fruitful ambiguity in Southland Tales, just sci-fi nonsense turned up to 11.
I read it as a portrait of an emotionally disturbed teen, whose greatest fear is to die alone, who, in the moment when he does in fact die alone, in a completely senseless way, imagines a convoluted narrative which not only gives him the experience of companionship, but transforms his meaningless death into a necessary sacrifice. This seemed to me a pretty ingenious way to lend emotional heft to the standard "it was all a dream" trope, and accounted for why the film seemed to be so good at delineating emotional relationships but so ramshackle in its plotting and world-building. It was genuinely unthinkable to me that we were actually supposed to take all that jerry-rigged sci-fi nonsense seriously, but that seems to be what Kelly was intending. Unfortunately, there was no trace whatsoever of fruitful ambiguity in Southland Tales, just sci-fi nonsense turned up to 11.
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
Re: Donnie Darko
I thought Kelly's decision to reveal how one sucks a fuck was his biggest misstep in the director's cut
- Cronenfly
- Joined: Thu Jul 19, 2007 12:04 pm
Re: Donnie Darko
Is there another director that has stumbled quite so badly after an early success, including mauling the only good work he seems yet to have done (though kudos to the man for allowing the theatrical cut to remain in circulation)?
I know some people probably still think this erroneously of Orson Welles, but I'm struggling to come up with another career that has gone so awry so fast. I have a soft spot for Domino, but otherwise cannot make sense of Kelly's career/lack thereof (pretty sure Domino's highly debatable virtues owe themselves to Tony Scott, anyways).
Noel Black comes to mind, with Pretty Poison, which come to think of it would make for a decent schizo film maudit double bill with Darko.
Kelly did have a highly experienced cameraman, lucked out with casting, and had the good fortune to be denied the rights to CHUD for the film's double bill screening. I highly recommend the Arrow documentary for these and other insights, as well as the opportunity to ponder a Jason Schwartzman-fronted version of the picture.
I know some people probably still think this erroneously of Orson Welles, but I'm struggling to come up with another career that has gone so awry so fast. I have a soft spot for Domino, but otherwise cannot make sense of Kelly's career/lack thereof (pretty sure Domino's highly debatable virtues owe themselves to Tony Scott, anyways).
Noel Black comes to mind, with Pretty Poison, which come to think of it would make for a decent schizo film maudit double bill with Darko.
Kelly did have a highly experienced cameraman, lucked out with casting, and had the good fortune to be denied the rights to CHUD for the film's double bill screening. I highly recommend the Arrow documentary for these and other insights, as well as the opportunity to ponder a Jason Schwartzman-fronted version of the picture.
- knives
- Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm
Re: Donnie Darko
Roland Joffe fried out nearly as quickly (though was far more experienced when he made his first feature). I feel rather bad for Kelly who does seem rather talented if too excitable about some ideas he can't figure out how to visualize quite right (I like Southland Tales a lot as a mishapen cheapo comedy).
- swo17
- Bloodthirsty Butcher
- Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
- Location: SLC, UT
Re: Donnie Darko
I still like all of his movies.
- Cronenfly
- Joined: Thu Jul 19, 2007 12:04 pm
Re: Donnie Darko
Well, no one could reasonably accuse him of having sold out to anything but the farthest reaches of his own often ludicrous imagination, and he's no doubt a product of his parents having worked for NASA (father) and as a teacher of emotionally disturbed youth (mother), though I wish the influence of the latter had remained more pronounced on his work.
- What A Disgrace
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 10:34 pm
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Re: Donnie Darko
And let's not forget Robin Hardy of The Wicker Man.
- colinr0380
- Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
- Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK
Re: Donnie Darko
I understand where everyone is coming from on this, though I still think even Kelly's other films are interesting once you buy into the religion/conspiracy/pop culture fusion angle. I don't think Donnie Darko's director's cut really works either, but its most significant as what was to come as a premonition of all of the Southland Tales 'expanded universe' graphic novels (the film, like Star Wars, is "Chapters IV to VI" of the story!) and chapter headlining religious musings by Justin Timberlake's (not so wise) sage character, a veteran of one of your usual Middle East 'wars-for-oils'.
But then I have strange tastes, and while I understand there are certain commercial pressures to filmmaking, I think cinema is always enriched (or at least made more interesting and less homogenous) by crazed 'visionaries' journeying off on their own strange tangents, with their specific preoccupations that can then be critiqued by others. Even if there is the danger that might result in any work zooming straight up its own wormhole!
(I’ve always had the idea that if I ever became a filmmaker with a surprise mega hit, I’d want to use up/squander all of that success in one enormously indulgent blow out folly of a musical version of Gravity’s Rainbow (Something that would be both a grand period piece and completely anachronistically irreverent at the same time, acknowledging that it would be as much, if not more, about the contemporary 2010s as the post-war 1940s). That’s perhaps why I admire Southland Tales so much, as it seems the closest thing to that kind of project that has actually been made, while also seeing it as a cautionary tale about actually doing such a crazy thing!)
Which of course comes through most strongly in The Box as the simple little moral tale of the Twilight Zone story gets embellished bigger and bigger until it encompasses body snatching alien visitations and giant NASA conspiracies, strange interdimensional wormholes and musings on Satre's "No Exit" (which is The Box's key to unlocking the themes of its story equivalent of the discussion on Graham Greene's The Destructors in Drew Barrymore's class in Donnie Darko), all done to a 70s period setting this time around.Cronenfly wrote:Well, no one could reasonably accuse him of having sold out to anything but the farthest reaches of his own often ludicrous imagination, and he's no doubt a product of his parents having worked for NASA (father) and as a teacher of emotionally disturbed youth (mother), though I wish the influence of the latter had remained more pronounced on his work.
But then I have strange tastes, and while I understand there are certain commercial pressures to filmmaking, I think cinema is always enriched (or at least made more interesting and less homogenous) by crazed 'visionaries' journeying off on their own strange tangents, with their specific preoccupations that can then be critiqued by others. Even if there is the danger that might result in any work zooming straight up its own wormhole!
(I’ve always had the idea that if I ever became a filmmaker with a surprise mega hit, I’d want to use up/squander all of that success in one enormously indulgent blow out folly of a musical version of Gravity’s Rainbow (Something that would be both a grand period piece and completely anachronistically irreverent at the same time, acknowledging that it would be as much, if not more, about the contemporary 2010s as the post-war 1940s). That’s perhaps why I admire Southland Tales so much, as it seems the closest thing to that kind of project that has actually been made, while also seeing it as a cautionary tale about actually doing such a crazy thing!)
Last edited by colinr0380 on Thu Dec 29, 2016 6:38 am, edited 2 times in total.
- MichaelB
- Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
- Location: Worthing
- Contact:
Re: Donnie Darko
...and the screenwriter of that feature, Bruce Robinson, has never come anywhere close to matching the genius of his own directorial debut.knives wrote:Roland Joffe fried out nearly as quickly (though was far more experienced when he made his first feature).
- knives
- Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm
Re: Donnie Darko
I haven't seen it, but isn't Getting Ahead in Business generally well considered.
- Ribs
- Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2014 1:14 pm
Re: Donnie Darko
I find Roland Joffe's fall incredibly fascinating; he seems like exactly the kind of filmmaker that should have just continued doing what he did in the 80s but it somehow fell apart after The Mission. I know it's an over-exaggeration but I feel the idea that he staked his entire career on the Mario movie is one of the funniest things to have ever happened in all of Hollywood. The idea he, a Palme d'Or-winning director, is stuck doing bland TV nowadays is thoroughly amusing.
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
Re: Donnie Darko
After Captivity, there's nowhere to fall but up
- John Cope
- Joined: Thu Dec 15, 2005 5:40 pm
- Location: where the simulacrum is true
Re: Donnie Darko
I love all of Kelly's film and actually prefer the DC of DD. I really wish someone would release the supposedly superior Cannes cut of Southland; Kelly, meanwhile, appropriately enough continues to advocate for that film. I would very much like to see him return to active filmmaking. We just don't have enough genuinely imaginative visionaries; we can't afford to lose this one utterly.
Also, on the subject of Joffe, I too find his career arc fascinating and I still can't reconcile how someone goes from The Killing Field to exec producing MTV's sordid soap, Undressed. I will say though that I like his defiantly old fashion melodrama, There Be Dragons, quite a bit. That should have been the start of a career resurgence but only served to bury him further. Course, full disclosure, I'm also probably among the very few to like his much maligned Scarlet Letter.
Also, on the subject of Joffe, I too find his career arc fascinating and I still can't reconcile how someone goes from The Killing Field to exec producing MTV's sordid soap, Undressed. I will say though that I like his defiantly old fashion melodrama, There Be Dragons, quite a bit. That should have been the start of a career resurgence but only served to bury him further. Course, full disclosure, I'm also probably among the very few to like his much maligned Scarlet Letter.
- swo17
- Bloodthirsty Butcher
- Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
- Location: SLC, UT
Re: Donnie Darko
Now that's an Arrow edition just screaming to happen. Multiple cuts, the prequel comic, probably lots to be said about its production and reception, etc.John Cope wrote:I really wish someone would release the supposedly superior Cannes cut of Southland; Kelly, meanwhile, appropriately enough continues to advocate for that film.
- MichaelB
- Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
- Location: Worthing
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Re: Donnie Darko
Assuming you mean How to Get Ahead in Advertising, the answer is no - it completely squandered a wildly original premise thanks to Robinson's insistence on preaching to the already converted.knives wrote:I haven't seen it, but isn't Getting Ahead in Business generally well considered.
As he himself admitted, the film was just one long rant, and with Richard E. Grant deciding to go right over the top from the very first scene, there was nowhere for the film to go but rapidly downhill.
Put it like this: there's a reason why Arrow didn't release it separately!
- colinr0380
- Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
- Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
Re: Donnie Darko
This trend is officially annoying. First Hellraiser, now this. If this is in the works, they should let US customers know so that UK customers aren't being deprived and we can plan to pick up the local versionRibs wrote:LE coming to the US in April.
- swo17
- Bloodthirsty Butcher
- Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
- Location: SLC, UT
Re: Donnie Darko
Agreed. Though it's odd that the UK release was Region B-locked if they were going to release it in Region A all along.
- Ribs
- Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2014 1:14 pm
Re: Donnie Darko
Theoretically, this is just a kink in their Miramax licensing not coming into effect until very recently and shouldn't happen now they've got an established contract, but yes, it will probably be especially upsetting on the Academy side these upcoming months as they're in the process of playing catch-up.
- tenia
- Ask Me About My Bassoon
- Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am
Re: Donnie Darko
I don't know the time it usually takes for such deals, but with discs pretty much already ready to be sent to replication (except for the region coding), they might have finalised the deal after the UK version was sent to replication (which probably was around mid-November or something), thus being unsure if they could contractually do a Region Free version while still being able to announce it very quickly after the US deal was finalised.swo17 wrote:Though it's odd that the UK release was Region B-locked if they were going to release it in Region A all along.