Or I could just stop reading your frivolous posts.

First you have to ID them, and by then it's far too late.

And in case you haven't been following the recent thread on the SOLO logo debate, saying something 'sucks' without a reasonable substantiation is rude.

I'd be angling for rudeness in any reasonable substantiation I gave anyway so why make the extra effort?

I don't really see the malevolence associated with the film. Each time I watch it I've noticed that I've never been able to bring myself to hate any of the characters, even the pedophile Jim Cunningham or Kitty Farmer.

Kitty is just kind of a tragic case of a woman whose heart is in the right place but she's chosen the absoulte wrong actions. She spends all of her time and energy promoting a sort of new age guru (Cunningham) and developing the local junior dance troupe "Sparkle Motion." The tragic element of this is that she is letting the young girl dancers allow their priorities to go to hell. Her daughter (a sparkle motion dancer) can't answer a simple question about an short story which was assigned to her in class.

The story itself was a challenging story by Grahm Greene (which ties into the premise) and when Kitty is confronted with this being placed in the ciriculim her response is to try to have it removed. Her only real "intellectual" contribution to the film is a short class on Cunningham's fear and love perspective principles (as well as involve the pedophile or potential pedophile in the young girls' dance troupe)

Cunningham however seems to have it all together, so much so that he's managed to help other people come to terms with the problems in their own life. Whenever you hear any of his ideas they sound kind of stupid but he seems sincere. Midway through the film a large stash of child pornography is discovered in his house and he is arrested, Kitty devotes herself entirely to his defense.

In the "mad world" scene at the end of the film they are pushed face to face with their own shortcomings and you see the genuine remorse between the two. Cunningham openly weeps, is it for his victims, is it for the fact that there have yet to be any but he knows it could happen any day... the only thing that is for sure is that no one weeps that sincerely or openly just because they got caught, he genuinely feels guilty.

I will admit that at times the film leaves out key points of narrative, which are filled in by bonus features on the dvd. It's a narrative device usually best used in comics... specifically Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's Watchmen. Each chapter of the story ended with a few pages of something which appeared in the story, thus giving extra background and depth to the characters.

In Watchmen these were such things as a passage from a super-hero's autobiography, a vigilante's psychiatric profile, an article on the political ramifications of a genuine super-human alligning himself with a government during the cold war. In Donnie Darko they list such things as a psyche profile on Donnie (covering his sleepwalking and visions), An obituary for Jim Cunningham (committed suicide a few years after the events in the film) as well as other obituaries, And most notably segments from the book "The philosophy of Time Travel"

This book is key to the events in the film, it speaks of events taking place where fate is cheated, thus creating a highly unstable "tangent" universe where every person involved is somewhat aware of some key things which need to take place in order to facilitate the eventual destruction of the tangent universe not destroying the prime universe.

People are manipulated by ideas they don't understand for the sole reason of leading the "living reciever" (Donnie) into the correct course of events to facilitate the salvation of the prime universe.

So unlike simply dealing with schizophrenic delusions Donnie has to sort out all kinds of information about what he needs to do and where he needs to be, as recieved by every thing he hears from each person he encounters.

Every line of dialogue in the movie plays to this premise. From the teacher assigning a story about the destruction of a house (and in the directors cut later a story about a single individual who alone has the information to save his all his family and friends) and so on.

During the course of time the tangent universe is stable, Donnie has a pretty good month. He falls in love, he gets a pedophile punished, he gets to say a proper goodbye to his entire family (he was extremely rude with them during his last interaction in the prime universe), He learns just how much he really appreciates his good teachers.And though he suffers some and makes some bad mistakes, this really would be a great month to spend the last few minutes of your life in.

Once he has managed to set things back the way they were, everyone he cares about is safe but the price unfortunatly was his life (which if you notice he gladly pays, even though his good friend whom he murdered feels like he deserves a reprieve).

And at the end you get to see everyone in a small moment where they show you their true souls, no pretense, no armor, just everything deep inside of them.

Granted the scenes like that alone deserve a lot of attention.

About 4 times in the film there are sequences where no dialogue is spoken and you just follow the camera around different sets of characters at different times in the story, the only sound to these sequences are pop/new wave songs from the 1980's (the decade in which the film takes place).

I'm going to be switching between the Director's cut and theatrical versions here so bear with me. But the first sequence immediately follows Donnie after a sleepwalking trip has lead him to the highest point in the town. As he rides his bike home you hear the song "Never Tear us Apart" by INXS... If you've seen the film this is truly bittersweet because it is played against scenes of his family showing off their personality... and as the lyrics say "two worlds collide" and by the end of this film death will tear this family apart.

The second scene takes place the first day of the Tangent universe's existance. Donnie gets off the bus going to school and the camera follows a smooth motion accross first Donnie and his friends. You then see the girl he will fall in love with for the first time, all you see is a mysterious pair of eyes who've lived too much for 16 years in the mirror of her locker. You see two young bullies snorting coke 10 feet from the principle who looks smugly like he's in total control. You see Kitty becoming irked with the students as she carries Cuningham's book. And many other things.

The most remarkable part of this scene is how the lyrics often match up to the events and characters playing out on screen. The best example of this is the first introduction where Kitty introduces the principle to Cuningham who is there to promote his works into the cirriculum... over this the lyrics "I'm lost in admiration do I need you this much, Oh you're wasting my time, Just, Just wasting time"

These scenes always struck me as great examples of good film storytelling, in 4 minutes a piece you get huge chunks of character development and story without a single line of dialogue, and an amazing shot to boot.

Ultimatly this film brings up nothing but positive things with me and it's been a huge influence on how I approach storytelling.

---Landon

Inking is sexy.

http://www.angelfire.com/comics/wickedlakes

Blade Runner: The Director's Cut is one of the finest films ever made, a cinematic work of art. End of story.

And in case you haven't been following the recent thread on the SOLO logo debate, saying something 'sucks' without a reasonable substantiation is rude.

Or I could just stop reading your frivolous posts. Never fail to resort to the sensible solution.

If you don't understand what I'm on about mate, never fail to resort to a frivolous interpretation.

(I'm still not over that Blade Runner con. Working through it though. It's a day to day thing for me...)

I thought you were referring to directors and such. Anyway...

People who make movies that don't make sense!

What's the matter, can't you smell the conspiracy?

You said they were from the same people...what people?

Because since they both suck.

How's that, Rick?

Another one from the people who brought you 'Blade Runner.'

No doubt about it.

I though Donnie Darko was rubbish.  Post-modern, purposeless rubbish.

With that photo, it's more like a mug shot than a face!

Donny Darko? Don't worry, there are better movies to see. Yes, I liked A History of Violence, too.

Victor: Objectivist--writer--artist.

A face to the name of the no more Mr. Nice guy at last!

Sorry, haven't seen Donny Darko.

I want to come back to this later but I thought just giving my initial thoughts would be a good start.

Really liked the movie. It's actually a science fiction film and it's not that good as a depiction of schizophrenia (for that I recomend a Beautiful Mind).

I liked the fact that the film kind of epitomized what a plot should really be, characters being pushed in a dirrection where they show what they're really made of.

The key point in the film is that the things discovered during the 1 month period of the existance of the tangent universe are people being confronted with their deepest fears and the single most life changing events that they could encounter... if not for the period where the Tangent universe exists, Jim Cuningham would never come to terms with the complete fraud he is nor Kitty Farmer the dupe that she was.

The other teachers would continue the long hard struggle to actually be decent teachers in an indecent irrational system... they'd never learn that they each have a breaking point. Donnie would never get the resolution he gets with his family.

The whole film is one huge Deus Ex, but through that we discover what is truly at the core of each of it's characters.

It's kind of like the Ambrose Bierce story "an occurance at Owl Creek Bridge," where you see the entire content of a man's soul in the few hours (one month) that passes in his mind the second before his death.

That's my preliminary thoughts anyway.

---Landon

Inking is sexy.

http://www.angelfire.com/comics/wickedlakes

Donnie Darko...um, yeah...

I don't remember much of it, but did recognize a Jungian influence. Still didn't make sense to me. Not even Fellini-esque! (Or is it, I don't know anymore...). It's a big cult favorite, meaning that teens get high while watching this, thinking it's deeper than it really is...