Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Donnie Darko: Director's Cut
Dir. Richard Kelly (2001, 2004)
Some thoughts on the newly released version of this classic from the growing current of art that establishes adolescence and youth-culture as topics of worth, and which assumes some familiarity with the original release on the part of the reader (but if not and his or her interest is piqued, then I'm still happy).
For those (like me) who blinked when Donnie Darko first tanked in theaters three years ago, the re-release of this brilliant coming-of-age sci-fi retro-80s masterpiece after the addition of twenty previously-cut minutes and several other re-adjustments by director/screenwriter Richard Kelly seems like the perfect opportunity to project backward-looking praise. If only a portal could open up and transpose this review back to 2001, simultaneously uniting two points in time, then maybe everything would make sense like it does to the title character in the opening minutes of the film as we see him awake after sleeping on a road on the top of a hill overlooking the woods skirting his town. (This knowing smirk gets repeated at the end of the film as Donnie awakes in his bed later that same night; but only after 27 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds have elapsed).
Since this is a review of the director's cut, less energy should be spent on what makes the film so indispensible. Briefly, Donnie Darko is remarkable in how it perfectly renders its period: 1980s refracted through its own culture. It's a horror film set firmly in the reality of the Reagan-Dukakis debates and its main character's fascination with The Smurfs and Back to the Future. Like Donnie's own stumbling between hallucination and his abbraisive environment, the film hazes between 80s-pop reality and timeless adolescent reality. The drowsy opening sequence of Donnie riding his bike home alone nails several 80s staples: E.T. (bike and hoodie), Halloween (he passes posters for his town's Halloweenfest), and that great 80s-pop sound (Echo and The Bunnymen's "Killing Moon"); but there is no denying the overall sense of alienation achieved between Kelly and the film's star, Jake Gyllenhaal.
Only, given directorial license, we don't hear the Bunnymen at the beginning anymore. He's replaced it with a similarly-themed tune that probably makes a more coherant connection to the film's central concerns (fate, love, choice) -- and perhaps it's only because when you are wowed by something you don't want any of it altered -- but this is one of many small changes that detract from the charm of the sleeker original theatrical cut. It was a decision typical of this newer version: a detail that gathers what Kelly percieves as loose threads tighter. Only, his hooded sweatshirt doesn't flatten out neartly from this tugging (do they ever?) and he succeeds mostly in just creating unsightly bumps in the fabric. Sure, some plot facts are clarified, usually to little more effect than before.
The core genius of the film remains undisturbed: the unrivaled "suck a fuck" sibling banter scene, the Sparkle Motion plot-tangent, and, the film's pinnicle, the montage that begins with a sideways shot of the back of a school bust and proceeds to burst forth in glorius slo-mo to the utter synth-pop beauty of Tears for Fears' "Head Over Heels." Others might argue that the use of Duran Duran during the Sparkle Motion dance performance (intercut with the arson shots) is the climax, and a strong argument it is. Had any of these moments been tampered with, I would declare this version a crime.
What has been added are several minutes that develop the strange marital relations of Mr. and Mrs. Darko, who swim in flippantly argumentative dialogue yet are always shown to be physically affectionate. Drew Barrymore's icy cererbral English teacher gets some more time, as Kitty Farmer's ignorant campaign to ban Graham Greene from the syllabus succeeds in replacing it with Watership Down. (A novel/film about rabbits with human cognition who slaughter each other). New sound effects accompany some of the old visual effects, most noteably the Abyss-like water-projections that protrude from Donnie and his family as they watch football, and which lead him to his parent's closet and, well... I don't like the effects because they sound too artificial.
The only improvement is the inclusion of several new visual graphic effects, especially centering on a close-up of Donnie's eyeball. Paragraphs from The Philosophy of TIme Travel also flash up on the screen, seemingly as chapter markers. The text does help underline some of the film's plot/visual structure, but they seem more like an annoying DVD feature that I might try once just for the information. I was most upset by the paragraph that comes toward the end that informs the audience that people who were directly involved in the time travel event might have some vague recollection (or have bad dreams) about the tragedy of what happened, but will never be able to fully recall anything. What follows, in the film's quiet coda, is a panorama of the film's cast in their respective beds, in the grip of some awful emotion: regret, fear, sadness. What was brilliant about the theatrical version was that this same montage occurs without that preceeding visual footnote. The effect is the same, if a little more ambiguous, but shouldn't that montage be ambiguous if the people in it have a likewise vague feeling penetrating their consciousness? If they cannot pin down what they are feeling (because a time warp has erased the actual plot that aroused/no-longer aroused those emotions) then why should the director pin it down for us?
Seems like a rant just snuck out there, but let me find composure enough to advise the purchase of the original version DVD, with plenty of notes and information in the extras section, so you can see and hear Donnie Darko in all its lean, original impact. Still gets my vote for Best Ever Use of Patrick Swayze.
Dir. Richard Kelly (2001, 2004)
Some thoughts on the newly released version of this classic from the growing current of art that establishes adolescence and youth-culture as topics of worth, and which assumes some familiarity with the original release on the part of the reader (but if not and his or her interest is piqued, then I'm still happy).
For those (like me) who blinked when Donnie Darko first tanked in theaters three years ago, the re-release of this brilliant coming-of-age sci-fi retro-80s masterpiece after the addition of twenty previously-cut minutes and several other re-adjustments by director/screenwriter Richard Kelly seems like the perfect opportunity to project backward-looking praise. If only a portal could open up and transpose this review back to 2001, simultaneously uniting two points in time, then maybe everything would make sense like it does to the title character in the opening minutes of the film as we see him awake after sleeping on a road on the top of a hill overlooking the woods skirting his town. (This knowing smirk gets repeated at the end of the film as Donnie awakes in his bed later that same night; but only after 27 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds have elapsed).
Since this is a review of the director's cut, less energy should be spent on what makes the film so indispensible. Briefly, Donnie Darko is remarkable in how it perfectly renders its period: 1980s refracted through its own culture. It's a horror film set firmly in the reality of the Reagan-Dukakis debates and its main character's fascination with The Smurfs and Back to the Future. Like Donnie's own stumbling between hallucination and his abbraisive environment, the film hazes between 80s-pop reality and timeless adolescent reality. The drowsy opening sequence of Donnie riding his bike home alone nails several 80s staples: E.T. (bike and hoodie), Halloween (he passes posters for his town's Halloweenfest), and that great 80s-pop sound (Echo and The Bunnymen's "Killing Moon"); but there is no denying the overall sense of alienation achieved between Kelly and the film's star, Jake Gyllenhaal.
Only, given directorial license, we don't hear the Bunnymen at the beginning anymore. He's replaced it with a similarly-themed tune that probably makes a more coherant connection to the film's central concerns (fate, love, choice) -- and perhaps it's only because when you are wowed by something you don't want any of it altered -- but this is one of many small changes that detract from the charm of the sleeker original theatrical cut. It was a decision typical of this newer version: a detail that gathers what Kelly percieves as loose threads tighter. Only, his hooded sweatshirt doesn't flatten out neartly from this tugging (do they ever?) and he succeeds mostly in just creating unsightly bumps in the fabric. Sure, some plot facts are clarified, usually to little more effect than before.
The core genius of the film remains undisturbed: the unrivaled "suck a fuck" sibling banter scene, the Sparkle Motion plot-tangent, and, the film's pinnicle, the montage that begins with a sideways shot of the back of a school bust and proceeds to burst forth in glorius slo-mo to the utter synth-pop beauty of Tears for Fears' "Head Over Heels." Others might argue that the use of Duran Duran during the Sparkle Motion dance performance (intercut with the arson shots) is the climax, and a strong argument it is. Had any of these moments been tampered with, I would declare this version a crime.
What has been added are several minutes that develop the strange marital relations of Mr. and Mrs. Darko, who swim in flippantly argumentative dialogue yet are always shown to be physically affectionate. Drew Barrymore's icy cererbral English teacher gets some more time, as Kitty Farmer's ignorant campaign to ban Graham Greene from the syllabus succeeds in replacing it with Watership Down. (A novel/film about rabbits with human cognition who slaughter each other). New sound effects accompany some of the old visual effects, most noteably the Abyss-like water-projections that protrude from Donnie and his family as they watch football, and which lead him to his parent's closet and, well... I don't like the effects because they sound too artificial.
The only improvement is the inclusion of several new visual graphic effects, especially centering on a close-up of Donnie's eyeball. Paragraphs from The Philosophy of TIme Travel also flash up on the screen, seemingly as chapter markers. The text does help underline some of the film's plot/visual structure, but they seem more like an annoying DVD feature that I might try once just for the information. I was most upset by the paragraph that comes toward the end that informs the audience that people who were directly involved in the time travel event might have some vague recollection (or have bad dreams) about the tragedy of what happened, but will never be able to fully recall anything. What follows, in the film's quiet coda, is a panorama of the film's cast in their respective beds, in the grip of some awful emotion: regret, fear, sadness. What was brilliant about the theatrical version was that this same montage occurs without that preceeding visual footnote. The effect is the same, if a little more ambiguous, but shouldn't that montage be ambiguous if the people in it have a likewise vague feeling penetrating their consciousness? If they cannot pin down what they are feeling (because a time warp has erased the actual plot that aroused/no-longer aroused those emotions) then why should the director pin it down for us?
Seems like a rant just snuck out there, but let me find composure enough to advise the purchase of the original version DVD, with plenty of notes and information in the extras section, so you can see and hear Donnie Darko in all its lean, original impact. Still gets my vote for Best Ever Use of Patrick Swayze.
Monday, August 09, 2004
Sunday, August 08, 2004
Notions of Party Details
bathroom
bathroom
- candles (scented?)
- paper/marker hung above the toilet for drawing/leaving notes (commands?: "If you are reading this you must come out with your shirt on backwards?)
- toilet paper pyramid
- something plastic and fun in to hide in the shower
decor
- creative seating (on top of old truck boxes? go scavenging? do my car seats detach?)
- beer-pong table decorations (illustrations, naughty pictures, x-mas lights)
- fix lighting so its money-dusk
- each room is a sovereign loving compartment for fun
- Lounge (cheap beer): beer pong, big television for DVD, autonomous music source, board games
- Laundry room: the Bar (fridge o' beer, panoply o' liquor, mixers, limes & knives, banaids)
- Room #1 (whiskey): poetry/crayon room - Lots of paper, pens, and crayons for creating
- Room #2 (rum): the pirate/camp games room
- Room #3 (goldschlagger): goldschlagger and MYSTERIOUS MUSICAL PERFORMANCE SPACE
music
- mega'mazing ripped mp3 library summer mix '04 (under construction)
- obtain our favorite gray-box Kustom sound system, find way to connect to computer
- separate stereo for lounge
- instruments/plan for live performance
image
- vhs (Eraserhead, R.E.M. Succumbs, Godard)/sean's computer with camp footage
- dvds in lounge (Maya Deren, Brakhage, Spike Jonze, other?)
pure ideas
- live musical performance involving everyone at some point
- wrestling finals (out on the grassy terrace only)
- buddy checks (penalties?)
- we all have to collectively build something (find materials for this)
- list of required tasks that must be completed by someone by the end of the night
- take a shower
- spend the night (must live off campus regularly)
- air guitar (g'n'r)
- cheese puppet performance
- 15-second headstand
- poetry reading
- some barbaric feat of timed alcohol consumption
- roof?
- back rub
- help, I need more of these!
