By Crazy Carl Robinson
note: donnie darko (2001) isn’t officially a horror movie, but I’m trying, ya know…..there is a giant demon rabbit though, plus patrick swayze plays a child-molesting, self-help guru (and they’re both pretty scary, geno)…..note #2: I loaned my copy of the movie to the hottest player on the girls’ softball team (in the hopes that she’d be obliged to bring it back to my house), so I didn’t get to watch it again before writing this review……anyway, there are a lot of movies out there and it might surprise you that my favorite comes from 2001—like I’m not gonna rank ‘em for you now, but olebigfat, roger ebert would prolly argue that there are a lot of cinematic miles between donnie darko and two of my other favorites, the shining (1980) and nosferatu (1922)……some of the things I like about the film: first of all, it’s different every time you watch it—I always notice an additional theme and there isn’t a wasted or throw-away line…..every word that is spoken by every character means something, I promise……secondly, the film pokes a great deal of fun at the shiny/happy people—-you know, the ones who wait patiently every afternoon for dr. phil to tell them that the key to life is to “compliment three people a day every day”
…..i hate those people the most of all…..like I’m not sweating those of you who are actually happy and have your shit together, but I am sweating the buffer who buys her confidence in the self-help section of barnes & noble for $29.99—-donnie darko rocks the bastard stepchildren-of-oprah like no film that I’ve ever seen……devil bless it, the movie runs on dc power……finally, donnie darko is an excellent movie to watch if you’re under-the-influence—-I like to think that I’m pretty smart, but I watched the last 25-30 minutes one night on hbo at 3 am and I had no clue what was going on…..sometimes I still don’t and that’s high praise coming from me….However, despite the fact that this might not be the easiest film to figure out, it will still have you hooked as much as a revealing post at Pokerblog.com, or the latest episode of some trashy TV show that you just can’t stop watching – whichever you prefer. The point is, you won’t be able to take your eyes off the screen, even when you’re not quite sure what’s going on. by the way, if you’re curious what the big handsome thought of the movie, he said that he liked it, but that “it would have been a lot kooler if maggie gyllenhall had shown her tits”…..
10) RABBITS ARE KOOL: yeah, and if you’re looking for a plot, rabbits (and watership down) are as good a place to start as any……donnie darko’s spiritual guide throughout the course of the movie is a giant, demon bunny/murdered dude in a halloween costume named frank…..and when donnie’s english teacher (drew barrymore in her only interesting role since playing the lolita in poison ivy (1992)) asks him about the significance of the rabbits in the novel, watership down, donnie responds that “rabbits are kool because they’re cute and they have sex all the time”…..and then drew barrymore explains that the rabbits in the novel symbolize us…..rabbits are also symbolic of the native american trickster figure along with the joker, the fool, and bugs bunny……I could go on, but I don’t wanna sound too much like an english professor, plus I know that most of you are already thinking about patrick swayze…..honestly, any movie that can make you think about the cosmic significance of rabbits has gotta be pretty interesting, yeah?
9) THE SINGLE GREATEST MOVIE IN THE PATRICK SWAYZE CANON IS EASILY DONNIE DARKO……sometimes I’ll ask my students what my favorite movie is for extra credit points and the hint I usually give them is that this movie is patrick swayze’s finest cinematic achievement….and invariably the first jackass will say ghost (1990)—and I’ll tell them that I have to take points off for that answer…..then a second jackass will say dirty dancing (1987) and I tell them that they all fail…..road house (1989) is good for the first hour (and certainly terry funk’s master work), but ultimately they all fail in comparison to swayze’s portrayal of jim cunningham, the self-help guru cum closeted child molester of donnie darko…..jim cunningham’s infomercials, “cunning visions” stress the power of positive thinking—of not succumbing to “the fear” associated with drugs, alcohol, and premarital sex…..before the film can reach its climax, donnie blatantly succumbs to all three…..frank-the-bunny then instructs donnie to burn jim cunningham’s house down—thereby revealing patrick swayze’s secret child porn dungeon….i betcha even whoopi goldberg didn’t see that coming
8) I’VE WATCHED DONNIE DARKO 32 TIMES AND I STILL DON’T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK IT’S ABOUT (and I think that’s really kool and I can’t say the same about any other movie that I’ve ever seen): is donnie darko about the philosophy of time travel?….did donnie travel back in time through a worm hole just to die, thereby saving the universe?.…is donnie darko about religion?…..does donnie darko = jesus christ?…..are donnie’s trials comparable to those of jesus in martin scorsese’s the last temptation of christ (1988) or otherwise?……is it about death?….is it about america in the late 1980’s?…..is it about rabbits?….is it an homage to watership down?…..is it about creation?…..is it about destruction?…..is it about high school?…..is it about sex?….is about mental illness?…..is it about self-help?….is it about government conspiracies?…..is it about numbers?…..is it about patrick swayze’s hair?…..i think the answer to all of these questions (and more) is a resounding yes
7) RANDOM TRIVIA (because making a top ten list is hard): 10) in the “cunning visions” infomercial, patrick swayze pats a fat kid on the ass, 9) cherita chen sits directly behind donnie in every class, 8) drew barrymore tells her class that the two most beautiful words in the english language are “cellar door” which is an anagram for “celar dolor,” spanish for “watch out for pain/sorrow, “ 7) at the halloween party, a guest is shown jumping on a trampoline while wearing a ronald reagan mask—an homage to the famous photo of hunter s thompson, 6) donnie darko was voted #5 in the list of australia’s favorite movies, 5) while watching the film at my house, the big handsome cooked all the meat in my refrigerator and then took a big dump that stopped up my toilet, 4) a sticker inside the high school bully’s locker reads: “what would satan do?” 3) the middlesex halloween carnival is sponsored by mothers-against-drunk-driving, 2) the movie that gretchen and donnie watch in the theatre with frank-the-bunny is the evil dead (1981) 1) the last line of the movie is “all units should be back on base frequency”
6) POLITICS ARE FOR SUCKERS: the first line of the movie, “I’m voting for dukakis” occurs at a dining room scene in which the darkos (an upper middle-class family) are discussing the 1988 election…..director, richard kelly sets up the plot so that the darko children (the democrats) are playfully at odds with their parents (the republicans) over whether to vote for bush or dukakis—-with the implication being that the roles will be reversed once the darko children have their own children……what I like about the scene is that the family’s political discussion is presented as being comparable to that of sports fans posturing as to the outcome of the big game—that signifying your identity as a republican or democrat is as relevant as signifying your identity as a cowboy or patriot……as for me, unless my friend, wred fright runs for president, I may never vote again…..i do like the cleveland browns though—and the fact that they never win means that I really don’t have to talk about them
5) THE SOUNDTRACK: straight up, I don’t like 80’s music and I don’t like emo…..sometimes I wear black and sometimes I’m grumpy, but the red in my face is from rosacea—not makeup…..and in bumpass, virginia, usa, the 1980’s were all about hank williams, jr.—not morissey……that being said, the donnie darko 2-cd soundtrack (with 16 instrumentals and songs by inxs, tears for fears, the church, duran duran, joy division, and echo and the bunnymen) is somewhere between spooky and impress college-girls-with-faux-tortoise-shell-glasses kool…..like I would never buy any of these artists on their own merit, but I would put this cd in my favs case right next to the soundtrack from the big lebowski……like if you drove around playing it on any college campus in america, I think the art chicks would damn skippy wanna ride……note: the cd was never released in america—only the uk…..and if you want further proof of donnie darko’s kosmic kool, the cd peaked at #1 in the netherlands
4) FOR FANS OF THE # 28: as we all know, 28 is the second perfect number…..it is related to the mersenne prime 7, since 2squared (2third -1) = 28…..years normally follow a 28-day cycle and most human have 28 teeth…..one time this chick told me that she was on a 28-day cycle, but she coulda been lying for all I know…..as for donnie darko, the movie was shot in 28 days and in the director’s cut, there are 28 scenes……the film takes place over a 28-day period (kitty farmer knocks on the darko’s door and asks rose to chaperone sparkle motion’s trip to l.a. to be on star search on my 21st birthday) and frank (the evil bunny) tells donnie that the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds….as donnie’s mother prepares to board the plane to l.a., the airport announcement in the background says that flight 2806 is boarding at gate 42 and leaving at 12 am…..if you add these numbers up, the sum is 88 and that’s the year of the film’s presidential election as well as the speed which the delorean had to reach in back to the future (1985) to travel in time…..i could go on, but I don’t think anyone wants me to
3) OVERWEIGHT ASIAN GIRLS GO TO HEAVEN: if donnie isn’t the hero of his own movie, then that honor would go to cherita chen, an overweight asian classmate of donnie’s who wears earmuffs throughout the course of the film presumably to drown out all of the bullies’ taunts…..examples: 1) “hey, porky pig, I hope you get molested,” and 2) “go back to china, bitch”……cherita’s 2-word response: “chut up”……cherita is innocent, naïve and appears to be the only character in the movie who is completely alone……towards the end of the film, donnie tells cherita: “I promise, one day, everything’s going to be better for you” with the implication being that if cherita can maintain her sense of self-worth that she will eventually become a well-adjusted adult…..in the movie’s final montage, the characters wake from their respective nightmares feeling remorseful and afraid—that is, except for cherita chen who wakes with a smile on her face…..i guess the lesson for bigfatpeople (and asians) is that if you suffer enough that you’ll eventually grow strong—and that moral makes a helluva lot more sense to me than “everyone is beautiful in their own way”……some people are fat and some people are ugly and some people are mean and it’s ok because donnie darko feels everyone’s pain
2) DC POWER: my friend, nootie was telling me the other day that, as a libra, he was a conductor of the positive or negative power of the other people in the room with him…..and as a phishhead, nootie obviously wants to be interacting (i.e. smoking) with other (I would say “un-naturally”) happy people…..i told him that, as a scorpio, I just needed the juice (be it positive or negative) to get thru the day—-that hating other people gave me the same amount of energy as loving other people…..and I’m quite afraid that, in the future, people will go to jail/have chips implanted in their brains for saying/thinking negative things…..for example, I don’t like it when people call me “fat,” but I don’t want my great-great-grandchildren to be vaporized for telling a fat joke…..and donnie darko understands this concept—dr phil doesn’t really love you, ya know—-he’s just making money off your dumb ass
1) GOD/THE UNIVERSE/NATURE ALREADY KNOWS THAT YOU’RE A GOOD PERSON, SO YOU DON’T REALLY NEED TO POUR COLUMBIAN SHEEP’S BLOOD OVER YOUR HEAD IN FRONT OF THE LOCAL STARFUCKS TO SHOW THAT YOU’RE PRO FAIR-TRADE COFFEE…..one of the nicer messages of donnie darko is that the universe ultimately understands that donnie is a good kid and that’s one of the reasons that he’s allowed to live an extra 28 days…..donnie doesn’t waste the extra time that he’s been given trying to solve world hunger or bring about world peace, instead his loses his virginity, does some partying, and burns down patrick swayze’s house…..in death, donnie doesn’t seek out the (generic, hallmark card) beauty in all things—-he’s good to the good people and bad to the bad people and I think that’s ultimately how it should be
