Donnie Darko

[Iron_Scarecrow]

I don't start many threads.

Anyway just recently the ABC held "My Favourite Film". Australians voted for their favourite all time films and Donnie Darko came in at number 5. The panel on the show did not believe that this film, although they did like it, should be on the top ten. Personally I felt a little insulted by this as it is most probably my favourite film, and thankfully SBS are showing it in 40 minutes so I may watch it once again.

I was just wondering what everyone elses thoughts are on the movie.

[Nikson]

We had to analyze the movie for Multimedia class in Year 12. It's definitely a cult movie, it bears no similarities to blockbusters, but it is an excellent film in its own right.
A complex plot that is hard to understand even after several viewings.

[BeefontheBone]

I loved it, but the Director's Cut completely ruined it for me by making all the neat mysterious stuff explicit. It would probably be in my personal top 10 - it's certainly an absolutely amazing debut as both writer and director, and it has Drew Barrymore bothering to act for a change - I've never understood why she does so much crappy work. I guess it pays better than the good stuff. Plus Noel thingy from ER is in it as eye candy for the ladies.

[Iron_Scarecrow]

I've only seen the director's cut, 4 times too. Don't know what version they'll put on TV, I assume the normal one.

Anyway I'm off to watch it again.

[BeefontheBone]

If you get a chance to see the theatrical release (well, the original one since the DC was actually released in cinemas) go for it, it's much better IMO.

[Iron_Scarecrow]

Well the one just on TV was different to the one I have previously seen, it didn't have the extracts from the Philosophy of Time Travel book, so it must have been the original.

The thing I love about this movie is you can never know what truly is reality in it. I'll be thinking about this for another couple days, as I always do.

Also I'm wondering if you know of any good psychological thriller books, I just read Surrender by Sonya Hartnett and have been thinking about that since I finished it. Looking to get into some more.

[Sebatianos]

Well, I have it and I agree it's a great movie, but sorry it wouldn't be among the top 100 on my list (sorry, too many other movies are better - at least in my book).

It would be among the top 500 though and if you consider how many movies there are in the world that's still top-notch (I know I've seen over 50.000 movies in my life thus far - yup, that's a lot - that means that at least one year of my life was spent just for watching movies - without sleeping).

[Reup]

It was an okay movie, though a bit vague. I couldn't really understand why the guy who lend it to me was so lyrical about it. It was nice, dark and mysterious, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it groundbreaking... just a decent, weird movie imho.

[Chuck the plant]

Originally posted by Sebatianos@Dec 7 2005, 02:18 PM
(I know I've seen over 50.000 movies in my life thus far - yup, that's a lot - that means that at least one year of my life was spent just for watching movies - without sleeping).
Just estimating, but given an average running-time of 90 minutes, this would be not just a year but almost 9 years, in your case a third of your actual life-time thus far... You sure you didn't slip in one "0" too many? ;)

@ topic: It is definetely a good film, but it also wouldn't be among my alltime-favourites.

[BeefontheBone]

It's one of those movies that really gets to some people I think, while other people just think it's OK. I'm like that with American Beauty, I absolutely adore that movie (it's probably my favourite film) but a lot of people think it's good but not great. Depends on your taste, really.

I was christmas shopping today and I saw the original version for ?3.97 in Music Zone (along with Eddie Izzard's Circle DVD which I got for my sister) - that's pretty much the same price as renting it; can't go wrong for that!

[Sebatianos]

@Chuk
Well, I did the calculation backwards (to calculate how many movies I'd see in about 15 month - if watched non-stop), so I guess I did miscalculate. 10.000 would seem about right.

@Beef
Renting is sounds quite expensice to me... The prices here are at least 3X lower. So the cheapest buy (some total sale of things people really didn't buy - I bought the Chaplin silent colection that way) would cost maybe 2 rents...

[Stroggy]

A good friend of mine once urged me to watch it, so I did. But I was pretty depressed when I started watching it so I couldn't really focus my mind on it. I guess it's an okay movie, I've seen better though.

[Blood-Pigggy]

Donnie Darko is a good film, but I rather think that it does indeed not deserve a number 5 spot, it's just not as fantastic, well built, and incredibly realized as other films.

Take Citizen Kane, The Man Who Would Be King, Metropolis, King Kong, The Shining, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, China Town, The Godfather, Resevoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Night Of The Living Dead, Alien, and so much more!

[PrejudiceSucks]

It kicks Alien's arse.

[TheGiantMidgit]

I quite liked it, was one of my favourites for quite awhile. Amazingly well done, even for an indie film. Gotta say Waking Life takes my #1 spot though...

[Blood-Pigggy]

Originally posted by TheGiantMidgit@Dec 7 2005, 03:42 PM
I quite liked it, was one of my favourites for quite awhile. Amazingly well done, even for an indie film. Gotta say Waking Life takes my #1 spot though...
Very nice choice Midget.

@Pred : Hey, it doesn't in my mind, and so agrees about hundreds of thousands of other people, but you are entitled to your own opinion.

In my opinion the best film ever is either The Godfather (first one) and Citizen Kane, maybe Schindler's List, or perhaps One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.

[BeefontheBone]

I'm with Prej, Donnie's better than Alien. Alien's pretty good, especially for the time, but I've never been one for those kind of films.

[Blood-Pigggy]

Well, I can safely say that whatever your favorite game is, it's not better than my favorite, :D

[Iron_Scarecrow]

Like Beef said it just gets me thinking.

And if anyone's interested here's (http://www.abc.com.au/myfavouritefilm/top100.htm) the top 100. Some pretty useless films there if you ask me.

[BeefontheBone]

Amelie and Withnail And I are surprisingly high up the list - fine films those. Nice to see Being John Malkovic in there too. How did Moulin Rouge get in higher than Romeo and Juliet?

[Iron_Scarecrow]

That's one of the one's I can't understand.

And I can't understand why if everyone voted for Lord of the Rings as a trilogy, why didn't they Vote for Starwars as a Trilogy, Empire Stikes back deserves so much better than 54th.

Sin City got a pretty good placing since it come out half way through the votings.

[Yobor]

As to the "Donnie Darko" area of talk-age, it is extremely interesting at the end, upon which the movie makes no sense. Then, reading the official actual story of the movie on the internet, it all became very lame-ish. Originally, I think it was planned to be based on the concepts of god and religion, but for some reason it was cut out at the last minute (A lot of deleted scenes have references to god in them).

[Blood-Pigggy]

Ones that confuse me.

67. Napoleon Dynamite
75. When Harry Met Sally
23. The Matrix (Good film, but not THAT good)
31. Moulin Rouge (I despised this sooo much)
58. Love Actually

Seriously though...
The list would work much better and make much more sense in terms of quality like this.

1. The Shawshank Redemption
2. Amelie
3. Gone With The Wind
4. To Kill A Mockingbird
5. Casablanca
6. 2001: A Space Odyssey
7. Pulp Fiction
8. Doctor Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
9. Blade Runner
10. Doctor Zhivago
11. The Wizard of Oz
12. A Clockwork Orange
13. The Godfather
14. Lawrence Of Arabia
15. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
16. It's a Wonderful Life
17. Citizen Kane
18. The City of Lost Children
19. Spirited Away
20. The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
21. Fargo
22. The Sound of Music
23. The Blues Brothers
24. Withnail and I
25. Singin' in the Rain
26. The Rocky Horror Picture Show
27. Aliens
28. The Piano
29. Romeo And Juliet
30. Chariots of Fire
31. Goodfellas
32. Alien
33. All About Eve
34. Fight Club
35. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
36. American Beauty
37. Donnie Darko (It is a good film, but the director and writer didn't do very well in conveying the message, leaving a mystery is fine, but this was ridiculous, especially when that mystery does have a logical explanation. Some parts were terribly paced, and the movie was horribly flawed at points, although these are some major faults, the movie had some incredible scenes, acting was golden, and the writing was at times a climax of skill. Then again, the movie fails horridly when it tries to accomplish a plausible ending, then leaves the viewer off with a even worse mystery, it was poorly constructed too, the only way you could possibly have figured it out is through strenous viewing, and that's alot of viewing to actually figure it out, go through the website's little mystery tour, or read it online. That kind of hassle is not what makes a film, although with its plusses, Donnie Darko fails in far too many major areas to actually make a incredible and amazing film, the keyword here is also "Cult" along with "Following". Donnie Darko is recognized by many, but simply because it's a complex and thinking film, only a few can understand and enjoy it, and that's where the film fails, you need to captivate all manner of audiences, and Donnie Darko just turns off too many people. I'm sorry, but if you are trying to make a film, this is unacceptable, if ten of my friends are shown this film, and they all turn it down, there's something wrong, if you can't at least be entertained, then you must have made a film that only registers to certain people, and that's why it fails. Key point, anyone here actually enjoy About Schmidt? There are a select few of you most likely, including me, but despite all the fantastic surroundings of the film, it just couldn't register to most people. That's the first step to making a film, conveying it to the audience in a pre-thought planning, how can you ruin that?)

Of course, this was a majority of a population voting, so many of the results are ridiculous.

[Yobor]

It sounds like you're contradicting yourself by saying that films you like are bad. In my opinion, if I like a movie, screw everyone else it's amazing and I will love it.

How can The Street Fighter (http://www.kungfucinema.com/reviews/streetfighter_021005.htm) not make the list?

Oh, and that review doesn't do the film justice. Ahh.... I can imagine the scene where Sonny rips out that black guy's (the only black guy in the film, and he's a rapist, its horrible) "groin area" and throws it to the floor with a nice little "Splat"

[Evad]

Ummmm, where's Willow?

[moogle]

BP, IMDB top 250 (http://www.imdb.com/chart/top) in case you haven't seen it, Godfather is #1,and he shawshak redemption is #2 ^_^

Donnie Darko was OK, it was a verry interesting plot, but it was verry hard to follow, and had a little bit too much language for my tastes, but I think only the Director's cut has that much language in it.

[BeefontheBone]

Napoleon Dynamite? I loved that film. It's completely and utterly pointless and focuses on such a tiny and uninteresting subject (reflecting the existences of the characters at the start of the film in a nifty way) but impossible not to fall in love with.

I disagree with you about Donnie Darko, I know loads of people who like it and it's hardly a tiny cult following if all of (well, a slightly geekier-than-average subset of, presumably) Australia decide it's their fifth favourite film is it? I like the ending (in the theatrical release at least) - the whole point of it for me was that it was so open to interpretation, so everyone who saw it came away with their own ideas about what had happened. How often does that happen with any other superhero movie?

Isn't this in the wrong forum?

[Blood-Pigggy]

Beef, that is your first post I ever read that made absolutly no sense.
I didn't understand a thing you said.

[moogle]

Beef's post translated in Piggish ;)

Napoleon Dynamite=pointless=good
Donnie Darko=free interperitation of story=cult=good

[Blood-Pigggy]

It still doesn't make any sense.
That only confused me more.

[Puffin]

I've never seen it... Never heard of it untill I saw that my friend was watching it on his psp when we went on a trip.. but I was too tired to watch over his shoulder. And that would've meant that I had to invade his bed which was really small.
And my friend farts a lot.
So i didn't watch it.

[Iron_Scarecrow]

Originally posted by Blood-Pigggy@Dec 8 2005, 12:53 PM
It still doesn't make any sense.
That only confused me more.
What is there not to understand. It was all pretty clear, and moogle made it even clearer.

[Blood-Pigggy]

It's just me.
Don't bother with it anymore, I just really don't understand what the said.

[BeefontheBone]

I was saying that I liked Napoleon Dynamite, and you said only a few people liked Donnie Darko, so I pointed out that Australia apparently voted it their 5th favourite film of all time, so it can't be that small a following.

The reason why I liked Napoleon Dynamite wasn't very well-articulated though; it sounded better in my head :)

[Blood-Pigggy]

Only a few people?
I didn't say that.

[Evad]

Obviously whoever made this list up didn't include foriegn films, because I don't see any of Kurosawa's movies on the list, not to mention about 50 other top notch films not produced in America. I could list at least 20 movies on that top 100 that I believe are utter peices of dried turd, but it's my opinion, and is irrelevant. Basically, I think that list is crap, sorry if you don't.

[Iron_Scarecrow]

Beef your reasoning made perfect sense to me. It was so useless and crap that you can't help but love it.

And the whole of Australia made that list, I doubt many Australians would have access to his films, there are foreign films, I believe Amelie is French or whatever that one's called. I could also think of 20 movies that I think shouldn't be on the list but it's not up to me.

[Lonely Vazdru]

Donnie Darko is one great movie. Pure darkness and cynicism.

Amélie is crap all the way. False happiness and shitty fairytale. And living in France i have to stand being told at least once a day how great this movie is.

[Stroggy]

I think the new Phantom of the Opera movie deserved a place in that top 100 (move aside Moulin Rouge)

[Iron_Scarecrow]

I haven't seen it but anything is better than Moulin Rouge.

[Stroggy]

It's basically just a movie version of Webber's stage musical (with some alterations) the acting is of coarse over the top (it is a musical after all) but it has some brilliant scenes (in terms of filmography) such as the first scene where the opera is magically restored to it's former glory while the chandelier is hoisted up and the main theme is playing. Quite bombastic, and exciting...