not the most popular thread anymore, donnie darko and homos.

[nix]

As cliched as using the dolly/zoom shot made famous in Jaws.

This is called a reverse zoom and it was made famous by Hitchcock. The so called "hey I'm directing" stuff isn't there for no reason. If you think about the time travel and time distortion aspect of the movie, then it makes perfect sense. He's using a visual to represent one of the major themes of the film.

[Pubrick]

As cliched as using the dolly/zoom shot made famous in Jaws.

This is called a reverse zoom and it was made famous by Hitchcock. The so called "hey I'm directing" stuff isn't there for no reason. If you think about the time travel and time distortion aspect of the movie, then it makes perfect sense. He's using a visual to represent one of the major themes of the film.

hahaha. thanks.

[Banky]

i just saw Donnie Darko for the first time and i really liked it.  I got really involved in it but am not quite sure i understood the ending.  Well i dont understand why Donnie was back in bed when the jet engine fell into his room and secondly what did the wave at the end represent?  Maybe i just need to watch it again.  I bought it today on a blind buy for 9.99.  I figured it was worth having for all the discussion it gets on several different threads.  Anyone have any explanations?

[fulty]

..... what did the wave at the end represent? .....   Anyone have any explanations?

That threw me for a loop.
But, I think it meant that Donnie was dead the whole time.
The entire movie was his "memory" of people he knew.
He never actually met the girlfriend.
The only connection was the wave.
His mother was grieving as Donnie was being carried away.
She imagined that her son would like a nice girl like the one on the bicycle.
Donnie's ghost picked up the vibes through his mother.
The whole movie was his slightly exaggerated view of his life.
I loved it.  I cry at the end.
$9.... I'm jealous

[Banky]

now i know a lot more about the movie.  I understand it more but still not entirely.  I listened to the audio commentay and read the book the philosophy of time travel.

[fulty]

... the philosophy of time travel.

Wow, I thought that was just a movie prop.
Did you enjoy the book?

I only saw the movie on TV, but would love to get the DVD.
The music is great.

Is the commentary interesting?

[NEON MERCURY]

.....i thought this film was good not great...***/*****

donnie darko.

[cowboykurtis]

As cliched as using the dolly/zoom shot made famous in Jaws.

.

made famous in vertigo -- booya

[Banky]

... the philosophy of time travel.

Wow, I thought that was just a movie prop.
Did you enjoy the book?

I only saw the movie on TV, but would love to get the DVD.
The music is great.

Is the commentary interesting?

yeah they have two commentaries.  One has Jake Glyenhal and Richard Kelly.  And then a different one marked cast and crew.  I only listened to Jake/Richard but it was very informative and funny.  They have all deleted scens with or without commentary and you can read The Philosophy of TIme Travel on the DVD. only 9.99 at Best Buy.

[Banky]

i know , "a double-post" deal with it.  From a while back but is an interesting read.  Sorry im just discovering this movie and really interested in it.



After a recent screening of Donnie Darko (now in limited release), Richard Kelly (the director of Donnie Darko) and Jake Gyllenhaal (who plays the film's title character) showed up to answer a few audience questions.

There are some moments in the film that involve a possible airplane disaster. Was there anything cut out of the film due to the events of September 11th?

Richard Kelly: You know, like everyone did, I think we all went and looked back at the film. Everyone probably reevaluated everything at that point. And, no changes were made to the film because of that. But we pulled out an image from the trailer, from the advertising materials. We pulled the image of the jet engine out of the trailers. But we felt that the film is what it is, and it's a period piece. And there really wasn't anything that we could do... because the film wouldn't have made sense. No one wanted to change anything, so, we hope that we're okay. We hope that people are okay to deal with it.

How old are you?

RK: I'm 26 years old.

I wrote the script probably three years ago, right when I got out of college. And I got really lucky, and I got signed by an agent because of the script. With the help of my producer. We submitted it to a few agencies, and it kinda got passed up the agency food chain. I lucked out, and I got representation. The first thing that we said was that I was going to direct it and he was going to produce it, and we were really really adamant about that. And we made a deal that we would never give it away or sell it without that guarantee that I was directing it and he was producing it.

It was really difficult, because for about a year and three months, we met everyone in town, and everyone really liked the script, and they were really impressed with the writing sample, but when they saw me, they were like, "Yeah, right. Forget it. It's not gonna happen." We got that a lot. We got a lot of rejection just based on that simple fact: that I hadn't directed a feature before. I did a couple of shorts in college. I went to USC film school.

You know, it's funny the way your movie really gets made. In early 2000, after about a year of taking meeting after meeting with every studio and independent company, and having people almost wanna say yes, but not say yes.... Jason Schwartzman, we heard, was interested in the script and really liked it. And we were obviously big fans of Jason's from Rushmore. And he attached himself to star, and all of the sudden, that kind of validated me as a director. To have a movie star say, "I believe in this guy." The script all the sudden got a lot more attention. We started getting tangible offers for financing.

And then it landed in Nancy Juvonen's lap, and she read it. She's Drew Barrymore's partner, one of the producers in the film. She gave it to Drew, and then they kind of accosted my agent at ShowWest in Las Vegas, and I was in the screening of the Charlie's Angels trailer a couple days later, and I asked Drew to play Ms. Pomeroy, and she said, "Yes, if you let my production company be involved." And I said, "Absolutely." And then we had Drew. We had a week window for her, in the summer of 2000, and we had our financing. We got four and a half million dollars to make the movie. And it just came together really quickly. Jason had to back out because of a scheduling conflict with another movie he was going to do. And we got this guy here. [Points to Jake.]

What is your favorite horror film?

RK: I think probably my favorite horror film is The Shining. I love that movie.

You know, clearly, Sam Raimi let us use Evil Dead. Let us digitally manipulate Evil Dead, which was really cool of him. I love both versions of The Thing, including Carpenter's remake. I think it's fantastic. Horror isn't my thing necessarily, but I definitely reference genre filmmaking a lot.

What was it like doing the film on $4.5 million?

RK: It was very difficult, but we did it. A lot of it has to do with my cinematographer, Steven Poster, who really has to be given a lot of the credit. For getting us anamorphic lenses, which we really wanted. It's rare that a first time director can get anamorphic lenses. He got us a really huge discount at Panavision. Panavision hooked us up.

All the crew, all the cast did it for scale. No one made a dime on this. I'll never see any money on this, trust me. My points are like donkey points. But I don't care. It's fine. I'm just glad I got to do it. I think we just made sure that every dollar ended up on the big screen. And I got my friends to help us with some of the visual effects. I used to serve cappuccinos at a post-production house. And I learned a lot about visual effects. I understand how to do this stuff for cheap, and make it looks like it costs a lot more. It was tough, but we pulled it off. I owe a lot of people favors right now.

Jake, what's coming up next for you?

Jake Gyllenhaal: I just have a few movies coming out. I have a movie called The Good Girl coming out that Miguel Arteta, who directed Chuck and Buck, and Mike White wrote, and that they made together, starring Jennifer Aniston and John C. Reilly and Tim Blake Nelson. And then another movie called Goodbye Hello or Baby's in Black or something, with Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon and Holly Hunter.

Weren't you in Bubble Boy?

JG: Yeah.... You know, that came out.

RK: He has the bubble in his car right now.

The 1980s are a very important part of this film's setting. Why the 80s?

RK: What made me go back to the 80s? Well, you know, I grew up in the 80s, I was a teenager in 1988. And I think the original concept of the movie was.... It always just had to be a period piece for me. It had to take place in 1988. And I think that, once we started kind of putting together, I figured, "You know, we really haven't seen many nostalgia pieces for the 80s." We've seen some kind of campy comedies done about the 80s. I figured that if I'm going to try to do a coming-of-age tale or a nostalgia piece, I don't know anything about the 70s, and the 90s are too recent, so.... For me, the story would never have worked had I done it modern or contemporary.

A lot of songs were kind of designed into script, particularly the Tears for Fears. We tried to pick songs that retained some dignity of the 80s, if there is any dignity, a shred of dignity left from the 80s. We tried to pick music that was good. There is a lot of kitschy 80s music that hasn't aged well, and we were careful to try to pick songs that have aged well. We were really specific with the musical choices, and we wanted to make sure that we had these kind of lyrical moments spread through the movie. In a weird way, I feel that it has some elements of a musical to it, you know, with the some of the choreography and the steady-cam. Stuff like that.

Was it expensive to get the rights for those songs?

RK: Expensive? Surprisingly, no. Because not a lot of people have pilfered 80s music for movies... yet. Our music supervisors did an amazing job in cutting a deal with Tears for Fears. And we had to swap up a couple songs and change 'em up. But it worked out, kind of miraculously... we were able to get this music. We were all shocked that we were able to pull it off. Some of the bands were really difficult to deal with, because they've all broken up, and they all hate each other, and their managers hate each other. And it was just a big nightmare. It's tough to get them on the soundtrack album. That's whole 'nother story. Getting them in the movie is one thing, but the soundtrack album is a whole 'nother ball of wax.

Why the rabbit? [THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THIS ANSWER, FOLKS. DON'T READ THIS 'TIL YOU WATCH THE MOVIE]

RK: Ultimately, I knew that that the monster, the vision, was going to be this kid in a Halloween costume. And there was a subplot cut out of the film where Drew Barrymore teaches her class Watership Down, the novel by Richard Adams, which is about a community of rabbits. And it's kind of the senior thesis metaphor scene that had to get dropped.

For me, I always thought it was fascinating.... Rabbits are kind of the most innocent, pure creatures. They have sex, and they hang out, and that's what they do, and they're great. The fact that the monster is a rabbit had a sense of irony. It was the first idea that I had, and I stuck with it. It has nothing to do with Harvey. I didn't even see Harvey.... Everyone thinks that this is a riff on Harvey, but I never saw that movie until like maybe a year ago, a little after I had done this film.

How did you get Katharine Ross?

RK: Getting Katharine Ross.... We were casting, and there was a cast list that I saw, and her name was on it. And I said to the casting director, "Katharine Ross. Where has she been?" Everyone remembers her from Butch Cassidy, and The Graduate and Stepford Wives, and how beautiful she is. We found out that she had just gotten an agent and had decided that she wanted to start acting again. She's married to Sam Elliot. She lives up in Malibu, and she has a 15-year-old daughter, and she kind of left the business to raise her daughter. So, we contacted her, sent her the script. She liked it.

Jake and I drove up to her house in Malibu and sat down with her and she said she'd love to do it. I'm really proud of her performance. I think she brings great dignity to the role. She has this beauty and wisdom. I would love to work with her again.

Can you talk about all the sexual elements in the movie?

RK: Jake, how was it in that scene where you had to almost stick your hand in your pants? If you're going to do a movie about a 16-year-old, to me it just seems obvious. Teenagers think a lot about sex. They certainly do.

What does the movie mean, really? [SPOILERS IN THIS ANSWER]

RK: I think, ultimately, it's about accepting the inevitability of fate. Accepting that there is a great master plan behind it all. And, whatever choices you make, you were meant to make those choices. And I think, ultimately, in the end, he's enlightened.

You can interpret the ending in two ways. That when he's in bed, he's laughing because he thinks it's all a dream, and he's just going to roll over and go to sleep because he thinks it's all a dream. Or he's laughing because he's enlightened because he's seen the potential, and he's had a vision, and he's accepted.... He's had a religious experience. And that's greater and better than anything that we could comprehend. So, ultimately, I hope that it would be about enlightenment, more than anything else.

RK: The movie's meant to be a roller coaster ride that occurs over 28 days. And it throws a lot of ideas at you. It's meant to be experienced kind of like life is. It's funny. It's frightening at times. It's sad. It's wonderful. It's meant to kind of take you through every emotion. And, ultimately, I want people to walk away from it with whatever they think.

JG: I think it's hard for a director, especially a director/writer/creator who came up with the content itself, to explain a story like this, and what it's really about. In essence, it's very stream-of-consciousness. The script was that way, and I think, essentially, in the end, I feel the movie is that way.

It leaves you with the feeling of like, you know, sort of... the only thing I can really think of is those moments where you smoke some pot, and you're kind of like, "Wow, that's the answer! I've got it! I've got it, I've got it, I've got it, I've got it got it, it's gone!" I think there's something very valid in that. Because I think, in that moment, in that small moment, is what we try and question and try to answer and try and feel every single day, and we have no answer for it.

And if he were to answer any of the questions, he would be utterly pretentious. And the fact that he leaves them open, at least it states what we all sort of feel.

Are you related to David E. Kelley?

RK: You mean the David E. Kelley of Ally McBeal? No. He's one of the "E-Y" Kelleys, and "Y" Kellys hate the "E-Y" Kelleys. We're on two separate sides, and we meet out in Calabasas and we joust one another.

How did you cast Maggie Gyllenhaal?

RK: Why I cast Maggie is that, when I met Jake... his agent said, "He has an older sister and she's a terrific actress." And I thought, "Well, first of all, I have to meet her. And if she's even remotely okay, I'm going to cast her." Because, to have an opportunity like that, where you're casting the big sister part and you have a real life big sister who can act, it's like... cast her! You're not going to be able to get that chemistry... It's a perfect, great opportunity. Maggie's a phenomenal actress. And it was the easiest no-brainer decision for me. What was it like working with her?

JG: My sister and I have always had the dream that would we would be able to work together. It's fun, and it's also hard. Just in the specific logistics of working together. The scene at the very beginning of the movie where we're talking at the dinner table, which is, now, the one sort of main scene with the two of us, is true to life, in more ways than one.

I also said to Richard after he had decided to cast me that I had a sister and I really think she'd be great. And we were all really into it, and it was Maggie who was sort of skeptical. She was kinda like, "I don't know if I want to be in a movie with my brother. He's playing Donnie Darko. I kind of would rather just let him do his thing." But, she did it. She has a lot of movies coming out. She's an amazing actress. And it was fun. It was fun. It was a lot of fun. A lot like when you smoke pot, you know?

Is what we see on the screen your cut of the movie?

RK: There was a version of this shown at Sundance that was a little bit longer. We barely had time to finish it in time for Sundance. We had never shown it to an audience before. But, ultimately, this is my cut of the film, and I was allowed the time to really get it down to a length where everyone felt comfortable with it and everyone felt that the pacing and everything was tight and we were in the best place.

It's tough, because there's always a few scenes that you really really really hate to see go. And it's really painful. But, ultimately, we all kind of arrived at the place where we thought the movie should be a certain length. This is my cut, and I was allowed to have my way. Ultimately, on the DVD, I'll be able to go back, and put a lot of the scenes that were cut out on the DVD. It'll be a great thing. But, I got away with a lot on my first movie, and they let me do what I wanted, so I have nothing to complain about at all.

JG: I've never actually seen anybody fight so hard to keep the movie as close to his essential vision as Richard kept it. When we finished this movie, in the end of August last year... shooting it, sorry... that's when I finished the movie... and in its many incarnations since then, I've never seen somebody fight so hard.

How close was the final product to your vision?

RK: Really, really close. The script was a little longer, and there were some things that were cut out and stuff. You see a lot of it in your head pretty specifically, but really, until you get to the locations and pick the locations and see the actors in costume and everything, you're always pleasantly surprised if it's better than what you saw in your head. And that ended up being the case here, because I did see it in my head a certain way, but then to see Jake in the role and Jenna Malone and all these great actors, and to see what the bunny finally looked like and to see what the jet engine looked like when it was being pulled out of the house... you get excited and surprised that it maybe even looks even cooler than you thought it would look.

So, absolutely, I designed it all in a very specific way, but, you know, that's the great thing about filmmaking... is that it comes together in a way you could never predict. So many things are just left to happen the way that they happen, kind of like the weather, and the way the wind blows. Your movie just happens sometimes. There's things that you'll never be able to control... the location falling through, another one coming up, or an actor falling out and coming in. I got really lucky this time.

Can you tell us about the scenes you had to cut out?

RK: There was the subplot, you know, the Watership Down subplot with Drew Barrymore. The most painful scene [to take out] was the scene with the dad, when the dad leaves for New York, where they were sitting in the backyard, Donnie and his dad, where you find out a lot about the dad... that he used to be crazy, and he kind of gives this fatherly advice... it kind of has this moral anarchist spirit to it that I really missed. But, hopefully I'll get to put all that stuff on the DVD.

What was it like, as a first-time director, working with big names like Drew Barrymore and Noah Wyle and Patrick Swayze and Katharine Ross?

RK: Actors are people. There were a lot of big names that had been in dozens of movies... and big movie stars, and people who have been nominated for Oscars. And, working with all of these people... I had never done this before, and I just talked to them just the way that I felt I would want to be talked to.

JG: I remember, I was like "Oh, Richard, I think it would be really cool if I dyed my hair dark for the role," and he's like, "Yeah, you know, I really think it's not Donnie Dark-O. I really think you shouldn't." And I was like, "Well, okay. I'll just sort of dye it a little bit. It'll be cool." He's like, "Okay."

So, when I dyed it black, like pitch black, and went to rehearsal, and I called him up on the way there, and I was like, "Uh, Richard, my hair is sort of darker, and, um, I'm sorry." And he's like "How dark?" "Dark-O." And he's like "Okay. Get here, and we'll see how it is." And I get there, and, in natural Richard fashion, without panicking, or like flipping out and calling the hair dresser and opening up the salon like in the middle of the night, he just said, "Okay, cool. We'll fix it. We'll fix it. Okay. Cool." And it was fixed. You know, the next day.

How many theaters will Donnie Darko be opening in?

RK: 65 theaters in eight cities, starting Friday, October 26, and, then, if it does well enough, we'll expand it more after that.

[Banky]

i guess im just still interested in this movie


Donnie Darko Director's Cut Rerelease, Book, Frank the Bunny doll

Donnie Darkobook, figurine, special edition re-release announced atSan Diegoscreening  

Richard Kelly, writer-director of Donnie Darko, attended a special screening in San Diego where he announced an upcoming book and Todd McFarlane figurine based on the 2001 cult classic, as well as a potential theatrical re-release in March of 2004.  

The Q&A session, following a4:00showing on Sunday the 19th at Madstone Theaters onFrazee Road, was arranged by the San Diego Film Critics Society, who awarded Kelly Best Screenplay in 2002 while he was inEurope. The casual crowd filled three-fourths of the theater, an excellent turnout for an otherwise poorly advertised event. As much as 1/4 of the audience had never seen the film.  

Immediately following the credits, Kelly, in jeans and grey T-shirt, made his way to the stool in front - he had intended to present the film, but his car had broken down and he had to borrow another. Following a brief introduction he immediately began taking audience questions.  

* When asked how he marketed the unusual script, Kelly thanked his producing partner Scott McKittrick, who had shopped it to an assistant at a major agency, which led to him being signed with Creative Artists (CAA). Initially only the screenwriter, Kelly got his chance to direct when Jason Schwartzman of Rushmore fame showed interest and became attached to the project. He passed it to Drew Barrymore, who approached Kelly's agent at ShoWest and met with him on the set of Charlie's Angels. He offered her a part; she offered to produce.  

* Kelly compared Darko's cul-de-sac ending to "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," the Twilight Zone episode based on the Ambrose Bierce short story about a man about to be hanged who, in his final moments, imagines himself surviving and escaping.  

* He sites Steven King, Philip K. Dick, Camus, Kafka, Graham Greene, and Dostoevsky as literary influences. He admitted not having read any of them since high school English and not knowing which way to pronounce Camus.

* Heís a big fan of Kill Bill and Quentin Tarantino, who he met at the premier. Also a fan of Paul Thomas Anderson and Spike Jonze/Charlie Kaufman. Apparently, when Kaufman turned in his draft of Adaptation, everyone inHollywoodwanted to kill him. Kelly tells another story about a screening of Being John Malcovitch: a producer who passed on it walked out claiming sheíd ìdodged a bullet,î and, later, at the Oscars, talked about how it was one of her favorite films of the year.

* The concept of the screenplay began with the jet engine. It was inspired by the urban legend of the block of frozen urine that falls from a plane and strikes a man dead - an idea, Kelly pointed out, that was also used in an episode of Six Feet Under.

* When asked about his struggles filming Donnie Darko and whether he expects his struggles to get worse, Kelly clarified that filmmaking is always a struggle. "There's always 20 bozos who'll screw it up," he complained. "They're not in it for the art at all; to them it's just a business." He discussed his next film, Knowing, which has been caught in legal entanglements; principal photography won't begin until early next year, due in part to the film's $15 million budget. (Darko, which was made for more that a third less, failed to earn back production costs.)

* On the scripts he is writing for other directors in the meantime, Kelly claimed he considers it work-for-hire, though he emphasized the importance of owning and protecting one's material until it is set to go into production. "They can cast Carrot Top," he warned. "You're fucked."

* When asked if he intended the faculty in Darko to be so blatantly incompetent, Kelly reiterated that the characters are supposed to be archetypes, but, yes, Kitty and the principal are "clearly nitwits," while the teachers played by Barrymore and Noah Wyle are the liberal progressive types he admired growing up in Virginia. If Darko has any message, he concedes it would be that public schools and suburban life in general can be so pointlessly damaging that it's no wonder kids are shooting up their schools.

* Most of the throwaway details in the film were written in the script - right down to the "God Is Awesome!" T-Shirt. Kelly admitted admiration for directors like Ridley Scott and Terry Gilliam who emphasize details, and pointed out that technicians appreciate it when you're real specific.

* Patrick Swayze is the nicest man in the world. The infomercial was shot on his ranch; his wife showed them his recording studio and brought out his "80's clothes." Swayze was very enthusiastic about the project: ìHe wanted to take a blowtorch to his image."

* Kelly got to USC on an art scholarship, and changed his major almost immediately. He got into the film department on the strength of his writing samples, and intended to continue as a screenwriter until his peers told him he was most defiantly a director. His dad was a scientist at NASA, and his whole family has a background in architecture and engineering, and after all, ìa director is an architect.î

* The Donnie Darko book - not a novel, more like a production book, like the Matrix coffee table book - is already available inLondonand contains the screenplay, including unproduced scenes. It will be available in theUSshortly.

* When asked, he defended Cherita, the plump Chinese girl, by comparing her to the Mike Yanagita character inFargo. All he does it hit on Marge and lie about his marriage - the studio should have cut the scene, Kelly claims. But when Marge discovers that he lied, it makes her wonder if sheís easily lied to - prompting her to question Jerry Lundegaard a second time. Yanagita was secretly crucial. Kelly failed to explain why putting on Cheritaís earmuffs was an important stage in the development of Donnieís character, but claimed it was anyhow.

As he got up to leave, the SDFCS representative reminded him of his special announcement: he is in negotiations with Newmarket Film Group to re-release Donnie Darko next March, including more pop music removed since it was shown at Sundance, and, more importantly - it will be a Directorís Cut. He claimed it may include stuff not available on the DVD. He did not specify how wide it will be distributed.

The SDFCS rep also reminded him to tell us that McFarlane Toys is working on a Frank the Bunny doll.

Kelly, though appearing tired, was willing to sign DVD covers and chatted with fans as they left the theater.

Madstone will continue showing Donnie Darko until the 23rd.

Jeff Fries

[Banky]

if they did a wide realease of the directors cut that shit would make some serious bank.  Easily recouping produciotn value.  The movie has such a fanbase now it could easily pull in over 30 mill.

[Weak2ndAct]

30 million?  Not a chance in hell.  Depending on how wide they would open it, I would say a couple mil tops.  And if they do the whole NY/LA thing first, consider it dead.  Between worldwide and video, they've already broke even, this is just icing on the cake.

[Banky]

bullshit.  Consider Marketing this movie with all the reiviews and the fact that is one of the biggest cult classics in recent history, open on a weekend where nothing huge is opening, and easily over 10 the opening weekend.  Im not saying it will be a blockbuster but it sould pan out to make 30 over time.

[Weak2ndAct]

I love Donnie Darko, but there's no way it can pull in Exorcist money.  That's just common sense talking here.  Be realistic: how much money do you think Newmarket is going to throw at this?  I would love it if the re-release did gangbusters, but 'new' movies with 'bankable' stars have a hard enough time making 30 million.  And that's with major campaigns and press.