It’s not very often that I am utterly bemused by a film, but I got to the end of Donnie Darko and said WHAT??!!??!!.
Moving away from the plot for just a minute; the acting, casting, and directing are spot on. I was drawn in from the opening scene, and was completely absorbed throughout. The lead actor (Jake Gyllenhaal) was fabulous – reason enough to give Jarhead a shot if nothing else. H’mm – no pun intended there.
Anyway, the film follows Donnie, who is a kid with mental health problems, and spends most of the film in a medication-induced haze. Enter Frank, a 6ft rabbit (actually a man in a rabbit costume; yet clearly not just a man in a rabbit costume) who saves Donnie’s life by calling him out of his bedroom in the middle of the night just before a jet engine hits it. The rest of the film follows Donnie going on a crime spree at Frank’s command, apparantly inspired by a Grahame Greene short story, while struggling with teen issues like bullies at school, plain odd teachers, and a new girlfriend. Oh yes, and did I mention that Frank has told Donnie the world will end in a little under a month?
No, this gives the wrong impression. The whole film is essentially from Donnie’s point of view, and feels more like Twin Peaks than a teen movie. Heavy supernatural (although not in a particularly spooky way) and metaphysical elements (“The Philosophy of Time Travel”, anyone?) lead to an odd… Well words fail me. I can’t say there were any surprises, but only because I gave up any hope of trying to predict what would happen. Had I attempted it, they all would have been wrong. No, that’s not true – one or two things were obviously going to happen, but the meaning of them is anybody’s guess!
One aspect that did strike me was how well small town America was portrayed – the whole time familiar faces cropped up in the background, and everyone knew everybody else without actually knowing them at all. Did I mention it’s also got Drew Barrymore in?
On balance I’d have to say it’s a film that’s probably worth watching twice (mine’s got to go back to EasyDVD though), and almost certainly worth watching with friends so you can discuss it afterwards. It says something about a film when a discussion between Donnie and his science teacher about the nature of God and predestination is almost sent off to the sidelines!
POSTSCRIPT
Just popped across to wikipedia, who have some possible explanations of what the film’s about. I sitll think it’s very odd.
Late last year my tripod gave up the ghost (just as I needed to take a photo with it, of course), so the GPS receiver has been shunted back another few months to fund its replacement.
I’ve had a number of tripods over the years, all of which have been (a) cheap, and (b) less than a wild success, as they’ve been too big/heavy to take anyway, and too flimsy to last. So I decided this time to spend a bit more and get a tripod that should last for the rest of my photgraphic career. Although the lovely Carbon Fibre tripods by Slik and Manfrotto appeal, I draw the line at spending more on the tripod than my camera cost!! In fact, as a amateur enthusiast, I didn’t want to spend more than a hundred pounds – ideally less than fifty (but then the tripod that broke before Christmas was twenty something, and rubbish).
So I bought a Chinese knock-off of the Manfrotto, made by Weifeng Corporation. It claims to be carbon fibre, and is certainly nice and small, feels sturdy, and isn’t too heavy. It came from eBay (of course), from a seller called AVIPhoto. The only downside was I didn’t notice the sale price didn’t include VAT. D’Oh!
Anyway, full specs:
Model
Fan Cier FT 6892
Height (max)
1480mm
Height (min)
465mm
Length (folded)
615mm
Weight
1.48kg
Max Load
2.5kg
The max load is guessed because I couldn’t find the exact specs – but is conservative based on comparable models. Not used it with the camera yet, but it feels nice, and it comes in a really nice padded carry bag. Oh yes, and I needed to buy a head. Plumped for a cheap-ish ball head, again from AVIPhoto, called a CA10PH.
The other thing I was thinking about on the train were my ambitions in life. My three ‘wish-list’ ambitions are to write a book, make a movie, and create a computer game. Now it could be argued that I’ve already done all three. My PhD thesis is basically a book – in Germany you have to register an ISBN and publish your thesis! I guess I’m thinking more along the times of (a) a novel, and (b) something that might actually get read. In terms of a film, last Christmas I made a “Ben’s first year” DVD, which I’m actually quite proud of. Edited together a year’s worth of fottage, threw in some cuts and effects to make a little story, added titles and background music. I was really thinking more along the lines of a proper plot, possibly even with actors. And computer games – well I wrote quite a lot of an online MUD called The Land of Drogon, which is still going actually. And I’ve done the usual Tetris type fiddling. But I guess I was thinking more along the lines of a proper arcade game, perhaps on PS2Linux. Clearly these 3 goals are not necessarily unrelated.
Other ambitions of mine range from the trivial to no-hopers, I won’t specify which is which!
In no particular order:
Go into space.
Drive a high-performance car on a test-track.
Go on a skid pan / become an advanced driver.
Go to a Grand Prix.
Get a photo published/win a prize.
Successfully bake brandy-snaps.
Formally study theology.
Learn Greek.
Learn how to draw/sketch.
Learn Python.
Go to India, China, Egypt, and South America.
That will do for now.
I should add the more intanglible but ultimately only really important “follow God faithfully”, “be a good husband”, and “be a good father”, which are my mission in life, I guess.
Sometimes I daydream on the train what I would do if I won the lottery. Actually I don’t play the lottery, so I probably have to give it back – but if ERNIE came up say. Obviously some would go off to needy causes and family, and equally obviously mortgage would be paid off – but after that?
I don’t think I’d give up work, although I suppose I might give up paid work. No, I don’t know actually, maybe I’d drop to part-time. Anyway, I was turning my thoughts to what I might spend cash on if money was no object, and to be honest I can’t really think of a lot. I guess we might be a bit lazy and get workmen in to do the last few bits and pieces on the house – perhaps even build a new garage as ours is in danger of falling down. And if we hadn’t recently done up our kitchen and bathroom, they’d be strong contenders.
But housey things aside, I probably would buy a much faster computer with a nice big monitor. At the moment it’s horribly painful editing together footage of the young master – two or three orders of magnitude slower than real-time. We might get a faster internet connection too. I guess my other expensive hobby is photography, and I would be sorely tempted to trade in my lens for some nice L glass, and possibly even buy a one of the top-range cameras. To be honest, for all of this we’re maybe talking 10-15 grand all in. I know that’s a lot of money in any sort of objective sense – but it seems a little unlikely that if a few million pounds dropped into my lap, I’d only really want to splash out 1% of it. Actually I like the idea of having a laptop, and one of those clever PVR-DVD burner things would be dead useful (especially as our VCR is on it’s last legs).
But the truth is, I’m happy with my lot. More than happy actually. I don’t particuarly want a flash car, or a plasma TV. I’m quite happy having low-key holidays staying with family. Eating simple fare, that sort of thing. I don’t really want eight thousand DVDs and CDs. Or hundreds of books. I’m not so self-deluded as to think that there wouldn’t suddenly be a large number of items that we find we can’t live without (such as a coffee roaster!), but neither do I lie awake at night wishing for that Ferrari, or yacht, or whatever. (although I would splash out on going to the Monaco Grand Prix, come to think of it).
PS The title is an Abba lyric, not a complaint! 🙂
Clearly going through a bit of a martial arts phase at the moment – what with Hero last week, Kung Fu Hustle today, and Flying Daggers on the way too! Still, gotta love them.
So Kung Fu Hustle… bit of an odd film, to be honest. A strange combination of cartoon violence and real blood, although very much at the cartoon end of the spectrum. Definitely corners on rails as far as the plot goes, but then I guess this film was never really going to be about the story.
A good friend saw it first, and was mildly disappointed – in a way I’m glad as this lowered my expectation enough to take this film as it came, rather than hoping for great things. It suffers a little from “the best bits are in the trailer”, but it must be said that I thought this version of “lots of men in suits attacking a single man” left poor Neo very sadly wanting. Come to that, the slow-mo bullet-time type stuff was very nicely done as well. In fact, the special effects were fab, and there were quite a lot of genuinely funny parts, although almost entirely shadenfreud.
It also wasn’t quite as zany as I had hoped – the trailers give the impression that people periodically break into choreographed routines in a faintly Northern Exposure style sureality, but sadly not.
On balance I’d have to give this a high score. Glad it’s in my collection, as it would definitely survive another viewing. I guess the director’s commentary would be worth catching too. Don’t expect anything particularly original, or to be challenged by plot – and enjoy the action.
In the funny way the web works, I recently ended up looking at a site all about how to make the best coffee. In fact here it is: the coffee FAQ. The upshot seems to be that you need to grind your own beans, but what’s more those beans need to have been acquired within the last few days. This is totally unfeasible for our level of coffee drinking – it can takes us a couple of months to get through a bag of pre-ground!
One idea from this site (that does sound a bit wacky) is to roast your own beans at home! You can use a pop-corn maker to do so, and of course you can roast a very small amount, that you will use up in a few days. The green beans last for many months – even a year, so that’s no problem. To be honest this really appeals to me; partly for the sort of Heath Robinson aspect to it – but mainly because I really enjoy coffee, and with a relatively small outlay (less than fity quid, I would hazard), I could get a roaster, grinder, and some green beans. Gotta be worth a try!
Incidently, Sweet Marias has got loads more information about the equipment and the process.
I’m a great fan of Frank Peretti (This Present Darkness, etc), and tend to snap up his new novels pretty quickly – like Monster for example. Anyway, he’s got this new series going called The Veritas Project (nothing to do with Killroy-Silk!!). The basic is that there is a family of undercover agents who are hired by the US government to look into strange goings on, particularly if there’s a spiritual dimension.
The first one was Hangman’s Curse, and I’ve just finished
Nightmare Academy. I really enjoyed both, and feel like I’m getting to know the family, if that makes sense. I don’t know if he plans to release any more, but they’re a good read.
Incidently, Going Postal (second most recent Pratchett) is but brilliant. Possibly the best Discworld novel to date. I speed read Thud over Christmas, and to be honest wasn’t greatly impressed, but that might have been because I only had 2 days to read it!
My current book is Labyrinth, but Kate Mosse, which – after a slow start – is going together nicely. It doesn’t quite pass the “accidently start the next chapter because it’s such a page turner” test, but it is definitely a “H’mm – well just one more chapter tonight”. There’s a nice literary device of telling two stories interleaved, about two girls with the same name in the same place, but seperated by 800 years.
One of our New Year’s resolutions was to make sure the missus and I both get some “time out” in the week, when we can just do our own thing. Her’s is to go swimming, mine is to watch movies!! So I’ve signed up to easyCinema DVD rental, and the first disk arrived yesterday, happily co-inciding with a day off (Hero was the first disk – see the review in the reviews section).
The only depressing thing – there’s about 60 films I’ve missed that I want to see. It’ll take me forever!
Well, what a surprising film, at least in terms of story. I won’t go into too much detail, as I don’t want to spoil it, but let’s just say it’s not very Hollywood.
Very Crouching Tiger in feel – sweeping scenery, sword fights that are closer to ballet, beautifully filmed and choreographed… very much a visual delight. The story is told as narrative by the nameless hero of the film, who has defeated China’s three greatest assassins, and is now standing before the King of Qin.
Hugely impressive set pieces – the palace and steps are fabulous. The thousands upon thousands of soldiers are very impressive, and the arrow sequences are good too. Favourite moments are when Broken Sword and Flying Snow storm the palace by defeating 3000 of the palace guard, and when Snow and Nameless defend off the arrows from the Zhao school.
Probably not a keeper – once is enough – but definitely glad I finally got around to seeing it.
