Last night I was seeking some mindless, one-sided entertainment that only a moview on the boob tube (are we still calling it that?) can provide. Having scrolled through the endless list of drivel available to me on tv, I decided to hit the Comcast ON DEMAND feature for a movie. I wasn’t in the mood for anything in particular, but I knew I wanted to see something I hadn’t seen before.

Although it came out in 2001, I had never seen Donnie Darko.  I never even heard anything about it, but the title sort of tipped me off that I probably wouldn’t like it. The film’s logo (as seen above) was further indication I should pass on it. Then, while reading Entertainment Weelyls list of the top 50 best high school movies of all time (circa 2006), I noticed that Donnie Darko placed #14 - a very respectable position - on such a distinguished list. I guess I had to give it a rip.

I tuned in late last night without knowing ANYTHING about this movie. It’s not unusual for me to watch a movie without knowing anything about it… My best bud Kaz will impose a movie I’d never heard of (typically to my liking), but this was an odd decision for me. I like what I like and I’m comfortable with that.

So here I am watching a movie about a paranoid schizophrenic and wondering how on earth this is considered a “high school” movie enoug to make a list about them. Although I wasn’t enjoying it much, I decided to finish the flick… I will always finish watching a movie once I start it.

I can’t remember if any film I’d ever watched before struck me the way this one did. I felt uneasy about it from start to finish. Something about the movie really bothered me, almost phyiscally. Perhaps it was that I didn’t understand it at all. This is a rare occurance for me. I’m a smart guy, and I know my way around the movies, so typically before half time, I know what the end of the moview is going to be like. There are two exceptions to this:

1. The Matrix - Which I admit to not grasping the first time I saw it. It had to do with one particular scene in the movie.
2.  Arlington Road

So here I am lost and confused and feeling uneasy about it. I figured it was just a bad movie which wasn’t revealing itself as it ought to but would eventually. So I waited… and waited… and waited until the rolling credits started.

Finally… I was glad it was over. It wasn’t my kind of movie; I should learn to trust my instincts more!. As my brain was about to change gears, I did my final internal recap of the movie for my own comprehension. I replayed the major plot items in my head and retold the story in about 3 seconds. Then all of a sudden, my brain went: “Wait…. What?”

I realized that I had just spent 113 minutes watching a movie and I had no idea what it was about. For the first time in my life I had to Google the movie explanation. With the Matrix I just watched the movie again. The second time I got it, but with Donnie Darko, there’s no chance I’ll ever watch it again so Google it is.

I read the director’s (who also wrote the movie) explanation of the events that took place and I can safely say that I could have watched the moview 100 times and never figured it out. First of all, the director uses terminology in his explanation which are not revealed anywhere in the movie. Terms like “living receiver”, “tangent universe”, “manipulated dead”, “manipulated living”, “artifact”, “primary universe”, and even ”fourth dimensional construct” (which as irony would have it is actually water). These terms only appear in a book that is referenced in the movie, which the director also wrote called “The Philosophy of Time Travel”. This book is also fiction. This guy proceeds as if his book was taught to us in 3rd grade science class.

I guess it cost $4.25 million to make the film and grossed $4.1 million which means it lost $150K in the theaters. A few years later it became a cult classic in the physchological thriller genre and made the franchise an outright success, although I can’t see how. It sort of sucked, even if it would have been comprehensible. I like Jake Gyllenhaal in everything else I’ve seen him in (Bubble Boy, Jarhead), and his sister Maggie is cute too, but the plot sucked, the other actors (except Donnie’s mom) sucked, and the tension which lasted until the last 30 seconds was unwarranted.

It’s been around for almost 8 years now, but if you haven’t seen it, I’d avoid it.