IMDb #202 Review: Donnie Darko (2001)

Source: Wikipedia

There are movies that make you think, “I’m not high/buzzed/stoned enough for this shit.” Then there’s Donnie Darko, which does all three for you. It’s aggressively bizarre, intelligently crass, absurdly intricate. But it cements its status as a cult classic by being wildly entertaining.

How to summarize this madness?

Our titular hero’s an atypical troubled teen, too smart for his own good. Donnie meets Frank, a freaky nightmare dude in a bunny suit who predicts the end of the world. Then a jet turbine drops on Donnie’s house. A smiley demagogue (is that Patrick Swayze?!) enslaves the imaginations of suburban moms and the bitchy PE teacher via cheesy VHS tapes. Characters discuss Graham Greene, Watership Down, and Smurf sexuality. When time travel gets involved, things get kinda complicated.

What's it all mean?

Not knowing is half the fun. There are websites dedicated to unraveling this beautiful mess.

On the one hand, it’s a fun ride, rife with witty lines, realistically dysfunctional relationships, and glorious triumphs of justice. On the other hand, there’s the pseudo-intellectual angle — seriously considering fringe science and depressing philosophies and the relative insignificance of human decisions. On the third hand, a mutant flipper protruding from your blood-spattered bunny suit, there’s the screwy timeline, the schizophrenic visions, and the mind-screw of an ending that requires at least one more viewing to fully appreciate.

Overall, Donnie Darko excels as a highschool misfit flick, suffices as a morbid sci-fi mind-bender. Most of all, it stands as a stupendous conversation starter to showcase your nerd cred.

133 minutes.

IMDb #203 Review: Shutter Island (2010)

Source: Wikipedia

A brilliant psychological thriller set on an island asylum for the criminally insane during a raging hurricane? As unlikely as a successful collaboration between Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio. That is, entirely expected.

Lucky Leo stars as a scary-looking U.S. Marshal named Teddy investigating a murderess’s disappearance. A typical locked-room mystery transmogrifies into an experiment in gaslighting. Baffling evidence accumulates until audience members doubt their own sanity. Or should. Unfortunately, I had the ending spoiled for me. Savvier viewers might be able to guess it. The less you know going in, the better.

The question becomes, which is scarier, the patients or the doctors? The hotshot psychiatrist lives in a lovely house, displays disturbing artwork, and affects a convincing German accent. This being the 1950s, the World War II veteran hero rankles at being psychoanalyzed for his cutting remarks and praised for “impressive defense mechanisms.”

Those defense mechanisms/survival instincts break down in sleep. The dazzling dream sequences close the gap between reality and fantasy, practical effects and CGI. Bodies frozen in ice at Dachau; gunning down Nazi prison guards; his wife burning alive. The titular island’s creepy-ass abandoned (?) lighthouse.

As the investigation goes south, there wafts talk of psychotropic drugs, transorbital lobotomies, government conspiracies, and a crazy-smart hobo lady babbling in a sea cave.

Then the ending shanks you in the gut with a rusty scalpel. Everything suddenly makes sense, and I wish it didn’t. The final shot, with all its implications, is seared into my retinas.

Dark. Intense. Worth your time.

138 minutes.